In space race, Europe faces choice: passenger or pilot

by Mathieu Rabechault With Pierre Celerier and Juliette Collen

Europe has paid for some 30 seats aboard US and Russian spacecraft over the years.

As the race to send people to the Moon and beyond heats up, Europe faces calls to make a choice: Keep paying for seats on spacecraft or finally fly its own manned vehicle.

Imagine if Christopher Columbus did not have a ship to sail to the Americas, the head of the European Space Agency said recently, lamenting that the continent lacked a vessel to "explore the next frontier".

"We will be on the Moon and we believe we will be living there. We will use the Moon as an economic zone. This is a new frontier," ESA director general Josef Aschbacher told the 14th European Space Congress last week in Brussels.

"The big question is, do we want, as Europeans, to be part of it, or do we want to be watching others going to the Moon?"

NASA is aiming to return to the Moon with its Artemis programme by 2025, while China plans to send one of its taikonauts there by 2030.

India plans an uncrewed test flight for its Gaganyaan programme this year to prepare for a manned mission.

Europe, meanwhile, has no manned vessels to speak of, having relied on US and Russian spacecraft to take more than 30 astronauts into orbit over the years.

Private companies have now become major players in the sector, with Elon Musk's SpaceX taking astronauts to the International Space Station.

French astronaut Thomas Pesquet, who travelled to and from the ISS aboard SpaceX's Dragon capsule, has called for more ambition in Europe in terms of crewed flights.

European space firm ArianeGroup, owned by Airbus and French group Safran, says it is ready to develop a reusable two-stage launcher capable of carrying astronauts.

Philippe Baptiste, president of France's CNES space agency, says such a launcher would pave the way for Moon and Mars missions, but he said Europe's space ambitions remain a political question.

That question takes on particular significance in the runup to a European space summit in the French city of Toulouse on February 16.

An ESA ministerial meeting will be held in November to lay out priorities and budgets for the coming years.

Mere passengers

The ESA's 2021 space exploration budget stood at 735 million euros ($822 million)—just seven percent of NASA's.

Meanwhile, private-sector funding in space-related companies exceeded $10 billion last year—an all-time high—and investors are directing more funds to Moon projects and further from Earth's orbit, according to the McKinsey consultancy.

Lacking its own vehicle, the ESA will seek to secure a spot for a European on a NASA Moon mission by proposing to develop a lunar supply lander, Didier Schmitt, the agency' head of exploration strategy, told Bsmart online media.

Europe is already guaranteed three stays on NASA's Gateway, a space station that will orbit the Moon with several European-built modules.

But even NASA has had to rely on SpaceX for flights to the ISS as the US space agency works on a new vessel to replace the mothballed space shuttle programme.

German astronaut Alexander Gerst warns that using private hardware could see his colleagues denied full access to data.

"I see that from my colleagues who were training now for example with SpaceX with the Dragon, it's a totally different game. They're not partners on an equal level anymore, they are actually more like passengers," he said.

"They're not allowed to have access to all the information anymore, so it is a step back."

'Economic rationale'

Europe tried to have its own manned spacecraft before. The Hermes programme, however, was abandoned in 1992 after delays and failure to meet cost and performance goals.

Jean-Jacques Tortora, director of the Vienna-based European Space Policy Institute, said arguments in favour of a European space programme lack an "economic rationale."

"Essentially, it is about political objectives, if Europe has the desire to be a space power or not," Tortora said.

In last week's Brussels conference none of the ministerial level representatives from France, Germany or Italy—which together put up some 60 percent of the ESA budget—mentioned crewed European flight as a priority.

That did not deter ESA chief Aschbacher, who said he is not "asking for a decision today or in three weeks."

A European push to the moon

© 2022 AF

Tiger breeding, exports flourish in S.Africa: charity

Animal rights charity, Four Paws, says 359 tigers were exported from South Africa from 

2011-2020.

South Africa's legal lion breeding has spawned a tiger farming industry for commercial exports, potentially posing a threat to the species already in decline, an animal welfare group warned Tuesday.

Breeding lions for commercial hunting and for bone exports towards Asia is legal in South Africa, but in recent years tiger breeding for similar purposes has become more common.

A report by global animal rights charity, Four Paws, showed that 359 tigers—almost a tenth of the global tiger population—were exported from South Africa from 2011-2020.

