‘Someone is seriously…’: Netizens slam Virgin Galactic's ‘space flight’ which happened after Titan submersible mishap

ByAdarsh Kumar Gupta

Jun 30, 2023 

Though the passengers landed safely, Richard Branson and his company drew the ire of netizens as it happened days after Titan submersible mishap.

Space trips and deep sea explorations are two very risky adventures which put human lives at stake. After the recent Titan submersible tragedy, many people developed cold feet when it comes to such adventures. But British billionaire and businessman Richard Branson seemed unperturbed. Less than a week after the Titan incident, Branson's Virgin Galactic has flown paying customers to space on Thursday.

Virgin Galactic's ‘space flight’ , Titan submersible(Virgin Galactic via AP/File)

Though the passengers successfully undertook the trip and landed safely, Branson and his company drew the ire of netizens for it happening days after Titan submersible mishap, an adventure trip to explore the Titanic wreck, which claimed five lives.

After the date of the space flight was shared in a post by Pubity, an entertainment-media account on Instagram, several users roasted Virgin Galactic drawing parallels with the Titan submersible tragedy.

"Not after that submarine, thanks," commented one user.

"It doesn’t sound like the best marketing time for this after the Titanic submarine," quipped another user.

"Someone is seriously trying to decrease that 1% population," commented a third user.

"On this week’s episode of “Expensive Ways to Die”," wrote a fourth person.

"Today’s headlines: 10 billionaires now missing in a 100 million dollar spacecraft while on tour of the moon," predicted a fifth user.

"Thank goodness I’m too broke for death !," wrote another.

"Watch as we humans expertly learn *nothing* about the dangers of designer tourism," commented another person.

Meanwhile, Virgin Galactic successfully completed the adventure mission through VSS Unity craft which carried six people on board, including researchers from the Italian Air Force and the National Research Council of Italy.

Virgin Galactic is now planning its next space mission, Galactic 02, for August, and hopes to make monthly space trips after that. In November 2014, one crew member had died during a test flight of Virgin Galactic's prototype craft.

UK

The real SIR Keir Starmer: Part II

BY AILBHE REA AND AGNES CHAMBRE

POLITICO UK

JUNE 30, 2023 

 

In the second half of a two-part profile, hosts Ailbhe Rea and Aggie Chambre take a closer look at the man hoping to become Britain’s next prime minister.

This week they take listeners through Starmer’s political career so far, from entering parliament as a political novice in 2015, through the difficult days of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, to his own successful leadership bid and beyond.

They hear from Starmer’s closest political advisers: Ben Nunn, his former head of communications; Chris Ward, formerly his deputy chief of staff; and key ally Jenny Chapman, who casts new light on the infamous pledges Starmer made — and subsequently broke — during the 2020 Labour leadership contest.

They also hear from Corbyn’s head of policy, Andrew Fisher, for a very different take on Starmer’s rise to power. Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting explains what angers the Labour leader around the shadow Cabinet table.  And the podcast travels to Starmer’s current neighbourhood in north London, visiting both his favorite pub and an infamous kitchen table. 

First-of-its-kind CBS News investigation exposes impact of wage theft on workers across America

Anglo-French deal could create Europe’s biggest lithium producer

By Michelle Toh, CNN
Published Thu June 29, 2023

Hong KongCNN —

A French minerals company is buying a British startup in a tie-up that could produce enough lithium carbonate to power 500,000 electric vehicles a year.

Imerys, a Paris-based industrial supplier, announced Thursday it had acquired 80% of British Lithium, a small private company that’s found a way to extract lithium from the ground in Cornwall, in the southwest of England.

The companies will form a joint venture to develop a mine that they estimate will ultimately churn out enough lithium to produce 20,000 tons of lithium carbonate a year, which could be used in batteries for half a million electric cars, Imerys said in a statement.

That rate of production is expected to be reached “by the end of the decade, meeting roughly two-thirds of Britain’s estimated battery demand by 2030,” the firm said.

That year is important as Britain is set to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles in 2030, forcing manufacturers to switch to electric vehicles. A ban on hybrids is slated to start from 2035.

