US panel denounces France abaya ban as targeting Muslims

AFP
Fri, September 8, 2023 

A woman wearing an abaya dress walks through the streets of Lille, northern France, on August 28, 2023 (Denis Charlet)

A US government advisory panel on Friday denounced ally France's ban on schoolgirls wearing abayas, saying the restriction on the long, flowing dresses was meant to "intimidate" the Muslim minority.

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom is tasked with making recommendations to the US government but does not set policy itself.

The commission's chair, Abraham Cooper, called the abaya ban a "misguided effort to promote the French value of laicite," the country's official secularism.

"France continues to wield a specific interpretation of secularism to target and intimidate religious groups, particularly Muslims," Cooper said in a statement.

"While no government should use its authority to impose a specific religion on its population, it is equally condemnable to restrict the peaceful practice of individuals' religious beliefs to promote secularism."

French Education Minister Gabriel Attal announced last month that schools would no longer allow girls to wear abayas, the flowing dresses of Middle Eastern origin.

In 2004, France banned school children from wearing "signs or outfits by which students ostensibly show a religious affiliation" and outlawed headscarves, turbans, large crosses or kippas.

But abayas had fallen into a gray area with some women saying that they wear them due to their cultural identity rather than religious belief.

Conservative French politicians have sought to widen restrictions. Far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who came in second to President Emmanuel Macron in last year's presidential election, has campaigned for the banning of wearing veils in the street.

The ban on the abaya was denounced in France by some Muslim leaders and by hard-left political leader Jean-Luc Melenchon, who called it a move to fan divisions.

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom is made up of appointees of both major political parties but some of its recommendations have been repeatedly ignored by the State Department, including its calls to condemn India.

The United States also has a constitutional separation of church and state but interprets secularism

Wind Farm Developer SSE Rethinks US Entry in Blow to Biden Plans

Todd Gillespie
Thu, September 7, 2023 



(Bloomberg) -- SSE Plc is reconsidering investing in the US as financial pressure on offshore wind projects makes the nation less appealing.

Chief Executive Officer Alistair Phillips-Davies said troubles like those cited by rival Orsted A/S put the country lower on its list of possible new markets. UK-based SSE, one of the world’s largest developers of offshore wind, has talked for several years about potentially investing in the US.

The Inflation Reduction Act was a driver for many European renewable energy companies to do business in the US, but that appeal is starting to sour amid anxiety about rising interest rates and supply-chain bottlenecks. Orsted shares plunged last week after it warned that uncertainties over US tax credits might prompt it to abandon planned projects.

“One difficulty at the moment would probably be doing something in the US,” Phillips-Davies said in an interview in London. “There are probably still unanswered questions in people’s minds as to what’s happened [with Orsted] or how big the issues are in the US.”

SSE’s hesitancy is another blow for plans to grow offshore wind in America, where President Joe Biden’s administration is targeting a jump to 30 gigawatts of the technology by the end of this decade from almost nothing now.

SSE has more than nine gigawatts of offshore wind in its pipeline in the UK and Ireland, and plans to spend £40 billion ($50 billion) building clean-energy assets by 2032. That spending includes work on Dogger Bank off the east coast of England, which will be the world’s largest offshore wind farm.

“Not many people really understand what it takes to build an asset over in the US,” Phillips-Davies said. “You’ve seen cost of capital go up, and you’ve seen supply chain being substantially challenged.”

Simultaneously, the company has considered Germany, Poland and the Netherlands for potential new projects.

“Where there is an energy system and a set of regulations and markets that we understand, solar and battery are things that we’d add in” alongside wind, he said.

Phillips-Davies also refused to rule out buying Norfolk Boreas, the 1.4 gigawatt offshore wind project halted by Swedish developer Vattenfall AB in July.

“I wouldn’t dismiss anything,” he said, noting that SSE made an unexpected acquisition of gas-fired power plants last year.

Japanese Rocket Successfully Delivers Moon Lander and X-Ray Telescope to Space

Passant Rabie
Thu, September 7, 2023 

An illustration of the XRISM spacecraft.

Update: September 7, 9:06 a.m. ET: Mitsubishi Heavy Industries has succeeded in launching the H-IIA rocket, which blasted off yesterday from Tanegashima Space Center, Japan. XRISM appears to be on track, with reports of solar acquisition control, data received from ground stations, and solar array deployment.

SLIM is a small lunar lander designed to test a new technology for pinpointing a specific landing site on the Moon within a smaller range of 328 feet (100 meters). The lander is targeting a touchdown in the Shioli Crater, a 984-foot-wide (300-meter) impact basin on the Moon’s near side.

This is JAXA’s first attempt to land on the Moon. In December 2022, a Japanese company named ispace attempted to become the first private space venture to land on the lunar surface. Unfortunately, ispace’s Hakuto-r lander crashed on the Moon after miscalculating its distance from the celestial object.

This year, India became the fourth country in the world to land on the Moon by flying the first mission to the lunar south pole. The Moon also claimed a Russian lunar lander, which failed in its attempt to touchdown on its cratered surface.

