It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Thursday, December 29, 2022
Reindeer eyes change color, putting Rudolph’s red nose in the shade, new research says
In winter, light in the northern latitudes is dim and very blue compared to summer light. Reindeer eyes have evolved to be better suited at seeing in this unique environment.
Reindeer noses may not glow red, but these creatures of cold climes have evolved the ability to change the color of their eyes to help them thrive in dark, northern winters.
For an episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast, Glen Jeffery, a professor of neuroscience at the Institute of Opthamology at UCL (University College London) in the UK, spoke about what makes reindeer eyes truly unique in the animal kingdom. He shared his findings with The World.
Most people have seen the gold, glowing eyes of a cat, a raccoon or some other nocturnal animal staring back at them during a nighttime drive. The part of the eye that produces that golden reflection, as Jeffery explained, “is a mirror that lots of animals have called the tapetum lucidum.” A taptetum helps animals see better in the dark by bouncing light from the back of the eye through the retina a second time. In most mammals, the tapetum is a “standard golden,” as Jeffery described the color, and that color doesn’t change.
Many animals’ eyes shine in the darkness because of a reflective layer called the tapetum lucidum that is usually gold.Bowlhover/Wikimedia Commons
One day, Jeffery received a box in the mail out of the blue. It contained two jars filled with reindeer eyes from a slaughterhouse in Norway. One jar was labeled summer and one was labeled winter.
“I opened up the summer ones first and I thought, ‘I’m wasting my time here,’” Jeffery said. He saw golden eyes, just what he expected.
“But then we opened up the other eyes, and that was when there was a shock, because the winter eyes were blue,” he said. “I’d never seen anything like that in my life.”
Jeffery and his colleagues spent years studying the biology of reindeer eyes and the environment they are made for — the dim, blue-hued months of the Arctic winter. What they discovered is a marvelous bit of evolution that has given reindeer some of the most interesting eyes on Earth. Daniel Merino is an associate science editor and co-host of The Conversation Weekly Podcast at The Conversation.
This article is republished from The Conversation, a global nonprofit news organization dedicated to spreading the knowledge of academic experts, under a Creative Commons license.
Barcelona’s children find safety in numbers as they bike to school in herds
The World December 28, 2022 · Seven-year-old Pau Barrios and his mother, Berta Barrios, celebrate their first successful bicibus route. Two others reach this same school, in Barcelona, Spain, with some 30 to 40 kids participating on any given day. Gerry Hadden/The World
On a recent morning just outside of Barcelona, Spain, six kids and their parents, all clad in bright yellow traffic vests, gathered on their bikes in a small square.
For the first leg of their trip to school, about a 45-minute commute, they’re taking a rural road — a long, winding descent with fast-moving cars.
This is the group’s maiden voyage. But all across Spain's Barcelona province, children are getting to school in convoys of bikes dubbed the “bicibus,” or bicycle-bus, organized, often by schools, as an answer to the push for fewer cars on the road.
More than 700 people joined the different routes during the 2020-21 school year, organizers estimate.
As with traditional bus lines, each bicibus route has stops where other cycling students can join along the way. Parents, teachers and other volunteer adults ride, too, to ensure the kids’ safety.
In the year and a half since the grassroots bici-busing began with the backing of the Barcelona City Council, these two-wheeled convoys have appeared all over the city. There are now at least 15 routes and similar bicibuses have popped up in Glasgow, Scotland, and Portland, in the US, according to Reuters.
“I’m doing this because I don’t want to pollute,” said 7-year-old Pau Barrios.
His mom, Berta Barrios, one of the chaperones, said the environmental benefits are only part of the draw of the bicibus.
“We’re here for a lot of reasons,” Berta Barrios said. “First, for safety. Second, for the sense of community it offers. We’re getting together with other families from the neighborhood.”
Before the group set off, a police escort arrived to block the traffic. He wanted the bicyclists all closer together — if they get too spread out, they’re just a bunch of people on bikes. Together, they’re a single unit. More like a bus, and cars respect buses more than bikes.
On this four-lane artery, there are cars and buses aplenty. Volunteer Berta Palau said that sometimes, their police escort is a no-show. When that happens, harried commuters honk at the riders. Let them, she said.
“This is a protest,” she said. “Even if the impact is small. At least we’re no longer a shock to people on the road.”
The Vallvidrera “mountain” bicibus stops for a group selfie on a dirt road high above Barcelona. They were halfway to school on their inaugural run. Credit: Gerry Hadden/The World
She said the bicibuses had become part of the urban landscape. Bike lanes, though, are still lacking, she said. But Barcelona is working on it. It now has over 120 miles’ worth. It’s not Berlin, or Copenhagen, but it’s adding more each year.
