China Spent the Weekend Mocking America Over Its Spy Balloon

Matt Young
Sun, February 5, 2023 

Dado Ruvic via Reuters

As the Chinese spy balloon that soared across American skies was shot down on Saturday and lawmakers argued over who was to blame, Beijing was basking in the bedlam.

Revelations about the balloon—which China dubbed an “airship”—and its numerous counterparts floating across the world trended across social media both inside and out of China across the weekend and while Republicans and Democrats argued, Beijing had other things in mind: memes and mockery.

Comments on social media from Chinese officials and commentators echoed similar sentiments poking fun at the U.S. for making a big deal over what they claimed was simply a whole lot of hot air. It was a trending topic on China’s biggest social media site, Weibo, with more than 130 million views.

“Hate to burst your bubble, #America! But #China simply has better things to do!”

“Perhaps #China was simply giving the #US a balloon. Much like one would give a child to make them feel better!”

It didn’t help that this weekend was the beginning of the Lantern Festival, a traditional Chinese celebration, offering a whole host of opportunities for ridicule.

On Chinese social media, the balloon is referred to not as the spy balloon, as it is known in the West, but the “Wandering Balloon,” according to What’s on Weibo—a pun from the 2019 Chinese sci-fi blockbuster that just saw its prequel released.

According to The China Project, public opinion appeared divided on whether to believe the official lines from the Chinese government. “On Weibo, opinions are split as to whether the balloon is an intelligence-collecting device sent out purposefully by the Chinese government.”

“Some people followed the official narrative parroted by a string of state media publications including the Global Times. But most commenters were skeptical of China’s explanation, writing that with all things considered, they were hard pressed to believe that the drifting was a pure coincidence.” However, the report says the balloon continued to be the butt of the joke.

Across the Pacific, however, there appears to be continuing reason for concern.

The balloon “was being used in an attempt to surveil strategic sites in the continental United States,” Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III said in a written statement Saturday. U.S. officials first detected the balloon and its payload Jan. 28 when it entered U.S. airspace near the Aleutian Islands. The balloon traversed Alaska, Canada and re-entered U.S. airspace over Idaho. The high-altitude surveillance balloon was first detected over Montana and spent time above Malmstrom Air Force Base, which stores hundreds of nuclear weapons. It was shot down off the coast of South Carolina on Saturday.

In concerning revelations published by the Financial Times over the weekend, China has boasted of its military use of stratospheric balloons before. The newspaper cited a military channel of the country’s state broadcaster, CCTV, which aired a report in 2018 that claimed “a high-altitude balloon tested hypersonic missiles.”

Video footage carried by CCTV and reposted on social media app Douyin at the time, but now deleted, showed a balloon visually identical to the one over the US last week carrying what looked like three different kinds of warheads.”

Despite the jokes, China responded to the U.S. and expressed its “strong dissatisfaction” against America’s “use of force to attack civilian unmanned airships.”

China said in a statement from its Ministry of Foreign affairs that it had “repeatedly informed the US side after verification that the airship is for civilian use and entered the US by complete accident.”

Read more at The Daily Beast.

‘Major Leap’ in Bird Virus Threatens Yet Another Pandemic

David Axe
Mon, February 6, 2023

Ritzau Scanpix/Mads Claus Rasmussen via Reuters

The same highly pathogenic bird-flu virus that’s killed tens of millions of chickens and other birds over the past year just got a lot closer to infecting people, too.

An unusual outbreak of the H5N1 virus in minks—relatives of weasels—at a Spanish fur farm last fall also exposed the farm’s staff to the virus. Swift action by health authorities helped prevent any human infections. This time.

But bird flu isn’t going away. And as H5N1 continues to circulate in domestic and wild birds, causing millions of animal deaths and tightening the supply of eggs, it’s also getting closer and closer to the human population. “This… avian influenza has the potential to become a major problem to humans,” Adel Talaat, a professor of pathobiological sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told The Daily Beast.

It might be a matter of time before H5N1 achieves large-scale “zoonosis” and makes the leap to the human species. If and when that happens, we could have yet another major viral crisis on our hands. On top of the COVID pandemic, worsening seasonal RSV, the occasional monkeypox flare-up and annual flu outbreaks.

Reports this week suggested that the current wave of bird flu could be crossing over into mammals with more regularity. Scientists found traces of bird flu in seals that died in a “mass mortality event” in the Caspian Sea in December, and the BBC reported this week that tests in Britain had found the virus in a range of mammals up and down the country. On Jan. 9, the World Health Organization was informed that a 9-year-old girl in Ecuador had tested positive.

Bird flu isn’t new. Scientists first identified the virus back in the 1870s. There’ve been dozens of major outbreaks over the years—and they’ve grown more frequent, and more severe, as the global population of domestic poultry has expanded in order to feed a growing human population.

H5N1, a more-severe “highly pathogenic avian influenza” virus—or HPAI—first appeared in China in the 1990s. It and other HPAIs have achieved zoonosis on a small scale, mostly in Asia. Several dozen people have died of bird flu in recent decades.

But so far, bird flu has mostly infected, well, birds. That makes it a huge problem for poultry farmers. And for people who buy eggs, of course. The current H5N1 outbreak has killed, or compelled farmers to cull, nearly 60 million chickens, turkeys, geese and ducks in the United States alone. The cullings drove up the price of eggs to nearly $5 per dozen at U.S. grocery stores last fall, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That’s several times the long-term average price.