SLIM is expected to arrive in lunar orbit around three to four months after its launch. Luckily, the lunar lander won’t be making the first part of its trip on its own. JAXA’s lander is launching alongside XRISM (X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission), a joint mission with NASA. The satellite is designed to detect X-rays with energies ranging from 400 to 12,000 electron volts (visible light is 2 to 3 electron volts). Viewing the skies in this range will provide astronomers a rare look at some of the universe’s hottest regions, largest structures, and objects with the strongest gravity, according to NASA.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
Safety Inspector Fired For Finding 'Too Many Defects' Could Cost Railroad Millions

Newly released recordings bring to light a culture of ignoring safety in favor of profit

By Collin Woodard

JALOPNIK

Photo: Tom Pennington / Stringer (Getty Images)


You would think that if you worked as a track inspector for a railroad company, reporting defects would make you good at your job. After all, wouldn’t the company want to know where its trains should slow down and where repairs need to be made? Ignoring those problems would be a recipe for train derailments that could cost the company a lot of money and could injure or even kill employees. According to former track inspector Don Sanders, you would be wrong, at least if you work for Burlington Northern Santa Fe.

KSTP-TV reports Sanders had previously sued BNSF back in 2017, claiming he was retaliated against after he reported “too many defects.” The jury found in his favor, and BNSF is currently appealing the multi-million-dollar judgment. This isn’t the first time BNSF found itself in court, either. After a train derailed back in March, the news channel “...found BNSF had repeatedly been sanctioned or admonished in court for destroying evidence or retaliating against employees.”

Freight Train Derailment Sparks Intense Fire in Minnesota

America's Freight Trains Are Totally Screwed

But now, KSTP-TV has obtained a series of previously unreleased secretly recorded phone calls from the lawsuit. And let’s just say they do not make BNSF look good. In one, you can hear an employee ask, “Why can’t we just fix the (expletive) defects?” In another from 2015, Sanders’ supervisor is clearly upset that he called the Federal Railroad Administration.

“Why in the world would we ever call the FRA about anything? Unless I’m absolutely blatantly telling you to break the rules,” the supervisor says. “They know the rule book better than anybody,” Sanders responds. “Have I ever called the FRA on you because you told me not to follow the rules like you do all the time? No.”

Another former BNSF track inspector, Kevin Gaylor, told KSTP-TV he was working with Sanders on a track inspection trip when they both received a call from their boss criticizing their performance. “We were both called and criticized for putting out too many slow order defects,” Gaylor said. “Every track inspector on this system can tell you their experiences about the pressure that’s put on.”

A slow order is given when a defect is found that is serious enough that trains need to reduce their speed until they pass.

In another one of the calls, Sanders’ boss sounds upset about a reported defect potentially putting his job in jeopardy, saying, “All I can say is I need your help right now to keep my ass from getting fired.” “I need to just look the other way?” Sanders responds. “No. We just need to have a conversation,” his boss replies.

According to court records obtained by KSTP-TV, that supervisor still has his job and was actually given a raise and a near $20,000 bonus. The performance review that led to that raise and bonus specifically referenced the fact that “Don Sanders is no longer working for BNSF” and the reduction in slow orders

Kim Kardashian: My Plea to Joe Biden to Stop Another Armenian Genocide

Kim Kardashian and Dr. Eric Esrailian

ROLLING STONE
Fri, September 8, 2023 


We are Armenian. We are the descendants of Armenian Genocide survivors, and we do not want to be talking about the recognition or commemoration of yet another genocide in the future.

Since December of last year, Azerbaijan has blockaded the only lifeline between the indigenous Christian Armenians of Artsakh (also known as Nagorno-Karabakh) and the rest of the world. For many years, they have been dependent on the transport of food, medical supplies, and humanitarian aid through the Lachin Corridor. The war in Ukraine has made Azerbaijan a seemingly more favorable alternative to Russian oil and gas for some countries. However, this reliance has emboldened the autocratic Azeri government to use starvation as a weapon against the Armenian population in the region. There is no more time for thoughts, prayers, or concern.

The 2020 war, after Azerbaijan attacked Armenians in Artsakh without provocation, has never ended in the minds of Armenians around the world. Despite a cease-fire agreement, the attacks on Armenian soldiers have been constant and without repercussions. Armenophobic policies have been designed and widely promoted by the Azeri government and others. Regional peace should not involve sacrificing the sovereignty of the Armenians in Artsakh, but regardless of what anyone believes about our opinion, it is clear that this ruthless blockade has crossed all red lines of human rights and humanitarian law. Blocking human rights groups, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and the hateful rhetoric accompanying the blockade are signs of genocidal intent.

A view shows an Azerbaijani checkpoint at the entry of the Lachin corridor, the Armenian-populated breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region’s only land link with Armenia, on Aug. 30, 2023.