The UK car industry hasn't been this weak since 1956. And it's losing the EV race

The combination of the new facility and an existing one in France “would make Imerys the largest integrated lithium producer in Europe, representing more than 20% of the announced European lithium output by 2030,” the company said.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. But the project is expected to cost more than 660 million euros ($720.5 million) in investment, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The move is timely for another reason: Next year, tougher “rules of origin” requirements for businesses will take effect under a post-Brexit trade deal.

They will require that 45% of the value of electric vehicles traded between Britain and the European Union are sourced from one of the two regions in order to avoid costly tariffs.

Last month, Stellantis, which owns brands such as Peugeot and Fiat, warned that UK car factories — and thousands of jobs — were at risk if the government did not renegotiate terms of the Brexit trade agreement.

Britain's last tin mine could reopen as tech companies chase ethical metals

The new mine could also help alleviate fears about the future of auto manufacturing in Britain, exacerbated by the collapse of homegrown battery startup Britishvolt. Industry experts have said there is an urgent need to attract more battery manufacturers to the country.

Once the new facility is up and running, it will likely also provide a big economic boost to Cornwall, the coastal English county that was a global mining center until the late 19th century.

In recent years, local officials have pushed to revive old mining sites that shuttered in the face of global competition. The area remains rich in natural resources, including tin, which is crucial for the making of electronics.

The deposit of lithium being developed there is set to be the largest in the country, according to Imerys.

NASA sees moon lunar mining trial within the next decade

The first customers are expected to be commercial rocket companies who could use the moon's resources for fuel or oxygen.

June 28, 2023 12:18 pm | Updated 07:51 pm IST - BRISBANE

REUTERS

NASA is looking to develop resources on the moon that initially include oxygen and water, and eventually may expand to iron and rare earths, and has already taken steps toward excavating moon soil in 2032, a scientist said on Wednesday.

The U.S. space agency plans to return Americans to the moon as part of its Artemis mission, including the first woman and person of colour by 2025,
and to learn from the mission to facilitate a trip to Mars.

A key part of the mission is advancing commercial opportunities in space. The agency is looking to quantify potential resources, including energy, water and lunar soil, as a goal to attract commercial investment, said Gerald Sanders, a rocket scientist at NASA's Johnston Space Centre for 35 years.

Developing access to resources on the moon will be key to cutting costs and developing a circular economy, Mr. Sanders said.

"We are trying to invest in the exploration phase, understand the resources... to (lower) risk such that external investment makes sense that could lead to development and production," he told a mining conference in Brisbane.

"We are literally just scratching the surface," he said. NASA will at the end of the month send a test drill rig to the moon and plans a larger-scale excavation of moon soil, or regolith, and a pilot processing plant in 2032.

The first customers are expected to be commercial rocket companies who could use the moon's resources for fuel or oxygen.

The Australian Space Agency is involved in developing a semi-autonomous rover that will take regolith samples on a NASA mission as early as 2026, said Samuel Webster, an assistant director at the agency.

The rover will demonstrate the collection of lunar soil that contains oxygen in the form of oxides.

Using separate equipment sent to the moon with the rover, NASA will aim to extract that oxygen, he said.

"This ... is a key step towards establishing a sustainable human presence on the moon, as well (as) supporting future missions to Mars," he said at the conference.

Bolivia taps China, Russia’s Rosatom in bid to unlock huge lithium riches

Reuters | June 29, 2023 

The Uyuni salt flat is the largest in the world. Its crust covers covers a pool of brine that hosts most of Bolivia’s 9-million tonnes of lithium resources.(Reference image by Dimitry B, Flickr).

Bolivia has signed lithium agreements with Russian state nuclear firm Rosatom and China’s Citic Guoan Group, the South American country’s government said on Thursday, as it looks to develop its huge but largely untapped resources of the battery metal.


The deals, which envisage total investment of $1.4 billion, follow a similar agreement in January with giant Chinese battery maker CATL, another potential win for Beijing in its efforts to lock in supply of the metal used in electric vehicles.

“With these deals our country will be able to produce some 100,000 (metric) tons of lithium carbonate in 2025 in the Uyuni, Coipasa and Pasto Grandes salt flats,” Minister of Hydrocarbons and Energy Franklin Molina said at an event in La Paz.