Around 255 of them were sold to zoos.

Tigers are not native to South Africa and enjoy no legal protection in the country, the organisation said.

There were "loopholes that were allowing the business model to change," Paws's wildlife expert Kieran Harkin told AFP.

"The market being in Asia was already there, demand was there, so it made perfect sense for the (breeders) to move over to the tiger, which was again even more lucrative than lions," he said.

South Africa has no official count of its tiger population.

Four Paws is asking South Africa to halt the commercial breeding of all big cats, whose populations are declining partly due to trade to Asian countries.

"We are asking South Africa to stop supporting that trade... and be a defender of the wildlife, and not perpetuating the trade in species on the decline," Harkin said in an online interview from London.

He accused South Africa of flouting international laws that dictate that tigers should not be bred for trade in their parts.

South Africa's government promised to give a comment later on Tuesday.

As the largest exporter of big cat parts, South Africa is being urged to "reverse that role and take on a leading position in protecting wildlife... iconic species," Harkin sad.

Fiona Miles, director of Four Paws in South Africa, called for national legislation and international agreements to be "re-examined since they are clearly not working".

She warned in a statement that unless the threatened species were protected, "we put all big cat species at risk of one day, only existing behind bars."

South Africa approves export of 800 lion skeletons this year

© 2022 AFP

Inspired By Navalny, Russian Bloggers Stand Up To Corruption


By Victoria LOGUINOVA-YAKOVLEVA
02/01/22

Armed with only a phone and selfie stick, blogger Igor Grishin has set himself the task of fighting corruption in his hometown beyond Moscow, following in the steps of imprisoned Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.

Grishin, 25, has leveraged his blog to save historic buildings and local parks that would otherwise have fallen victim to developers in Koroloyov, a small but important town for Russian and Soviet space history.

But in Russia, where criticism of the authorities is quickly silenced, Grishin is already feeling the pressure from the police.

"I love Korolyov. I was born here and I want to defend what I love," says Grishin, walking through the small town just six kilometres (4 miles) outside the Russian capital.

The town of just over 200,000 people is named after Sergey Korolyov, the father of the Soviet space programme, and houses the Russian Mission Control Centre.

Sergey Korolyov, father of the Soviet space programme, seen in 1954 with a dog that had just come back from a 100 km altitude flight Photo: RIA NOVOSTI via AFP

Strolling through the town, Grishin points out around two dozen multi-coloured buildings -- each between two and four storeys high -- that were built between 1946 and 1953.

They were once home to Soviet scientists like Sergei Kryukov, a ballistic missiles engineer, and Konstantin Bushuyev, who was involved in sending the first satellite, Sputnik, to space.

But there are plans to demolish the historic district to make way for high-rise blocks -- dull and grey -- plans that Grishin is determined fight against.

With his comrade-in-arms Roman Ivanov, the duo have been trying to speak up in a country where independent media have recently suffered a far-reaching crackdown.

Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny during a court hearing last year 

Photo: AFP / Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV

After Navalny's arrest in January last year, authorities ramped up pressure on journalists, bloggers and opposition activists, with many forced to flee abroad.

Ivanov, who worked as a journalist for over 20 years, says he was fired from a state-run television channel last May after he started a YouTube channel called "Honest Korolyov".

"My boss called me to fire me because, according to him, I shouldn't bite the hand that feeds me," he says sitting in a town cafe.

He tells AFP that in today's Russia: "journalism has been replaced by propaganda".

Ivanov created his channel in 2019 after joining protests against Korolyov's former mayor, who was accused of profiting from ties to property developers.

In videos for his 5,000 subscribers, Ivanov criticises local officials pointing to electoral fraud, poor infrastructure and development plans that would destroy historic buildings.

Russian blogger Igor Grishin is trying to save historic buildings in the small town of Koroloyov Photo: AFP / Dimitar DILKOFF

The Korolyov mayor's office did not respond to AFP's request for comment.

Ivanov describes Navalny as a "talented organiser" and says he respects the opposition leader's investigations put together by a team that probes the wealth of Russia's elites in slick YouTube videos.

Russia on Tuesday added Navalny and a number of his allies to a list of "terrorists and extremists", as authorities further clamp down on the opposition.

"In our city practically all media are financed by the administration. What we have left is the internet and social networks," Grishin says.

