Monday, October 17, 2022

Building the tools to make environmental data more accessible and forecasts more accurate

Virginia Tech ecological forecaster Quinn Thomas will lead Virginia Tech’s efforts in a newly-funded NSF project that will accelerate ongoing environmental research and benefit future researchers and scientific communities

Grant and Award Announcement

VIRGINIA TECH

Before you start your next Google search, stop for just a minute. You may not know it, but whether you’re looking for the latest Hokie football score or cheap airline tickets, you’re about to unleash a powerful data discovery, retrieval, and organizing process made possible by the agreed-upon rules for defining information that drive search engines.

Now pause again and imagine if every website used a different set of rules and search engines weren’t available. Given the mind-boggling amount of information on the internet that is at our fingertips, how would you ever find what you need to make decisions and plan your life? Take that query up a couple notches for scientists navigating a plethora of environmental data scattered across the web, and you’ll understand the impact of a new Virginia Tech research project.

Quinn Thomas, who holds dual appointments in the College of Natural Resources and Environment and the College of Science, is the principal investigator for Virginia Tech’s part of a $3.2 million research project funded by the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure.

The Democratized Cyberinfrastructure for Open Discovery to Enable Research (DeCODER) aims to standardize and facilitate how environmental data and model predictions are described and shared so that, ultimately, more individual researchers and scientific communities can utilize these resources.

Data is the key driver for the project and for the ecological forecasting research of Thomas, an associate professor in the Department of Forest Resource and Environmental Conservation, an affiliated faculty member of the Global Change Center, and the Data Science Faculty Fellow in the College of Science. He is a researcher with a bold objective: predicting the natural environment just like we predict the weather through the use of shared data tools and a computational infrastructure.

As the project lead for Virginia Tech, Thomas will put the university’s $535,000 share of the NSF grant to work to aid researchers interested in predicting environmental change. “My portion of the project is to advance the discoverability of ecological forecasts through the development of protocols and software to archive and document model predictions of ecological dynamics,” Thomas said. “Much like we use internet search engines (like Google) to find information, our work will help a researcher ask questions and initiate searches like ‘Find forecasts of algae in lakes across the U.S.’ in order to find current forecasts to help guide decision making and support environmental management.”

This grant advances work already done on the EarthCube GeoCODES platform. EarthCube is an NSF-funded environment that improves access, sharing, and visualization of data. GeoCODES is a program specifically for researchers working in the field of geoscience that offers evolving methods for organizing data so it can be easily accessed, as well as a framework for new computational tools, a registry, and best practices for the user community.

The new DeCODER platform will build upon and leverage the work that has already been done as part of the EarthCube effort. Thomas will take the next steps to help researchers working specifically in ecological forecasting to more easily access data and create better models.

Again, considering the example of researchers needing to forecast algae growth across the U.S., the DeCODER platform will allow researchers to not only gather data and forecasts, but also to “then compare these predictions to actual measurements of algae to quantify the strengths and weakness of the forecasts that have been generated to date.”

In addition, Thomas said, “Rather than requiring all ecological forecasters to use a single archive location on the internet, the technology we are developing allows for many archiving locations to be used, thus democratizing the storage and discovery of the results of the forecasting expertise.”

This new platform is especially valuable to researchers, like Thomas, whose work involves utilizing data and modeling because it will allow them to more easily discover what has already been done in the field in order to improve models over time.

“Think about weather forecasts,” said Thomas. “They have been getting better over time. A 10-day forecast is as good as an eight- or nine-day forecast was a decade ago. We know this improvement has occurred by comparing past forecasts to data. Now we want to do this evaluation of other environmental forecasts, and we can’t do that if we can’t find all the historical data.”

He also said individual scientists are producing incredible amounts of data about the environment, but, unfortunately, it’s not all in one centralized place. This new technology will allow data to be discovered wherever it is and enable researchers to determine if they are getting better at forecasting environmental change.

Thomas will be working closely with Associate Professor Carl Boettiger of the University of California at Berkeley (UCB) on the application of the DeCODER platform to ecological forecasting. A primary focus will be developing the software and protocols that will allow people to discover needed data. “The DeCODER project will democratize research pipelines such as the production and assessment of ecological forecasts, helping to bridge scientific communities and better inform decision makers,” Boettiger said.