Azerbaijan’s government and its allies claim that there are alternate routes that should be used. Using a separate Azerbaijan-controlled passage for the occasional delivery of supplies is disingenuous at best. More likely, it will signal the beginning of the end for Armenians and Christians in Artsakh. At the start of this crisis, there were approximately 120,000 Armenians, including 30,000 children, living in the republic. Unfortunately, because of starvation and the inability to receive adequate medical care, there has already been a significant and tragic loss of life — and it will only get worse without immediate action. For those who survive, the trauma will be permanent. While there was a disingenuous attempt to portray the blockade as one related to environmental concerns, Armenians and international observers knew that the desire was to make the republic so uninhabitable that people would either die or agree to leave. Meanwhile, supporters of this starvation use coordinated social media campaigns to pretend that a blockade is not taking place. This dystopian propaganda may be absurd to those with knowledge, but the defenders of these human rights abuses are trying to confuse people given everything else happening in the world.

Numerous genocide watchdog groups and the United Nations’ own independent Special Rapporteurs — including the first UN Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide, Professor Juan Mendez — have been trying to alert the world about these impending atrocities for months. Last month, Luis Moreno Ocampo, the first chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, published his independent report. He concluded that a genocide is already underway because under Article II, (c) of the Genocide Convention, Azerbaijan is “Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction.”


Dr. Eric Esrailian

The University Network for Human Rights, in collaboration with students, lawyers, and academics from Harvard Law School Advocates for Human Rights, UCLA’s Promise Institute for Human Rights, Wesleyan University, and Yale’s Lowenstein Project, conducted two fact-finding trips in Nagorno-Karabakh and four in Armenia between March 2022 and July 2023. Their recently published briefing paper states, “Moreover, the abuses we documented are not a string of unrelated rights violations; taken together, these abuses reveal a synchronized, comprehensive campaign to empty Nagorno-Karabakh and parts of Armenia of Armenians.”

The collective silence or inaction by individuals, governments, and governmental organizations like the United Nations and European Union has perpetuated the crisis. Every passing day puts more lives in danger. American taxpayer dollars are now facilitating and enabling this behavior by providing foreign aid to an oil-rich nation. Through economic sanctions, cutting off foreign aid to Azerbaijan, boycotting international events in Azerbaijan (such as concerts and sporting events like soccer and Formula 1), and through proceedings in international courts, we can collectively achieve results, but this process has been too slow and time is running out. As citizens, we are appealing to leaders such as President Biden, Secretary of State Blinken, and their colleagues to take a stand immediately. They must pressure Azerbaijan to open the corridor without preconditions.

Demonstrators rally in support of Karabakh to demand the reopening of a blockaded road linking the Nagorno-Karabakh region to Armenia and to decry crisis conditions in the region, in Yerevan, on Sept. 2, 2023.

We are just two people. We have been working behind the scenes to support our Armenian brothers and sisters, but this diplomatic approach has not yielded meaningful results. This crisis will clearly not be remedied by individuals, but we will continue to do what we can to use whatever influence we have. We are not politicians or government leaders, and despite our own diplomatic efforts, this humanitarian crisis has persisted with no clear end in sight — except for the potential for ethnic cleansing of the Armenian population. We will continue to use our voices to amplify the truth.

The people in Artsakh want to live in peace. Now is the time for true leadership. We need for those who have a meaningful role in these affairs to immediately demand that the Lachin Corridor is opened to stop another genocide. We want to draw more attention to the crisis and appeal to those in our own government who truly care about humanity to intervene. The United States has the ability to mobilize a response. Leaders who are effective and help our people will be remembered for their heroism. Even if well-meaning, the ones who are inert and ineffective will be remembered for allowing a genocide to take place under their watch. The choice is theirs.

The health and lives of endocrine patients are at risk due to crucial drug shortages due to the humanitarian crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh (Republic of Artsakh)

European Society of Endocrinology & the European Society for Paediatric Endocrinology are in crisis consultation talks regarding urgent medical drug supply for the care of patients with endocrine disease in Nagorno-Karabakh (Republic of Artsakh

Business Announcement

EUROPEAN SOCIETY OF ENDOCRINOLOGY

PRESS RELEASE                                         

 

Joint Press Release from the European Society of Endocrinology (ESE) and the European Society for Paediatric Endocrinology (ESPE) and the Armenian Association of Paediatric

Endocrinologists and the Armenian Association of Endocrinology.

 

The health and lives of endocrine patients are at risk due to crucial drug shortages due to the humanitarian crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh (Republic of Artsakh).

 

The European Society of Endocrinology and the European Society for Paediatric Endocrinology are in crisis consultation talks with partner societies in Armenia (Armenian Association of Paediatric Endocrinologists and the Armenian Association of Endocrinology) regarding urgent medical drug supply, required to secure the continued care of patients with endocrine disease in Nagorno-Karabakh (Republic of Artsakh).

 

There is a current urgent need for endocrine medications and supplies in the besieged region of Nagorno-Karabach (Republic of Artsakh). Specifically, the supplies of insulin are nearing depletion, and the population is out of injection needles, syringes and strips. Patients are currently re-using the (single-use) syringes for 7-10 days. In addition, currently there is a significant shortage of levothyroxine, hydrocortisone, cabergoline and other medications.

 

Insulin is life critical for the treatment of diabetes. Patients with diabetes mellitus, particularly type 1 diabetes, need unrestricted access to insulin. A shortage of insulin is immediately life-threatening. The supply of long and short acting insulins must be accompanied by adequate supplies of glucose test strips and glucose measuring devices, as the blood-glucose values form the cornerstone of diabetes self-management. Also, in case of acute stress, infection or trauma and inadequate diet (food supply being difficult during war) the insulin dose may need adaptations and adequate glycaemic control is an important healing factor.