Eventually, the bicibus enthusiasts say, they’re hoping to get dedicated lanes for the groups, so they won’t need police protection.
To keep up the momentum, the chaperones focus on the fun of the bicibus. Like Berta Vazquez, a mom, who strapped a big speaker to her bike with bungee cords and blasted “Sympathy for the Devil,” by the Rolling Stones.
“We play music to create a festive atmosphere,” Vazquez said. “We’re free compared to the people crammed together in those cars and buses.”
Exxon Mobil sues to try to block Europe windfall tax.
European subsidiaries of the American oil giant filed a lawsuit with a European Union court seeking to stop the tax, which Exxon Mobil said could cost it billions of dollars.
Exxon Mobil storage tanks in the Netherlands in 2021
Exxon Mobil has tried to block what it called a “counterproductive” new windfall tax imposed by the European Commission as part of efforts to ease the sting of soaring energy prices across the 27-nation bloc.
The American oil giant’s subsidiaries in Germany and the Netherlands filed a lawsuit in the General Court of the European Union in Luxembourg on Wednesday. The court must now decide whether to take up the case, which claimed that the European Council lacked the authority to impose the tax.
Since the disruption to fossil fuel deliveries to Europe following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, major oil and gas companies have raked in multibillion-dollar profits, while consumers have faced energy prices that have more than doubled. Exxon said earlier this year that the tax would cost the company $2 billion through 2023. The company reported global profits of $20 billion for this year.
A spokesman for Exxon Mobil, Casey Norton, said that while the company recognized the burden that high energy bills have placed on families and businesses in Europe, it did not agree that a windfall tax would solve the problem.
“This tax will undermine investor confidence, discourage investment, and increase reliance on imported energy and fuel products,” Mr. Norton said. “European industries already face a very real competitiveness crisis, and governments should be supporting the production of reliable and affordable energy.”
The European Council, which is the executive branch of the E.U., passed the tax under a clause that allows it to surpass the bloc’s parliament in emergency situations, which Exxon argues is overreaching the body’s authority. The tax is to take effect Dec. 31.
Individual E.U. member states have enacted their own policies to try to spread the pain of high energy bills.
This month, the German Parliament passed legislation aimed at halting spiraling electricity and gas bills for households and industry by capping the price of gas and electricity based on last year’s levels. The package, which sets limits on bonuses for managers of companies benefiting from the law, is funded by a levy on energy producers’ excess profits. The law, which is expected to raise 100 billion euros, or $106 billion, will take effect in March but function retroactively from January.
Melissa Eddy is a correspondent based in Berlin who covers German politics, social issues and culture. She came to Germany as a Fulbright scholar in 1996, and previously worked for The Associated Press in Frankfurt, Vienna and the Balkans. @meddynyt • Facebook
Climate Fight Arises as a Geopolitical Power Play
Analysis by Liam Denning | Bloomberg December 28, 2022
This was the year energy’s world ruptured. Mysterious explosions that ripped apart the Nord Stream gas pipelines beneath the Baltic Sea symbolized the severing and rewiring of long-standing trade routes — casualties of Russia’s brutal, and botched, invasion of Ukraine and the sanctions imposed in response.
But linkages also stretched and snapped far from that battlefield. The decoupling of what used to be called “Chimerica” accelerated.
Washington and Riyadh fell out over oil prices. South Korea and Japan accused the US of discriminating against their battery and vehicle industries. And a French president flew thousands of miles to head off a transatlantic trade war.
Ukraine’s crisis fed those frictions but didn’t create them. On Dec. 10, President Joe Biden’s administration effectively told the World Trade Organization to go hang. The WTO, whose predecessor was established under US leadership after World War II, had, unsurprisingly, ruled against the steel and aluminum tariffs imposed by former President Donald Trump and repurposed by Biden. The US, citing the catchall justification of national security, responded that these weren’t up for discussion. Countries seeking to press the case face the complication that it would enter a legal void because the US is blocking new appointees to the WTO’s appellate body. Unilateralism is especially problematic when it emanates from the country that underwrote multilateralism (see this).
Climate change adds a new and destabilizing dynamic to this. Yet it is also seen by some as the foundation for a new trading system. The Group of Seven nations just reaffirmed their commitment to building a “carbon club.” The idea is to coordinate climate-related standards and policies among some of the world’s biggest economies to foster decarbonization while avoiding trade spats.
