THE 'NO SHARPIE' GUY
Ex-National Hurricane Center chief to lead National Weather Service
By Marianne Mizera, Accuweather.com

A veteran meteorologist who helped lead Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts and oversaw the National Hurricane Center during an onslaught of record-breaking storm activity in 2020 will take the helm of the National Weather Service.

Ken Graham, the four-year director of the National Hurricane Center, will begin his tenure as NWS director effective immediately, the agency announced Tuesday.

"Ken has the scientific integrity, trusted leadership and communication prowess," Rick Spinrad, head of the NWS's parent agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said in announcing Graham's appointment during a press conference in Washington.

"I have full confidence that [Graham] will help create a more weather-and-climate-ready nation amid more extreme weather fueled by our changing climate."

Graham, a 27-year weather veteran, succeeds winter storm expert Louis Uccellini, who retired Jan. 1 after leading the NWS for eight years.

The NWS noted that Graham brings "a vast amount of operational field experience" to the administrative role.

Ken Graham was named the 17th director of the National Weather Service on Tuesday.

Graham, a native of Phoenix, worked his way up through the ranks at NWS, starting as an intern meteorologist in 1994 at the New Orleans/Baton Rouge weather forecast office, where he eventually became the meteorologist in charge, a role he assumed for 10 years.

Later, as the systems operational chief at the NWS office in Fort Worth, Texas, he led recovery efforts in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Graham also has headed NWS offices in Silver Spring, Md., Birmingham, Ala., and Corpus Christi, Texas. He also was a television meteorologist in Mississippi.

His last two years, in particular, as national hurricane director have been daunting, with powerful storms.

"I hate to say the word routine, but they became so frequent that we just sprung back into action," Graham said in a May interview. "Almost 28 years in the weather service, I've seen a lot of damage. A lot of people lose everything, a lot of loss of life."

Weather, climate and water disasters cause about 650 deaths a year and about $15 billion in damage annually, according to NOAA.

Graham told AccuWeather on Tuesday that some of his main priorities will include making weather information more accessible to vulnerable populations and addressing climate change in an urgent, honest manner.

"It's me giving a briefing, not of 20 slides and science. It's about the trust. I can spend 3 minutes talking about 'This is going to be rough. Here's what the impacts are going to be. Here's the timing, here's when it's going to be here, here's when everyone's going to be out,'" he said.

The weather service has about 4,900 employees and 144 offices.

Graham is a "fantastic choice" to lead the agency, Neil Jacobs, who served as NOAA's acting administrator under former President Donald Trump, told The Washington Post. "From working as a forecaster in the field to advancing [the Hurricane Center's] mission over multiple challenging seasons, Ken has the perfect balance of leadership skills, operational experience, and support of the Emergency Management community."

In a statement Tuesday, Graham said he was "humbled" and "honored" for the opportunity.

During Graham's tenure as hurricane center chief, there have been more named Atlantic storms, 101, than in any other four-year period since 1851, according to Colorado State University records.

Graham also navigated the hurricane center during the political storm that became known as SharpieGate during Trump's time in office. The episode involved a controversial map that the former president used to show Alabama incorrectly in the path of Hurricane Dorian in 2019.

At an infamous Oval Office briefing, Trump held up the map -- an official NOAA hurricane trajectory chart -- that had been altered with a black Sharpie marker, apparently to support his false claim that the hurricane would extend to Alabama.

NOAA, facing political pressure from White House, released an unsigned statement backing the president and contradicting the forecast by the Weather Service office in Birmingham that the storm posed no danger. The backlash reached the National Hurricane Center, which received numerous angry emails from the public. In response, Graham pleaded with NWS leaders to craft a response signaling that federal officials' scientific warnings would not be compromised.

Jamie Rhome, deputy director of the National Hurricane Center, has been named acting director of the NHC until a permanent administrator is appointed, according to NWS officials.

"Don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows."

 

Bob Dylan - Subterranean Homesick Blues (Official HD Video)

Paradise by the Patchogue Ferry: A Hundred Years on Fire Island

Jack Parlett’s “Fire Island” is a sweeping, meditative history of the queer summer mecca.

W.H. Auden and James Stern on the beach at Fire Island in the summer of 1946.

Credit...Bridgeman Images


By Wayne Koestenbaum

NEW YORK TIMES
June 7, 2022

FIRE ISLAND: A Century in the Life of an American Paradise, by Jack Parlett

The few times that I — bespectacled and pale — visited Fire Island, I felt out of place. The poet Jack Parlett, who describes himself as an “‘otter,’ or maybe a ‘bear’ in training,” and who has mixed feelings, too, about paradise, hugs his ambivalence and makes good literature out of it. His concise, meticulously researched, century-spanning chronicle of queer life on Fire Island captures, with a plain-spoken yet lyric touch, the locale’s power to stun and shame, to give pleasure and symbolize evanescence.