 

The Societies have issued a joint statement on this life critical matter (read here) and call upon all parties to secure the provision of adequate supply of medication essential to treat patients with potentially life-threatening acute or chronic endocrine conditions.

 

President of the Armenian Association of Paediatric Endocrinologists, Elena Aghajanova, brought the humanitarian situation in Nagorno-Karabakh to the attention of the two European endocrine Societies. She said, “Patients are facing a lack of access to specialist diagnostic services and surgical interventions as well as difficulties to continue or initiate required life-saving treatments caused by lack of drug supply.  Shortages of food and high stress of the dire and desperate situation are also impacting the entire population which is heightening the crisis for those with health issues.”

 

A member of ESE, endocrinologist Liliya Rostomyan (Belgium) said, “Armenian doctors continue to appeal to the world medical community and international humanitarian aid organisations to pay attention to the crisis in Artsakh and call them for action to save patients with various diseases. The situation caused by the ongoing blockade is equal to a real humanitarian catastrophe, with patients left without food, essential

medications, and access to crucial medical care. Lives of 120,000 people, including children and pregnant women, are in danger, and our duty is to make every effort to avoid such a catastrophe in the 21st century”.

 

ESE President Jérôme Bertherat said, “We call upon all parties to secure free and safe passage for patients that require specialised medical interventions.” He added, “We have already called upon all our members and the over 22,000 endocrine professionals across Europe, and our partners to assist in any way possible in alleviating the needs of the population of Nagorno-Karabakh.”

 

ESPE President Anita Hokken Koelega explained, “The way that this crisis affects the population is a big concern to our community of health care professionals and this is a very real and immediate crisis. Our societies stand ready to provide additional information where needed, and to work with like-minded NGOs and our partners to support patients and health care providers in the Nagorno-Karabakh region.”

 

The following statements have been issued in response to the humanitarian crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh (Republic of Artsakh) and the endocrine drug shortages: 

 

21 August 2023: Joint statement from the European Society of Endocrinology (ESE) and the European Society for Paediatric Endocrinology (ESPE) on the humanitarian crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh (Republic of Artsakh). Read here.

 

17 July 2023: Endocrine drug shortages - Joint Statement from the European Society of Endocrinology (ESE), the European Society for Paediatric Endocrinology (ESPE), the Armenian Association of Paediatric Endocrinologists and the Armenian Association of Endocrinology. Read here.

 

We call upon all parties to secure free and safe passage for patients that require specialised medical interventions and for the supply of essential drugs into the Region.

 

We call upon all health professionals, pharmaceutical industries, medical and humanitarian organisations to provide all possible assistance.

**** ENDS ****

Notes for Editors: The situation in the besieged region is dire, with patients left without food, essential medications, and access to crucial medical care. We urgently call on the forces currently imposing the blockade to show humanity and compassion: grant immediate and unobstructed access to life-saving aid and medical passages. Lives are at stake.

 

About the European Society of Endocrinology

The European Society of Endocrinology (ESE) provides a platform to develop and share leading research and best knowledge in endocrine science and medicine. By uniting and representing every part of the endocrine community, we are best placed to improve the lives of patients. Through the 51 National Societies involved with the ESE Council of Affiliated Societies (ECAS) ESE represents a community of over 22,000 European endocrinologists. We inform policy makers on health decisions at the highest level through advocacy efforts across Europe. To learn more about the Society, visit ese-hormones.org.

 

About the European Society for Paediatric Endocrinology

The European Society for Paediatric Endocrinology (ESPE) is an international society registered in Europe that promotes the highest levels of clinical care for infants, children and adolescents with endocrine problems throughout the world, including in less advantaged areas. Our mission is to advance excellence in paediatric endocrinology and diabetes by promoting research, education and medical practice to the benefit of child and adolescent health throughout the world. To learn more about the Society, www.eurospe.org

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2023/09/we-are-starving-to-death-residents-of.html

US climate scientist risks felony by chaining herself to pipeline drill

Emma Pattee
Fri, September 8, 2023

Two women climbed in the dark down the banks of the Greenbrier River in West Virginia on Thursday morning and locked themselves to a massive drill, stopping work on a controversial oil pipeline project.

One of the women, Rose Abramoff, is a climate scientist and by participating in temporarily shutting down the pipeline construction she is believed to be the first American climate scientist to risk a felony in an act of climate protest against fossil fuel projects.

“The stakes are so high,” Abramoff told the Guardian. “We cannot build this pipeline and meet our climate goals.”

The Mountain Valley Pipeline would stretch 300 miles across West Virginia and Virginia, transporting liquified shale gas. After years of legal challenges and opposition from environmentalists, the US supreme court made a ruling in July to allow construction to resume on the $6.6bn pipeline, which has been championed by Senator Joe Manchin.

According to Scientist Rebellion, a coalition of scientists who are actively protesting against climate change, over two dozen work stoppages such as lockdowns, rallies and walk-ons have taken place at the Mountain Valley pipeline construction site in the past two months. On Tuesday, two protesters who attached themselves to construction vehicles were arrested and charged with trespassing, obstruction of justice and interfering with property rights.