The latter has come into focus, especially with the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, which, with its tightening domestic content provisions for goods like electric vehicles, is effectively protectionist industrial policy. South Korea and Japan, which have huge stakes in US automotive and clean technology markets, are fuming. The European Union, angst-ridden already about high energy prices shutting factories there, has similarly denounced the IRA. Meanwhile, the EU has just agreed on its own form of protectionism, the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, or CBAM, which imposes duties on certain imports from countries that don’t price carbon the way Europe does.
Beneath the belligerence, these countries and regions have some important things in common. They are all big, prosperous economies. Plus, with a skew toward services over manufacturing and decades of efficiency efforts behind them, they score relatively well in terms of greenhouse-gas intensity. The chart below — repurposed from some charts published recently by ClearView Energy Partners, an analysis firm based in Washington — compares several Western-aligned blocs and countries with other major economies and groups.
If clubs are founded on shared traits and interests, the potential in that top left quadrant is obvious. But these commonalities also obscure a glaring difference. The US — and, by extension, North America — is virtually self-sufficient in terms of fuel supply. Meanwhile, the list of the top 10 countries most dependent on fuel imports as a share of energy needs reads like a who’s who of allies across the Atlantic and the Pacific.
Dependence on energy imports, especially among European countries, is precisely why Moscow weaponized them (along with crops to some degree). As Brussels seeks an accommodation with Washington, it must contend with this stark imbalance with the US, which extends to the military sphere. In addition, the EU’s approach to combating climate change, centered on punitive emissions costs, is the opposite of the subsidy-led US effort.
Weirdly, therefore, just when it seemed as if the US was aligning itself with key allies’ climate ambitions, climate diplomacy threatens to divide them further. Avoiding that most likely requires taking the US at its word about those steel and aluminum tariffs and making climate a security issue. In there may lie the basis for a grand bargain similar to the one made during the Cold War. As geopolitical analyst and author Peter Zeihan puts it, the US offered allies a bribe after World War II: Market access and free trade in return for sublimating their security policy to Washington’s strategic priority, containing the Soviet Union
Biden justified his climate agenda as part of a broader contest between democracies and autocracies. Picking up on that, when EU President Ursula von der Leyen at the end of 2020 pitched then President-elect Biden about a renewed transatlantic partnership, she cited not just common goals on climate but also a shared “fundamental interest in strengthening democracy.”
What Europe craves is security on several fronts: military, economic and energy. NATO fulfills the first, but the others require trade agreements with the US, among others, reconciling different approaches to climate policy on either side of the Atlantic; what French President Emmanuel Macron blandly referred to as “synchronization.” In essence, Europe wants to be able to sell its own clean tech into the US market — and take advantage of those IRA subsidies — while protecting its own flanks from Russian aggression, high-emitting (low-cost) competitors and volatile energy prices.
The US wants to revitalize its manufacturing sector in tandem with achieving decarbonization goals. But it also seeks strategic outcomes, namely weakening Russia and containing its primary adversary, China. On that front, Europe’s cooperation, along with Asian allies, in constraining China’s access to strategic technologies and building alternative supply chains is likely to be vital. The US has already co-opted the Netherlands and Japan into its effort to isolate China from the global semiconductor ecosystem. As painful as it would be for EU powers, especially Germany, to side with Washington against Beijing, that is likely to be a nonnegotiable condition for creating anything like a carbon club.
The existing tariffs on steel and aluminum may offer a template for that sort of club. Yet even if the cracks within Western coalitions are fixed, the marriage of climate diplomacy with great power rivalry carries risks of its own. While a G-7 carbon club would carry the heft of more than 40% of the global economy, its primary target, China, accounts for almost a fifth of the world’s GDP and population and almost a third of its emissions. It has also played a critical role in reducing the cost of clean tech, making decarbonization ambitions feasible in the first place. Cutting China out will not only preclude cooperation with the biggest emitter on the planet, it would also be inflationary. For example, building solar panel manufacturing capacity in the US and Europe is roughly three times the cost of doing it in China, according to Bloomberg NEF.
The world is also, if anything, more complicated than it was in 1945, when there were relatively few powers of any size outside of the two superpowers and the European empires. Look back at that chart and you can see how Chinese and, especially, Russian emissions intensity set them apart from Western-aligned groups.
But what of India, for example, which presents a complex mix of high emissions, nominal net-zero ambitions, low per-capita income, a democratic system of government, and a confrontational relationship with China yet longstanding links with Russia? India also accounts for the single largest projected increase in energy consumption of any country through 2050, according to the International Energy Agency. Its choices, and alignments, will matter a great deal. Similarly, the Arab states of the Gulf Cooperation Council must balance conflicting demands from long-standing, but decarbonizing, Western allies on one hand and Chinese and other developing economies accounting for a greater share of their oil and gas exports on the other. Efforts by the US and its allies to use their economic heft as oil buyers to influence prices, through caps and strategic reserves, have not gone over well this year.
