NGOs say COP26 climate summit must be postponed

Issued on: 07/09/2021 - 

Host government Britain said that the climate crisis was too urgent for the COP26 summit to be put off 

CHRISTOF STACHE AFP/File

Marseille (AFP)

A global network of more than 1,500 climate NGOs called on Britain to postpone the upcoming COP26 summit, saying Tuesday that a lack of Covid-19 vaccines risked sidelining developing countries.

An increase in Covid cases, unequal global vaccine rollout, and stringent quarantine requirements for more than 60 "red list" nations or territories hoping to attend the 12-day UN talks mean that "a safe, inclusive and just global climate conference is impossible," the Climate Action Network (CAN) said in a statement.

"Our concern is that those countries most deeply affected by the climate crisis and suffering from the lack of support by rich nations in providing vaccines will be left out," said Tasneem Essop, CAN's Executive Director.

"There has always been an inherent power imbalance within the UN climate talks and this is now compounded by the health crisis."

Host government Britain countered that the climate crisis was too urgent for the meeting to be put off.

A recently released UN climate science report shows "why COP26 must go ahead this November to allow world leaders to come together and set out decisive commitments to tackle climate change", COP President Alok Sharma told AFP, noting that the conference -- originally slated for last November -- has already been postponed once.

The northern hemisphere has been battered over the last three months by record-breaking extreme weather made worse by global warming, according to scientists who have developed tools to tease out the impact of climate change.

Deadly heatwaves in parts of North America and Europe; unprecedented flooding across western Europe, China and the United States; uncontrolled wildfires around the Mediterranean basin and in California -- all were made more intense or likely by global warming.

Britain has said it would cover accommodation costs for delegates subject to the quarantines, and has offered to provide fast-track vaccines.

"We are working tirelessly with all our partners, including the Scottish Government and the UN, to ensure an inclusive, accessible and safe summit in Glasgow," Sharma said.

But delegates who have applied for them have yet to get their jabs, according to the NGO group.

- 'Not fit for purpose' -

The British government said the vaccinations would start "this week," and that even with a four-week delay between doses there was still enough time to get the job done before COP26 kicks off on October 31.

Currently, more than 55 percent of Europeans are fully vaccinated, compared to about three percent in Africa.

Civil society campaigners, who play a crucial watchdog role as registered observers, will also likely face restricted access, CAN warned.

Developing countries will be deeply affected by decisions taken at the COP on issues ranging from climate finance, international carbon markets, and how to help poor nations cope with severe climate damages already incurred.

"A climate summit without the voices of those most affected by climate change is not fit for purpose," said Mohamed Adow, a longtime observer of the talks and director of the Nairobi-based think tank Power Shift Africa.

"If COP26 goes ahead as currently planned, I fear it is only the rich countries and NGOs from those countries that would be able to attend," he added.

"This flies in the face of the principles of the UN process and opens the door for a rich nations stitch-up of the talks."

CAN said the call to postpone COP26 should not be construed as a boycott of the climate talks.

"We will continue our work to push political leaders to deliver ambitious national climate targets, fulfil their responsibilities on climate finance, and phase out fossil fuels," it said.

© 2021 AFP

Should COP26 climate talks be postponed due to COVID risk?

By Danica Kirka | News, Politics | September 7th 2021
#1725 of 1727 articles from the Special Report:Race Against Climate Change

In this July 22, 2021 file photo, people demonstrate on the sidelines of a G20 environment meeting, in Naples, Italy. The UN climate conference, known as COP26, is scheduled for early November in Scotland. (AP Photo/Salvatore Laporta, File)

A coalition of environmental groups called on Tuesday for this year’s climate summit to be postponed, arguing that too little has been done to ensure the safety of participants amid the continuing threat from COVID-19.

The Climate Action Network, which includes more than 1,500 organizations in 130 countries, said there is a risk that many government delegates, civil society campaigners and journalists from developing countries may be unable to attend because of travel restrictions. The UN climate conference, known as COP26, is scheduled for early November in Scotland.

“Our concern is that those countries most deeply affected by the climate crisis and those countries suffering from the lack of support by rich nations in providing vaccines will be left out of the talks and conspicuous in their absence at COP26,’’ said Tasneem Essop, the network’s executive director. “There has always been an inherent power imbalance within the UN climate talks and this is now compounded by the health crisis.’’

The British government, which is hosting the event, quickly rejected calls for postponement, saying a recent scientific report shows the urgency for leaders to tackle the issue without further delay.

COP26 President-Designate Alok Sharma said the conference had already been delayed a year due to the pandemic, but “climate change has not taken time off.’’

Climate change has not taken time off, which is why #COP26 must go ahead in person in November

The UK is funding quarantine hotels for accredited delegates from red list countries

This is in addition to our vaccines offer to ensure an inclusive, accessible & covid-secure summit— Alok Sharma (@AlokSharma_RDG) September 7, 2021

“We are working tirelessly with all our partners, including the Scottish government and the UN, to ensure an inclusive, accessible and safe summit in Glasgow with a comprehensive set of COVID mitigation measures,’’ he said in a statement.

The European Union’s climate monitoring service said on Tuesday that average temperatures across the continent this summer were the warmest on record.

Measurements by the EU’s Copernicus satellite monitoring program showed that June to August temperatures across Europe were about 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than the 1991-2020 average, and 0.1 C warmer than the previous record recorded during the summers of 2010 and 2018.

Mediterranean countries in particular saw record-breaking temperatures this summer, along with devastating wildfires that prompted Greece this week to appoint a new minister of climate crisis and civil protection.

Associated Press writer Frank Jordans in Berlin contributed.

Postpone Cop26 for inclusive talks

Emily Beament

THE ECOLOGIST UK
Brendan Montague | 7th September 2021 |PA


Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson with Sir David Attenborough talk to school children at the Science Museum for Launch of the UK hosting of the 26th UN Climate Change Conference (COP26). Flickr

Andrew Parsons / No10 Downing Street

An in-person meeting in November 'effectively excludes Global South government delegates, campaigners and journalists'.

Environmental groups have called for crucial UN climate talks being held in Glasgow to be postponed amid fears people from poorer countries will not be able to fully take part.