“Pipeline activists in West Virginia have already been issued felony charges,” said Peter Kalmus, a fellow climate scientist and member of Scientist Rebellion, who was on site at the protest in West Virginia this week, “we have a sense that police are escalating their response.”

Abramoff was arrested on Thursday morning along with the other activist, and four other activists who were sitting in rocking chairs with their legs locked in concrete barrels, blocking an access road to the construction site. Abramoff said that while she was chained to the drill, the police were threatening the activists with felonies and domestic terrorism charges.

All six activists were released later on Thursday and charged with critical infrastructure misdemeanors.

Abramoff has a long history of climate activism. Last year, she chained herself to the White House fence to bring awareness to the climate crisis, and later marched with a group of activists down a major freeway in Washington DC, stalling traffic during rush hour. In November, she chained herself to the entrance of a private jet terminal in North Carolina.

She also has already experienced the consequences of radical activism. In December of last year, Abramoff interrupted the American Geophysical Union meeting, calling on fellow scientists to join her in climate activism. In response, she was expelled from the conference and lost her job. “I’m all for decorum, but not when it will cost us the earth,” she wrote in an op-ed for the New York Times. “I used to be a well-behaved scientist. I stood quietly on melting permafrost in Utqiagvik, Alaska, and measured how much greenhouse gas was released into the atmosphere … When scientists take action, people listen.”

The Mountain Valley pipeline route on Brush Mountain on 18 July 2018. Photograph: Heather Rousseau/AP

Kalmus says that more and more scientists are willing to risk arrest, and their reputations, because of alarm over the climate emergency. “The thing that’s stopping a lot of more scientists from doing this kind of activism is that it’s scary. It’s socially scary, you risk your job, you risk your status among your colleagues, you risk criminal charges. But I know just from having beers with other scientists, that as a community, we’re pretty terrified by our own science.”

For Abramoff, the risk of going to prison is scary, but the alternative is unthinkable: “We can’t keep expanding fossil fuels. It just can’t happen.”

Spokespeople for the Mountain Valley pipeline have previously described the project as being subject to “unprecedented scrutiny” that will raise the bar for the “safe construction of linear energy infrastructure”, while helping towards goals for lowering carbon emissions.

Last week a non-violent environmental activist, Mylene Vialard, was found guilty of felony obstruction for her role in trying to halt construction of a fossil fuel pipeline through Indigenous territory in Minnesota.

This week a sweeping indictment announced in Atlanta alleging that opposition to a police and fire department training center known as “Cop City” adds up to a criminal conspiracy heightened concerns about a chilling effect on protest everywhere across the US.

U.N. says more needed 'on all fronts' to meet climate goals

David Stanway and Riham Alkousaa
Updated Fri, September 8, 2023 

Wildfires in Trapani Sicily

(Reuters) -The world is not on target to curb global warming and more action is needed on all fronts, the United Nations warned on Friday, in the run-up to crucial international talks aimed at stemming the climate crisis.

The Global Stocktake report, the latest warning from the U.N. about environmental perils, will form the basis of the COP28 talks in Dubai at the end of the year and follows months of wildfires and soaring temperatures.

The report, culminating a two-year evaluation of the 2015 Paris climate agreement goals, distils thousands of submissions from experts, governments and campaigners and will lay the groundwork for the global stock-take discussion at COP28.

"The Paris Agreement has driven near-universal climate action by setting goals and sending signals to the world regarding the urgency of responding to the climate crisis," it said. "While action is proceeding, much more is needed now on all fronts."

Nearly 200 countries agreed in 2015 in Paris to limit warming to no more than 2 Celsius above pre-industrial levels, and to strive to keep the increase to 1.5 C.

While each country is responsible for deciding its own climate actions, they also agreed to submit to a progress report by 2023 to see what more should be done.

The U.N. said existing national pledges to cut emissions were insufficient to keep temperatures within the 1.5 C threshold. More than 20 gigatonnes of further CO2 reductions were needed this decade - and global net zero by 2050 - in order to meet the goals, the U.N. assessment said.

In Friday some of the world's most climate vulnerable countries said the report should spur action from global leaders.

"With leaders gathering this month for the United Nations Secretary General’s Climate Ambition Summit ahead of COP28, the findings and recommendations of this Report need to be a wake-up call and a trigger for cogent commitments," said Pa'olelei Luteru, chair of the Association of Small Island States.

'BOLD TO-DO LIST'

The report urged countries to cut the use of "unabated" coal power by 67-92% by 2030 versus 2019 levels and to virtually eliminate it as a source of electricity by 2050.

Low and zero-carbon electricity should account for as much as 99% of the global total by mid-century, while technological challenges holding back carbon capture must be resolved.

The report also called for funding to be unlocked to support low-carbon development, noting that billions of dollars were still being invested in fossil fuels.

"It serves up a bold to-do list for governments to limit warming to 1.5C and protect people everywhere from climate devastation," said Tom Evans, policy advisor on climate diplomacy at British climate think tank E3G.