Bird Flu Taking the Leap

Higher egg prices will be the least of our problems if large-scale zoonosis ever triggers a human bird-flu pandemic. And that’s why scientists and health officials keep a close eye on H5N1 and related HPAIs as they spread and mutate. For epidemiologists, the bird-flu outbreak at the mink farm in northwestern Spain was a giant red flag. An ominous sign that major zoonosis might be getting more likely.

Spanish health officials first noticed the outbreak in early October, when the death rate among minks at a large farm in Galicia tripled. Biological samples from the farm’s 52,000 minks contained H5N1. It was the first time bird flu had infected farmed minks in Europe.

Authorities ordered the culling of all the minks at the affected farm. At the same time, they quarantined and tested the farm’s 11 workers. Luckily, none had caught the virus.

It was a close call. And all the more worrying because no one knows for sure what happened. “The source of the outbreak remains unknown,” a team led by virologist Montserrat Agüero reported in the latest issue of Eurosurveillance, an epidemiology journal. It’s possible wild birds spread the virus to the minks. It’s also possible the pathogen was present in the minks’ food, which contains raw chicken.

Equally troubling, the virus didn’t just spread from birds to minks. It may also have spread from minks to other minks, as well, Agüero’s team discovered. “This is suggested by the increasing number of infected animals identified after the confirmation of the disease.”

That post-zoonosis transmission within a new species is how an animal virus such as H5N1 could cause a new pandemic. It’s what happened with COVID, after the SARS-CoV-2 virus spread from bats or pangolins to people back in late 2019. It’s what happened with monkeypox, after that pathogen first leaped from monkeys and rodents to human beings, possibly decades ago.

“The ability to achieve sustained transmission in a mammal is a major leap for flu viruses, so the mink event is a big deal,” James Lawler, an infectious disease expert at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, told The Daily Beast. “It definitely increases the risk for [a] species-jump to humans.”

The Spanish bird-flu outbreak has a happy ending for all involved—except those 52,000 minks, of course. But the next outbreak might not end so neatly. Not if scientists are late noticing a zoonotic leap, or if viral transmission outpaces health officials’ ability to cull affected animals, quarantine exposed people and isolate the virus.

Bird flu more than many viruses demands constant vigilance. It’s infecting more birds than ever, jumping to mammals in more places and learning new genetic tricks that increase the risk to humans.

All that is to say, our bird-flu problem might get worse before it gets better. “The ongoing widespread outbreaks of HPAI are concerning across the board,” Lawler said.

The Daily Beast.

Digging for Britain: Prehistoric find shines light on Neolithic life



David Wilson - BBC News NI
Sun, February 5, 2023

The discovery of a Neolithic era settlement is helping shed new light on how people lived on the shores of Lough Foyle some 5,000 years ago.

Archaeologists uncovered evidence of two large rectangular houses dating back to around 3,800BC during a 2021 dig at Clooney Road, Londonderry.

Neolithic tools, pottery and cooking utensils have also been unearthed.

Experts say that dwellings like those found in Derry have rarely been excavated before.

Archaeologist Katy McMonagle was the site director on the Clooney Road dig.

The finds feature in the latest series of BBC Two's Digging for Britain.

Rectangular homes from the period are seldom found outside of Scotland and Ireland, Ms McMonagle said.

"Around Lough Foyle specifically there are quite a few - it has a high density of settlement dated to the early Neolithic - that shows around Lough Foyle there are lots and lots of Neolithic people living," she told BBC Radio Foyle's Mark Patterson Show.

Archaeologists seldom have an opportunity to excavate houses of the type found in Derry, she added.

"They were a short-lived phenomenon, that means it is even more exciting," she said.

The 5,000 year-old homes were much bigger than the average house of today.

There is evidence of dividing walls, foundations that may have supported oak planks and structures covered by a large peaked roof.

Circular dwellings - round houses - are more typical of the Neolithic period which occurred between 4,000 and 2,000BC.

It was when people took up agriculture as a way of life and moved away from being nomadic hunter-gatherers.

The Derry settlement, where it is located and the way it is constructed, is evidence of the shift to a more settled way of life, Ms McMonagle said.

"When we were digging it out you could see how amazing it would have looked, how deep the foundations were.

"The soil is good there and they are in a substantial place, with Lough Foyle as a resource, it would have been a beautifully wooded area back in the Neolithic.

"They would have been using that landscape so well."

The tools and utensils found are also evidence of the advances being made in the Neolithic period on the island of Ireland, she said.

'Like a Swiss Army knife'

The team from Northern Archaeology Consultancy, who were called in ahead of the construction of a modern day housing development, found serrated tools used to strip bark - unique to Ireland - and a Plano-convex knife.

The latter artefact, Ms McMonagle said, was used for a "little bit of everything, like a Swiss Army knife". Knives like this were used much earlier on the island of Ireland than elsewhere, she added.

A grinding stone was found, showing the inhabitants knew how to work grain, how to cultivate the land they inhabited.

It is not the first time evidence of Neolithic period settlement has been uncovered on the banks of the Foyle.

A 6,000-year-old village was unearthed in 2000 during an excavation ahead of the construction of Thornhill College's new school in the Culmore area of Derry.

Six thousand year old axe heads, arrowheads and pottery were among the artefacts recovered from a site which archaeologists said could have been home to about 50 of Ireland's earliest farmers.

Post-excavation work is now ongoing on the finds from Clooney Road. It is hoped some of what the team found will go on public display at a future date.

SCI FI TECH

Rolls-Royce Nuclear Engine Could Power Quick Trips to the Moon and Mars

Kevin Hurler
Mon, February 6, 2023 

Artist’s impression of the propulsion system at work.

Rolls-Royce Holdings is getting into the nuclear reactor business. The British aerospace engineering company says it’s developing a micro-nuclear reactor that the company hopes could be a source of fuel for long trips to the Moon and Mars.