Fire Island, a 9.6-mile barrier island off Long Island’s south shore, less than two hours from Manhattan, can claim centuries of indigenous habitation and “around seventeen different vacation communities,” including Cherry Grove and the Pines, where the queer plot thickens. “Wallflower sensibility” authorizes Parlett to be a skeptical yet definitive narrator of Fire Island’s carnival, a diorama he embellishes with autobiographical asides: “Ever since I came to know myself as a gay man, I made the unconscious assumption that my own heavy drinking habits were linked to my sexuality.” Quick personal vistas turn his book into a hybrid act, a place-based memoir sketching the evolution of a community animated by sexual arrangements.

Parlett is no more sanguine than I am about the possibilities of community, much as we long for it, yet the book’s most practical aperçu arrives when he recounts a therapist’s advice: “When you walk past another gay person on the street, give them a smile.” Parlett explains: “The queer community has been historically adept at sustaining itself on such passing looks.” To honor cruising’s perpetual afterlife, smile today at a stranger. Extend your gaze for an extra three seconds. See what next transpires.

Parlett entertains us with a grocery list of walk-ons, cameo players in a sword-and-sandal psycho-epic. Walt Whitman saw a “wild sea-storm” on Fire Island. Claude Lévi-Strauss called it a place of “gay farcicality.” James Baldwin (who once wrote, “I do not like bohemia, or bohemians, I do not like people whose principal aim is pleasure”) worked on a draft of “Another Country” on Fire Island, where Janet Flanner, Patricia Highsmith and Carson McCullers held louche court. Andy Warhol filmed “My Hustler” on the beach, where Derek Jarman later made a moody, prismatic Super 8 film. Liza Minnelli paid a “papal visit” to Fire Island in 2012. I wish I’d ferried there to receive unction.

James Dean stayed there as a “professional house guest.” After his untimely death, the poet Frank O’Hara wrote the star’s name as a funeral gesture in Fire Island sand. O’Hara himself died there (at age 40) after being hit by a dune buggy. His death burnished the island’s status as a haunted necropolis: “The fact that he died on the beach at Fire Island continues to bear, in all its randomness, some kind of mythical weight. That night provides a point at which O’Hara’s own legacy, as a beloved gay poet, meets with the history of a place that would become synonymous with a new kind of sexual citizenship.” AIDS devastated the island; elegiacally, Parlett has put poets (from Whitman and O’Hara to Melvin Dixon, Reginald Shepherd and Assotto Saint) at the center of Fire Island’s paradoxical story, a knotted skein of plague and paradise.

Parlett is sharp-minded about gentrification, class, racism and the “structural privilege” built into Fire Island’s style, a hegemonic strand. The vanguard 1970s journal Fag Rag forbade Fire Island to be mentioned “in poems submitted to the publication,” yet Parlett reminds us not to stereotype Fire Island, which contains diverse milieus: “It’s worth noting that when people use ‘Fire Island’ as a shorthand for bad gays, they’re usually talking about the Pines, rather than the more mixed and relaxed Cherry Grove.” He pays filial attention to archives and to the table talk of queer elders; intergenerational wisdom lends his tale its crepuscular bite. Belatedness and regret tinge any P.O.V. shot onto this oasis: “Fire Island still makes me think of Balbec,” he acknowledges, referring to Proust’s own brand of seaside Elysium. Toward such lost destinations, we look with moon-drunk longing: “I felt the pull of paradise thinking.”

At its best, this book enacts a glancing yet trenchant meditation on community, “ecological precarity” and the fugitive links between place and sexuality. The island evolves, its tired fixities metamorphosing into bold new stances: Recently, radical art projects (sponsored by the arts organization BOFFO) have brought such writers, artists and performers as Sam Ashby, Leilah Babirye, Kia LaBeija and Jeremy O. Harris to this sandbar, a place described eloquently by Andrew Holleran as “slim as a parenthesis.” Expand the slim addendum — perhaps that’s the book’s moral. Extend the parenthesis of paradise to accommodate more of your messy heart. Parlett’s prose is never messy; its well-timed pulsations bring beach light onto the page.

Wayne Koestenbaum’s most recent book is “Ultramarine,” the third volume of his trance poem trilogy.

FIRE ISLAND: A Century in the Life of an American Paradise, by Jack Parlett | Illustrated | 269 pp. | Hanover Square Press | $27.99

Ms Marvel review – a glorious debut for the MCU’s first Muslim superhero

*****

Superpowered … Iman Vellani as Kamala Khan, AKA Ms Marvel. 

Photograph: AP

Instant stardom awaits the new girl in the Marvel universe. She’s funny, charming and effortlessly bats off preconceptions in this joyful coming-of-age tale. Let the geek girls inherit the Earth!


Lucy Mangan
THE GUARDIAN

Wed 8 Jun 2022 

A superhero – and a star – is born in Ms Marvel (Disney+) , the latest small-screen foray into the MCU. The superhero is Pakistani-American teenager Kamala Khan, Marvel’s first Muslim headliner, whose solo comic book series made its debut in 2014. The miniseries tells her origin story, deviating somewhat from the source material and somehow humanising it further.