As a universal threat, climate change should in theory transcend geopolitics. In practice, the project to save the planet looks set to become the next front in the endless struggle over who runs it.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
Liam Denning is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering energy and commodities. A former investment banker, he was editor of the Wall Street Journal’s Heard on the Street column and a reporter for the Financial Times’s Lex column.
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Japan’s PM Kishida says election to come before possible tax hike for boosting defense Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida attends a press conference in Tokyo, Japan, on December 16, 2022, addressing some topics such as National Security Strategy, political and social issues facing Japan in today's world crisis. (Reuters)
Bloomberg Published: 28 December ,2022:
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said he expected the next general election to come before a possible hike in taxes that has met resistance from the public and is intended to fund his unprecedented expansion of defense spending.
“We will be asking the people to take on an extra burden starting at an appropriate time between 2024 and 2027,” Kishida said in an interview with satellite broadcaster BS TBS late Tuesday. “We are going to decide on the start date, but I think there will be an election before then.”
He later told Kyodo News and other media in a separate group interview he didn’t plan to call an election next year.
Kishida has ordered a 60 percent increase in defense spending over five years after many in Japan have been spooked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, rising tensions around Taiwan and developments with North Korea’s missile program. The move marks a historic change for a country with a pacifist constitution that has capped its military spending at about 1 percent of gross domestic product for decades.
While surveys show a majority of voters want more spent on defense, the idea of a tax hike to fund the expansion is unpopular — especially at a time when the worst inflation in 40 years is hurting household budgets. A poll published by the Sankei newspaper and broadcaster FNN this month found almost 70 percent opposed to a tax increase. Support for the cabinet has hit its lowest since Kishida took office more than a year ago in several polls. Though the four-year lower house term doesn’t end until October 2025, and the opposition is in disarray, sagging approval ratings make it more difficult for Kishida to control his party and push policy pledges through parliament.
The premier has also faced opposition to the tax from within his ruling Liberal Democratic Party. Party policy chief Koichi Hagiuda told broadcaster FNN on Sunday that the matter should be taken to the electorate.
Kishida also told the group interview that he was not thinking of reshuffling his cabinet ahead of a parliamentary session expected to start next month, Kyodo said. The premier has been forced to replace four ministers in recent months amid a series of financial and other scandals.
Genel Oil’s oil operations in East-African region declared illegal by Somalia
Mohammed Omar Ahmed, BloombergDecember 28, 2022
(Bloomberg) — Somalia’s government declared Genel Energy Plc’s operations in a breakaway northern region illegal. Officials said the company should cease claiming to hold rights for oil exploration and exploitation in the country.
Genel Energy owns oil blocks in Somaliland, a territory that unilaterally declared independence in 1991. However, the region isn’t recognized as a sovereign state by any other nation. Somalia claims dominion over the area.
Any investors seeking to operate in Somalia must comply with the nation’s constitution, the Ministry of Petroleum & Mineral Resources said in a statement published on its website on Dec. 28.
“The federal government of Somalia categorically rejects Genel Energy Plc’s claim to own petroleum rights in Somalia’s northern regions,” the ministry said. The government will take “all possible measures and pursue all legal avenues as part of its constitutional mandate of protecting Somalia’s territorial integrity,” it said.
Genel Energy was awarded an exploration license for two onshore blocks in Somaliland in August 2012 and acquired a 50% participating interest in the Odewayne Production Sharing Agreement that covers three additional blocks in November of that year, according to its website.
In 2021, Genel Energy announced it signed a farm-out agreement relating to the SL10B13 block with OPIC Somaliland Corp., with all its share of future capital investment coming from state-owned Taiwanese petroleum company CPC Corp.
Journalists’ trade union pushing for press freedom in Sierra Leone
People try to get information about a delayed election process, while looking at newspaper headlines at a kiosk, in Freetown, Sierra Leone, 27 March 2018. ISSOUF SANOGO/AFP via Getty Images
In its assessment of Sierra Leone's media freedom landscape, the Media Foundation for West Africa zones in on the legal framework - in particular the passing of the contentious Cyber Security and Crimes Act and the continued absence of a data protection law.
This statement was originally published on mfwa.org
In October 2020, President Julius Maada Bio assented a new law that repealed Sierra Leone’s criminal libel law.
Sierra Leone repealed its criminal libel and seditious laws (Part V of the Public Order Act of 1965) in 2020. Thereafter, press freedom has been expanding in the country with the progress story punctuated by improvements in the legal environment, development of press freedom watchdog institutions and a consolidation of the architecture of these institutions.