As humanity begins to venture back into space, with crewed missions scheduled to visit the Moon and Mars within the next two decades, the technology that moves us throughout the solar system will be a pivotal part of that journey. Last week, Rolls-Royce teased the design of its Rolls-Royce micro-reactor for spaceflight with a digital mockup posted to Twitter last week:

As the company explained in a tweet, the reactor will rely on uranium, a common fuel used in nuclear fission. Nuclear fission involves bombarding an atom with a neutron. That atom then splits, releasing energy, and that energy could be used to propel a rocket. Nuclear reactors have been used to power things like submarines, but its use in spaceflight has often been overlooked in favor of chemical-based propulsion.

As to whether the final product will appear just like the mockup shown in the tweet, well, that remains to be seen. In a promo video on the company’s website, Head of Innovation Products and Services Jake Thompson says that the company is in the “concept, design, development, and testing phase” of the reactor, meaning a full-fledged announcement of the final product is still a ways off. That said, Thompson did say that the company is working on a basic prototype.

Rolls-Royce Holdings announced in 2021 its intent to develop nuclear reactor technology, having obtained $600 million in public and private funding to develop its business. Since the nuclear reactor won’t have to carry as much fuel as a chemical propulsion rocket, the entire system will be lighter allowing for faster travel or increased payloads. The company says that the reactor could serve as both a new form of propulsion and a power source for bases on the Moon or Mars, and Rolls-Royce claims that they will have a nuclear reactor ready to send to the Moon by 2029.

Rolls-Royce is not the only party working on rocket propulsion outside of traditional chemical fuel. NASA and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency announced a collaboration to develop a thermal rocket engine that could improve the time it takes to get to deep space. Likewise, NASA had a successful test of a rotating detonation rocket engine, which uses less fuel and provides more thrust than current propulsion systems.

Strange unprecedented vortex spotted around the sun's north pole

Tereza Pultarova

SPACE
Sun, February 5, 2023 

A never before seen solar vortex has been observed circling the sun's north pole.

A huge filament of solar plasma has broken off the sun's surface and is circling its north pole like a vortex of powerful winds, but scientists have no clue what caused it.

"Talk about polar vortex! Material from a northern prominence just broke away from the main filament & is now circulating in a massive polar vortex around the north pole of our star," space weather forecaster Tamitha Skov said on Twitter while sharing a video sequence taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory showing the odd whirlwind. "Implications for understanding the sun's atmospheric dynamics above 55° here cannot be overstated!"

Other solar physicists shared Skov's excitement about the unusual phenomenon. But what exactly is it and why is it important?

Scott McIntosh, a solar physicist and deputy director at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, told Space.com that while he has never seen a vortex like this, something odd is happening at the sun's 55 degree latitudes with clockwork regularity once every solar cycle, the 11-year period characterized by an ebb and flow in the generation of sunspots and eruptions.

Related: Scientists are finally peering inside the sun's middle corona

The prominence mentioned by Skov, something that McIntosh describes as a "hedgerow in the solar plasma", appears exactly at the 55 degree latitude around the sun's polar crowns every 11 years. Scientists know that it has something to do with the reversal of the sun's magnetic field that happens once every solar cycle, but they have no clue what drives it.

"Once every solar cycle, it forms at the 55 degree latitude and it starts to march up to the solar poles," McIntosh told Space.com. "It's very curious. There is a big 'why' question around it. Why does it only move toward the pole one time and then disappears and then comes back, magically, three or four years later in exactly the same region?"

Scientists have regularly observed filaments tear away from this pole-embracing plasma hedgerow, but they have yet to see it form such a polar whirlwind until now.

Scientists know that the sun's polar regions play a key role in the generation of the star's magnetic field, which, in turn, drives its 11-year cycle of activity. They couldn't, however, observe that region directly.

Related stories:

— The sun is waking up, and the world's largest solar telescope is watching

— Solar Orbiter spacecraft takes its closest look at the sun

— When will the sun die?

"We can only observe the sun from the ecliptic plane [the plane in which planets orbit]," McIntosh said.

The European Space Agency Solar Orbiter mission may shed some light on this odd phenomenon in the coming years. The mission, which is taking images of the sun from within the orbit of Mercury, will have its orbit tilted by up to 33 degrees. McIntosh thinks that might not be enough to crack the mystery of the polar vortex. Scientists might need a completely new mission to do that.

Follow Tereza Pultarova on Twitter @TerezaPultarova. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

MERDE

Physics of poo: Why it takes you and an elephant the same amount of time


David Hu, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Biology, Adjunct Associate Professor of Physics, Georgia Institute of Technology

Patricia Yang, Ph.D. Student in Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology

THE CONVERSATION
Sat, February 4, 2023 

Defecation duration is surprisingly similar throughout the mammal world.

Elephant image via www.shutterstock.com.

The ancient Chinese practiced copromancy, the diagnosis of health based on the shape, size and texture of feces. So did the Egyptians, the Greeks and nearly every ancient culture. Even today, your doctor may ask when you last had a bowel movement and to describe it in exquisite detail.

Sure, it’s uncomfortable to talk about. But that’s where science comes in, because what we don’t like to discuss can still cause harm. Irritable bowel syndrome, inflammatory bowel disease, gastrointestinal infections and other poop-related ailments cost Americans billions of dollars annually.

But trying to stem these problems was not our main motivation for trying to figure out some of the physics of defecation. It was something else, much more sinister.