He is the chief editor of a blog called "Official Korolyov" hosted on Russia's popular social network VKontakte.

But even internet giants are not immune to state control.

Facebook, Twitter and TikTok have all been repeatedly fined for not deleting content at the behest of Russian authorities. Apple and Google were all forced to remove a Navalny app from their stores.

Ivanov says their publications have mobilised locals and "saved four parks which would have been torn down to make room for shopping centres".

Another victory he cited was the ousting of mayor Alexander Khodyrev last October after he was accused of falsifying election results by the independent Novaya Gazeta newspaper.

However, the bloggers' efforts have not gone unnoticed by police who came in late October to search their homes, taking away their phones and computers.

Grishin is now accused of being involved in a fight while monitoring local elections and Ivanov is facing charges of revealing pre-trial information in one of his interviews.

Ivanov thinks that authorities want to "scare activists". Grishin sees the moves as "revenge" from the ousted former mayor.

In another Moscow suburb, bloggers Alexander Dorogov and Yan Katelevsky -- who also probed corruption -- have been in detention since July 2020, on charges of blackmail.

Dorogov, who faces 15 years in prison, told AFP in court in Moscow last November their work was taken offline to protect officials.

"Our YouTube channel was deleted to hide facts we published there: bribes, corruption among funeral companies, police, investigators and prosecutors."

Rights groups blame Taliban for missing journalists


AFP , Tuesday 1 Feb 2022

The Taliban have arrested two Afghan journalists working for a local news channel, rights groups said Tuesday, weeks after two women activists went missing.

(From L-R) Combined images of the two journalists Waris Hasrat and Aslam Hijab. 

Photo courtesy of SALAM WANTADAR website.

Since seizing power in August, the hardline Islamists have cracked down on dissent by detaining critics and forcefully dispersing protests against their regime.

Several Afghan journalists have also been beaten while covering rallies not approved by authorities.

The Afghan Media Association -- a newly formed journalists' rights group -- said Ariana TV reporters Waris Hasrat and Aslam Hijab were picked up by the Taliban on Monday "and taken to an unknown location".

Without naming the Taliban, an official at Ariana told AFP the reporters were seized by masked gunmen in front of the channel's office as they went out for lunch.

He said Taliban officials "have assured us of a comprehensive investigation".

Rights group Amnesty International demanded on Twitter that the Taliban "unconditionally and immediately release" the pair.

A Taliban spokesman told AFP he had no information on the missing journalists.

A fortnight ago, two women activists went missing after taking part in a demonstration in Kabul calling for women's rights.

The Taliban have denied knowledge of their whereabouts and say they are investigating.

Last month, the Taliban detained a well-known university lecturer and regime critic but released him days later after a media furore in Afghanistan and abroad.

Despite promising their second time in power would feature a softer brand of governance, the Taliban have slowly introduced restrictions on freedoms -- especially for women.

Western countries insist the Taliban must respect women's rights in order to unlock billions of dollars in assets and foreign aid.

The halting of aid has triggered a catastrophic humanitarian crisis in a country already devastated by decades of war.

Barcelona accuse Bartomeu's board of 'serious criminal behaviour'

Barcelona's previous board, led by former president Josep Maria Bartomeu, showed "very serious criminal behaviour", a lawyer hired by the club said on Tuesday.

© LLUIS GENE Barcelona president Joan Laporta at a press conference to present the results of a club investigation into financial mismanagement.

At the presentation of the club's 'forensic report' into the financial management of Barca under Bartomeu, current president Joan Laporta also said "payments without cause, payments with a false cause or disproportionate payments were found".

Laporta added that "it could not be ruled out that there was unfair reward for those people responsible for these payments".

The findings of the report prompted the club to file a complaint with the prosecutor's office in Barcelona last week. The prosecutor's office began an investigation into "economic crimes" on Friday, a source told AFP.

Barcelona's report, carried out by financial investigations company, Kroll, was initiated after the club's general director, Ferran Reverter, announced the results of an internal audit in October.

Reverter said the club was "technically bankrupt" when Laporta took over as president in March 2021, with the audit uncovering total club debts of 1.35 billion euros ($1.52 billion).

The presentation of the report was made in the offices outside Camp Nou on Tuesday morning by Laporta, Eduard Romeu, Barcelona's financial vice-president, and Jaume Campaner, a corporate lawyer contracted to work on the investigation.