The star is Iman Vellani, in – incredibly, given her charisma, comic timing and dramatic chops in every scene – her first acting role. Her second will be in the next Marvel film outing, The Marvels (I hope you’re clear about us being in a Marvel universe for the duration of this piece), a sequel to Captain Marvel and focusing on the adventures of Carole Danvers/Captain Marvel and our Ms. Normally, you would fear for a young actor, but Vellani seems so born to the purple that you almost have to shrug and say, as an elder might to a nascent superhero in – oh, I don’t know, the MCU perhaps – that it is her destiny.

The series itself? Only two episodes have been released for review, but they are glorious. The plot so far is slight. At the moment it is as much a real-life coming of age as a superhero origin story. Sixteen-year-old Kamala is an artist, vlogger and diehard devotee of the Avengers generally, and Captain Marvel specifically. We meet her enthusiastically narrating her latest animated story about them.

Most of the first episode features her trying to persuade her parents to let her go to the Avengers comic convention a bus ride away, refine her Ms Marvel costume and placate the school principal when she is hauled into his office for her constant “doodling” and daydreaming. Although it will probably get swallowed up in the deeper joy and wider significance of seeing a Muslim character come to life, I just want to note how absolutely wonderful it is to see an accurate, loving and untrammelled depiction of passionate female fandom, so often derided or ignored while boy geeks get to inherit the world.

Eventually, and with the help of her best friend, Bruno, (Matt Lintz) – who is also, handily, a tech genius – Cinderella gets to the cosplay ball. When she adds an old family bangle to her costume at the last minute, she becomes invested with the ability to shoot energy beams that take on sort-of-solid form and allow her to step on to platforms she can make ahead of herself in the air, as an alternative to flight or superspeed.

The bangle allows her powers to be tied to Kamala’s Pakistani heritage and the trauma of Partition in particular. It belonged to her great-grandmother, one of the many who went missing during that time and who appears to be backchannelling towards Kamala through her powers.

There’s a nice twist by the end of the second episode that promises a satisfying development of this element, but it is the domestic scenes and familial relationships that are the greatest strength of the opening instalments. Kamala’s culture and religion are depicted unapologetically and unfussily, in big ways (we see her and her friend Nakia, played by Yasmeen Fletcher, at prayer in the mosque – and complaining about the state of the women’s side compared with the men’s) and small (Kamala was scared of the Djinn in the dark when young, not ghosts).

Some might see Kamala’s efforts to escape her family’s strictures as another unwanted/unwarranted portrayal of Islam’s repressive attitudes towards women, but I suspect that to most it will come across as Bisha K Ali, the series’ creator and head writer, surely intended – a simple acknowledgment that parents of all creeds and colours gonna parent and provide grist to any teen angst mill.

The Khans are an ordinary family – although mother Muneeba (Zenobia Shroff) has a gift for deadpan sarcasm many might long to have in their own parental arsenal – that exist in the bickering, teasing, loving, forgiving round, not as a bolt-on in the service of some mad notion of 2022 “wokeness”, whatever some are doubtless already limbering up to claim.

The whole thing is full of charm (love the graffiti that animates as Kamala and her ever-active imagination walk past), wit, warmth, brio and truth. It’s just – yes, I’m afraid I’m going to – it’s just Marvel-ous.

Ms Marvel, review: Marvel's first Muslim superhero breaks barriers, if not the mould

Marianka Swain 

TELEGRAPH
Wed 8 Jun 2022

“It’s not really the brown girls from Jersey City who save the world.” So laments Kamala Khan, the Pakistani-American teenage lead of Marvel’s latest Disney+ series – until, of course, she too becomes a superhero. It’s one of many achingly self-referential lines in this likeable but overly meta paean to diverse fandom.

© Disney+ Iman Vellani as Kamala Khan/Ms Marvel - Disney+

Khan, aka Ms Marvel, was the first Muslim character to headline a Marvel comic book, though she’s made in a familiar mould. She’s an overlooked outsider who grapples with adolescent problems alongside battling evil – and figuring out who she really is. Think John Hughes with superpowers.

Where those comics, and this TV adaptation by British comedian Bisha K Ali, differ is that they are steeped in the Muslim immigrant experience. High school student Khan debates Bollywood movies, attends mosque and Eid celebrations (where she labels the different cliques, Mean Girls-style), and struggles to reconcile her parents’ expectations with her passion for caped crusaders.

Yet those latter two handily combine: when she adds her grandmother’s traditional bangles to her Captain Marvel costume, Khan is suddenly able to manipulate cosmic energy. It’s all connected to a trauma from her family’s past, during the Partition of India – a clever way of anchoring the MacGuffin to their specific, and affecting, heritage.