To meet this ambitious goal, the project involves a collaborative research effort between several teams with specific areas of expertise. In addition to the Virginia Tech and UCB focus on ecological forecasting data, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (the lead institution) and the University of California San Diego (UCSD) are developing the cyberinfrastructure used by all the teams to tie the work together. Syracuse University and Texas A&M University are working on low-temperature geochemistry data, and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, along with UCSD, is focusing on deep ocean science data.

According to Thomas, this newly-funded NSF grant project will both complement and advance the ongoing research agenda in ecological forecasting at Virginia Tech. The DeCODER platform will ultimately accelerate work on current forecasting projects related to water quality, forest carbon storage, fall colors, and environmental dynamics in the context of a changing environment.

“By focusing on a democratized approach to data and forecast discovery, the advances are designed to outlive the duration of the project. This places Virginia Tech’s ecological forecasting research at the vanguard of the field,” said Thomas.

JOURNAL

Frontiers in Marine Science

DOI

10.3389/fmars.2022.879998

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Computational simulation/modeling

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Ecosystem-based fisheries management increases catch and carbon sequestration through recovery of exploited stocks: The western Baltic Sea case study

ICYMI

Study reveals new insights into how fast-moving glaciers may contribute to sea level rise

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

Greenland glacier — IMAGE: ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR LAURA STEVENS (RIGHT) AND CO-AUTHOR PROFESSOR MEREDITH NETTLES (LEFT, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY) APPROACH A GREENLAND SUPRAGLACIAL LAKE VIA HELICOPTER. PHOTO BY MARIANNE OKAL (UNAVCO, INC.). view more
CREDIT: PHOTO BY MARIANNE OKAL (UNAVCO, INC.).

Climate change is resulting in sea level rise as ice on land melts and oceans expand. How much and how fast sea levels will rise in the near future will depend, in part, on the frequency of glacier calving events. These occur when large chunks of ice detach from glaciers that terminate in the ocean (known as tidewater glaciers), and fall into coastal fjords as icebergs. The faster these glaciers flow over the ground towards the ocean, the more ice enters the ocean, increasing the rate of sea level rise.

During the warmer summer months, the surface of Greenland’s glaciers can melt and form large lakes that may then drain through to the base of the glacier. Studies on the inland Greenland ice sheet have shown that this reduces friction between the ice and ground, causing the ice to slide faster for a few days. Up to now, however, it has been unclear whether such drainage events affect the flow speed of tidewater glaciers, and hence the rate of calving events.

To investigate this, a research team from Oxford University’s Earth Sciences department, the Oxford University Mathematical Institute, and Columbia University used Global Positioning System (GPS) observations of the flow speed of Helheim Glacier—the largest single-glacier contributor to sea level rise in Greenland. The GPS captured a near perfect natural experiment: high-temporal-resolution observations of the glacier’s flow response to lake drainage.

The results found that Helheim Glacier behaved very differently to the inland ice sheet, which shows a fast, downhill movement during lake drainage events. In contrast, Helheim Glacier exhibited a relatively small ‘pulse’ of movement where the glacier sped up for a short amount of time and then moved slower, resulting in no net increase in movement.

Using a numerical model of the subglacial drainage system, the researchers discovered that this observation was likely caused by Helheim glacier having an efficient system of channels and cavities along its bed. This allows the draining waters to be quickly evacuated from the glacier bed without causing an increase in the total net movement.

Although this appears positive news in terms of sea level rise implications, the researchers suspected that a different effect may occur for glaciers without an efficient drainage system where surface melt is currently low but will increase in future due to climate change (such as in Antarctica).

They ran a mathematical model based on the conditions of colder, Antarctic tidewater glaciers. The results indicated that lake drainages under these conditions would produce a net increase in glacier movement. This was largely due to the less efficient winter-time subglacial drainage system not being able to evacuate flood waters quickly. As of yet, however, there are no in situ observations of Antarctic tidewater glacier responses to lake drainage.