Campaner said: "It's not about pointing fingers or describing the management of the previous board as better or worse, that's not it.

"It is about transferring information to the authorities that investigate crimes and clamp down on this sort of behaviour, which is very serious criminal behaviour."

Campaner continued: "If I had to define it all in one word, it would be: disloyalty. Because it is money from the members of FC Barcelona. That money cannot be abused or given away as if it was yours."

- 'False accounting' -

Campaner listed a number of alleged irregularities found in the report, including lawyers being paid seven million euros for the "supposed signing of a player", commissions paid to agents that were inflated from five to 33 per cent and a 15 million-euro payment made to a club to secure first refusal on young players, which Campaner said had "no basis in reality".

"The legal word for this is false accounting," Campaner concluded.

Bartomeu has defended his time as president, rejecting the figures presented by the current board while blaming losses on the crisis caused by the pandemic.

"Our management was serious and responsible," Bartomeu said in an interview with Barcelona newspaper Mundo Deportivo in October.

Laporta said on Tuesday he was still "open to dialogue" with Bartomeu. He said the club's wage bill had been reduced by 159 million euros under the current board.

Barcelona failed to secure an exit for Ousmane Dembele in the January transfer window, which closed on Monday night, with Dembele now able to leave for free when his contract expires in the summer.

Ferran Torres joined earlier in the month from Manchester City for 55 million euros while Laporta said Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang's signing on a free transfer from Arsenal should be completed this week.

Bartomeu appeared in court in March and was released pending corruption charges, after police carried out raids at five locations around Barcelona, including the offices at Camp Nou.

More than 200,000 Barcelona members had signed a petition to have Bartomeu removed as president but Bartomeu resigned in October 2020, before a vote of no confidence could take place.

ta/nr/ea

BITCOIN CAN'T SAVE YOU

22 Dead, Dozens Injured As Flooding Hits Ecuador Capital


By Santiago PIEDRA SILVA
02/01/22 

The heaviest flooding to hit Ecuador in two decades has killed at least 22 people in Quito, inundating homes, swamping cars and sweeping away athletes and spectators on a sports field, officials said Tuesday.

Twenty people are missing and 47 injured, Ecuador's SNGRE emergency service said on Twitter.

Video footage showed torrents of water carrying stones, mud and debris down streets in the Ecuadoran capital, as rescuers helped inhabitants wade through the fast-running currents to safety.

Many in the city of 2.7 million people were taken to shelters.

Dozens of soldiers were deployed to assist in search and rescue efforts of the police and fire brigades Photo: API via AFP

Rain that drenched Quito for 17 straight hours caused a deluge that damaged roads, agricultural areas, clinics, schools, a police station and an electric power substation.

Quito mayor Santiago Guarderas said a downpour had overwhelmed a hillside water catchment structure that had a capacity of 4,500 cubic meters but was inundated with more than four times that volume.

The resultant failure sent a kilometer-long (half-mile-long) deluge through a sports field where volleyball players were practicing with spectators on the sidelines.

"People who were playing couldn't get away. It grabbed them suddenly," witness Freddy Barrios Gonzalez told AFP.

"Those who managed to run were saved (but) a family got buried" under a river of mud, added Gonzalez, his own clothes still muddy from the ordeal.

At least 46 people have been injured in the flooding Photo: API via AFP

"There they died."

It was not immediately known how many of the players or spectators were among the total number of dead and injured.

Soldiers with rescue dogs were scouring the area around the field for survivors.

Quito police chief Cesar Zapata did not rule out finding more bodies under thousands of cubic meters (cubic feet) of mud and debris left behind by the flood.

The heaviest flooding to hit Ecuador in two decades started on the slopes of the Pichincha volcano which overlooks the capital Quito 

Photo: AFP / Rodrigo BUENDIA

Rescuer Cristian Rivera said many people in Quito had to be treated for hypothermia.

The municipality has mobilized heavy machinery to clear roads and fix the failed water catchment system.

Resident Mauro Pinas said he heard "an explosion" when the structure burst, after which "rivers of mud" descended on the city -- mainly in the northwest.

Power was lost in some parts after electrical poles were brought down.

Dozens of soldiers were deployed to assist in search and rescue efforts of the police and fire brigades.