Commitment is needed to phase out fossil fuels, set 2030 targets for renewable energy expansion, ensure the financial system funds climate action, and raise funds for adaptation and damage, he said.

"Anything less will fall short on the necessary steps laid out in this report."

Sultan Al Jaber, who will preside over the Nov. 30-Dec. 12 summit in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), told Reuters the stock take gave good direction, and urged states and private sector leaders to come to COP28 with real commitments.

Also on Friday, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told G20 bloc leaders that they have the power to reset a climate crisis that is "spinning out of control".

A Brazilian climate official told Reuters: "What we need is an unprecedented mobilization both in terms of scale and speed of all of humanity’s financial, technology, and capacity building resources to be channeled towards sustainable development."

(Reporting by David Stanway in Singapore and Riham Alkousaa in Berlin; additional reporting by Jake Spring in Sao Paulo and Valerie Volcovici in Washington; editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Jason Neely)

CATEGORY 5
Hurricane Lee’s historic intensification skyrockets storm to rare strength

Mary Gilbert and Allison Chinchar, CNN
Fri, September 8, 2023 

A satellite view of Lee at Category 5 strength. - CNN Weather

Hurricane Lee maintained its Category 4 strength Friday evening as the powerful storm’s indirect – yet dangerous – impacts were expected to reach the waters of the East Coast as early as this weekend.

The hurricane, which briefly strengthened to a rare Category 5 storm in the Atlantic Ocean, is packing destructive maximum sustained winds of 150 mph and is about 500 miles east of the northern Leeward Islands.

“Some fluctuations in intensity are likely over the next few days, however Lee is expected to remain a powerful major hurricane through early next week,” the National Hurricane Center said.

It’s too soon to know whether this system will directly impact the US mainland, but the storm will create dangerous coastal conditions like rip currents and large waves along the East Coast as soon as Sunday regardless of its final track.

Lee, which was a Category 1 storm Thursday, intensified with exceptional speed in warm ocean waters, more than doubling its wind speeds to 165 mph in just a day.

The storm’s winds increased by 85 mph in a 24-hour period, which tied it with Hurricane Matthew for the third-fastest rapid intensification in the Atlantic, according to NOAA research meteorologist John Kaplan. The monstrous hurricane struck Haiti in 2016, killing hundreds in the Caribbean nation while also wreaking havoc on parts of the US Southeast.

Dangerous surf and rip currents will spread across the northern Caribbean on Friday

The center of Lee will pass to the north of the Leeward Islands, the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico this weekend and into early next week. Tropical storm conditions, life-threatening surf and rip currents could occur on some of these islands over the weekend.
Lee now in rare company

Lee hit a rare strength that few storms have ever achieved. Only 2% of storms in the Atlantic reach Category 5 strength, according to NOAA’s hurricane database. Including Lee, only 40 Category 5 hurricanes have roamed the Atlantic since 1924.

Category 5 is the highest level on the hurricane wind speed scale and has no maximum point. Hurricanes hit this level when their sustained winds reach 157 mph or higher. A 165-mph storm like Lee is the same category as Hurricane Allen, the Atlantic’s strongest hurricane on record, which topped out at 190 mph in 1980.

Hurricanes need the perfect mixture of warm water, moist air and light upper-level winds to intensify enough to reach Category 5 strength. Lee had all of these, especially warm water amid the warmest summer on record.

Sea-surface temperatures across the portion of the Atlantic Ocean that Lee is tracking through are a staggering 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above normal after rising to “far above record levels” this summer, according to David Zierden, Florida’s state climatologist.

Reaching Category 5 strength has become more common over the last decade. Lee is the 8th Category 5 since 2016, meaning 20% of these exceptionally powerful hurricanes on record in NOAA’s hurricane database have come in the last seven years.

The Atlantic is not the only ocean to have spawned a monster storm in 2023. All seven ocean basins where tropical cyclones can form have had a storm reach Category 5 strength so far this year, including Hurricane Jova, which reached Category 5 status in the eastern Pacific earlier this week.

HURRICANE LEE TO HIT NEWFOUNDLAND IN ALL THREE SCENARIOS

How close will Hurricane Lee get to the US?

Computer model trends for Lee have shown the hurricane taking a turn to the north early next week. But exactly when that turn occurs and how far west Lee will manage to track by then will play a huge role in how close it gets to the US.

Several steering factors at the surface and upper levels of the atmosphere will determine how close Lee will get to the East Coast.

Lee's potential track next week will be determined by multiple atmospheric factors including a strong area of high pressure to its east (yellow circle) and the jet stream (silver arrows) to its west.

An area of high pressure over the Atlantic, known as the Bermuda High, will have a major influence in how quickly Lee turns. The Bermuda High is expected to remain very strong into the weekend, which will keep Lee on its current west-northwestward track and slow it down a bit.

As the high pressure weakens next week it will allow Lee to start moving northward.

Once that turn to the north occurs, the position of the jet stream – strong upper-level winds that can change the direction of a hurricane’s path – will influence how closely Lee is steered to the US.

Scenario: Out to Sea

Lee could make a quick turn to the north early next week if high pressure weakens significantly.