That’s a significant change from the source material, in which Khan could shape-shift and “embiggen” her body. Instead, she shoots out blueish-purple light that hardens into solid blocks, allowing her to create mini-platforms in mid-air to jump upon. Occasionally different body parts light up: she has to make a fast exit from class when her nose starts to glow.

The SFX is decent in these opening two episodes, and this version of her abilities offers promising versatility action-wise, plus it connects Khan to her similarly energy-harnessing idol. In fact, Captain Marvel (played on the big screen by Brie Larson) began life as Ms Marvel, and the pair will join forces in the 2023 blockbuster sequel The Marvels.

© Provided by The Telegraph (L-R): Mohan Kapur as Yusuf, Vellani as Kamala, Saagar Shaikh as Aamir, and Nimra Bucha as Najma - Disney+

I apologise – it’s impossible to avoid using the “M” word. And that’s the downside here. Since Khan is a superfan of the super-crew (just like Kate Bishop in Hawkeye), the entertainment juggernaut can use this as a six-episode commercial for other Marvel properties, while enticing a new generation of ticket-buyers via its young-audience-skewing hi-jinks.

Khan longs to attend AvengerCon, a fictional fan convention which, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige recently suggested, might actually become a reality. Spider-Man star Tom Holland even popped over to the AvengerCon set to worship at the altar of Marvel. Surely that’s the ultimate ouroboros? It also muddles the identity of a show which is, ironically, about believing in yourself.

Thankfully, luminous newcomer Vellani transcends this brand synergy. She makes Khan a warm, funny, awkward, brilliantly relatable heroine who faces bullies, slurps slushies and frets about college applications – and the future generally. It’s an endearing coming-of-age portrait, where change is both scary and thrilling.

This dreamer is inspired by legendary heroes and expresses herself through art, and the show follows suit with delightfully jaunty visual flourishes. Like Netflix’s Heartstopper, the live action is peppered with colourful animation – so sketches pop up on the sides of buildings, Khan’s crush, Kamran, is surrounded by little flames, and text messages appear in the stars on her bedroom ceiling. Imagination fuels her new powers too: she describes them as feeling like “an idea come to life.”

An eclectic soundtrack reflects this cultural fusion, bouncing from The Weeknd’s Blinding Light to Pakistani pop song Ko Ko Korina. However, there’s also some blunt commentary, particularly from Khan’s friend, Nakia, who monologues on her hijab-wearing and, fed up with their school syllabus, complains that history is “written by the oppressors.” It’s also frustrating that Islam is, on the whole, portrayed as repressive and in conflict with contemporary Western values – an oft-told and narrow story.

Still, after Ewan McGregor was forced to defend his Obi-Wan Kenobi castmate Moses Ingram from racist attacks last week – sadly an ongoing problem in Star Wars and many other fandoms – it’s heartening to see Marvel put its might behind this much-needed representation. Even if it’s a cynical move to keep expanding the MCU fandom, at least this charming series welcomes everyone in.

Ms Marvel is on Disney+ now

SEE LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for MS MARVEL 

OUT OF AFRICA
Monkeypox outbreak tops 1,000 cases, WHO warns of 'real' risk

AFP
Wed, June 8, 2022


The risk of monkeypox becoming established in non-endemic nations is real, the WHO warned Wednesday, with more than a thousand cases now confirmed in such countries.

World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the UN health agency was not recommending mass vaccination against the virus, and added that no deaths had been reported so far from the outbreaks.

"The risk of monkeypox becoming established in non-endemic countries is real," Tedros told a press conference.

The zoonotic disease is endemic in humans in nine African countries but outbreaks have been reported in the past month in several other states -- mostly in Europe, and notably in Britain, Spain and Portugal.

"More than 1,000 confirmed cases of monkeypox have now been reported to WHO from 29 countries that are not endemic for the disease," Tedros said.

"So far, no deaths have been reported in these countries. Cases have been reported mainly, but not only, among men who have sex with men.

"Some countries are now beginning to report cases of apparent community transmission, including some cases in women."

The initial symptoms include a high fever, swollen lymph nodes and a blistery chickenpox-like rash.

Tedros said he was particularly concerned about the risk the virus poses to vulnerable groups, including pregnant women and children.

He said the sudden and unexpected appearance of monkeypox outside endemic countries suggested that there might have been undetected transmission for some time, but it was not known for how long.

One case of monkeypox in a non-endemic country is considered an outbreak.

Tedros said that while this was "clearly concerning", the virus had been circulating and killing in Africa for decades, with more than 1,400 suspected cases and 66 deaths so far this year.

"The communities that live with the threat of this virus every day deserve the same concern, the same care and the same access to tools to protect themselves," he said.
- Vaccines -

In the few places where vaccines are available, they are being used to protect those who may be exposed, such as healthcare workers.

He added that post-exposure vaccination, ideally within four days, could be considered for higher-risk close contacts, such as sexual partners or household members.

Tedros said the WHO would issue guidance in the coming days on clinical care, infection prevention and control, vaccination and community protection.