But the UK Government insists it is rolling out vaccines for foreign delegates and will fund quarantine hotels for those who would not be able to pay as part of efforts to ensure the COP26 conference in November can go ahead.

The talks, which aim to make countries deliver the greenhouse gas emissions cuts needed to curb devastating climate change, have already been postponed from 2020 due to the pandemic.

Inclusive

Now the Climate Action Network (CAN), a global network of more than 1,500 civil society organisations in more than 130 countries, is calling for a further postponement.

In a statement, the network warns that a “safe, inclusive and just global climate conference in early November will be impossible given the failure to support the access to vaccines to millions of people in poor countries, the rising costs of travel and accommodation, including for quarantine in and outside of the UK and the uncertainty in the course of the Covid-19 pandemic”.

CAN says that an in-person meeting in early November would effectively exclude many government delegates, campaigners and journalists, particularly from the “Global South” or developing countries, many of which are on the UK’s Covid-19 red list of countries people cannot normally travel from due to the pandemic.

The network says excluding these people from taking part in the conference would have serious implications for issues being discussed at the talks, such as providing finance for developing countries to help them cope with climate change and develop cleanly.

Tasneem Essop, executive director, Climate Action Network said: “Our concern is that those countries most deeply affected by the climate crisis and those countries suffering from the lack of support by rich nations in providing vaccines will be left out and be conspicuous by their absence at Cop26.

Fair

“There has always been an inherent power imbalance within the UN climate talks and this is now compounded by the health crisis.

“Looking at the current timeline for COP26, it is difficult to imagine there can be fair participation from the Global South under safe conditions and it should therefore be postponed.”

The relationship between rich and industrialised nations which are the biggest polluters and poorer countries who have added least to the crisis but will bear the biggest brunt of global warming impacts has long been a fraught one at UN climate talks.

That has been thrown into sharp relief by the pandemic and unequal access to vaccines, while a failure by developed countries to deliver on a decade-old promise to provide 100 billion US dollars a year in climate finance for developing nations also threatens the outcome of the summit in two months’ time.

Only the rich countries and NGOs from those countries would be able to attend.

Mohamed Adow, long-time observer of the talks and director of the Nairobi-based think tank Power Shift Africa, said: “If COP26 goes ahead as currently planned, I fear it is only the rich countries and NGOs (non-governmental organisations) from those countries that would be able to attend.

“This flies in the face of the principles of the UN process and opens the door for a rich nations stitch-up of the talks.

Mitigation

“A climate summit without the voices of those most affected by climate change is not fit for purpose.”

The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) has joined the global coalition of civil society groups calling for the postponement of the international climate conference.

Rachel Cleetus, policy director for the Climate and Energy Program at UCS, said: “UCS is joining a coalition of diverse global civil society groups in calling for the postponement of COP26 because it is clear that the international climate talks, if they proceed as currently planned, cannot meet science-based public health guidelines in an equitable way.

"Importantly, this in no way takes the pressure off countries to address the climate crisis, especially richer nations like the United States that bear an outsized responsibility for heat-trapping emissions.

Inclusive

“We are calling on richer nations to take swift action to address the gross global COVID-19 vaccine inequity, including taking prompt action to secure a World Trade Organization trade-related intellectual property rights waiver; help scale up vaccine manufacturing capacity around the world; contribute to COVAX, the global vaccine sharing initiative; and limit the power of major pharmaceutical companies to control vaccine access.

She added: "We cannot end this pandemic unless everyone has access to vaccines and other life-saving medical care."

Downing Street said the hotel offer for travellers coming from red list countries was designed to help a “small number of people” who could not otherwise afford the £2,285 for an 11-night solo stay at a quarantine hotel upon arrival in the UK.

Alok Sharma, the President of COP26 and cabinet member, said the recent report by the UN’s climate science body, the IPPC, which put into stark relief the impact human activity such as burning fossil fuels is having on the planet, “underlines why COP26 must go ahead this November to allow world leaders to come together and set out decisive commitments to tackle climate change”.

He said: “We are working tirelessly with all our partners, including the Scottish Government and the UN, to ensure an inclusive, accessible and safe summit in Glasgow with a comprehensive set of Covid mitigation measures.

Funding

“This includes an offer from the UK Government to fund the required quarantine hotel stays for registered delegates arriving from red-list areas and to vaccinate accredited delegates who would be unable otherwise to get vaccinated.

“Ensuring that the voices of those most affected by climate change are heard is a priority for the Cop26 presidency, and if we are to deliver for our planet, we need all countries and civil society to bring their ideas and ambition to Glasgow.”

Delegates who would otherwise struggle to get vaccinated, including those from campaign groups and the media as well as government officials, have been offered Covid-19 vaccines by the UK Government, and the first jabs will be taking place this week.

Quarantine

The UK has also relaxed its quarantine requirements for travellers from abroad for delegates, and has now announced it will fund required hotel quarantine stays for party delegates, observers and media who are arriving from red list areas who would otherwise find it difficult to attend the conference, including all those from the Global South.

The prime minister’s official spokesman said the government did not know how much its hotel offer would cost, but denied it amounted to a “blank cheque”.

The No 10 official told reporters: “This is limited to a set and small number of people who will be coming from a select number of countries who wouldn’t otherwise be able to attend.”

He said the funding was being made available because “it is important we have a broad contingent of people from across the globe present to tackle this global issue”.

This Author

Emily Beament is the PA environment correspondent. Brendan Montague is editor of The Ecologist. This article was edited to include the statement from the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Americans warier of US government surveillance: AP-NORC poll

By ERIC TUCKER and HANNAH FINGERHUT

1 of 3

FILE - In this Sept. 11, 2015, file photo an American flag is draped on the side of the Pentagon where the building was attacked Sept. 11, 2001, on the 14th anniversary of the attack. As the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks approaches, Americans increasingly balk at intrusive government surveillance in the name of national security, and only about a third believe that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were worth fighting, according to a new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)


WASHINGTON (AP) — As the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks approaches, Americans increasingly balk at intrusive government surveillance in the name of national security, and only about a third believe that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were worth fighting, according to a new poll.