The flooding began on the slopes of the Pichincha volcano, which overlooks the nation's capital.

Guarderas said Monday's rainfall brought down 75 liters (20 gallons) per square meter (square foot) following 3.5 liters on Saturday.

This is "a record figure, which we have not had since 2003," he added.

President Guillermo Lasso, who traveled to China on Monday, offered his condolences on Twitter to those affected.

"We continue to work in search and rescue, containment actions, psychological care and the transfer of injured people to hospital," he said.

Heavy rains have hit 22 of Ecuador's 24 provinces since October, leaving at least 18 dead and 24 injured as of Sunday, according to the National Risk Management Service.

Scientists say climate change is intensifying the risk of heavy rain around the world because a warmer atmosphere holds more water.

Mexico's energy reforms test relations with US


Relations between the United States and Mexico are under strain as the Mexican government pushes ahead with planned energy sector reforms that have alarmed Washington and foreign investors.© Omar TORRES Critics of Mexico's planned energy reforms say they favor polluting fossil fuels over renewable energy

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador wants to strengthen the state-owned electricity provider and roll back the effects of liberalization under previous governments that he says favored private companies.

That has prompted warnings that Mexico is in danger of violating its commitments under a North American trade deal with the United States and Canada by prioritizing state-run entities heavily dependent on fossil fuels.

In November, Lopez Obrador's ruling party pushed back its deadline for the approval of a constitutional reform bill until April, following a backlash from the United States, Canada and foreign investors.

The next few months "will be critical," a US diplomatic source in Mexico told reporters on condition of anonymity.

A row between the neighboring countries would have potential consequences for wider cooperation in key areas such as trade, migration and fighting drug cartels.

The reforms would ensure that the state-owned Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) has at least 54 percent of the electricity market -- compared with 38 percent now -- and the private sector no more than 46 percent.

The government says the move is to prevent soaring power prices -- a hot-button political issue given inflation has hit a 20-year high above seven percent.

The reforms also aim to move towards a state monopoly in the exploration and mining of lithium, a vital material in the production of electric car batteries.

In January several US Democratic party senators urged President Joe Biden's administration to "more forcefully express concerns about President Lopez Obrador's detrimental fossil fuel agenda."

The blunt call came in a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm from Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Bob Menendez and three other members of Congress.

"If enacted, the Mexican government would cancel renewable energy permits, contracts, and certificates," they warned.

The legislation would "threaten at least $44 billion in private investment in Mexico's energy sector, will negatively impact US private sector investment in Mexico, and is antithetical to the historically strong US-Mexico economic relationship," they said.

- Investments at stake -

"One of the most controversial points of the reform has been its proposal to cancel all the contracts that were signed with private companies for the generation and supply of electricity," said the Mexican branch of the international auditing and consultancy network Deloitte.

"This possibility is worrying different players in the market, because the private sector has invested a large amount of resources in the construction and start-up of modern facilities capable of producing cleaner and cheaper electricity," it added.

Following suggestions that the changes could even amount to a form of indirect expropriation, Mexico's Energy Minister Rocio Nahle said this week that "not a single screw will be expropriated."

The United States has found itself fighting on the same side as domestic opponents of the reforms, which must be approved by two-thirds of the members of Congress.

They include Senate ruling party heavyweight Ricardo Monreal, who wanted the bill to be amended, as well as the governors of northern states such as Baja California and Sonora bordering the United States.

Baja California wants to stay connected "to the fourth largest economy in the world, which is California," said the US diplomatic source.

Washington says it is also concerned that the reform will favor polluting coal-based energy, to the detriment of renewable energy.

Nahle has dismissed such suggestions as a "lie," saying that only three percent of Mexico's electricity comes from coal, compared with some 20 percent in the United States and more than 50 percent in China.

"Each country adapts to the resources it has, and on this point we are not going to criticize others," the minister said, in what was seen as a jab at Washington.

st/dr/sw

Greenland ice cap loses enough water in 20 years to cover US: study

Melting ice from Greenland is now the main factor in the rise in the Earth's oceans, 

according to NASA.

Greenland's immense ice sheet has lost enough ice in the past 20 years to submerge the entire United States in half a metre of water, according to data released this week by Danish researchers.

The climate is warming faster in the Arctic than anywhere else on the planet and melting ice from Greenland is now the main factor in the rise in the Earth's oceans, according to NASA.