If the jet stream sets up along the East Coast, it will act as a barrier that prevents Lee from approaching the coast. This scenario would keep Lee farther away from the US coast but could bring the storm closer to Bermuda.

Track Scenario: An area of high pressure (yellow circle) to the east of Lee and the jet stream (silver arrows) to the west of Lee, can force the storm to track between the two, away from the US coast.

Scenario: Close to East Coast

Lee could make a slower turn to the north because the high pressure remains robust, and the jet stream sets up farther inland over the Eastern US. This scenario would leave portions of the East Coast, mainly north of the Carolinas, vulnerable to a much closer approach from Lee.

Track Scenario: An area of high pressure (yellow circle) to the east of Lee and the jet stream (silver arrows) to the west of Lee, can force the storm to track between the two, closer to the US coast.

All these factors have yet to come into focus, and the hurricane is still at least seven days from being a threat to the East Coast. Any potential US impact will become more clear as the Lee moves west in the coming days.

CNN Meteorologist Robert Shackelford and Aya Elamroussi contributed to this report.

US NTSB cites inadequate inspections in 2021 United Airlines engine failure

Fri, September 8, 2023


FILE PHOTO: A United Airlines Boeing 777 plane is towed at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The National Transportation Safety Board said on Friday the February 2021 engine failure on a United Airlines Boeing 777 in Colorado was due to a crack in a fan blade and cited inadequate inspections as a contributing cause.

Soon after the failure, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ordered immediate inspections of 777 aircraft with Pratt & Whitney 4000 engines before further flights, which led to the planes' grounding for more than a year.

The Boeing 777-200 bound for Honolulu after takeoff from Denver showered debris over nearby cities, but no one was injured and the plane safely returned to the airport.

The NTSB cited "the inadequate inspection of the blades, which failed to identify low-level indications of cracking, and the insufficient frequency of the manufacturer’s inspection intervals, which permitted the low-level crack indications to propagate undetected and ultimately resulted in the fatigue failure." Pratt & Whitney is a unit of RTX.

Boeing and Pratt & Whitney did not immediately comment.

United said on Friday it "closely collaborated with the NTSB, FAA, Boeing and Pratt and Whitney on each step of the investigation and are pleased to have these aircraft back in our fleet."

In March 2022, the FAA finalized new safety directives after three reported in-flight fan blade failures including the Colorado incident that prompted enhanced inspections and modifications. The FAA said on Friday it had issued the safety directives in response to the fan blade incidents.

United is the only U.S. operator of 777s with the PW4000 engine and had 52 of those planes as of 2022.

As of January, 17 confirmed cracked fan blades have been found, the NTSB said, the first of which was identified in December 2004 - not including three fan blades that sustained full-blade separation in service.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Grant McCool)

Residents and fishermen file a lawsuit demanding a halt to the release of Fukushima wastewater

MARI YAMAGUCHI
Fri, September 8, 2023 



 TV screen shows a news report on the release of the treated radioactive water of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant on Aug. 24, 2023, in Tokyo. Fishermen and residents of Fukushima and five other prefectures along Japan’s northeastern coast filed a lawsuit Friday, Sept. 8, demanding a halt to the ongoing release of treated radioactive wastewater from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant into the sea.

(AP Photo/Norihiro Haruta, File)

TOKYO (AP) — Fishermen and residents of Fukushima and five other prefectures along Japan’s northeastern coast filed a lawsuit Friday demanding a halt to the ongoing release of treated radioactive wastewater from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant into the sea.

In the lawsuit filed with Fukushima District Court, the 151 plaintiffs, two-thirds from Fukushima and the rest from Tokyo and four other prefectures, say the discharge damages the livelihoods of the fishing community and violates residents’ right to live peacefully, their lawyers said.

The release of the treated and diluted wastewater into the ocean, which began Aug. 24 and is expected to continue for several decades, is strongly opposed by fisheries groups that worry it will hurt the image of their catch even if it's safe.

Three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant melted after a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami in 2011 destroyed its cooling systems. The plant continues to produce highly radioactive water which is collected, treated and stored in about 1,000 tanks that cover much of the plant complex.

The government and the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, say the tanks need to be removed to allow the plant's decommissioning.

The plaintiffs are demanding the revocation of safety permits granted by the Nuclear Regulation Authority for the wastewater's release and a halt to the discharge, lawyer Kenjiro Kitamura said.

The government and TEPCO say the treated water meets legally releasable levels and is further diluted by hundreds of times with seawater before being released into the sea. The International Atomic Energy Agency, which reviewed the release plan at Japan’s request, concluded that the release's impact on the environment, marine life and humans will be negligible.

“The intentional release to the sea is an intentional harmful act that adds to the (nuclear plant) accident," said another lawyer, Hiroyuki Kawai. He said the ocean is a public resource and it is unethical for a company to discharge wastewater into it.

TEPCO said it could not comment until it receives a copy of the lawsuit.

China banned all imports of Japanese seafood in response to the release, while Hong Kong and Macau suspended imports from 10 prefectures including Fukushima. Groups in South Korea have also condemned the discharge.