He said people with symptoms should isolate at home and consult a health worker, while people in the same household should avoid close contact.

Few hospitalisations have been reported, apart from patients being isolated, the WHO said at the weekend.

Sylvie Briand, the WHO's epidemic and pandemic preparedness and prevention director, said the smallpox vaccine could be used against monkeypox, a fellow orthopoxvirus, with a high degree of efficacy.

The WHO is trying to determine how many doses are currently available and to find out from manufacturers what their production and distribution capacities are.

rjm/nl/kjm

Scientists use food puzzles to show how otters learn from each other

Experts hope study can help with reintroducing captive otters into wild to aid conservation efforts

Asian short-clawed otter and pups. Photograph: ZSL/PA

Helena Horton 

Environment reporter

THE GUARDIAN

Wed 8 Jun 2022 

Otters are able to learn from each other – but still prefer to solve some puzzles on their own, scientists have found.

The semi-aquatic mammals are known to be very social and intelligent creatures, but a study by the University of Exeter has given new insight into their intellect.

Researchers gave otters “puzzle boxes”, some of which contained familiar food, while others held unfamiliar natural prey – shore crab and blue mussels, which are protected by hard outer shells.

For the familiar food – meatballs, a favourite with the Asian short-clawed otters in the study – the scientists had five different types of boxes, and the method to extract the food changed in each version, for example pulling a tab or opening a flap.

The unfamiliar food presented additional problems because the otters did not know if the crab and mussels were safe to eat and had no experience of getting them out of their shells.

In order to decide whether food was safe and desirable to eat, the otters, which live at Newquay zoo and the Tamar Otter and Wildlife Centre, watched intently as their companions inspected what was in the boxes and copied if the other otters sampled the treats.

However, they spent more time trying to figure out how to remove the meat from the shells on their own and relied less on the actions of their companions. Of the 20 otters in the study, 11 managed to extract the meat from all three types of natural prey.

“Much of the research into the extractive foraging and learning capabilities of otters has focused on artificial food puzzles,” said the lead author, Alex Saliveros, of the Centre for Ecology and Conservation on Exeter’s Penryn campus in Cornwall.

“Here, we were interested in investigating such skills in the context of unfamiliar natural prey, as well as in relation to artificial food puzzles.”

Before the test, the team studied the otters’ social groups, meaning they knew how well they knew each other. They then measured social learning by seeing whether close associates learned quickly from one another.

Other animals employ social learning to decide what is safe to eat; rats, for example, prefer novel food types that they have smelled on the breath of other rats.

Scientists hope that understanding how otters cope with unfamiliar foraged food in their natural environment can help them train the animals to survive in the wild, if captive-bred otters are to be released to help with conservation programmes.

“The captive otters in this study initially struggled with natural prey, but they showed they can learn how to extract the food,” said Saliveros. “Our findings suggest that if you give one otter pre-release training, it can pass some of that information on to others.”

US to ban single-use plastics on public lands by 2032

Wed, June 8, 2022


The United States will phase out single-use plastics in national parks and other public lands over the next decade, President Joe Biden's administration announced Wednesday as part of actions on World Oceans Day.

This will include the sale and distribution of plastic bags and bottles as well as food wrappers, beverage cups and other tableware, according to an order by the interior secretary Deb Haaland.

Government departments have one year to develop plans to switch over to alternatives, such as biodegradable and compostable materials, and then have until 2032 to complete the transition.

"As the steward of the nation's public lands, including national parks and national wildlife refuges, and as the agency responsible for the conservation and management of fish, wildlife, plants and their habitats, we are uniquely positioned to do better for our Earth," Haaland said in a statement.

Plastic waste is devastating for fish and other wildlife, with oceans bearing the brunt of the impact since they are downstream of all pollution sources.

Of the more than 300 million tons of plastic produced every year, at least 14 million tons end up in the ocean, the interior department said.

While the plastics industry has attempted to portray the problem as something that can be overcome through recycling, only nine percent of all the plastic the world has ever made has been recycled, and recycling rates are stagnant.

Christy Leavitt, plastics campaign director for non-profit Oceana, welcomed the administration's announcement.

"The Biden administration is taking a big step to protecting our oceans from single use plastic," Leavitt told AFP.

Oceana and 300 other nonprofits, organizations, and businesses had sought the action in a letter to the Biden administration last year.

The order will cover the nation's 423 national parks but also wildlife refuges and other lands and waters managed by the interior department: in total 20 percent of the United States' land, which hosts some 400 million visitors annually.

"Ten years is a long time, but we are hopeful that they will take steps along the way to reach that end goal," said Leavitt.

A number of larger national parks have already moved toward eating areas with reusable tableware and refillable water stations, she added.

"We are hopeful that ultimately not just our national parks and other public lands but cities and counties and states around the country can move towards those reusable and refillable systems."