The study calls into question some common approaches for inferring glacial drainage systems based on glacier velocities recorded using satellite observations (which are currently used in sea level rise models).

Lead author Associate Professor Laura Stevens (Department of Earth Sciences, Oxford University) said: ‘What we've observed here at Helheim is that you can have a big input of meltwater into the drainage system during a lake drainage event, but that melt input doesn’t result in an appreciable change in glacier speed when you average over the week of the drainage event.’

With the highest temporal resolution of satellite-derived glacier speeds currently available being roughly one week, lake drainage events like the one captured in the Helheim GPS data usually go unnoticed.

‘These tidewater glaciers are tricky,’ Associate Professor Stevens added. ‘We have a lot more to learn about how meltwater drainage operates and modulates tidewater-glacier speeds before we can confidently model their future response to atmospheric and oceanic warming.’

Notes to editors:

The study ‘Tidewater-glacier response to supraglacial lake drainage’ is published in Nature Communications: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-33763-2.

For media inquiries contact Professor Laura Stevens, Earth Sciences Department, University of Oxford: laura.stevens@earth.ox.ac.uk.

About the University of Oxford

Oxford University has been placed number 1 in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings for the seventh year running, and number 2 in the QS World Rankings 2022. At the heart of this success are the twin-pillars of our ground-breaking research and innovation and our distinctive educational offer.

Oxford is world-famous for research and teaching excellence and home to some of the most talented people from across the globe. Our work helps the lives of millions, solving real-world problems through a huge network of partnerships and collaborations. The breadth and interdisciplinary nature of our research alongside our personalised approach to teaching sparks imaginative and inventive insights and solutions.

Through its research commercialisation arm, Oxford University Innovation, Oxford is the highest university patent filer in the UK and is ranked first in the UK for university spinouts, having created more than 200 new companies since 1988. Over a third of these companies have been created in the past three years. The university is a catalyst for prosperity in Oxfordshire and the United Kingdom, contributing £15.7 billion to the UK economy in 2018/19, and supports more than 28,000 full time jobs.

JOURNAL

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-022-33763-2

ARTICLE TITLE

Tidewater-glacier response to supraglacial lake drainage

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

14-Oct-2022

Too much motivation affects our decision-making

A team from the UNIGE, in collaboration with the EPFL, reveals how motivation influences the neural circuits of perception and impacts decision-making

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITÉ DE GENÈVE

Too much motivation affects our decision-making — IMAGE: THE PROFILE OF THIS MOUND, CLIMBED BY THE MOUSE TO QUENCH ITS THIRST, MIRRORS THE CURVE OF THE YERKES-DODSON LAW, WHICH DESCRIBES THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN BEHAVIOURAL PERFORMANCE AND MOTIVATION. THE MOUSE PERFORMS THIS TASK WITH THE HELP OF ITS WHISKERS, WHICH ARE ESSENTIAL FOR EXPLORING THE WORLD IN RODENTS. view more
CREDIT: © GENERATED BY DALL-E

In a good or a bad mood, focused or distracted, in dire or no need: our internal states directly influence our perceptions and decision-making. While the role of motivation on the performance of behavioural tasks has been known for more than a century - thanks to the work of psychologists Robert Yerkes and John Dilligham Dodson - its precise effect on the brain remains unclear. A team from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), in collaboration with the EPFL, has revealed how motivation alters the neural circuits responsible for sensory perception preceding decision-making in mice. This study reveals why a level of motivation that is too high or too low can affect our perception and therefore our choices. These results, featured in the journal Neuron, open up new perspectives in learning methods.

Going to work early in the morning, choosing a restaurant at lunchtime: many of our decisions are motivated by needs, such as earning a living or satisfying our hunger. However, decision-making is a complex process, which can also be influenced by external factors, such as the environment or other individuals, and by our internal states, such as our mood, our level of attention or our degree of motivation.