And all of these positives have been happening amidst fine cooperation between the government and the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ), a trade union of journalists in the country.
However, there still remain troubling chapters in the story – physical attacks, threats, judicial harassment, summons, arrests and detentions, and the intimidating interrogation of journalists by government institutions still take place in Sierra Leone.
Then there is the problem of the country’s telecommunications law still empowering officials to revoke the licenses of broadcast media houses at the discretion of the authorities.
Consequently, two years after Sierra Leone repealed its criminal libel law, the state of press freedom remains a mixture of the good, the bad and the ugly. The good
On 12t September 2022, executives of the SLAJ met with the Minister of Information, and Communications, Mohamed Rahman Swaray, in Brookfields, Freetown and struck a conversation that threw up many exciting positives for press freedom.
President of the SLAJ, Ahmed Sahid Nasralla, cited the repeal of the criminal libel law (in 2020) as one of a number of good developments from a fine relationship that the SLAJ has with the government. This achievement has since served as a launch pad for other positives, including the hosting of a media viability and investment conference.
The President of the SLAJ has been at the forefront of the media’s engagement with the government. Nasralla reported that the conference, which was funded by the BBC Media Action through the Government of Sierra Leone, has led to Sierra Leone being listed as one of 17 countries to benefit from the International Fund for Public Interest Media (IFPIM).
In anticipation of the windfall from the IFPIM, Nasralla said SLAJ and other media stakeholders have been working with the Ministry of Information and Communications to put in place structures to manage and administer the local counterpart of the IFPIM that the Government will also commit funds to.
Also, he recounted, a Multi Stakeholders Advisory Board and a Technical Working Group have been set up in advance in that regard. These groups, he added, will be responsible for follow-up on, and implementation of the other recommendations that came out of the historic media conference.
The government, in addition, has instituted an annual subvention to SLAJ as a way of strengthening the press association champion the cause of journalists and journalism in the country.
Probably, the most important fruit that has yielded from the cooperation between the government and SLAJ is the enactment of the Cyber Security and Crimes Act 2021. This law, which now governs the cyber space in Sierra Leone, provides guidelines on online conduct.
Also, under a USD50 million World Bank grant, the Government of Sierra Leone is identifying all critical national information infrastructure to declare critical. Meanwhile, a Data Protection Bill is to be tabled before Parliament. And as part of the general progress, the government has committed to help the SLAJ with state lands for the construction of a national office and satellite offices for the Association in the Eastern and Southern regions.
On November 2, 2021, SLAJ signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the national security administration to commemorate the international day to end impunity for crimes against journalists after a round table dialogue on law and order. Around that same time, Sierra Leone signed the Global Pledge on Media Freedom, becoming the fifth country in Africa to commit to the values and principles of Media Freedom Coalition.
In 2021, Sierra Leone’s ranking on the world press freedom index improved by ten places from 2020’s position of 85 out of 180 countries to 75 out of 180.
However, in spite of the convivial relationship between government and SLAJ, there are concerns. The bad
Certain aspects of the Cyber Security and Crimes Act have the potential to infringe on citizens’ right to free expression, especially when online. in this regard, Section 44 of the Act is particular, harbors various offenses that could easily be used unfairly against journalists.
Also, it has been of concern that media and civil society representatives are not included on the Advisory Council provided for in the Act.
But probably, the most problematic of the bad things conspiring against press freedom in Sierra Leone are the country’s telecommunications laws. Specifically, Sections 30 and 65 of the laws allows the media regulator, National Telecommunications Commission (NATCOM), to suspend or cancel broadcast licenses for various violations. The list of violations include fraud, treason, and, according to the law, “where the suspension or cancellation is in the public interest.” This particular part of the law is very worrying because it amounts to arming the authorities with power to close down stations at whim.
Also, Section 65 requires broadcasters to obtain “a general or specific license” to operate a radio transmitter. On the basis of this law, NATCOM suspended the licenses of privately owned broadcast networks Star Radio and Star TV for over two weeks in August, 2022 and denied workers access to the broadcaster’s transmitters in Brookfields, a neighborhood in western Freetown. This was for the alleged nonrenewal of broadcast licenses.
It remains a concern that the government has failed to pass a Data Protection law which is long overdue after the passage of the Cyber Security and Crime Act. Similarly, a National Computer Security Incidence Response Coordination center, which is supposed to manage cyber security incidents, is still yet to be set up.