Bolivia’s iconic salt flats are home to the world’s largest lithium resources at 21 million tons, according to the US Geological Survey, but the country has long struggled to ramp up industrial production or develop commercially viable reserves.

Governments, mining firms, battery markets and carmakers worldwide from Tesla to BMW are scrambling to secure supply of the metal, which is needed for many of the batteries being used to power a major shift towards electric vehicles.

Molina said the investments would allow the construction of two direct lithium extraction (DLE) processing plants in the towns of Pasto Grande and Uyuni Norte, where at least 45,000 tons of lithium carbonate would be produced per year.

Russia’s Rosatom, which bid via its Uranium One Group unit, confirmed the news, saying it would invest $600 million in the project, its first large-scale lithium venture overseas, with planned annual capacity of 25,000 tons of lithium carbonate.

“There is the possibility of increasing capacity based on the results of geological exploration work,” Rosatom’s first deputy general director Kirill Komarov said in a statement.

Molina said Citic Guoan would invest $857 million and would also “look at investing in battery plants and the installation, possibly with technical studies, of a vehicle assembly plant, to create a true electric transport revolution.”

The deal with Uranium One Group was for feasibility and pre-investment studies, he said, adding multiple tests with Russian technology on the salt flats had shown a lithium recovery rate over 80%, with a purity of around 99.5%.

Along with Bolivia, neighbors Chile and Argentina make up the so-called “lithium triangle,” home to the world’s largest trove of the metal. Chile and Argentina are far more advanced in production, with projects often taking years to reach fruition.

(By Daniel Ramos, Maxim Rodionov and Adam Jourdan; Editing by Richard Chang)

World faces ‘terrifying’ future if miners, regulators don’t step up — Newcrest

Reuters | June 28, 2023 |

Newcrest’s Telfer gold-copper operation. (Image courtesy of Newcrest | Twitter.)

Regulators urgently need to fast track approvals for new mines and the renewable energy projects to power them to ensure the supply of minerals essential to averting climate change, gold miner Newcrest’s interim head said on Thursday.


“We are urgently off course and we need to course correct immediately,” Sherry Duhe, interim CEO of Australia’s top gold miner and a former oil industry executive, told a mining conference in Brisbane.

The mining industry needs to bring online the equivalent of 17 more Escondidas, the world’s biggest copper mine, by 2050, to meet demand projections, she said as an example of the scale of the problem.

Other metals, such as nickel, cobalt and lithium, used in batteries and wind turbines, are also urgently needed for the energy transition.

Miners need to step up development by an order of magnitude and governments need to slash regulatory timelines and beef up regulatory staffing, as regulation is becoming more complex, including duplicated rules, Duhe said.

“The next five to 10 years are critical,” she said.

“The alternative is terrifying.”

Newcrest is relying on a wind farm to supply 40% of its electricity needs for its Cadia gold mine in New South Wales state, but that power project development is struggling with regulatory time frames.

Shareholders in Newcrest, which has gold and copper projects in Australia, Canada and Papua New Guinea, are due to vote later this year on a A$26.2 billion ($17.3 billion) takeover offer from Newmont Corp.

($1 = 1.5158 Australian dollars)

(By Melanie Burton; Editing by Sonali Paul)

Fixing deep-sea mining damage would be double the cost of extraction — study

Reuters | June 29, 2023 | 

Patania II, a 25-tonne seabed mining robot, is lowered into the Pacific Ocean.

 Credit: DEME

Extracting minerals from the ocean floor could negatively impact biodiversity on a scale of up to 25 times greater than land-based mining, and fixing the damage would cost twice as much as extraction, a new report said on Thursday.


A search for alternatives to fossil fuels has driven demand for materials that go into batteries, some of which can be found on the seabed where ecosystems have yet to be fully explored.

Deep-sea mining would extract cobalt, copper, nickel, and manganese from potato-sized nodules which pepper the sea floor at depths of 4-6 kilometres. The nodules are an essential habitat for many species.

The total biosphere impacted by this mining in international waters alone would be up to 75 million cubic kilometres, a greater volume than all the freshwater in the world, according to the report by non-profit Planet Tracker.