From personal observation, into the lab

When parenthood hits, it hits hard. One of us is a working dad who survived by learning a new set of skills, one of which was fecal analysis. Years of diaper changes and then potty training turned me from a poo-analysis novice to a wizened connoisseur. My life passes by in a series of images: hard feces pellets like peas to long feces like a smooth snake to a puddle of brown water.

Unlike the ancients, we didn’t believe that we could predict the future from children’s stool. But we did think it was worth trying to understand where all these shapes come from. Having a laboratory to answer questions about the everyday world is one of the distinct pleasures of being a scientist.



As fluid dynamicists, we joined forces with colorectal surgeon Daniel Chu, and two stalwart undergraduates, Candice Kaminski and Morgan LaMarca, who filmed defecation and hand-picked feces from 34 mammalian species at Zoo Atlanta in order to measure their density and viscosity.

We learned that most elephants and other herbivores create “floaters” while most tigers and other carnivores create “sinkers.” Inadvertently, we also ranked feces from most to least smelly, starting with tiger and rhino and going all the way to panda. The zoo’s variety of animals provided us with a range of fecal sizes and shapes that served as independent pieces of evidence to validate our mathematical model of the duration of defecation.

We also placed the feces in a device called a “rheometer,” a precision blender that can measure the properties of liquid-like and solid-like materials such as chocolate and shampoo. Our lab shares two rheometers with Georgia Tech physicist Alberto Fernandez-Nieves. We have since categorized the rheometers as the “clean rheometer” and the “David Hu rheometer” – which has seen its fair share of frog saliva, mucus and feces.

The secret to the speed

What else did we learn? Bigger animals have longer feces. And bigger animals also defecate at higher speed. For instance, an elephant defecates at a speed of six centimeters per second, nearly six times as fast as a dog. The speed of defecation for humans is in between: two centimeters per second.

The relationship between body mass M and defecation time. Symbols represent experimental measurements; dashed line represents best fit to the data; solid line represents the theoretical prediction. Yang et al, DOI: 10.1039/C6SM02795D, CC BY-ND

Together, this meant that defecation duration is constant across many animal species – around 12 seconds (plus or minus 7 seconds) – even though the volume varies greatly. Assuming a bell curve distribution, 66 percent of animals take between 5 and 19 seconds to defecate. It’s a surprisingly small range, given that elephant feces have a volume of 20 liters, nearly a thousand times more than a dog’s, at 10 milliliters. How can big animals defecate at such high speed?

Mucus on the surface of rat feces shines at t = 0 and evaporates in less than 30 seconds. Yang et al, DOI: 10.1039/C6SM02795D, CC BY-ND

The answer, we found, was in the properties of an ultra-thin layer of mucus lining the walls of the large intestine. The mucus layer is as thin as human hair, so thin that we could measure it only by weighing feces as the mucus evaporated. Despite being thin, the mucus is very slippery, more than 100 times less viscous than feces.

During defecation, feces moves like a solid plug. Therefore, in ideal conditions, the combined length and diameter of feces is simply determined by the shape of one’s rectum and large intestine. One of the big findings of our study was that feces extend halfway up the length of the colon from the rectum.

A unified theory of pooping

Putting the length of feces together with the properties of mucus, we now have a cohesive physics story for how defecation happens. Bigger animals have longer feces, but also thicker mucus, enabling them to achieve high speeds with the same pressure. Without this mucus layer, defecation might not be possible. Alterations in mucus can contribute to several ailments, including chronic constipation and even infections by bacteria such as C. difficile in the gastrointestinal tract.

Beyond simply following our scientific curiosity, our measurements of feces have also had some practical applications. Our defecation data helped us design an adult diaper for astronauts. Astronauts want to stay in space suits for seven days, but are limited by their diapers. Taking advantage of the viscosity of feces, we designed a diaper that segregates the feces away from direct contact with skin. It was a semifinalist in the NASA Space Poop Challenge in 2017.

It just shows that physics and mathematics can be used everywhere, even in your toilet bowl.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. 

BURNING INCREASES IVORY'S VALUE
Vietnam seizes 600 kg of ivory smuggled from Africa


Seized elephant ivory and rhino horns are destroyed by Vietnamese authorities in Hanoi

Mon, February 6, 2023 

HANOI (Reuters) - Vietnamese authorities have over the past week seized more than 600 kilograms of ivory smuggled from Africa, the government said on Monday.

Trade in ivory is illegal in Vietnam but wildlife trafficking remains widespread. Other items often found smuggled into the country include pangolin scales, rhino horns and tiger carcasses.

Customs authorities in the northern port city of Haiphong on Monday found nearly 130 kilograms of ivory hidden in a container of cow horns originated from Africa, the government said in a statement.

This followed the finding of nearly 500 kilograms of African ivory on Thursday last week at Lach Huyen Port in the city, the government said.


This has been the largest seizure of smuggled ivory in the country in more than four years. The authorities had in October 2018 seized more than eight tonnes of ivory and pangolin scales in one of the country's largest wildlife trafficking cases for years.

(Reporting by Khanh Vu; Editing by Arun Koyyur)

 COLLECT THE WHOLE SET

Nigeria election 2023: Who is Atiku Abubakar?

Nduka Orjinmo - BBC News, Abuja
Mon, February 6, 2023 

Atiku Abubakar

Atiku Abubakar is hoping it will be sixth-time lucky in his quest to be Nigeria's next president having fallen short on five previous attempts, the first in 1992.

The 76-year-old has circled the summits of public life for most of his career as a top civil servant, a vice-president, and a prominent businessman, making his fortune in the oil sector.

But the highest office in the land has eluded him, and in February 2023 he goes again, offering his credentials as a seasoned political operator and serial entrepreneur as the remedy for Nigeria's ills.