The laboratory of Sami El-Boustani, Assistant Professor in the Department of Basic Neurosciences at the Faculty of Medicine of the UNIGE and recipient of an Eccellenza fellowship (SNSF), is studying the neural circuits involved in decision-making. In recent work, carried out in collaboration with Professor Carl Petersen’s team at EPFL, his lab has studied the role played by a specific internal state - motivation - in perception and decision-making. For more than a century it has been known that a relationship between motivation and performance exists thanks to the work of American psychologists Robert Yerkes and John Dilligham Dodson. Too much or too little motivation is detrimental to performance. However, the way in which this impacts our neural circuits remains unclear. ‘‘We wanted to observe how sensory information transmitted by neurons in the cortex is altered by the degree of motivation and to what extent the latter can have an effect on learning and performance in a decision-making task,’’ explains Sami El-Boustani, the lead author of the study.

The research team developed a behavioral paradigm involving mice in a controlled water consumption regime. They first trained these rodents to respond to tactile stimuli via two whiskers (A and B) and to produce an action - licking a spout - only for whisker A in order to obtain a drop of water. Following this training, these mice reacted mainly to the stimulation of whisker A, thus indicating their ability to discriminate between these two sensations. Finally, the researchers conducted these experiments at decreasing levels of thirst in order to vary the motivation of the rodents to participate in the task.

State of hyper-motivation blurs sensory information

In a state of great thirst - therefore of great motivation - rodents performed poorly. They licked the spout indiscriminately, without distinguishing between the whiskers stimulated. In contrast, in a state of moderate thirst, the choice of their action became optimal. They mainly licked the spout when whisker A was stimulated. Finally, when they were not very thirsty, their performance in the task dropped again.

By observing the activity of neuronal populations responsible for perceptual decision-making in these mice, the researchers discovered that neurons in these circuits were flooded with electrical signals when mice were hyper-motivated. Conversely, in a state of low-motivation, the signals were too weak. ‘‘Hyper-motivation leads to strong stimulation of cortical neurons, which causes a loss of precision in the perception of tactile stimuli,’’ says Giulio Matteucci, a Postdoctoral Fellow in Sami El-Boustani’s laboratory and the study’s first author.

In contrast, in the low-motivation state, the accuracy of the sensory information was recovered, but the strength of the signal was too low for it to be transferred correctly. As a result, the perception of the stimuli was also impaired.

A new understanding of learning

These results open up new perspectives. They provide a possible neural basis for the Yerkes-Dodson Law. ‘‘They also reveal that the level of motivation does not only impact decision-making but also the perception of sensory information, which leads to the decision’’, explains Carl Petersen, Full Professor at the Brain Mind Institute of EPFL and co-senior author in the study.

This work also suggests that it is necessary to decouple acquisition and expression of new knowledge. ‘‘We observed that mice understood the rule very quickly but could only express this learning much later, depending on an altered perception linked to their level of motivation.’’ This unraveling of the role of motivation in learning opens the way to new adaptive methods that aim to maintain an optimal level of motivation during learning.

JOURNAL

Neuron

DOI

10.1016/j.neuron.2022.09.032

ARTICLE TITLE

Cortical sensory processing across motivational states during goal-directed behavior

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

13-Oct-2022

US life expectancy drops as Europe shows signs of recovery post-COVID, study finds

Adrianna Rodriguez, USA TODAY
Mon, October 17, 2022

In 2020, most countries around the world experienced a shocking decline in life expectancy as COVID-19 wreaked havoc on society. But as some countries show signs of recovery, a new study found the United States continues to see its life expectancy in free-fall.

Researchers looked at data from 29 countries around the world and found seven countries in western Europe saw a significant increase in life expectancy in 2021, according to the study published Monday in Nature Human Behavior. Four of those countries – France, Belgium, Switzerland and Sweden – returned to pre-pandemic levels.

Meanwhile, the U.S. reported the third-largest decline in life expectancy, following closely behind Bulgaria and Slovakia.

The study is the latest example of how issues relating to the U.S. health care system, policies and public behavior, which impacted life expectancy before COVID-19, were exacerbated by the pandemic, experts say.

“Most of the developed countries experienced some recovery during 2021 ... whereas the U.S. was among the countries that had the largest decreases in life expectancy that year,” said Dr. Steven Woolf, director emeritus of the Center on Society and Health at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, who is not affiliated with the study.