“Sadly, the nodules… take millions of years to form,” said François Mosnier, head of Oceans Programme at Planet Tracker, which warned resulting biodiversity loss could be permanent.

Related: Researchers detect 5,000 species threatened by deep sea mining

Advocates say deep sea ecosystem restoration, such as installing artificial clay nodules to replace those lost, could mitigate these impacts.

But this would cost between $5.3 – $5.7 million per square kilometre, compared with $2.7 million price per square kilometre to mine them, according to the report.

Seabed mining in international waters cannot start until the International Seabed Authority (ISA), a Jamaica-based UN body, decides on regulations expected by July.

Several countries, including Germany, and companies, such as Google, AB Volvo Group, and Samsung SDI are calling for a moratorium on the start of the practice.

Others are supporting it. Norway in June proposed opening parts of its extended continental shelf in the North Atlantic for mineral exploration.

“Any deep sea activity is hugely expensive. In Norway, we’re also talking the High Arctic. You have ice sheets floating around… really difficult weather conditions… there is a huge issue about the technological development and the funding needed for that,” said Kaja Loenne Fjaertoft a senior advisor at Sustainable Oceans with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).

(By Clara Denina and David Stanway; Editing by Emma Rumney and Aurora Ellis)

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for DEEP SEA MINING 

UK to challenge court ruling against plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda

The UK government said it would challenge a court ruling issued Thursday that blocks its plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda on the grounds that the country is not a safe haven. For its part, the Rwandan government said it remains committed to the controversial deal.

Issued on: 29/06/2023 - 

Protestors demonstrate outside the Home Office against the British government's plans to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda, in London, Britain, on June 13, 2022. © REUTERS - HENRY NICHOLLS

The Court of Appeal in London on Thursday ruled that the UK government's plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda was "unlawful" as the East African country could not be considered safe.

Judges agreed with migrants and campaigners who brought the case to court, arguing that the UK government could not guarantee that asylum seekers sent to Rwanda would not be sent back to the country from which they were fleeing.

The ruling was welcomed by human rights groups but sparked an indignant response from Kigali, which insisted it met UN standards for the treatment of refugees.

'Safe country'

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he respected the court but "fundamentally" disagreed with the judges' conclusions.

"I strongly believe the Rwandan government has provided the assurances necessary to ensure there is no real risk that asylum seekers relocated under the Rwanda policy would be wrongly returned to third countries," he said.

"Rwanda is a safe country," Sunak insisted. He added: "We will now seek permission to appeal this decision to the Supreme Court."

"Rwanda remains fully committed to making this partnership work," government spokeswoman Yolande Makolo told French news agency AFP, insisting that "Rwanda is one of the safest countries in the world".

"While this is ultimately a decision for the UK's judicial system, we do take issue with the ruling that Rwanda is not a safe country for asylum seekers and refugees," she said.

Humane alternatives

A majority of judges who studied the appeal were not convinced by Rwanda's assurances.

"In consequence, sending anyone to Rwanda would constitute a breach of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights", which states that no one shall be subjected to torture, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, they concluded.

• Denmark may follow UK lead on sending asylum seekers to Rwanda

Yasmine Ahmed, UK director of Human Rights Watch, called Thursday's verdict "some rare good news in an otherwise bleak landscape for human rights in the UK".

"Rather than treating human beings like cargo it can ship elsewhere, it (the government) should be focusing on ending the hostile environment towards refugees and asylum seekers," she added.

The UN refugee agency UNHCR urged the UK government to "pursue other measures, including cooperation with the UK's European neighbours and fair and fast asylum procedures, that would be more humane, efficient and cost-effective".

Stalled proposal

Tackling asylum claims has become a political headache for Sunak's Conservative government, which promised to "take back control" of the country's borders after the UK left the EU.

Former prime minister Boris Johnson brought in the contentious deportation proposal in 2022.

Rights groups and charities protested against the deportation plan, and the first removal flights due to take off last June were successfully blocked by legal action.

• UN, rights groups alarmed over British refugee deal with Rwanda

But two High Court judges in December dismissed the claims, ruling that the scheme was legal but the government should consider the circumstances of each case before deporting anyone.