More Americans also regard the threat from domestic extremism as more worrisome than that of extremism abroad, the poll found.

The poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows that support for surveillance tools aimed at monitoring conversations taking place outside the country, once seen as vital in the fight against attacks, has dipped in the last decade. That’s even though international threats are again generating headlines following the chaotic end to the 20-year war in Afghanistan.

In particular, 46% of Americans say they oppose the U.S. government responding to threats against the nation by reading emails sent between people outside of the U.S. without a warrant, as permitted under law for purposes of foreign intelligence collection. That’s compared to just 27% who are in favor. In an AP-NORC poll conducted one decade ago, more favored than opposed the practice, 47% to 30%.

The new poll was conducted Aug. 12-16 as the Taliban were marching toward their rapid takeover of the country. Since then, Afghanistan’s Islamic State affiliate launched a suicide bombing that killed at least 169 Afghans and 13 U.S. service members, and experts have warned about the possibility of foreign militant groups rebuilding in strength with the U.S. presence gone.

In a marked turnabout from the first years after Sept. 11, when Americans were more likely to tolerate the government’s monitoring of communications in the name of defending the homeland, the poll found bipartisan concerns about the scope of surveillance and the expansive intelligence collection tools that U.S. authorities have at their disposal.

The expansion in government eavesdropping powers over the last 20 years has coincided with a similar growth in surveillance technology across all corners of American society, including traffic cameras, smart TVs and other devices that contribute to a near-universal sense of being watched.

Gary Kieffer, a retired 80-year-old New Yorker, said he is anxious about the government’s powers.

“At what point does this work against the population in general rather than try to weed out potential saboteurs or whatever?” asked Kieffer, who is a registered Democrat. “At what point is it going to be a danger to the public rather saving them or keeping them more secure?”

“I feel like you might need it to an extent,” Kieffer said. But he added: “Who’s going to decide just how far you go to keep the country safe?”

Eric McWilliams, a 59-year-old Democrat from Whitehall, Pennsylvania, said he saw surveillance as important to keeping Americans safe.

“I wasn’t for the torture stuff, which is why they did it outside the country. I wasn’t for that,” McWilliams said, referring to the harsh interrogation techniques used by the CIA to question suspects. “But as far as the surveillance is concerned, you gotta watch them — or else we’re gonna die.”

Americans are also more likely to oppose government eavesdropping on calls outside the U.S. without a warrant, 44% to 28%. Another 27% hold neither opinion.

About two-thirds of Americans continue to be opposed to the possibility of warrantless U.S. government monitoring of telephone calls, emails and text messages made within the U.S. Though the National Security Agency is focused on surveillance abroad, it does have the ability to collect the communications of Americans as they’re in touch with someone outside the country who is a target of government surveillance.

About half are opposed to government monitoring of internet searches, including those by U.S. citizens, without a warrant. About a quarter are in favor and 2 in 10 hold neither opinion. Roughly half supported the practice a decade ago.

The ambivalence over government surveillance practices was laid bare last year when the Senate came one vote short of approving a proposal to prevent federal law enforcement from obtaining internet browsing information or search history without seeking a warrant. Also last year, Democrats pulled from the House floor legislation to extend certain surveillance authorities after then-President Donald Trump and Republicans turned against the measure and ensured its defeat.

Despite general surveillance concerns, six in 10 Americans support the installation of surveillance cameras in public places to monitor potentially suspicious activity — although somewhat fewer support random searches like full-body scans for people boarding commercial flights in the U.S. Just 15% support racial and ethnic profiling to decide who should get tougher screening at airports, where security was fortified following the Sept. 11 attacks.

About 7 in 10 Black Americans and Asian Americans oppose racial profiling at airports, compared with about 6 in 10 white Americans.

As the U.S. this summer was ending the two-decade war in Afghanistan, most Americans, about 6 in 10, say that conflict — along with the war in Iraq — was not worth fighting. Republicans are somewhat more likely to say the wars were worth fighting.

When it comes to threats to the homeland, Americans are more concerned about U.S.-based extremists than they are international groups. FBI Director Chris Wray has said domestic terrorism, on display during the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, is “metastasizing” and that the number of arrests of racially motivated extremists has skyrocketed.

According to the poll, about two-thirds of Americans say they are extremely or very concerned about the threat from extremist groups inside the U.S. By contrast, about one-half say they are extremely or very concerned about the threat from foreign-based militants.

While Republicans and Democrats are generally aligned in their concerns about international extremism, the poll shows Democrats are more likely to be concerned than Republicans about the homegrown terrorists.

https://apnews.com/article/technology-afghanistan-race-and-ethnicity-racial-injustice-government-surveillance-

d365f3a818bb9d096e8e3b5713f9f856

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The AP-NORC poll of 1,729 adults was conducted Aug. 12-16 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.2 percentage points.rown threat, 75% to 57%.

On other top national security matters, about half of Republicans and Democrats are concerned by North Korea’s nuclear program, and about 7 in 10 say the same about the threat of cyberattacks. Majorities of Republicans and Democrats also believe that the spread of misinformation is an extremely or very concerning threat to the U.S, though Democrats are slightly more likely to say so.

But there’s a much greater partisan divide on other issues. Democrats, for instance, are far more concerned than Republicans about climate change, 83% vs. 21%. But Republicans are much more strongly concerned about illegal immigration than Democrats, by a margin of 73% to 21%.

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Follow Eric Tucker on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP

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The AP-NORC poll of 1,729 adults was conducted Aug. 12-16 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.2 percentage points.

RACIST USA

Young Sikhs still struggle with post-Sept. 11 discrimination

By ANITA SNOW and NOREEN NASIR

1 of 11

Rose Kaur Sodhi, a medical resident at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, stands for a portrait Wednesday, Aug. 18, 2021, in Los Angeles. Rose, Balbir Singh Sodhi’s niece, was a second grader getting ready for a relative’s birthday party when her family learned of her uncle’s murder. “We knew something was terribly wrong because my dad came home crying. I had never seen that before,” she said of her father and Balbir’s brother, Rana Singh Sodhi, who became a well-known figure in the Sikh American community and taught her to share her family’s story and advocate for peace. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)


MESA, Ariz. (AP) — Sikh entrepreneur Balbir Singh Sodhi was killed at his Arizona gas station four days after the Sept. 11 attacks by a man who declared he was “going to go out and shoot some towel-heads” and mistook him for an Arab Muslim.