Meanwhile, in spite of the 2020 repeal of the criminal libel law and an increasingly cosy relationship between the SLAJ and the government, media practitioners strangely, continue to suffer arrests, detentions and crude attacks in Sierra Leone. The Ugly
Journalists continue to suffer brutalization at the hands of all manner of persons, from private citizens to security agents. In addition to assault and battery, and even murder attempts, journalists have also suffered intimidations and summons over their work.
On February 17, 2022, journalist Alusine Antha, was attacked by about 30 people in the western city of Waterloo, while he was covering a meeting over a land dispute.
In April 2022, TV reporter Gibril Gottor was the subject of a suspected assassination attempt. His home was doused in petrol, in what appears to be a planned arson attack against him. It is believed that he became a target due to his investigation of a number of sensitive issues, including the alleged rape of a minor by a police officer and the extortion of fishermen by naval personnel.
In the course of his investigations, Gibril had also received threats and a number of court summonses. As a result of the suspected arson attempt, he has been forced to stay away from his family in order to not endanger them.
Investigative journalist Fayia Amara Fayia was beaten by military personnel in Kenema on April 2, 2020, for taking pictures of a COVID-19 facility.
Earlier, in April 2020, journalist Fayia Amara Fayia, of the Standard Times newspaper, was attacked and beaten by about 10 soldiers in Sierra Leone’s eastern Kenema city. He was hit with guns and kicked, according to a statement by the SLAJ, a local press freedom group. Fayia, whose phone was seized in the attack, was set upon after he photographed a new COVID-19 quarantine center. Later he would be arrested and charged with allegedly assaulting a soldier and District Head Mohammed O. Sesay, a local official who was at the scene and arraigned before court.
On July 2, 2022, four Sierra Leone soldiers slapped, punched, and kicked broadcast journalist Maada Jessie Jengo on various parts of his body, and also slashed his face with a sharp object.
Meanwhile, as already noted, the country’s media regulator, NATCOM, in August 2021, suspended the licenses of privately owned broadcast networks, Star Radio and Star TV, over alleged default in the renewal of broadcast licenses.
In October 2021, The Times newspaper editor, Salieu Tejan, received death threats while President Julius Maada Bio reportedly made moves to get him arrested over his critical reporting. Mr. Tejan was forced to flee the country as a result. The rundown
The press freedom environment in Sierra Leone is certainly a mix of the good, the bad and the ugly so that even though commendations may be in order for the government such commendations can only be given, while tinged with sadness.
To improve the situation, the government and stakeholders have their duties cut out for them. Tougher muscle certainly needs to be brought on perpetrators of attacks on journalists. Government needs to have a second look at the aspects of the cyber law that create the potential for people to be arrested for expressing themselves online, while Sections 30 and 65 must absolutely be repealed to disarm the NATCOM of the power to capriciously close down broadcast stations.
Of course, SLAJ should take advantage of its cosy relationship with the government to nudge said government into undertaking reforms. Also, it should instigate public educational campaigns on the need for a truly free press environment in Sierra Leone, while media houses must beef up security for their journalists.
Latest US defense bill considers a Northern Sea Route transit, more icebreakers
A sprawling defense authorization bill brings a sharper focus on the Arctic.
The U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Healy departs Seward, Alaska, to transit the Northwest Passage on August 25, 2021. (Photo: John Farrell / U.S. Arctic Research Commission)
A new $858 billion U.S. defense bill contains several Arctic provisions for 2023, including the acquisition of a third heavy icebreaker, and planning for a potential transit of the Northern Sea Route.
The National Defense Authorization Act is now headed to the desk of President Joe Biden to be signed into law. The items outlined in the bill would be funded by a separate omnibus funding bill, which passed the U.S. Senate on Thursday and is expected to clear the U.S. House on Thursday night.
In addition to raising the potential for transits of contested Northern waters, Arctic provisions in the new NDAA include exploring different options for acquiring new icebreakers, requiring reports on U.S. scientific research in the region, authorizing funding for Arctic and cold-weather gear, and outlining a new cost-sharing plan for expanding the port of Nome.
The U.S. Coast Guard must submit a report to Congress in the next year on the feasibility and timeline of a Northern Sea Route transit, as well as “periodic transits” of the Northwest Passage, the bill says.
In 1965 and 1967, the Soviet Union forced U.S. icebreakers to turn around from planned transit through Vilkitsky Strait — the last such time the U.S. attempted surface operations in these waters.
The new defense authorization provided few other details on the proposed voyage. It’s not clear if the transit would be conducted under Russia’s increasingly restrictive terms or whether it would be as a freedom of navigation operation, as has been proposed previously — a prospect with “extreme sensitivities,” particularly given deteriorating geopolitics in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, said Rebecca Pincus, director of the Wilson Center’s Polar Institute.