Study authors said life expectancy in France, Belgium, Switzerland and Sweden returned to pre-pandemic levels by reducing mortality in people 60 and over. They attributed life expectancy declines in other countries to continued mortality in this age group.

But the U.S. was the only country that continued to see life expectancy losses because of increasing mortality in people under 60, explaining for “more than half of the loss in U.S. life expectancy since the start of the pandemic,” study authors said.

The study suggests vaccine uptake may be partly to blame. Researchers analyzed the proportion of the population that was fully vaccinated as of October 2021 and found reduced life expectancy was associated with lower vaccination uptake.

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"Everyone was hit in 2020 ... 2020 was about policy response and 2021 becomes a story of vaccination, and the U.S. was not a success story," said Theresa Andrasfay, postdoctoral scholar at the University of Southern California’s Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, who is not affiliated with the study.

Study authors also note the country’s proportion of people with comorbid conditions – which is comparatively larger than European counterparts – may have increased mortality in the working-age population.

The study tracks with previous reporting showing U.S. life expectancy decreased from 78.86 years in 2019 to 76.99 years in 2020, and then to 76.60 years in 2021 – accumulating a net loss of 2.26 years, according to a study authored by Woolf and published in April.

Other research also shows life expectancy losses disproportionately affected Black and Latino Americans. A 2021 study found estimated reductions for these populations are 3 to 4 times that for white people, reversing over 10 years of progress made in closing the life expectancy gap.

Experts say it may take a while for American life expectancy to return to pre-pandemic levels, but even then, the U.S. would still fall behind Europe.

“The U.S. has a series of systemic problems different than what exists in Europe,” Woolf said. “Those systemic problems aren’t going away as quickly as we would like.”

Follow Adrianna Rodriguez on Twitter: @AdriannaUSAT.

Health and patient safety coverage at USA TODAY is made possible in part by a grant from the Masimo Foundation for Ethics, Innovation and Competition in Healthcare. The Masimo Foundation does not provide editorial input.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: As US life expectancy drops, Europe shows signs of recovery post-COVID

Life expectancies diverged in pandemic's second year: study

MONDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2022
AUTHOR: AFP

There was a dramatic divergence in the average life expectancy of people in different global regions during the second year of the pandemic, a study found Monday, as higher vaccination rates helped some nations recover far more quickly than others.. - 'Protect both old and young' - Countries that had a higher percentage of their population fully vaccinated by October 2021 had a smaller drop in life expectancy, the study found.

There was a dramatic divergence in the average life expectancy of people in different global regions during the second year of the pandemic, a study found Monday, as higher vaccination rates helped some nations recover far more quickly than others.

Because governments have counted Covid statistics in different ways, researchers have sought to give a clearer picture of the pandemic's true impact by measuring a country's total number of annual deaths from all causes and comparing it to the number from before the pandemic.

Last year, researchers at Oxford University's Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science said that in 2020 the pandemic caused the biggest decrease in life expectancy since World War II.

But in 2021, a "sudden divergence appears," said Ridhi Kashyap, a professor of demography at Oxford and co-author of the latest study, published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour.

"Some countries start showing signs of a recovery," while others have "worsening, compounding losses," he told AFP.

The researchers analysed mortality data across 29 European countries, the United States and Chile since 2015.

Many countries in Western Europe saw their life expectancy bounce back to near pre-pandemic levels. France, Belgium, Switzerland and Sweden even managed to fully return to 2019's number.

However in Eastern Europe, life expectancy dropped to a level not seen since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the study said.

In Bulgaria, life expectancy fell by 25 months in 2021 after dropping 18 months the year before, meaning it plunged more than three and a half years since the start of the pandemic.

Bulgaria has the lowest vaccination rate in the European Union.

- 'Protect both old and young' -

Countries that had a higher percentage of their population fully vaccinated by October 2021 had a smaller drop in life expectancy, the study found.

"This suggests that clearly there is a link," Kashyap said.

The age of people dying from Covid also shifted younger, with the life expectancy of over-80s returning to normal in many places.

This was "partly a sign of vaccines really protecting the old," Kashyap said.

In the US, deaths of people aged over 80 bounced back to pre-pandemic levels, but fatalities soared for the middle-aged and younger, resulting in the country's life expectancy falling by nearly three months.