Young Sikh Americans still struggle a generation later with the discrimination that 9/11 unleashed against their elders and them, ranging from school bullying to racial profiling to hate crimes — especially against males, who typically wear beards and turbans to demonstrate their faith.

As the 20th anniversary of Sept. 11 nears, those younger Sikhs say much more is needed to improve how hate crimes against their community are tracked. The FBI didn’t even begin tracking hate crimes specifically against Sikhs until 2015, and many local law enforcement agencies fail to record bias attacks comprehensively.

“The onus is on a community organization like ours to identify the problem and then build support” to ensure better reporting, said Satjeet Kaur, executive director of the Sikh Coalition. Formed in the wake of Sept. 11, the largest Sikh advocacy group in the U.S. documented more than 300 cases of violence and discrimination against Sikh Americans in just the first few months.



Such attacks can be particularly hard on young Sikhs, who face bullying by classmates who try to yank off their turbans or mock them as “Osama’s nephew” or “Saddam Hussein.” They often struggle with the Sikh philosophy of “chardi kala,” which calls for steadfast optimism in the face of oppression.

“The eternal optimism can help us get through it, but sometimes you also have to highlight the harsh realities,” said Tejpaul Bainiwal, 25, a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Riverside, who is studying the history of Sikhs who first began arriving in the U.S. in the late 1800s.

Bainiwal acknowledges he got into plenty of fistfights in high school with other students who tugged at his head covering and taunted him. He said terrified Sikh families, including his own, debated whether to continue displaying outward signs of faith, such as turbans, after the Aug. 5, 2012, massacre at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, which ultimately killed seven worshippers.

Now, as Americans watch from afar the events unfolding in Afghanistan, Bainiwal reflected on how Sikhs have been mislabeled and mischaracterized through history.

“One hundred years ago we were labeled Hindus, then Saudi Arabians, and when Iran was in the American eye we were called ‘the ayotollah.’”

Media images of turbaned and bearded Taliban leaders who recently regained control of Afghanistan with the withdrawal of U.S. troops have made Sikh Americans nervous again as they warn one another about those who incorrectly see their turbans and beards as symbols of extremism. The Sikh faith forbids the cutting or removal of hair, and males traditionally wear head coverings over their long locks.

The FBI listed 67 anti-Sikh crimes for 2020, the highest annual number since the category was created in 2015, said criminologist and civil rights attorney Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino.

He said the center recently created a conflict advisory saying the risk of targeted aggression against Sikhs and others in the U.S. has been elevated to a near “severe” level. Political and international events could sporadically push those dangers even higher over the next 18 months, the advisory said.

Levin told the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on Aug. 5 that domestic extremism often follows “catalytic events” that provoke fear, such as the coronavirus outbreak, which sparked anti-Asian violence; the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol; and the upcoming anniversary of Sept. 11.

After the 2001 attacks, Balbir Singh Sodhi was among the first of Sikhs, Arab Muslims and others targeted in hate crimes.

Airplane mechanic Frank Roque was convicted of first-degree murder in the Sept. 15, 2001, killing and was sentenced to death before that was commuted to life imprisonment. Roque also was accused of drive-by shootings the same day at an Afghan family’s home and a Lebanese man’s convenience store, although no one was injured in those attacks.

Rose Kaur Sodhi, Balbir Singh Sodhi’s niece, was a second grader getting ready for a relative’s birthday party when her family learned of her uncle’s murder.

“We knew something was terribly wrong because my dad came home crying. I had never seen that before,” she said of her father and Balbir’s brother, Rana Singh Sodhi, who became a well-known figure in the Sikh American community and taught her to share her family’s story and advocate for peace.

“We couldn’t believe it,” said the younger Sodhi, now 27 and a medical resident in Los Angeles. “He was so nice, always giving candy from his store to all the kids.”

In the months that followed, children at her elementary school near Phoenix began harassing her then-6-year-old brother, prompting her to complain to the principal when they called him names and tugged on his topknot.

“That gas station where he was murdered is our ground zero,” said activist filmmaker Valarie Kaur, who refers to Balbir Singh Sodhi, a family friend, as “uncle.” Local and national dignitaries have been invited to remember Sodhi at a memorial there Sept. 15.

Kaur was a college student on Sept. 11 when she watched the Twin Towers of New York City’s World Trade Center collapse on the television set in her parents’ bedroom in Clovis, California.

FILE - In this Aug. 19, 2016 file photo, Rana Singh Sodhi, kneels near his service station in Mesa, Ariz., next to a memorial for his brother, Balbir Singh Sodhi, who was murdered in the days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Sodhi, a Sikh American was killed at his Arizona gas station four days following the Sept. 11 attacks by a man who announced he was "going to go out and shoot some towel-heads" and

When images of a bearded man in a turban repeatedly flashed on the screen, “I realized that our nation’s new enemy looked like my family,” said Kaur, who now lives with her husband and young son in Los Angeles.

After Sodhi’s death, Kaur traveled around the U.S. exploring the subsequent explosion in hate crimes against Sikh and Muslim Americans, along with other people perceived as foreign or different.

The resulting documentary, “Divided We Fall: Americans in the Aftermath,” has been used in classrooms and communities across the country to inspire discussions about hate crimes. Kaur followed up last year with a memoir, “See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love.”

Now, she worries about what her young son will have to deal with.

“My son was born during the election season of 2016 ... when hate crimes were skyrocketing,” Kaur said. “Once again, I had to reckon with the fact that he’s growing up in a nation more dangerous for him than it was for me.”

Kaur said that danger became exceedingly clear in 2012 when a white supremacist Army veteran shot and killed six worshippers at the gurdwara, or Sikh temple, in Wisconsin before taking his own life.

A seventh person, Baba Punjab Singh, a Sikh priest visiting from India, was shot in the head and left partially paralyzed. He died from his wounds on March 2, 2020.

Over seven years, the priest’s son, Raghuvinder Singh, split his time between caring for his father in Oak Creek and working in Glen Rock, New Jersey, as assistant priest at a gurdwara there.