The White House also announced a new national marine sanctuary to preserve the Hudson Canyon, an ecological hotspot located approximately 100 miles off the coast of New York and reaches depths of 2.5 miles, as well as the start of efforts to create an Ocean Climate Action Plan.

ia/wd

Scientists Stress Water Imbalance in The 'Third Pole'

A view of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, 2022.

 | Photo: Twitter/ @China_Up_Close

Published 8 June 2022 
by teleSUR/MS

With the largest global store of frozen water after the Antarctic and Arctic, the Third Pole region, located in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, is home to headwaters of over ten major Asian rivers.

Rapid climate warming has caused water imbalances in the Third Pole region, leading to greater water demand in densely populated downstream countries, according to a new study.

RELATED:

Floods Force Evacuation of Thousands of Cubans in Matanzas

With the largest global store of frozen water after the Antarctic and Arctic, the Third Pole region, located in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, is home to headwaters of over ten major Asian rivers. It has been known as the "Asian Water Tower" for providing a reliable water supply to almost 2 billion people.

But an article published this week in the journal Nature Reviews Earth & Environment says that the region has gotten out of balance between solid water in glaciers and liquid water in lakes and rivers under the global climate change impact.

The rise in temperatures with changes in the westerlies and the Indian monsoon led to glacier retreat and more precipitation in the region's northern part and less in the southern. The spatial imbalance will alleviate water scarcity in the Yellow and Yangtze River basins while increasing scarcity in the further-south Indus basins.

"Such imbalance will likely pose a great challenge to the supply-demand balancing of water resources in downstream regions," said Yao Tandong, lead author of the study and an academician at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.



The highest water demand is projected to be in the Indus basin, said Walter Immerzeel, co-author of the study and a researcher at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. He stressed that this demand would affect irrigation, accounting for more than 90 percent of water use across the area.

"Since this north-south disparity is expected to be amplified by climate warming in the future, adaptation policies for sustainable water resource management are greatly needed in downstream countries," said co-author Piao Shilong, also a researcher at Peking University.

The scientists in the study said they still need more information to help the public respond to the changes, such as comprehensive monitoring stations in data-scarce areas. They also call for collaboration between upstream and downstream countries.

Simone Biles, other former gymnasts seek $1 billion from FBI for mishandling Larry Nassar sex abuse case

The Associated Press
Wed, June 8, 2022

DETROIT (AP) — Former Olympic gymnasts, including gold medalist Simone Biles, are among dozens of assault victims who are seeking more than $1 billion from the FBI for failing to stop sports doctor Larry Nassar, lawyers said Wednesday.

There’s no dispute that FBI agents in 2015 knew that Nassar was accused of molesting gymnasts, but they failed to act, leaving him free to continue to target young women and girls for more than a year.

“It is time for the FBI to be held accountable,” said Maggie Nichols, a national champion gymnast at Oklahoma in 2017-19.

Hear from victims: Victims share what Larry Nassar did to them under the guise of medical treatment

Under federal law, a government agency has six months to respond to the tort claim. Lawsuits could follow, depending on the FBI’s response. The Justice Department said in May that it would not pursue criminal charges against former FBI agents who failed to quickly open an investigation.

The approximately 90 claimants include Biles, Aly Raisman and McKayla Maroney, all Olympic gold medalists, according to Manly, Stewart & Finaldi, a California law firm.

More: Former special agents will not face charges in FBI's botched investigation of Larry Nassar

More: Women abused by Larry Nassar file negligence claims against FBI over botched investigation

“If the FBI had simply done its job, Nassar would have been stopped before he ever had the chance to abuse hundreds of girls, including me,” said former University of Michigan gymnast Samantha Roy.

Indianapolis-based USA Gymnastics told local FBI agents in 2015 that three gymnasts said they were assaulted by Nassar, a team doctor. But the FBI did not open a formal investigation or inform federal or state authorities in Michigan, according to the Justice Department’s inspector general, an internal watchdog.

Los Angeles FBI agents in 2016 began a sexual tourism investigation against Nassar and interviewed several victims but also didn’t alert Michigan authorities, the inspector general said.

Nassar wasn’t arrested until fall 2016 during an investigation by Michigan State University police. He was a doctor at Michigan State.

The Michigan attorney general’s office ultimately handled the assault charges against Nassar, while federal prosecutors in Grand Rapids, Michigan, filed a child pornography case. He is serving decades in prison.

The FBI declined to comment in April when a smaller batch of claims was filed, referring instead to Director Christopher Wray’s remarks to Congress in 2021.

More: Indianapolis FBI leader eyed head USA Gymnastics job after sitting on Nassar allegations

“I’m especially sorry that there were people at the FBI who had their own chance to stop this monster back in 2015 and failed. And that’s inexcusable,” Wray told victims at a Senate hearing.

Michigan State University, which was also accused of missing chances over many years to stop Nassar, agreed to pay $500 million to more than 300 women and girls who were assaulted. USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee made a $380 million settlement.

Campaigners launch court bid to prevent UK-Rwanda asylum flights

Wed, June 8, 2022



Campaigners on Wednesday launched a court bid to block UK government's plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda as it attempts to stop migrant boat crossings from France.