Jonas Schoeley, a study co-author from Germany's Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, said countries such as "Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium and France, managed a recovery to pre-pandemic levels of life expectancy because they managed to protect both the old and the young."

dl/pvh

© Agence France-Presse

'No conventional studio wanted my film': Oscar-winner Inarritu

Inarritu won Oscars for 'Birdman' and 'The Revenant' but struggled to find backers for his return to Mexico

ISABEL INFANTES AFP

Issued on: 17/10/2022 -

Paris (AFP) – He was the first director in 60 years to win back-to-back Oscars, but Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu said he still struggled to generate interest in Hollywood for his return to Mexico with new film "Bardo".

"Birdman" and "The Revenant" earned Inarritu an Oscar for best picture and two for best director in 2015 and 2016.

But only Netflix was interested in the follow-up, which means "Bardo" will only get a short theatrical run in some countries next month, before landing on the streaming service in December.

"This film was not wanted by any conventional studio," Inarritu told AFP during a visit to Paris.

"It's a personal film, a film in Spanish, a film that doesn't have big stars, and it's a film that... needed considerable funding.

"Only Netflix dared to let me make this film with absolute freedom and financial support."
'Profoundly Mexican'

The dream-like movie follows a journalist -- a thinly fictionalised version of Inarritu himself -- who returns to Mexico after finding success in the United States.

When it premiered at the Venice Film Festival last month, some critics felt the nearly three-hour film was, in the words of The Guardian, "outrageously narcissistic".

Inarritu did not take kindly to some of the reviews -- particularly the constant comparisons to Italian legend Federico Fellini (whose renowned "8 1/2" similarly focused on himself) -- which he said bordered on "racism".

"(Bardo) is profoundly Mexican," he told AFP. "We have our own, ancestral references, of great richness and of a very particular style.

"Fellini was beautiful and great, but as far as I know, Fellini didn't leave Rome, he was never an immigrant and he had no children. And my film is about fatherhood and immigrants. What does this have to do with '8 1/2'?

"Fuck -- don't we have our own filmmakers and literature? Our own imagination?"

But Inarritu does seem to have agreed with critics who felt the original cut was too long, having now shaved some 20 minutes off the running time.

He insists this was not a response to the reviews, however.

"Many of the visual effects came very late... I finished the film literally two days before I left for Venice, and the first time I saw it with an audience was in Venice with 2,000 people," he said.

"(During the screening) I realised there were opportunities to get to the point a little faster in some scenes."

'Fractured identity'

"Bardo" is Mexico's official entry for the Oscars, hoping for more of the country's huge success in the 2010s.

Alfonso Cuaron also won two directing Oscars (for "Gravity" and "Roma"), while Guillermo Del Toro won best picture and best director for "The Shape of Water".

But there is still a long way to go in redressing the imbalance of cultural knowledge between the two countries, Inarritu said.

"I have a total knowledge of American literature, history and music. But the vast majority (of Americans) don't know our culture, our history. They don't even know about the (US) invasion of Mexico" in 1846, he said.

"Bardo" is an attempt to discuss the strange relationship between the two nations -- "there are no countries more different than the United States and Mexico," he said -- as well as the Spanish heritage of California with its millions of Hispanic immigrants.

"At my age (59), it was a need to try to put these contradictory things in order... to be able to learn from them," Inarritu said.

"It was brewing for a long time and it was only now that I had the courage and ability and freedom to talk about them the way I did."

© 2022 AF

Blackmail not uncommon in football, says Pogba's agent

AFP -Rome — Professional footballers are frequent targets for blackmailers, says Paul Pogba's agent with the France star embroiled in an alleged extortion plot.

In August Paul’s elder brother Mathias published a bizarre video online promising "great revelations" about the Juventus midfielder, who according to sources is being targeted by a criminal gang.

And Rafaela Pimenta, the heir to deceased superagent Mino Raiola's empire, told Italian daily Tuttosport that players are often targeted by people hoping to extort money from very rich sportspeople.

"Being extorted or living under threat is not an uncommon problem with footballers. They're threatened because they are very exposed," Pimenta said in an interview published on Monday.