Africa's most populous country is facing soaring unemployment, widespread insecurity, high inflation, and a sluggish economy heavily dependent on fluctuating oil revenues.


Mr Abubakar's campaign is built on his success as vice-president between 1999 and 2007, where as head of the government's economic team he oversaw successful reforms in the telecommunications, pensions and banking sectors that led to jobs and GDP growth.

However, his critics point to accusations of financial impropriety against him which they say make him unsuitable for the top office in a country where corruption is a huge challenge.

He is accused of cronyism, especially when he oversaw the privatization of key government assets. He denies any wrongdoing and says the charges are politically motivated.

Mr Abubakar will be hoping to unite the fractured opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), where cracks have emerged since his victory at the primary in June.

Some influential southern governors begrudge his emergence, saying it was the turn of the south to produce Nigeria's next president after eight years of President Muhammadu Buhari, a northerner like Mr Abubakar.

Mr Abubakar has promised to unite aggrieved members of the PDP before the elections

His choice of a running mate has also stirred an open rebellion within the party, with many believing that the snub of the highly influential governor of Rivers state, Nyesom Wike, might prove costly.

A popular figure within the party, Mr Wike was considered the overwhelming favourite, having lost out in the presidential primary, but Mr Abubakar instead chose Delta state governor Ifeanyi Okowa.

Outside his party, Mr Abubakar faces a formidable opponent in Bola Tinubu, the candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), and a bourgeoning youth-driven campaign led by the Labour Party's Peter Obi who is targeting votes in traditional PDP areas in southern Nigeria.

There is also the challenge of convincing young Nigerians that he is a suitable choice, given his age, and that he is a break from the political class many have lost confidence in.

An affable, enterprising figure, Mr Abubakar moves adroitly between the worlds of commerce and politics - qualities that, his supporters say, will help him unite the country and revive the economy.

He has been involved in Nigerian elections for decades and has recently fluctuated between the two dominant parties, the APC and PDP - where he was a founding member, seeking a shot at the presidency.

His first exit from the PDP, in 2006, coincided with an investigation into his record as vice-president, when he was accused of diverting $125m (£95m) worth of public funds towards his business interests.

Similar charges appeared in a 2010 US Senate report, which accused Mr Abubakar of having transferred $40m (£30.55m) of "suspect funds" to the US, using his American wife's bank account.

The charges have never been tried in court, and Mr Abubakar has rejected the allegations of corruption as politically motivated. In January 2019, he visited Washington DC, ending speculation that he was avoiding travel to the US because he might face arrest there.

Nigeria's economy relies heavily on its oil reserves - the largest in Africa

He appeals to voters who want a revival of the economy and national unity, after seeing Mr Buhari administer a period of economic stagnation and accusations of ethnicity in political appointments.

Mr Abubakar's reputation in business is linked to the spectacular rise of Intels, the oilfield logistics firm that he co-founded in 1982. From its original office in a shipping container, the company has grown into a multi-national, multi-billion naira operation, employing more than 10,000 people.

He has diverted part of his wealth to charitable causes, most notably establishing the prestigious American University in Adamawa state, northern Nigeria. The university has offered scholarships to some of the "Chibok girls" - survivors of a high-profile kidnapping by Islamist Boko Haram militants.

Mr Abubakar regards himself as a lucky beneficiary of the Western-style education offered at the university and fiercely opposed by Boko Haram. He was born in Adamawa to a devout Muslim family, and his father, a Fulani tradesman and herder, was briefly jailed for preventing him from attending school.

"Father was responding typically with fear and anxiety to the onslaught of change in Nigeria," Mr Abubakar wrote sympathetically in his autobiography.

After finishing his studies, he joined the customs service, serving at Lagos port and airport. "Corruption was rife in Customs but I was not part of it," he wrote. "I saw Customs… as a way of making money for the government."

While still a civil servant, Mr Abubakar began buying property and farmland for commercial purposes, eventually moving into the emerging market for oil and gas services. "I recognised very early in life that I have a good nose for business," he wrote in a chapter of his autobiography entitled, Making Money.

His career in customs brought him into contact with the military and political elite, two categories that have been interchangeable for much of Nigeria's recent history. Mr Abubakar grew close to the former army major, Shehu Musa Yar'Adua, regarding him as a political mentor.

While Nigeria was still under military rule, the two men began networking with other regional leaders, hoping to form a credible government-in-waiting.

In 1989, Mr Abubakar quit the civil service to dedicate himself to politics. He made his first presidential run in 1992, as a candidate for the faction that had gathered around Shehu Yar'Adua. He stepped down after coming third in the first round, and the election itself was later cancelled by the military government.

Many consider this Mr Abubakar's last shot at the presidency

The repression intensified in the 1990s under the dictatorship of Gen Sani Abacha. Mr Abubakar was briefly exiled in London, while his mentor, Shehu Yar'Adua, was sent to prison, where he eventually died.

Mr Abubakar returned to Nigeria in 1997 as Gen Abacha relaxed his grip on power. He became vice-president after the elections in 1999 installed the PDP candidate, Olusegun Obasanjo, in the presidency.

During two terms in office, he oversaw a series of privatisations, earning praise as a liberaliser in some quarters, and criticism elsewhere as a crony capitalist.

In his autobiography, he took credit for reforming the banking sector, the auction of mobile phone licences, as well as for an economic boom that enabled Nigeria to pay off much of its debt.

Mr Abubakar, from north-eastern Adamawa state, says he will bring back the good times if elected president in 2023.

He has four wives and 28 children.