The government in London said last month that it intends to fly a first planeload of asylum-seekers to Rwanda on June 14.

But the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), Care4Calais and Detention Action have now issued judicial review proceedings in the High Court against what they call an "unlawful policy".

James Wilson, deputy director of Detention Action, said interior minister Priti Patel had "overstepped her authority".

"By rushing through what we say is an unlawful policy, she is turning a blind eye to the many clear dangers and human rights violations that it would inflict on people seeking asylum," he said.

"It's vital that new government policies respect and uphold the laws that we all, as a society, have agreed to follow. That's why we're seeking an injunction to keep this plane to Rwanda from leaving the runway," he added.

The one-way flights are intended to deter others from entering Britain, especially via dangerous crossings of the Channel.

More than 10,000 migrants have made the journey so far this year.

Confirming the target date for the first time, Patel acknowledged the new policy was set to face challenges in the courts.

In a statement, she said: "I will not be deterred and remain fully committed to delivering what the British public expect."

The Home Office has sent out the first notices to asylum claimants who are earmarked for removal to Rwanda, under a partnership worth £120 million ($151 million) to Kigali.

Clare Moseley, founder of Care4Calais, said most of those being detained pending their removal are "overwhelmed by total shock and despair".

"Many came to the UK believing it to be a good place that would treat them more fairly than the places from which they escaped," she said.

"We say that the Rwanda plan is unlawful. We hope the courts will agree with us."

jwp/phz/cdw

Belgian king reiterates regrets for colonial past in Congo but no apology

By Benoit Nyemba

© Reuters/JUSTIN MAKANGARA

Belgian king returns mask to Congo in symbolic gesture of restitution

KINSHASA (Reuters) -Belgium's King Philippe reaffirmed his deepest regrets on Wednesday for the exploitation, racism and acts of violence during his country's colonisation of the Democratic Republic of Congo, but again stopped short of formally apologising.

Philippe became the first Belgian official two years ago to express regret for colonisation, and some Congolese hoped he would issue a formal apology during his first visit to Congo since taking the throne in 2013.


© Reuters/JUSTIN MAKANGARA

"Even though many Belgians invested themselves sincerely, loving Congo and its people deeply, the colonial regime itself was based on exploitation and domination," he told a joint session of parliament in the capital Kinshasa.


© Reuters/JUSTIN MAKANGARABelgium's royal couple visits Kinshasa

"This regime was one of unequal relations, unjustifiable in itself, marked by paternalism, discrimination and racism," he said.

"It led to violent acts and humiliations. On the occasion of my first trip to Congo, right here, in front of the Congolese people and those who still suffer today, I wish to reaffirm my deepest regrets for those wounds of the past."


© Reuters/JUSTIN MAKANGARA

Belgium's royal couple visits Kinshasa

Congo President Felix Tshisekedi and many politicians have enthusiastically welcomed Philippe's visit. Large numbers of ruling party supporters waved Belgian flags, and a banner hanging from parliament read: "A common history."


© Reuters/JUSTIN MAKANGARA

Belgian king returns mask to Congo in symbolic gesture of restitution

But others were disappointed by the absence of an apology.

By some estimates, killings, famine and disease caused the deaths of up to 10 million Congolese during just the first 23 years of Belgium's rule from 1885 to 1960, when King Leopold II ruled the Congo Free State as a personal fiefdom.

Villages that missed rubber collection quotas were notoriously made to provide severed hands instead.


"I salute the speech by the Belgian king. However, in the face of the crimes committed by Belgium, regrets are not enough," Congolese opposition Senator Francine Muyumba Nkanga wrote on Twitter.

Belgian king reiterates regrets for colonial past in Congo but does not apologise

"We expect an apology and a promise of reparations from him. That is the price to definitively turn the page," she said.

Nadia Nsayi, a political scientist specialised in Congo, said she sensed "a lot of nervousness in Belgium regarding a formal apology as Congo might use it to demand financial reparations".

MASK RETURN

Philippe arrived on Tuesday with his wife, Queen Mathilde, and Prime Minister Alexander De Croo for a week-long visit.

Tshisekedi said during a brief news conference with De Croo that he was focused on boosting cooperation with Belgium to attract investment and improve health care in Congo.

Relations had soured under Tshisekedi's predecessor, Joseph Kabila, whom Brussels criticised for suppressing dissent and extending his time in power beyond legal limits.

"We have not dwelled on the past, which is the past and which is not to be reconsidered, but we need to look to the future," Tshisekedi said.

Some Kinshasa residents also said they hoped the visit would bring investments. "Despite what the Belgians did to us during colonisation, we are ready to forgive," said Antoine Mubidiki.

Philippe earlier offered a traditional mask of the Suku people to Congo's national museum as an "indefinite loan". The mask has been held for decades by Belgium's Royal Museum for Central Africa.