Since measurements began in 2002, the Greenland ice sheet has lost about 4,700 billion tonnes of ice, said Polar Portal, a joint project involving several Danish Arctic research institutes.

This represents 4,700 cubic kilometres of melted water—"enough to cover the entire US by half a meter"—and has contributed 1.2 centimetres to sea level rise, the Arctic monitoring website added.

Polar Portal's findings are based on satellite imagery from the US-German GRACE programme (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment), which showed the ice melt to be most severe near the coasts of the Arctic territory, at the edge of the ice sheet.

In these peripheral zones, "independent observations also indicate that the ice is thinning, that the glacier fronts are retreating in fjords and on land, and that there is a greater degree of melting from the surface of the ice", the website said.

Greenland ice sheet retreat.

The west coast of Greenland is particularly affected, according to the data.

Climate change is particularly alarming in the Arctic, which scientists say is warming at a rate three to four times the global average.

According to a study published by NASA in late January, the accelerated melting near Greenland's coasts can be explained by the warming of the Arctic Ocean.

The phenomenon "is melting Greenland's glaciers at least as much as warm air is melting them from above".

Glacier fronts are retreating in fjords and on land.

Melting ice from Greenland is currently the main factor in the rise in the Earth's oceans and the territory's glaciers are now retreating six to seven times faster than they were 25 years ago, the US agency added.

According to climate scientists, the Greenland ice sheet contains enough water to raise the oceans by more than seven metres, and the ice sheet in Antarctica contains enough for a rise of almost 50 metres.

Arctic sea ice cover, although its melting has no effect on sea levels, has also shrunk considerably, losing almost 13 percent of its average surface area every 10 years.Heatwave causes massive melt of Greenland ice sheet

© 2022 AFP

Corals doomed even if global climate goals met: study

AFP - 

Coral reefs that anchor a quarter of marine wildlife and the livelihoods of more than half-a-billion people will most likely be wiped out even if global warming is capped within Paris climate goals, researchers said Tuesday.


© STAFFHow coral bleaching happens

An average increase of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels would see more than 99 percent of the world's coral reefs unable to recover from ever more frequent marine heat waves, they reported in the journal PLOS Climate.


© -An average increase of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels would see more than 99 percent of the world's coral reefs unable to recover from ever more frequent marine heat waves

At two degrees of warming, mortality will be 100 percent according to the study, which used a new generation of climate models with an unprecedented resolution of one square kilometre.

"The stark reality is that there is no safe limit of global warming for coral reefs," lead author Adele Dixon, a researcher at the University of Leeds' School of Biology, told AFP.

"1.5C is still too much warming for the ecosystems on the frontline of climate change."

The 2015 Paris Agreement enjoins nearly 200 nations to keep global heating "well below" 2C (36 degrees Fahrenheit).

But with more deadly storms, floods, heatwaves and droughts after only 1.1C of warming to date, the world has embraced the treaty's more ambitious aspirational goal of a 1.5C limit.

A landmark report in August by the UN's IPCC climate science panel said global temperatures could hit the 1.5C threshold as soon as 2030.

In 2018, the IPCC predicted that 70 to 90 percent of corals would be lost at the 1.5C threshold, and 99 percent if temperatures rose another half-a-degree.

The new findings suggest those grim forecasts were in fact unduly optimistic.

- Marine heatwaves -

"Our work shows that corals worldwide will be even more at risk from climate change than we thought," Dixon said.

The problem is marine heatwaves and the time it takes for living coral to recover from them, a healing period known as "thermal refugia".

Coral communities usually need at least 10 years to bounce back, and that's assuming "all other factors" -- no pollution or dynamite fishing, for example -- "are optimal", said co-author Maria Berger, also at Leeds.

But increased warming is reducing the length of thermal refugia beyond the ability of corals to adapt.

"We project that more than 99 percent of coral reefs will be exposed at 1.5C to intolerable thermal stress, and 100 percent of coral reefs at 2C," Berger told AFP.

Australia's Great Barrier Reef, the largest coral system in the world, has seen five mass bleaching events in the last 25 years.

An unpublished study obtained by AFP, written by experts at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Coral Reef Watch unit, says the Great Barrier Reef was in the grips of a record-breaking heat spell yet again in November and December.