"I've seen it all, especially blackmail. The players are scared to flag these things up because they're worried about their image or they're ashamed. They keep quiet and live under incredible stress."

Sources close to the Pogba family have told AFP that money is being demanded from Paul if he wants to avoid the dissemination of allegedly compromising videos.

Mathias, 32, was charged last month along with four other people, all close to the World Cup winner who filed a complaint with Turin prosecutors in July which said he was being blackmailed for €13million.

Paul told investigators that his blackmailers wanted to discredit him by claiming he asked a marabout (holy man) to cast a spell on Paris Saint-Germain and France star Kylian Mbappe, which Paul denies.

"When Paul finally asked for help, his situation improved and he realised that there is a solution," added Pimenta.

"Everything is in the hands of the lawyers. Paul has done everything he could do."

On the field, Paul’s hopes of playing for France at the World Cup in Qatar next month hang in the balance after a knee injury. He had surgery that was described as "successful" earlier this month.

AFP

IMPERIALIST WAR MONGER

Ethiopia vows to seize airports in Tigray despite peace pledge

AFP - TODDAY

Ethiopia's government on Monday vowed to seize control of airports and other sites in Tigray, while at the same time reiterating a commitment to peace talks, as international alarm mounted over fighting in the war-torn region.

Map of Ethiopia locating Tigray region© Aude GENET

The African Union on Sunday called for an immediate and unconditional truce as combat intensified in northern Ethiopia, where pro-government forces and rebels from the Tigray region have been at war for nearly two years.

AU Commission chair Moussa Faki Mahamat also urged the rivals to "recommit to dialogue" after both sides accepted an invitation to peace talks that failed to materialise as violence spiralled.

The authorities in Tigray said Sunday they were "ready to abide by an immediate cessation of hostilities" and called on the international community to press the government to come to the table.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's government said in a statement Monday it was "committed to the peaceful resolution of the conflict through the AU-led peace talks," without addressing the ceasefire call.

But it said it would also pursue "defensive measures" to protect Ethiopia's sovereignty and territorial integrity from internal and external threats.

"These measures are necessitated not only by the repeated attacks of the TPLF (Tigray People's Liberation Front) but also by its active collusion with these hostile foreign powers," it said, without identifying them.

"It is thus imperative that the Government of Ethiopia assumes immediate control of all airports, other federal facilities, and installations in the region," the statement from the Government Communication Service (GCS) said.

- 'Catastrophic conflict' -

The conflict has killed an unknown number of civilians and unleashed a massive humanitarian crisis in Tigray and other parts of northern Ethiopia, with at least two million people driven from their homes and millions more in need of aid.

Tigray and its six million people are largely cut off from the outside world, facing dire shortages of fuel, food and medicines and lacking basic services such as communications, electricity and and banking.

Related video: Tigray accuses Eritrea of using its entire army & reservists
Duration 2:04 View on Watch

TPLF spokesman Getachew Reda reacted to the GCS statement, telling AFP in a message: "It's a clear indication that the government and its ally will do everything to carry through their genocidal intent against the people of Tigray."

UN chief Antonio Guterres has joined the United States and other Western powers in voicing concern over the worsening violence in Tigray and called for a peaceful settlement to "this catastrophic conflict."

Abiy's government and the Tigrayan authorities were to attend AU-led negotiations in South Africa earlier this month but they did not go ahead, with logistical problems cited as one obstacle.

- 'Deep regret' -

Ethiopian forces along with troops from neighbouring Eritrea have meanwhile stepped up an offensive near Shire, a city of 100,000 people in northwestern Tigray, where civilian casualties have been reported in heavy shelling.

It is not possible to verify battlefield claims as access to northern Ethiopia is restricted for journalists.

US aid chief Samantha Power on Sunday warned "the risk of additional atrocities and loss of life is intensifying" around Shire, and accused Ethiopian and Eritrean forces of indiscriminate attacks.

On Friday, an aid worker from the International Rescue Committee (IRC) was among three civilians killed in an attack in Shire that also injured others.

The IRC staffer was distributing food to vulnerable civilians including women and children, said the World Food Programme (WFP).