Nigeria election graphic

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BOLA TINUBU: Lagos 'godfather' sets sights on conquering Nigeria


RABIU KWANKWASO: The red-capped man eyeing Nigeria's top job


FULL COVERAGE: Nigeria Elections 2023

Nigeria election graphic

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2023/01/nigeria-election-2023-who-is-bola.html

Nigeria election 2023: Who is Bola Tinubu?

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2023/01/nigeria-elections-2023-allegations.html

Nigeria elections 2023: The allegations against the presidential contenders

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2023/01/poll-leader-in-nigeria-presidential.html

OBI; Poll Leader in Nigeria Presidential Election Pledges Debt Revamp

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2023/02/tweet-makes-false-claims-about-nigerian.html

Tweet makes false claims about Nigerian presidential candidate Rabiu Kwankwaso's PhD

UK

Muslim leaders warn Archbishop over impact of same-sex blessings on schoolchildren

Gabriella Swerling
Sat, February 4, 2023 

Archbishop of Canterbury The Most Rev Justin Welby Church of England religion same-sex blessings - Reuters/Jok Solomun

Muslim leaders have written to the Archbishop of Canterbury warning of their concerns for schoolchildren if blessings for same-sex couples are approved.

The Association of British Muslims (ABM) has written to the Most Rev Justin Welby regarding its “concern about the teaching of sexual identity politics in schools, including Church of England schools” and “the lack of open and inclusive discussions regarding the traditional understanding of marriage within faith communities”.

Church officials have warned that the concerns could see children withdrawn from Church of England schools.

The letter, seen by The Telegraph, came after Church of England bishops rejected calls to allow same-sex marriages in churches at a meeting in January, following six years of debate and consultation, and instead agreed to offer blessings after a civil partnership or marriage.

The decision prompted backlash from equality campaigners, some of whom accused the church of discrimination and comes amid heightened tensions and divisions within the Church of England.

Focus on ‘traditional definition of marriage’

The bishops’ proposals regarding blessings for same-sex couples will be debated at the General Synod, the Church’s legislative body, this week.

The ABM letter, written by Paul Salahuddin Armstrong, its managing director, warned the Archbishop: “If the current proposal by the bishops is implemented, every Church of England primary school will teach that both heterosexual and homosexual marriages have equal validity, starting from this summer.

“While it is acknowledged that the law of the United Kingdom recognises the validity of both types of marriages, it is important to note that many faith communities, both locally and globally, still hold to the traditional definition of marriage as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary, ‘the formal union of a man and a woman, as recognised by law, by which they become husband and wife’.

“As people of faith, it is important to ensure that we have a voice in matters that pertain to our beliefs and practices. This includes the traditional family structure, which many consider to be a fundamental aspect of our faiths.”
Muslim pupils ‘could leave CoE schools’

As Synod members prepare to descend on Church House in Westminster ahead of the vote, the Rev Paul Eddy, the convenor of Anglican Orthodox – a grassroots campaign group of clergy and churchgoers opposed to the bishops’ proposals and which has been working with the ABM – also warned that a vote in favour could lead to Muslim children leaving Church of England schools.

He said: “There is now the worrying potential of Muslim parents starting to withdraw children from CofE schools to protect them from sexual ethics contrary to their beliefs, and that can obviously lead to segregation of children of different faiths in some Muslim-majority cities if the CofE proceeds.”

Last month, the Archbishop revealed that he would personally not bless gay marriages so as to remain a figure of “unity” for the worldwide Anglican Communion and conservative Christians within it.

In contrast, the Archbishop of York, the Most Rev Stephen Cottrell, and the Church of England’s second most senior cleric, said he would.

A spokesman for the Archbishop of Canterbury has declined to comment.

"BETTER TO DIE A JIHADIST"

Assam: Indian women protest against child marriage mass arrests

Mon, February 6, 2023 

Relatives of the arrested men have been protesting outside police stations

Hundreds of women are protesting in the north-eastern Indian state of Assam after their male relatives were arrested as part of a crackdown on child marriage.

State police have arrested more than 2,400 people since Friday.

This includes husbands and relatives of alleged child brides, as well as priests who officiated the marriages.

Opposition leaders have called the drive a "farce", alleging it disproportionately targets Muslims.

But Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma says that his government's "war" is against child marriage and doesn't target one community.

It is illegal for girls under the age of 18 to marry in India, but the practice still continues in many parts, mainly due to patriarchal traditions and poverty.

According to government data, more than two out of 10 girls are married before the age of 18.

India's parliament is considering a bill that could increase the minimum age of marriage for women to 21 years.

But among Muslims - who mostly get married under the Muslim personal law - girls can get married once they attain puberty. The National Commission for Women has also approached the Supreme Court, asking for the marriage age for Muslim women to be made on par with that of other religions.

The Bharatiya Janata Party, to which Mr Sarma belongs, has been pushing for a uniform civil code, which will apply to all citizens.

India's coming storm over a common personal law

Since the arrests began on Friday, female relatives of the arrested men have been protesting outside police stations. Many women say that the arrested men are the primary breadwinners of their families and they are completely dependent on them. The government has said it will give financial assistance to the affected women, but that hasn't assuaged their fears.

"I am worried about how I'm going to look after my child," one woman told The Indian Express newspaper.

"My husband works in the fields and I'm completely dependent on him," said another woman, adding that she only had basic primary education and didn't know how to access legal help.

More than 2,400 people have been arrested since Friday

On Saturday, police in Dhubri district beat protesters and used teargas to disperse them, the Times of India newspaper reported.

Police have invoked the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act against men accused of marrying girls below 14 years of age - punishment ranges from seven years' imprisonment to a life sentence and the accused can't get bail.