“There are core national security and economic interests in Russia’s Arctic, and that makes it a highly sensitive area to conduct some kind of operation like this. And I can assure you that it would not be a walk in the park,” Pincus said. If the U.S. were to override Russian restrictions on the route, it would be a contested transit, and it could “100 percent” escalate tensions in the region, she said.
It would be a long voyage through hazardous conditions, especially on the eastern part of the route — with unpredictable ice conditions, bad weather, and close proximity to Russian forces during a time of extremely high tensions.
While there are shipping guides to the Northern Sea Route, it’s not a route that U.S. surface vessel operators have experience navigating. Logistical questions would include how the vessel or vessels would be refueled during the lengthy trip, and what would happen in emergencies, such as a crew member needing to be airlifted for medical reasons.
“Given the risks associated with such a transit, it would be wise to not send one icebreaker by itself,” Pincus said.
A transit of the Northern Sea Route would need to be conducted in the summer. Typically, the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Healy, a medium-duty icebreaker, conducts scientific missions in the Arctic each summer, while USCGC Polar Star undergoes repairs at a dry dock after an annual resupply voyage to the McMurdo research station in Antarctica each winter.
“If this was an urgent priority, and things had to change, the Healy could potentially alter its plans for next summer. But that to my mind would carry significant operational risk” without having another icebreaker as backup, Pincus said.
Russia’s parliament passed a new law in recent weeks banning freedom of navigation exercises in the Northern Sea Route, requiring advance notice of trips, and prohibiting more than one state-owned vessel at a time — which could provide the impetus for the U.S. to challenge the restrictions in what it sees as open waters.
“It’s just enormously challenging. There’s a tremendous amount of risk associated with it, and there’s a lot of questions that would have to be answered as to how to do it safely,” Pincus said.
The defense bill also authorizes $167.2 million for the construction of a third heavy icebreaker. And it requires the Coast Guard to look into the cost and timeline of purchasing two more heavy icebreakers, known as polar security cutters, rather than three medium vessels, known as Arctic security cutters, as the Coast Guard has proposed.
If the medium icebreakers are more cost-effective to build, the Coast Guard would establish a new program to oversee their design and construction, and provide quarterly updates to Congress.
The heavy icebreakers, originally promised for 2024, have already encountered significant delays. The steel has not yet been cut, which means the first vessel will likely not be operational for several years. In November, Bollinger Shipyards announced it would acquire VT Halter, the troubled shipyard under contract to build the first U.S. heavy icebreakers in several decades.
While the NDAA also authorized the $150 million acquisition of a commercially available icebreaker, a strategy proposed by the U.S. Coast Guard earlier this year, the funding was absent from the Senate’s omnibus spending bill — an unusual cut this late in the process. The purchase, if it is to move forward, would likely be moved to next year’s budget request.
Such a purchase of an existing icebreaker — likely the Aiviq, an icebreaking tug and supply vessel operated by Edison Chouest — would come with caveats, the defense bill says. It would need to be able to conduct Arctic science missions on the same level as the Healy, and the Coast Guard would be required to submit a report within two months on how much it would cost to refit the vessel and how it compares to polar security cutters.
The defense bill also requires the Coast Guard to submit a report on the potential for collaborating with shipyards in Sweden and Finland — both of which have applied for NATO membership — in the next two years.
The Government Accountability Office will also conduct a study on Coast Guard operations and infrastructure in the Arctic, and the Coast Guard must also report on its ability to deploy aircraft assets in the Arctic and to add helicopters to icebreaker patrols.
“There’s a lot of pretty tight reporting requirements” for the Coast Guard, Pincus said, which “indicates Congress wants to exercise tight scrutiny or close supervision of what’s going on.” The attention on the Arctic, especially on long-overdue icebreaker recapitalization, is welcome, she said. Congress is “asking hard questions now,” she said. “They’re clearly paying attention and galvanized to take an active interest in the program.”
But the defense department is not undergoing similar scrutiny in the region, she pointed out. While billsinprevious years have required reports on defense capabilities and plans in the region, this year’s bill did not seem to require as much attention.
“That was a surprise to me,” Pincus said. “I thought there might have been more.”
But there was a stronger focus on scientific research in this bill than in recent years. The Office of Science and Technology Policy and the Office of Management and Budget must put together a detailed report on the goals and funding of all existing federal research in the Arctic, “including observation, modeling, monitoring, and prediction, and research infrastructure,” according to the bill.
Understanding how much the U.S. spends on Arctic research, and what types of research, is important for identifying gaps in a region that has cascading effects throughout the U.S. and the world.