Britain's minister for Africa, Gillian Keegan, said she was "appalled" by the attack.

"This is the 24th aid worker killed in Tigray since the start of the conflict. Civilians and aid workers must be protected and #NotATarget," Keegan wrote on Twitter.

Addis Ababa said its army strove to "avoid combat operations within urban areas to prevent civilian casualties" but urged aid workers to "distance themselves from TPLF military assets".

"The Government of Ethiopia deeply regrets any harm that might have been inflicted on civilians, including humanitarian personnel," the GCS said, adding it would investigate such incidents.

Abiy, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 for his rapprochement with Eritrea, sent troops into Tigray in November 2020 after accusing the TPLF of attacking federal army camps.

The TPLF had dominated Ethiopia's ruling political alliance for decades before Abiy took power in 2018 and sidelined the party.

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Nigeria: Worst floods in a decade see 1.3 million forced from homes

More than 600 people have died and more than 1.3 million forced from their homes in the worst floods to hit Nigeria in a decade, according to the latest government figures. The country has been inundated by heavy rains since August and there are also fears the impact on the country’s farmers could leave millions facing hunger.

Daft Punk join TikTok

TikTok users will be able to use Daft Punk tunes and a filter that gives them a personalised robot helmet

Issued on: 17/10/2022 -

Paris (AFP) – Dance legends Daft Punk may have hung up their robotic helmets last year, but they are hoping to build a new generation of fans with their own TikTok channel launching on Monday.

The deal with TikTok means that users will have access to the French duo's back catalogue of music for the first time to use in their own videos.

From the start of their career in the 1990s, Daft Punk -- aka Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo -- held on to the rights to all their music.

That means they were not covered by the deals that TikTok made with record companies in recent years to license music for the platform, requiring a direct deal with the band.

From Tuesday, fans will also be able to use two new filters for their videos, giving them a customisable robot helmet or the iconic Charlie the dog, who first appeared in the 1997 video for "Da Funk" by director Spike Jonze.

The duo will also be posting content on the channel, including elements from their 1993 to 2011 career.

BTS to fulfil military service obligations, agency says

Members of the K-pop supergroup BTS will undergo their mandatory military service, their agency says

Issued on: 17/10/2022

Seoul (AFP) – The members of the K-pop supergroup BTS will enlist in the military, their agency said Monday, putting an end to a years-long debate on whether the stars deserved exemptions from mandatory service.

All able-bodied South Korean men under the age of 30 must perform about two years of military service, mainly because the country remains technically at war with nuclear-armed North Korea.

BTS are credited with generating billions for the South Korean economy, and their label enjoyed a surge in profits despite holding fewer concerts during the coronavirus pandemic.

But the prospect of South Korea's mandatory military service continued to hover over BTS, with its stars ranging in age from 25-year-old Jungkook to 29-year-old Jin, who must sign up by December or risk jail time.

Bighit Music, part of BTS's agency Hybe, said on Monday that "the members of BTS are currently moving forward with plans to fulfil their military service".

It noted in a statement that "as each individual embarks on solo endeavours, it's the perfect time and the members of BTS are honoured to serve".

"Group member Jin will initiate the process as soon as his schedule for his solo release is concluded at the end of October," it added. "Other members of the group plan to carry out their military service based on their own individual plans."

Jin had announced the release of his solo album during a concert in Busan on Saturday.

"I was able to collaborate with someone I really adore," he told fans, without explaining further.

Refusing to complete one's mandatory service is a crime in South Korea, and can lead to imprisonment and social stigma.

Exemptions from military service are granted to some elite athletes, such as Olympic medallists, and to classical musicians -- but pop stars do not qualify.

BTS had already benefited from a 2020 revision to the conscription law that moved the age limit for some entertainers to sign up from 28 to 30 years old.

Seoul's defence minister had said in August that BTS might be allowed to continue performing and preparing for international concerts even while undertaking military duties.

In June, the septet dropped the bombshell announcement that they were taking a break as a group to pursue solo projects.

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Monday, October 17, 2022

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Nigeria: Worst floods in a decade see 1.3 million forced from homes

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