When his father was still alive, he could communicate by blinking: once for “no,” and twice for “yes.”

Singh, now 49, said the greatest lesson his father taught him was how to embody chardi kala.

“I would say, ‘Papa Ji, are you in chardi kala?’ And he would double blink every time,” Singh said. “In that condition, if he can live in chardi kala, why cannot we?”

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Nasir reported from Oak Creek, Wisconsin and Lodi, New Jersey.

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Associated Press religion coverage receives support from the Lilly Endowment through The Conversation U.S. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

World’s first hydrogen train comes to France

The world’s first hydrogen passenger train made its debut on the French railways on Monday, September 6, with the country’s transport minister hailing it as the future of green public transport. Built by French firm Alstom and already in service in Germany, the train uses a fuel cell to convert hydrogen stored in its roof into electricity, with the only emissions produced coming in the form of steam and water.

D.R Congo raise awareness about pollution through art

 An art festival higlighting the damage done by a throwaway culture has just wrapped up in kinshasa. The kinact festival made its return after having to be cancelled last year because of the pandemic. Artists use materials that others have thrown away to create works that raise awareness about the dangers of pollution.

French firm Lafarge loses bid to dismiss 'crimes against humanity' case in Syria

THERE IS A LAFARGE CEMENT PLANT A COUPLE OF BLOCKS AWAY FROM MY HOUSE

Issued on: 07/09/2021 - 

The Lafarge Cement Syria plant in Jalabiya, in the north of the country, 

on February 19, 2018. 

© AFP (file photo)

Text by: NEWS WIRES|

Video by: Claire RUSH

France's top court on Tuesday overturned a decision by a lower court to dismiss charges brought against cement giant Lafarge for complicity in crimes against humanity in Syria's civil war.

The ruling by the Court of Cassation marks a major setback for Lafarge, which is accused of paying nearly 13 million euros ($15.3 million) to jihadist groups including the Islamic State (IS) to keep its cement factory in northern Syria running through the early years of the country's war.

Lafarge's lawyer refused AFP's request for comment.

Lafarge, which merged in 2015 with Swiss group Holcim, has acknowledged that its Syrian subsidiary paid middlemen to negotiate with armed groups to allow the movement of staff and goods inside the war zone.

But it denies any responsibility for the money winding up in the hands of terrorist groups and has fought to have the case dropped.

The Paris Court of Appeal had in 2019 dismissed the crimes against humanity charge, saying it accepted that the payments were not aimed at abetting IS's gruesome agenda of executions and torture.

It however ruled that the company be prosecuted on three other charges -- financing terrorism, violating an EU embargo and endangering the lives of others.

Eleven former employees of Lafarge Cement Syria (LCS) challenged the decision at the Court of Cassation, with the backing of NGOs.

Quashing the lower court's finding on complicity, France's highest court of appeal ruled Tuesday that "one can be complicit in crimes against humanity even if one doesn't have the intention of being associated with the crimes committed."

"Knowingly paying several million dollars to an organisation whose sole purpose was exclusively criminal suffices to constitute complicity, regardless of whether the party concerned was acting to pursue a commercial activity," it added.

Analysis: Link between ruling on Lafarge and opening of Paris terror attacks trial


The judges added that "numerous acts of complicity" would go unpunished if courts adopted a more lenient interpretation.

The ruling does not mean however that Lafarge will automatically face trial on the most serious accusations laid against a French company over its actions in a foreign country in recent years.

The court instead referred the matter back to investigating magistrates to reconsider the complicity charge.

It also quashed the lower court's decision to maintain the charge of endangering others, saying that it was not clear that French labour law applied in the case and also referring that question back to investigators.

Shell precedent

The court did however uphold the charge of financing terrorism, which Lafarge had fought to have dismissed.

Apart from the company, eight Lafarge executives, including former CEO Bruno Laffont, are also charged with financing a terrorist group and/or endangering the lives of others.

Lafarge eventually left Syria in September 2014 after IS seized its plant in Jalabiya, around 150 kilometres (95 miles) northeast of the regional capital Aleppo.

The company is not the first multinational to be accused of complicity in crimes against humanity over its activity in a country where people suffered serious rights abuses.

But such cases have rarely been brought to trial.

Twelve Nigerians took Anglo-Dutch energy giant Shell to court in the US, accusing it of abetting extra-judicial killings, torture, rape and crimes against humanity in the Niger Delta in the 1990s.

The US Supreme Court in 2013 dismissed the case, saying US courts did not have jurisdiction in the matter.

(AFP)

U.S. Navy looks to South Korea's free-diving women for hypothermia remedy


The haenyeo population has been in decline for years and now most are now in their 70s. Photo courtesy of Jeju Tourism Organization

JEJU ISLAND, South Korea, Sept. 7 (UPI) -- As the once inaccessible Arctic grows as a region of military concern under the effects of global warming, the U.S. military is confronted with the problem of protecting its soldiers from the stresses of cold water and the threat of hypothermia. Researchers have turned to a peculiar place for potential answers: South Korean grandmothers who harvest seafood from the ocean floor.

Off the coast of South Korea's southern resort island of Jeju, about 280 miles south of the capital Seoul, these elderly women known as haenyeo dot the ocean as they dive year-round for abalone, turban shells, sea mustard and agar.

They've been free diving for generations, with the profession generally inherited from mother to daughter. It has also changed little over the years, with the main difference being the discarding of white cotton bathing suits in the early 1970s for the black rubber wetsuits they wear today.

Their numbers have been dropping for decades, with most now well into their 70s or older. But they live as icons of the island's culture and a symbol of the femininity and strength of its women who have been the breadwinners for their families upon a volcanic island where farming is limited and against a backdrop of political strife and oppression.

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To Tae Seok Moon, an associate professor at Washington University in St. Louis, these women were the inspiration behind a research project that aims to combat hypothermia.

"This is probably the most craziest idea I ever imagined," he told UPI in an interview over Zoom.

Moon has been awarded a three-year grant worth more than $500,000 from the Office of Naval Research, which conducts science and technology programs for the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, to study how the human microbiota, which are microorganisms that live on our skin and in our guts, may contribute to heat generation in cold environments, such as underwater.