Oceans absorb about 93 percent of the excess heat from greenhouse gas emissions, shielding land surfaces but generating huge, long-lasting marine heatwaves that are already pushing many species of corals past their limits of tolerance.

A single so-called bleaching event in 1998 caused by warming waters wiped out eight percent of all corals.

Coral reefs cover only a tiny fraction -- 0.2 percent -- of the ocean floor, but they are home to at least a quarter of all marine animals and plants.

Besides supporting marine ecosystems, they also provide protein, jobs and protection from storms and shoreline erosion for hundreds of millions of people worldwide.

The value of goods and services from coral reefs is about $2.7 trillion per year, including $36 billion in tourism, the report said.

Global warming, with the help of pollution, wiped out 14 percent of the world's coral reefs from 2009 to 2018, leaving graveyards of bleached skeletons where vibrant ecosystems once thrived, recent research has shown.

Loss of coral during that period varied by region, ranging from five percent in East Asia to 95 percent in the eastern tropical Pacific.

mh/klm/imm

Pharma giants to pay $590 mn to US Native Americans over opioids


Pharmaceutical companies and distributors have agreed to pay $590 million to settle litigation related to opioid addiction in the Native American population

 (AFP/Eric BARADAT) 

John Biers, with Chris Stein in Washington
Tue, February 1, 2022, 

A group of pharmaceutical companies and distributors agreed to pay $590 million to settle lawsuits connected to opioid addiction among Native American tribe members, according to a US court filing released Tuesday.

The agreement is the latest amid a deluge of litigation spawned by the US opioid crisis, which has claimed more than 500,000 lives over the last 20 years and ensnared some of the largest firms in the world of American medicine.

Pharmaceutical companies McKesson, AmerisourceBergen and Cardinal Health had already struck a separate deal with the Cherokee tribe last September for $75 million.

According to documents filed in an Ohio federal court Tuesday by a committee of plaintiffs, the companies agreed to pay another $440 million over seven years to other Native American tribes.

The pharmaceutical group Johnson & Johnson, for its part, agreed to pay $150 million over two years to all the tribes, of which $18 million are destined for the Cherokee.

Native Americans have "suffered some of the worst consequences of the opioid epidemic of any population in the United States," including the highest per-capita rate of opioid overdoses compared to other racial groups, according to the filing from the Plaintiffs' Tribal Leadership Committee.

"The burden of paying these increased costs has diverted scarce funds from other needs and has imposed severe financial burdens on the tribal plaintiffs."

Johnson & Johnson, McKesson and the other two companies in the accord -- AmerisourceBergen and Cardinal Health -- previously agreed to a $26 billion global settlement on opioid cases.

J&J said Tuesday the $150 million it agreed to pay in the Native American case has been deducted from what it owes in the global settlement.

"This settlement is not an admission of any liability or wrongdoing and the company will continue to defend against any litigation that the final agreement does not resolve," the company said.

It was unclear if the other companies would take their portion under the latest agreement from the global settlement.

- 'Measure of justice' -

Robins Kaplan, a law firm negotiating on the behalf of the plaintiffs, said the agreement still must be approved by the Native American tribes.

"This initial settlement for tribes in the national opioid litigation is a crucial first step in delivering some measure of justice to the tribes and reservation communities across the United States that have been ground zero for the opioid epidemic," Tara Sutton, an attorney at the firm, said in a statement.

Douglas Yankton, chairman of the North Dakota-based Spirit Lake Nation, said the money from the settlement would "help fund crucial, on-reservation, culturally appropriate opioid treatment services."

Steven Skikos, an attorney representing the tribes, told AFP the group is pursuing claims against other drugmakers.

"This is hopefully the first two of many other settlements," he said.

Every tribe recognized by the US government, 574 in all, will be able to participate in the agreement, even if they have not filed lawsuits.

Many of the lawsuits regarding the opioid crisis have centered on Purdue Pharma, the manufacturer of OxyContin, a highly addictive prescription painkiller blamed for causing a spike in addiction.

A judge in December overturned the company's bankruptcy plan because it provided some immunity for the owners of the company in exchange for a $4.5 billion payout to victims of the opioid crisis.

The litigation wave has also swamped pharmacies owned by Walmart, Walgreens and CVS, which a jury found in November bear responsibility for the opioid crisis in two counties in Ohio.

jum-jmb/jh/caw