That prompted a group of ten asylum seekers – from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Vietnam, Sudan and Albania, plus the charity Asylum Aid – to appeal.

(with AFP)

 

Sunak's perilous waters: The PM will need all his experience as a City trader to find a safe harbour for Thames Water, says ALEX BRUMMER

By ALEX BRUMMER FOR THE DAILY MAIL

PUBLISHED: 29 June 2023

Britain has never had a prime minister better able to understand the complexities of the debt markets and securitisation.

As an alumni of Goldman Sachs and a former hedge fund trader, Rishi Sunak is eminently capable of analysing the acute choices the Government has to make if a safe harbour is to be secured for Thames Water.

There is the possibility of a straight- forward bailout on the lines of the rescue of Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds in 2008.

The then Prime Minister Gordon Brown reluctantly took equity stakes in the banks in exchange for a capital injection, diluting the shares of all other holders.

An injection of up to £10billion might be needed to stabilise Britain’s biggest water provider. 

Dilemma: As an alumni of Goldman Sachs and a former hedge fund trader, Rishi Sunak is eminently capable of analysing the choices the Government has to make for Thames Water

If that is so, one imagines that other equity holders, including the Ontario Municipal Retirement System, Hermes (manager of the BT pension funds) and sovereign wealth investors from China and Abu Dhabi could be all but wiped out.

That may not be a good look for a post-Brexit Britain seeking to rocket fuel investment. An alternative rescue might seek to shift the burden to the holders of debt.

Investors in Kemble, Thames’ parent company, are already sitting on big losses with the £400million of bonds trading at 55p to the pound.

The bigger chunk of £14billion of debt, held in the name of Thames Water Utilities, would be a more meaningful target.

If Thames Water were Greece or Sri Lanka there would be a debt restructuring which would see the bondholders take a haircut – a reduction in value – in exchange for lowering interest rate coupons and stretching out the period of repayment.

Achieving such a financial restructuring, in the fierce political heat of the current moment, looks fairly far-fetched.

A short-term solution would be to force existing shareholders to pony up new capital, at least the £1billion promised, in exchange for the right of the regulator Ofwat to force through a hefty price rise.

That would allow the debts to be serviced and eventually a dividend paid. It would definitely be a simpler solution but wouldn’t do much for Rishi’s election prospects in the prosperous South East or help in his battle to halve Britain’s stubborn inflation rate by the end of the year.

The ideal route would be a white knight takeover in the manner of the Bulb rescue by Octopus or HSBC’s absorption of Silicon Valley Bank’s UK subsidiary.

That might also require some kind of credit guarantees and an implicit recognition that prices would have to rise.

One thing is certain: Macquarie, the ‘vampire kangaroo’ which triggered the mess, should not be allowed anywhere near valuable British infrastructure assets again.

Risk aversion

Meanwhile, over at HM Treasury, mandarins are seeking to lift the nation’s spirits with that promise to ‘rocket boost’ the UK economy now that the post-Brexit Financial Services bill has been signed off.

The key idea is to unlock £100billion of productive investment for innovation.

That is the prize for ditching Brussels bureaucracy in the shape of Solvency II. Never mind that City regulators wrote most of the EU rules in the first place! 

The aspiration to unlock new funding to drive investment in Britain’s leading-edge tech, AI and life sciences industries is admirable.

The Government can take asset managers to the water’s edge but may find it impossible to make them drink.

This week, ten of Britain’s biggest pension funds, which look after £300billion of assets, warned against proposed changes to the UK’s listing rules on the stock market on the grounds that it would damage ‘fundamental investor protections’.

It is this very lack of bravery and ambition which has seen fund managers retreat from UK equities and led to a calamitous 40 per cent collapse in UK listings since 2008.

Let’s hear it for the animal spirits!

Sounds of silence

OPEC decisions affect the lives of citizens and businesses around the world.

So it is extraordinary that, without warning, the oil producers’ group has decided to exclude news services and other media from its gathering in Vienna on July 5 and 6.

Saudi Arabia, which dominates proceedings, has been seeking to remove the shadow of the 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi. 

Banning the press from an event of enormous global interest, at a time of surging inflation, is not the way to go.