Belgium has traditionally said little about colonialism, and the subject has not been extensively taught in Belgian schools.

By contrast, Germany last year apologised to Namibia for its role in the slaughter of Herero and Nama tribespeople more than a century ago, officially described it as genocide for the first time and agreed to fund projects worth over a billion euros.

There have been the beginnings of a historical reckoning in Belgium in recent years. During anti-racism protests sparked in 2020 by the police killing in the United States of George Floyd, demonstrators targeted statues of King Leopold II.

Belgium's parliament established a commission soon after to examine the historical record. It will issue its final report this year.

Belgium will also hand over a tooth, suspected to be the only remains of Congo's first prime minister Patrice Lumumba, to his family this month.

The Belgian government took partial responsibility in 2002 for the death of Lumumba, who was assassinated by Belgian-backed secessionists in 1961.

(Reporting by Benoit Nyemba and Nellie Peyton; Writing by Aaron Ross; Editing by Alison Williams)

Belgian king regrets colonial 'humiliation' in landmark DR Congo trip

King Philippe of Belgium, in a historic visit to DR Congo, said on Wednesday that his country's rule over the vast central African country had inflicted pain and humiliation through a mixture of "paternalism, discrimination and racism." FRANCE 24's Clément Bonnerot reports from Kinshasa, DR Congo.

'He did not apologise': Belgian king reaffirms regrets for colonial past in Congo

Belgium's King Philippe said he reaffirmed his "profound regrets" for his country's brutal colonial past in Democratic Republic of Congo on his first trip to the central African nation.“I will not try to hide that I am a bit disappointed,” expert on Central Africa Kris Berwouts told France 24. “A lot of us were hoping for apologies.”

 

Belgian king arrives in DR Congo for key visit

Arsene Mpiana
Tue, June 7, 2022


Belgium's King Philippe landed in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Tuesday, in a historic visit to the central African country his ancestor once ruled brutally as his personal fief.

The monarch will undertake a six-day trip billed as a chance for reconciliation after atrocities committed under Belgian colonial rule.

The visit comes two years after Philippe wrote to Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi to express his "deepest regrets" for the "wounds of the past."

Tshisekedi and his wife greeted King Philippe and Queen Mathilde on a red carpet rolled out on the tarmac of the international airport of the capital Kinshasa, a sprawling city of about 15 million people.

On Monday, Congolese government spokesman Patrick Muyaya told reporters that Belgium and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) were starting a "new partnership."

"We are not forgetting the past, we are looking to the future," he added.

Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, who is visiting the impoverished nation of 90 million people alongside the king, echoed the sentiment.

"It's a historic moment," he told a Belgian national broadcaster Tuesday, hailing the opportunity to forge future closer ties.

Belgium's colonisation of the Congo was one of the harshest imposed by the European powers that ruled most of Africa in the late 19th and 20th centuries.

King Leopold II, the brother of Philippe's great great grandfather, oversaw the conquest of what is now DRC, governing the territory as his personal property between 1885 and 1908 before it became a Belgian colony.
- Brutal rule -

Historians say that millions of people were killed, mutilated or died of disease as they were forced to collect rubber under his rule. The land was also pillaged for its mineral wealth, timber and ivory.

The visit is King Philippe's first to DRC since ascending the throne in 2013. His father, King Albert II, visited the country in 2010.

Belgium is preparing to return to Kinshasa a tooth -- the last remains of Patrice Lumumba -- a hero of the anti-colonial struggle and short-lived first prime minister of the independent Congo.

Lumumba was murdered by Congolese separatists and Belgian mercenaries in 1961, and his body dissolved in acid, but the tooth was kept as a trophy by one of his killers, a Belgian police officer.

According to Belgium's royal palace, the king is also due to discuss the question of returning artworks looted during the colonial era.

Philippe is due to hold a ceremony with Tshisekedi at the Congolese parliament in Kinshasa on Wednesday and then on Friday deliver a speech to university students in the southern city of Lubumbashi.

On Sunday, the Belgian sovereign will visit the clinic of gynaecologist Denis Mukwege, co-winner of the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize for his fight against sexual violence, in the eastern city of Bukavu.

The trip comes at a time of heightened tension between Kinshasa and neighbouring Rwanda over rebel activity in the conflict-torn eastern DRC.

DRC's government has accused Rwanda of backing the resurgent M23 militia, an accusation which Rwanda has denied.

jk-am/eml/ri

Belgian king visits DRC: Trip seen as chance for reconciliation after colonial past

Belgium's King Philippe landed in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Tuesday, in a historic visit to the central African country his ancestor once ruled brutally as his personal fief. The monarch will undertake a six-day trip billed as a chance for reconciliation after atrocities committed under Belgian colonial rule. FRANCE 24's Clément Bonnerot reports from Kinshasa, DRC.

Belgian king arrives in DR Congo for historic visit

Belgium's King Philippe landed in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Tuesday, in a historic visit to the central African country his ancestor once ruled brutally as his personal fief.