Those who allegedly married girls between the ages of 14 and 18 are being charged under the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, which carries a maximum sentence of two years' imprisonment and a fine of 100,000 rupees ($1,213; £1,005).

Mr Sarma said more than 8,100 people had been named in police complaints so far, including the parents of grooms and priests who performed the marriage ceremonies. He said he had asked the police to act with "zero tolerance".

To save thousands of girls from child marriages in the future, "one generation will have to suffer", he said last week as the crackdown began.

But opposition leaders say the government is making life more difficult for ordinary people.

Ripun Bora, leader of the Trinamool Congress party, called the crackdown "whimsical" and said the state government was misusing the law.

Gaurav Gogoi, a lawmaker from the Congress party, called the move a "[public relations] exercise", saying police were investigating cases that were "decades old without proper enquiry or adherence to procedure".

Mr Sarma, however, has said the crackdown on child marriage will continue till 2026, when the next state elections will be held.

India's G-20 energy meet to balance renewables, fossil fuels




India Energy Week

The sun sets behind a wind turbines in Anantapur district, Andhra Pradesh, India, Wednesday, Sept 14, 2022. Over 500 energy industry heavyweights will descend on the southern Indian city of Bengaluru on Monday, Feb. 6, 2023, to discuss the future of renewables and fossil fuels at India Energy Week — the first big ticket event of the country's presidency of Group of 20 leading economies.

 (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)

SIBI ARASU
Sat, February 4, 2023 

BENGALURU, India (AP) — Over 500 energy industry heavyweights and 30,000 participants will descend on the southern Indian city of Bengaluru on Monday to discuss the future of renewables and fossil fuels at India Energy Week — the first big ticket event of the country's presidency of the Group of 20 leading economies.

Speakers, including India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Saudi Arabia's energy minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman and the International Energy Agency’s executive director Fatih Birol, will discuss the need to ramp up the transition to clean energy. But the overwhelming presence of oil and gas industry stakeholders has raised questions from climate analysts.

“This event will showcase India as a global powerhouse for energy transition,” said Hardeep Singh Puri, India's minister for petroleum and natural gas. Puri's ministry is organizing the event.

But Puri added that "India’s clean energy targets needs to be weighed against the country’s growing economy and rising energy requirements.” The country is set to become the world's most populous nation this year.

India is currently the third highest emitter of planet-warming gases but has pledged to reach net zero emissions by 2070 and dramatically ramp up its renewable energy capacity.

Ahead of the event, IEA's Birol praised India's climate efforts, saying the country “can help drive the global agenda on clean energy transitions and energy security, with its focus on addressing technology gaps, ensuring diversified supply chains, scaling up clean fuels for the future, and mobilizing investment.”

Most of the Indian participants at the event belong to either government-owned or private fossil fuel companies, sparking concerns from climate experts.

“Gas expansion, which at least in India’s context does not make too much sense, needs looking into,” said Aarti Khosla of New Delhi-based climate think-tank, Climate Trends. “While India energy week talks about the role of gas as a bridge fuel for energy security, it is proven that there are risks ... banks are not lending too much to gas and global sentiment of investors is shifting slowly away from gas as well.”

But others say it's important to keep the conversation with fossil fuels interests going as they remain key players in energy.

“A country like India presently needs fossil fuels to keep the lights on,” said Bharath Jairaj, who leads the World Resources Institute India's energy program. “We can’t just assume some sectors should not or cannot be discussed, not until we find reliable, affordable and secure alternatives.”

Stakeholders from clean energy companies will also be in attendance. Sumant Sinha, the CEO of Renew Power, one of India's largest renewable energy companies, sees the energy week as a forum to understand various stakeholders’ viewpoints.

“A lot of global energy companies that we can potentially partner with will be there," said Sinha. "And look, the reality is that even the oil and gas companies are shifting to renewables. Therefore its important for us to engage. It's always good to see what the rest of the energy ecosystem is thinking about.”

India Energy Week runs Feb. 6-10 and will coincide with the first meeting of the G-20 energy transition working group. The Asian ministerial energy roundtable, where energy ministers from key Asian countries will meet, will also be held as part of the event in Bengaluru.

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Follow Sibi Arasu on Twitter at https://twitter.com/sibi123.

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Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

GREEN CAPITALI$M

Goldman Sachs to invest over $1 billion in Europe biomethane venture



Mon, February 6, 2023 
By Virginia Furness

LONDON (Reuters) - Goldman Sachs Asset Management said on Monday it had launched a biomethane business called Verdalia Bioenergy and aimed to invest more than 1 billion euros ($1.08 billion) in Europe over the next four years.

Biomethane, a lower carbon alternative to fossil-based natural gas, is produced from the decomposition of organic waste and is seen as a key plank in efforts to lower carbon emissions in the European Union.

Some 80 billion euros of investment is needed to increase the EU production of biogas and biomethane tenfold to reach a target of 370 terawatt hours per year (TWh) by 2030, accelerating decarbonisation and increasing energy security.

Verdalia Bioenergy will invest in both early-stage biomethane development projects as well as existing assets with the aim of contributing to Europe's decarbonisation and energy security agenda, the asset manager said on Monday.

It has already signed an agreement to purchase a portfolio of biomethane projects with a total capacity of around 150 gigawatt hours per year (GWh/year) in mid-stage development in Spain.

"We believe that biomethane is today one of the most compelling segments in the energy transition for infrastructure investors," said Matteo Botto Poala, a managing director in GSAM's infrastructure business.

Biomethane can be used in the same way as natural gas and delivered using the same infrastructure, yet comes without the same high level of climate-damaging emissions.