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His so-called crazy idea is to eventually engineer these microorganisms that maintain a symbiotic relationship with their host humans to generate heat when the environmental temperature drops.

"Basically, what we want to develop is a genetic circuit -- we call it a genetic circuit -- that is basically in the bacteria that allow microbes to increase heat production in response to temperature downshift," he said.

The microbes, he said, would also be able to reduce heat generation if exposed to a warm environment to maintain homeostasis of the human body.

The human body consists of 10 times as many microbial cells as human cells, and Moon said that for a healthy 154-pound adult, these cells could increase one's body temperature by 1 degree Celsius per hour.

Arctic divers

Sandra Chapman, program officer at the ONR, told UPI its interest in Moon's project has to do with Navy divers.

"Expanding future Naval operation in Arctic regions will place a greater demand for better thermal protection for our warfighters," she said in an email. "Therefore, ONR seeks a smart-technology approach that can sense and respond to changes in temperature exposures, and the microbiome represent a promising solution to serve as our bodies' own thermostat."

Global warming is reshaping the world, and the Arctic has grown as a region of military concern with countries jockeying not only for influence over newly melted trade routes and access to vast untapped reservoirs of natural resources but to protect their northern borders and national interests from adversaries.

The United States has been ramping up its presence in the region, as have Russia and China, and the various branches of the U.S. military have been announcing their strategic blueprints for the region, which despite having the smallest of the five oceans could potentially connect 75% of the world's population.

According to the U.S. Navy, it is also home to an estimated 30% of the world's undiscovered natural gas reserves, 13% of global conventional oil reserves and rare earth minerals valued at $1 trillion.

To optimize the capabilities of Navy divers in wartime demands a seamless transition between environments, Chapman said, a difficult task due to static technologies such as wetsuits, which cannot adapt to their environment and lose their thermal protection at depth and if ripped or torn.

"If we are able to use our resident microbiota to adapt to changing temperatures, we would be free from the current reliance on the different thermal protection needed for each different environment," she said.

Adapting to cold

Moon, an engineer of microbes, told UPI the haenyeo of his native South Korea were the inspiration behind the project because he wondered if their microbiota had adapted over generations to combat the cold water.

"Haenyeo is one strong example of who basically stand cold temperatures. So right now they have some nice wetsuits, and that kind of protects their body from the heat [loss], but think about 100 years ago and 200 years ago and then haenyeo is descended from those haenyeo," he said. "Normally, the kids become haenyeo and their kids become haenyeo, and that means genetically the haenyeo are strong people."

He mentioned the work of Melissa Ilardo, an adjunct faculty member at the University of Utah, who studied Indonesia's Bajau or Sea Nomads, finding that these divers have spleens 50% larger than their land-living counterparts. He wondered whether similar adaptations might be found in haenyeo.

Chapman said they have sponsored Ilardo through a grant to study the thermal resilience of haenyeo with two objectives: to investigate the genetics and physiology underlying previously identified adaptations; and to probe novel genetic and physiological adaptations.

"This is really just the start of many questions about this population, especially depending upon the results that we get" from these investigations, Ilardo told UPI in a video call from Salt Lake City. "No one has really looked at the genetics of the haenyeo before, so this is going to be a really unique look into their genetic history and from that, there will be many more questions that we can ask."

Illardo said the Navy is "very interested" in the island's indigenous divers due to their ability to work for up to eight hours a day in cold water -- water "much, much colder" than other indigenous divers are generally exposed to.

According to seatemperature.info, Jeju's water temperature can drop to below 53 degrees F during the winter months.

"I don't personally know of any other population diving in waters as cold as the haenyeo," she said.

Navy divers have told her their greatest challenge is the cold.

"Given that that's kind of the number one obstacle to their ability to complete tasks underwater, more so than equipment, more so than gas mixes -- a lot of those things are really well dialed at this point -- but once they get cold to a certain point, they say they can't use their hands, they can't stay underwater any more, and so the haenyeo being able to stay in that cold water for so long was really exciting to everyone as a possibility to pursue," she said.

Genetic factors

Ilardo was in Jeju the Thanksgiving before the pandemic hit to conduct measurements and experiments with the haenyeo with plans to publish her findings by the year's end.

Without getting into specifics, she said at times the phenotypes of haenyeo, or their observable physical properties, appear similar to non-divers in Jeju, but then there's other instances where they look completely different.

This could be the result of a mixture of environmental and genetic factors that she said she will now "tease apart" to see which might be genetic and which might be the result of their environment.

Studies have shown that the haenyeo's ability to withstand cold water has diminished somewhat following the switch from cotton to rubber diving suits in the 1970s, with a study published in 2017 asserting that "their overall cold-adaptive traits have disappeared."

Ilardo said the decrease in their thermal tolerance makes sense but that produced by their genetic adaptation, if one exists, would still persist. That is a question that current data cannot answer.

"I think they've been doing it for so long and hypothermia is so dangerous and particularly if you were carrying a child -- I can't imagine the strain that would put on a fetus -- I would lean toward genetics," she said, "but I'll have an answer soon."

One reason why she is optimistic that a genetic signal within the haenyeo will be discovered is that they dive while pregnant.

"If you have some kind of adaptation that kind of buffers that strain then your child is more likely to survive to birth," she said.

The Haenyeo Museum, located near Jeju City, confirmed that haenyeo did dive while pregnant but the number who did may not be as many as the widely reported claim suggests.

In an email to UPI, the museum said only "a small percentage and not all haenyeo" dived while pregnant and the fact they did "is proof that Jeju women had a strong sense of responsibility" to take care of their family.

Disappearing profession

The issue the haenyeo seemingly present to researchers is that the profession's future is uncertain.

Once a prominent and financially important profession for the island, haenyeo have been decreasing for decades.

The museum said the government began collecting data on the haenyeo in 1965, with the 24,268 counted in 1966 being the highest on record, though prior to the 1960s, the number of divers would have been much higher.

At that time, more than 9,000 were between the ages of 15 and 20 while another 7,200 were 21 to 30 years old, it said.