“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been asked, ‘How much does the U.S. spend on Arctic research?’” said John Farrell, executive director of the U.S. Arctic Research Commission. “I wish I knew.”
The new bill essentially reinforces the language of the Arctic Research and Policy Act of 1984, which first established the research commission, he said. “Having some knowledge of what the agencies are spending and are budgeting for Arctic research gives a lot more transparency to the enterprise. That’s exactly what Congress originally wanted, and that’s what they’re asking for again, almost 40 years later.”
It’s encouraging to see Congress focusing on scientific research in the Arctic, Farrell said.
“Clearly Congress is paying attention to these issues, and is being proactive on these issues,” he said. “I’d like to see even more science agencies involved.”
Several scientific agencies — the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, and the United States Geological Survey — are required to make reports on the Arctic, including on the ability to care for sick and injured marine animals and to identify trends in marine mammal strandings and unusual mortality events in a rapidly changing environment, but Farrell said more reporting from more agencies would further benefit the federal government’s understanding of the region.
The bill also changes the ways costs will be shared between the federal government and the community in the expansion of the port of Nome, and it allows the Coast Guard to lease a hangar on St. Paul Island. And it provides a total of $41 million for Arctic and cold-weather clothing and equipment.
Canadian miner working on proposal to keep Nunavut iron mine open
The company had previously said it needed to expand its Mary River operation in order to keep it viable — but its expansion plans weren't approved.
Baffinland staff meet with community members in Arctic Bay on Dec. 8, as part of consultations on the company’s sustained operations proposal. (Baffinland via Nunatsiaq News)
Baffinland Iron Mines Corp. is developing a proposal to keep its Mary River iron ore mine running.
The plan, which the company calls a “Sustaining Operations Proposal,” comes a little more than a month after federal Northern Affairs Minister Daniel Vandal’s Nov. 16 rejection of its phase two proposal to expand operations and double its shipping output from the mine, about 150 kilometers southwest of Pond Inlet.
Baffinland had said it needed to expand its Mary River operation in order to keep it viable. Without the government’s approval of the expansion, the company said it might have to close the mine.
Baffinland began posting information about its plan to keep the mine going on its Facebook page on Dec. 7.
The company recently finished a tour of three of the five North Baffin communities to get feedback on the proposal, said Baffinland Iron Mines Corp. spokesperson Peter Akman in an email.
“Following review of feedback from these parties, the final submission will be provided to the regulators,” he said. The Nunavut Impact Review Board advises the federal government on the social and economic impacts of development projects.
Akman said Baffinland representatives visited Arctic Bay, Clyde River and Pond Inlet, but bad weather meant the team’s flights to Igloolik and Sanirajak were cancelled. Visits to those communities will be made in the new year, he said.
Clyde River Mayor Alan Cormack told Nunatsiaq News he attended the meeting, where he told Baffinland representatives his concerns about the mine’s potential environmental impacts.
“I’m worried about the amount of shipping,” he said.
Despite that, Cormack said he wants to see more Inuit working at the mine if it were to stay open.
Nunatsiaq News was unable to reach the mayors of Arctic Bay and Pond Inlet.
Baffinland’s proposal seeks to continue the mine’s current operations of trucking and shipping six million tonnes of iron ore per year, which the company first started doing in 2018 and was approved again to do in 2022.
But continuing to operate at current levels means Baffinland needs to apply to the Nunavut Impact Review Board to amend the Mary River project certificate. At this point, it is only approved to ship 4.2 million tonnes in 2023.
“Baffinland will be asking communities to consider an option that will see the project continue at the current permitted levels,” Akman said.
He said the company is looking for feedback from the communities and will also “address communities’ questions and uncertainties arising from the minister’s rejection of the Phase 2 Proposal.”
“Application materials filed would reflect community and [Qikiqtani Inuit Association] feedback and information that has been part of previous regulatory and monitoring processes,” Akman said.
“It is our hope that this approach would reduce the regulatory burden for participants, while meeting the need to provide certainty for the operations.”
Brian Penney, Baffinland’s chief executive officer, said in a statement the company is asking Inuit to “consider options for regulatory and operational stability for the current project, to give all of us an opportunity to focus on the long-term vision for Mary River.”
“Ultimately, Baffinland must switch to a rail operation for the economic longevity of the project, but continuing the approved trucking and shipping levels in 2023 and beyond would allow us to sustain operations, maintain important commercial relationships, continue to provide employment and deliver benefits to communities on North Baffin Island,” he said.
Penney is scheduled to speak at the upcoming Northern Lights conference in Ottawa in February, where he plans to address the future of the Mary River mine.