Biogas and biomethane production has already created 210,000 green jobs in Europe and is saving 60 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year, according to the European Biogas Association.

($1 = 0.9295 euros)

(Reporting by Virginia Furness; Editing by Simon Jessop and Arun Koyyur)

'Loophole' excuses WHO officials accused of misconduct



Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization, speaks during a news conference at WHO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, on Dec. 14, 2022. A confidential U.N. report into the alleged missteps by senior World Health Organization in the way they handled a sexual misconduct case during an Ebola outbreak in Congo found their response did not violate the agency’s policies because of what some officials described as a “loophole.” The report, which was submitted to WHO Director-General Ghebreyesus on Jan. 2023, and was not released publicly, was obtained by the Associated Press.

 (Martial Trezzini/Keystone via AP, File)

MARIA CHENG
Mon, February 6, 2023 

LONDON (AP) — A confidential U.N. report into alleged missteps by senior World Health Organization staffers in the way they handled a sexual misconduct case during an Ebola outbreak in Congo found their response didn't violate the agency’s policies because of what some officials described as a “loophole” in how the WHO defines victims of such behavior.

The report, which was submitted to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus last month and wasn't released publicly, was obtained by The Associated Press. The WHO hasn't publicly described the report’s contents and did not respond to requests for comment.

The U.N. investigation comes after a 2021 review by a panel appointed by Tedros found that three WHO managers fumbled a sexual misconduct case first reported by the AP earlier that year, involving a U.N. health agency doctor signing a contract to buy land for a young woman he reportedly impregnated.

Last week, Tedros said U.N. investigators concluded the “managerial misconduct” charges were unsubstantiated and the three staffers returned to work after being on administrative leave. The WHO chief said the agency would seek advice from experts on how to handle the inconsistencies between the two reports.

The investigators said Tedros was informed of the sexual misconduct allegations in 2019 and had been warned of worrying gaps in the WHO’s misconduct policies the previous year.

“If these issues were brought to Tedros’ attention and no action was taken, (WHO) member states must demand accountability,” said Dr. Irwin Redlener, a global health expert at Columbia University.

Tedros has previously said he became aware of sexual misconduct complaints in Congo only after media reports in September 2020 and learned of the specific case reported by the AP when it was published. He said anyone connected to sexual misconduct faced consequences including dismissal. To date, no senior WHO staffers linked to the abuse and exploitation have been fired.

In May 2021, an AP investigation revealed senior WHO management was told of sexual exploitation during the agency’s efforts to stop Ebola in eastern Congo from 2018-2020 but did little to stop it.

The AP published a notarized agreement between former WHO doctor Jean-Paul Ngandu and the woman he allegedly impregnated, in which he agreed to cover her health care costs and buy her land. The deal, also signed by two WHO staffers, was meant to protect the WHO’s reputation, Ngandu said. The woman and her aunt went to the WHO office in Beni to complain about Ngandu, according to internal WHO correspondence.

“After the allegations were made to WHO (headquarters), a decision was made not to investigate the complaint on the basis that it did not violate WHO’s (sexual exploitation and abuse) policy framework,” the U.N. report said.

The review explained that the decision was made by officials from the U.N. health agency’s legal, ethics and other departments and was due to the fact that the woman wasn't a “beneficiary” of WHO assistance, meaning she didn't receive any emergency or humanitarian aid from the agency, and thus, didn't qualify as a victim under WHO policy.

WHO staffers interviewed by U.N. investigators said this might be considered a “loophole which had the potential to cause complaints to fall through the cracks.”

“Ngandu’s conduct did not violate any WHO (sexual exploitation and abuse) standards of conduct,” the report said, describing his agreement to pay off the woman as a “private financial settlement.”

U.N. investigators noted there were problems in the WHO’s sexual misconduct policies, describing those as “a collective responsibility.” In February 2018, several staffers sent a memorandum to Tedros warning of the policies’ shortcomings.

Experts slammed WHO’s defense, saying the agency should uphold the highest standards in handling sexual exploitation since it coordinates global responses to acute crises like COVID-19 and monkeypox.

“Escaping accountability based on weasel words and technical language, like not being a ‘beneficiary’ of WHO assistance is unacceptable,” said Larry Gostin, director of the WHO Collaborating Centre on Public Health Law and Human Rights at Georgetown University. “That the U.N. Office of Internal Oversight Services excused this behaviour based on this legal technicality shows the U.N. and WHO are not taking sexual abuse seriously.”

After the reports of sexual misconduct in Congo arose, the WHO created a new office to prevent such behavior, headed by Dr. Gaya Gamhewage. In her interview with U.N. investigators, Gamhewage said that prior to starting her new job, she had no knowledge of the WHO’s sexual misconduct policies and had not even read them.

“Sexual exploitation and abuse were not familiar terms to her,” the report said.

The U.N. investigation comes weeks after the AP published another story detailing sexual misconduct at the WHO, involving a Fijian doctor with a history of sexual assault allegations within the agency, who was preparing to run in an election for the WHO’s top director in the Western Pacific.

“These repeated instances of sexual assault, and arguably worse, its cover-up, are grossly intolerable,” said Columbia University’s Redlener. “It’s possible this Ngandu case didn’t technically break WHO’s policy, but there is policy and then there is morality and ethics,” he said. “There’s something deeply uncomfortable about what happened here.”

During the Ebola epidemic, Tedros travelled to Congo 14 times to personally oversee the WHO’s response.

“At a minimum, Tedros should promise and deliver a major overhaul on policies and accountability,” Redlener said. “There might even be an expectation that he failed in his responsibilities and should therefore resign.”

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Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed to this report.