Last year, there were 3,613 haenyeo remaining, 97.8% of whom were over age 50, according to the museum. Only four, it said, were younger than 30.

Illardo explained that the death of the profession does not mean that the future descendants of haenyeo will lose the ability to withstand cold water if that ability is derived from a genetic mutation.

"Like the Bajau who have this large spleen, if they're farming, it's not going to make it harder for them to survive," she said. "It adapted to diving but it's not harmful so they're going to have just as many children and they're going to survive just as long as anyone else or maybe even longer if it's advantageous in some other way. That won't decrease its frequency, but mixing with other cultures will."

What the military and researchers can learn from this population who test the limits of human physiology is what the limits of the human physiology really are.

"It's really through how it can be stretched and how it can be exceeded that we understand how it's working in the first place," she said.

Moon said his project right now is "completely fundamental" but that once the three-year investigation into the heat-generation mechanism has been completed, the Department of Defense may want to expand it further.

"Once this is successfully done, my future project will be visiting haenyeo and collecting some samples from skin," he said.

The end goal, he said, is to create something akin to a sunblock one smears on their skin or a pill one swallows containing the engineered microbiota that will generate heat when the user is exposed to a cold environment to prevent their body's temperature from dropping too low and ward off deadly hypothermia.

He said he may infuse it with the smell of Jeju's famed tangerines of green tea as a reminder from where his crazy idea first came from.

Asked if there was interest in studying the specific microbiome of the haenyeo, Chapman said no such project was currently supported by the Office of Naval Research but that it "may form an objective for future studies." 

MORE PICTURES U.S. Navy looks to South Korea's free-diving women for hypothermia remedy - UPI.com

Participatory science: a meteorite over Brittany, and hundreds of testimonies

September 6, 2021 

 

Maria Gill

The general public describes them as “meteors”. As long as they have not touched the mainland, scientists prefer the term “meteorites” or “meteorites” over them. To the naked eye and to the noise it’s a big pebble that crossed the sky over Brittany Point just before 10 p.m., on Sunday, September 5. The star followed a course from south to north, from Dornese, past the highest peak of Morlix, then over Pyrrhus-Guerik, before disappearing over the Channel not far from the British coast: the Channel Islands air rescue body also indicated its presence. Notice the meteor in the Jersey sky, exactly at 9:47 p.m. “Because of its extreme luminosity, the weight of the polyide should be on the order of one kilogram and we estimate its velocity at about 70 kilometers per second, identifies François Colas, of the Observatory from Paris (OBSPM). It followed an almost linear trajectory and went so fast that it ended up disintegrating about 40 kilometers above sea level. From the channel.” By finishing off the dust scattered in the sea, this rocky body cannot therefore be classified as… a meteorite. Therefore it is ranked among the 95% of the luminous events that occur every year in our sky that give no terrestrial impact.

popular madness

However, this rather rare phenomenon by its brilliance is confirmed by hundreds of testimonies multiplied on social networks. “ Our FRIPON / Vigie-Ciel Site More than 250 declarations have been registered, which means that our network is gradually establishing itself as a benchmark,” enthuses Brigitte Zanda of the National Museum of Natural History (MNHM) who works with Sylvain Bouly of the GéoSciences Laboratory at the University of Paris-Sud and François Colas created this monitoring system in 2015. The researcher continues: “For us, this dimension of participatory science is central to research development, and as we see, people want to help us in our process.”

It’s hard to find meteors when they hit Earth

For this “pebble” that flew over northwest France and was seen as far as Normandy, the descriptions are always the same: a luminous flicker at a very high speed is visible for a few seconds, and after a few more minutes, a thud corresponding to the shock wave. A “thumping” sound would, in Brest, make the windows of houses vibrate. Some even believed in an earthquake. “The disintegration was inevitable due to the speed of the body, continues François Colas. It was about ten times faster than the Crew Dragon capsule that would bring Thomas Bisquet back to Earth.” It happens that meteorites develop more slowly. It all depends on their orbital speed and Earth’s speed. “The two forces can conflict with each other, which is very rare, but it is estimated that a vehicle would have to evolve at less than 20 kilometers per second to get through the atmosphere and end up in one piece. And again, like a large part of the Earth’s surface is made up of oceans. , which reduces the probability of these small celestial bodies landing on land .5 to 25 times in meteorites annually.

In addition to its participatory dimension, the Fripon Network (Fireball Recovery InterPlanetary and Observation Network, Editor’s Note.) now has a good hundred wide-field (360°) cameras whose installation has been state funded via the National Research Agency (ANR).” ), explains Brigitte Zanda. Most of them are separated by about 70 to 100 kilometers.” A sufficient network to observe the various natural celestial events over France. This was the case last night in Brittany even if one of the cameras (in Brest) was disturbed by a thick layer of clouds. “I am currently working on refining the track by doing the calculations manually. We will achieve greater accuracy thanks to the testimonies collected, welcomes François Colas. Here again, citizen participation will be essential. The Paris Observatory is also preparing to help them track the meteorites from next weekend. “We are organizing a fishing expedition near the Maisontiers in Deux-Sèvres to try and find one that fell on July 13.” Dozens of enthusiasts are expected on the site. Amazing than in Brittany, the harvest may be much more expensive for scientists.

Massive NASA Deep Space Antenna Just Caught Its 1,000th Near-Earth Asteroid

As part of its Planetary Defense Program, NASA’s Deep Space Network has spotted its thousandth Near-Earth Asteroid after opening the account in 1968

BY NADEEM SARWAR

PUBLISHED 9 HOURS AGO



NASA’s Deep Space Network has achieved a historic milestone by spotting its 1,000th Near-Earth Object (NEO) in the form of an asteroid that recently passed Earth at a distance of about one million miles. The DSN is a network of on-ground spacecraft communication facilities located across three continents to support NASA’s interplanetary missions and is also involved in radio and radar-based observations for exploring the solar system. What is now the DSN was first established back in 1968 alongside NASA, and today it is thought to be at the vanguard of developing deep space communications and navigation tech

Even though the DSN’s primary roles are telemetry, serving as a space command site, and managing radio contact between spacecraft and Earth, it is also home to advanced radio astronomy and mapping tech to study passing asteroids. The latter is accomplished using planetary radar that made its first discovery — an asteroid named 1556 Icarus — all the way back in 1968. These radar examinations are done as part of NASA’s NEO Observations Program, which itself is a part of the Planetary Defense Program. And if that name sounds important, that’s because it is responsible for studying and warning about potentially hazardous bodies like the Bennu asteroid.