China is the biggest importer of Japanese seafood, and its ban has hit the industry hard.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's Cabinet on Tuesday approved a 20.7 billion yen ($141 million) emergency fund to help exporters hurt by the Chinese ban. The fund is in addition to 80 billion yen ($547 million) that the government previously allocated to support fisheries and seafood processing and combat reputational damage to Japanese products.

Kishida said while attending a summit of Southeast Asian leaders in Indonesia that China’s ban contrasts sharply with a broad understanding of the release shown by many other countries.

China’s Concern About Nuclear Wastewater May Be More About Politics Than Science

Chad de Guzman

TIME
Fri, September 8, 2023 


Chinese newspapers report on the release of treated water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant into the Pacific, describing the discharge as "extremely irresponsible" and "an atrocity," in Beijing on Aug. 30, 2023. Credit - Yomiuri Shimbun/AP

Have you considered that “man-tall crabs” or “Cthulu-esque octopuses” could emerge from the sea in 30 to 40 years? China is apparently upset that Japan hasn’t, according to a recent state media report.

In the last two weeks since Japan began releasing into the Pacific Ocean treated wastewater that had been used to cool the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant that was damaged by a tsunami in 2011, a seemingly coordinated campaign has been waged on social media and Chinese news media to vent outrage and hysteria about the dangers of radiation imposed by China’s neighbor to the east.

China isn’t the only critic of Japan’s discharge, but it is perhaps the loudest. China’s foreign ministry called Japan “a saboteur of the ecological system and polluter of the global marine environment.” And Chinese customs authorities banned all aquatic products coming from Japan since the wastewater release began on Aug. 24, despite being the biggest market for Japanese seafood exports before then. Reports of harassment of Japanese citizens in China soon followed.

In reality, most scientists agree that the health effects of the wastewater on the marine environment and consumers of seafood from the region are negligible. Some observers have even pointed out that similar discharges have been occurring for years by operators of nuclear power plants across the world—including in China.

After nuclear wastewater is treated, including the water released by Japan, typically what radioactive elements remain are tritium (a hydrogen isotope) and carbon-14, which are both already abundant in nature. The water is then diluted to an acceptable limit so as not to be harmful, though there is no common international standard. It’s then common practice to dispose of the treated water by releasing it into the ocean. TEPCO, the operator of the Fukushima plant, dilutes wastewater to a radioactivity of around 15% the World Health Organization’s maximum level for drinking water.

TEPCO has pledged to release no more than 22 trillion becquerels—a unit of emitted radiation—of tritium per year. For reference, the Diablo Canyon Power Plant in California released liquid effluents containing around 95 trillion becquerels of tritium in 2022, and the Heysham B Power Station in England released about 396 trillion becquerels of tritium in 2019.

While the U.S. and the U.K. have supported Japan’s release plan as safe, as has the International Atomic Energy Agency, China has pressed forward with demonizing Japan. At the same time, the latest China Nuclear Energy Yearbook by the nonprofit non-governmental organization China Nuclear Energy Association shows that plants there have discharged water with much higher radioactivity levels in 2021, the last year for which data are available.

Not all of the numbers are decipherable, but at least 10 nuclear plants in China in just a year discharged liquid effluents containing more than 4.5 quadrillion becquerels of tritium—more than 200 times the self-imposed annual limit for Fukushima’s wastewater release.

When presented with charges of hypocrisy earlier this summer, Chinese officials denied that the situations are comparable. “In fact, there are essential differences between the nuclear-contaminated water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan and the normal liquid effluents from nuclear power plants worldwide,” the National Nuclear Safety Administration said in a statement. Foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin also said during an August press briefing that “there is a fundamental difference between the nuclear-contaminated water that came into direct contact with the melted reactor cores in the Fukushima nuclear disaster and the water released by nuclear power plants in normal operation.”

That’s not necessarily true. A range of different radioactive isotopes can be present in nuclear wastewater before its treated, but after treatment, the ultimate risk posed by the tritium that remains is not actually affected by how the water was originally contaminated, says Jim Smith, a professor of environmental science at the University of Portsmouth who has extensively studied the impact of radioactive pollutants on the environment. “Basically, it's all been through reactors, or at least the tritium has come from reactors, and the other radionuclides come from reactors,” he tells TIME, “so I don't really see a difference.”

But if not for a legitimate concern for health and science, why else might Beijing be so determined to paint Japan as a villain? Some have speculated that the wastewater issue offers a politically convenient distraction for China, which is facing domestic turmoil—giving citizens something else to be angry about instead of the unexpectedly slow economic growth, record-high youth unemployment, dwindling resources for an aging public, and a real estate sector in crisis. China has already had an historically fractured relationship with Japan due to the latter’s past colonial rule of the former. And just this year, as the geopolitical rivalry between the U.S. and China has continued to intensify, Tokyo has strengthened its military partnership with Washington.

China’s state media has even reckoned with questions about why it cares so much about this issue. “Some U.S. media outlets even claimed that China would be the last to be affected from the perspective of ocean circulation. So why is China stepping up?,” an anonymous source quoted in the Global Times asked, before credulously answering: “Because what China has been doing is for the sake of being responsible to humanity and the country really cares about environmental protection.”

—Koh Ewe contributed reporting.