Now, the latest discovery by the massive 70-meter deep space antenna is not as exciting or frightening, but it is a great achievement for another reason. The Deep Space Station 14 antenna at the California-based Goldstone Deep Space Complex spotted the project’s 1,000th Near-Earth object in just over fifty years since its establishment. The object in question is a small asteroid with a width of between 65 and 100 feet, passing Earth at a distance of about a million miles. However, more details regarding a possible infernal state or ice-cold nature are yet to be discovered.

A Milestone Discovery For A Critical Planetary Defense System

As for the discovery process, the DSS-14 antenna was used to send radio waves to the asteroid, whose echoes (or radar reflections) were then recorded to study it. On the basis of an asteroid’s size and distance, these radio techniques can be used to create an image of the celestial body’s surface with great detail, calculate its spin rate, determine its shape, and check whether it has any natural moon. The end goal of the Planetary Defense Program is to perform such analyses in order to detect potentially hazardous objects such as NEOs by studying their size and orbit, and assessing if they pose a threat to Earth.

Once an object is classified as a threat, it is continuously tracked, and if its chances of colliding with the Earth exceed the 1 percent mark in the next 50 years, mitigation strategies are set into motion. The space agency is already developing multiple defense methods if an asteroid is set on a collision course with the Earth. NASA notes that its huge radar system is fundamental to planetary defense efforts as it monitors potentially hazardous bodies and performs in-depth studies to make sure that the Earth is prepared if there are any chances of impact in the near future.

The ISS could be gone by 2024 — what does it mean the future of space travel?

The future of space stations is uncertain once the International Space Station ends its mission — China and private industry could fill the void.




STORY BY
The Cosmic Companion

Retiring the International Space Station in the coming years presents a big void “ what will be the future of space stations once the International Space Station meets its fiery death in the coming years? And SHOULD the ISS be decommissioned, or might the mission lifetime be extended?

Construction of the International Space Station (ISS), started in 1998, was completed in 2011. Since that time, the ISS has housed travelers in space from 19 countries. Possessing the only laboratory for long-duration microgravity research, discoveries aboard the orbiting outpost have led to a bevy of new discoveries.

Now, its mission could be over as early as 2024, as that is the time agreements between NASA and international partners comes to an end. However, on the 25 August, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson stated his support for extending the mission of the space station until the year 2030.

“We expect to expand the space station as a government project all the way to 2030. And we hope it will be followed by commercial stations,” Nelson stated.

Although Nelson has long supported extending the lifetime of the ISS to 2030, the U.S. Congress has, so far, failed to continue funding past 2024. Such an agreement would need the approval of Canada, Russia, Europe, and Japan.

Josef Aschbacher, director general of the European Space Agency, strongly supports an extension, as does Walther Pelzer, head of the German space agency DLR.
The Yangs and Kohms

The future of space stations could be private, as the ability to reach space becomes more common among non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

One company developing private space stations, Axiom Space, seeks to begin with expanding out the ISS while constructing their own orbiting outpost. Their egg-shaped modules are designed to provide a 360-degree view of space, and the Earth turning far below.

“Once fully assembled, Axiom Station will nearly double the useable volume of the International Space Station,” the team reports.

Credit: Axiom Station

An artist concept of the Axiom station deployed on the International Space Station.

An artist concept of the Axiom station deployed on the International Space Station. Image credit: Axiom Space
Sierra Space also has its own design for long-term habitation in low-Earth orbit.

“Sierra Space’s space station leverages its transportation and destination technologies including the Dream Chaser space-plane and LIFE Habitat. The station is a configuration of multiple expandable LIFE habitats that can be serviced by both cargo- and crew-carrying Dream Chaser spaceplanes,” the company describes.

Nations including China are now investing in space exploration in an effort to further science, encourage minds, and discover technologies needed to face global climate change in a post-oil world.

On 16 June, China successfully launched the first module in its own space station, Tiangong, into orbit around Earth.
The China National Space Administration (CNSA) also plans to launch aHubble-class space telescope to accompany their spaceborne laboratory.

During his talk, Nelson called out for cooperation with China building the future of space stations. However, he also stated the he believed the United States is now in a space race with The Middle Kingdom.

Meanwhile, Russia and China have agreed to work together building a base on the Moon, and they have extended an offer to Europe to join their project. In the United States, NASA continues with their goal of returning to the Moon (hopefully in 2024) with the Artemis program.

Home… home in orbit… where the rocks and the space debris play…

Credit: NASA The ISS photographed from a Soyuz spacecraft

Over time, the space station is slowly losing its orbit, and must be continually adjusted. Much of the fuel needed to carry out this task comes from leftover resupply ships launched from Earth.

The space station is also under constant threat from micrometeorites and space debris. Eventually, the laws of probability state the ISS will “ one day “ suffer catastrophic damage from such an impact.

Letting this massive craft enter the Earth’s atmosphere in an uncontrolled re-entry could prove hazardous to those on the ground. The safest option is a planned re-entry over the sparsely-populated South Pacific.

One challenge facing those planning to eventually de-orbit the ISS is that it is big “ really big. Nearly 100 meters long, the facility offers living space as large as a six-story house. Were it on our home world, the ISS would weigh 420,000 kilograms (900,000 pounds) “ more than the weight of four average blue whales “ the largest animals ever to live on Earth.

When the time comes to end the mission of the ISS, thrusters (likely provided by Russian Progress spacecraft) will direct the orbiting outpost to an incendiary re-entry over the southern Pacific Ocean.

Before that time comes, try to see the ISS flying overhead (several apps are available telling you when to look) “ it’s quite a remarkable sight.


This article was originally published on The Cosmic Companion by James Maynard, the founder and publisher of The Cosmic Companion. He is a New England native turned desert rat in Tucson, where he lives with his lovely wife, Nicole, and Max the Cat. You can read the original article here.