China

New coal capacity hit 20-year low in 2024: report

BY SARA HUSSEIN

  • Last year also saw a record number of new coal proposals in India, the report warned.
  • The world added the smallest amount of new coal capacity in two decades last year, a report said Thursday, but use of the fossil fuel is still surging in China and India.
  • Last year also saw a record number of new coal proposals in India, the report warned.
The world added the smallest amount of new coal capacity in two decades last year, a report said Thursday, but use of the fossil fuel is still surging in China and India.
Coal accounts for just over a third of global electricity production and phasing it out is fundamental to meeting climate change goals.
Just 44 gigawatts (GW) of new coal power capacity was produced globally last year, the lowest figure since 2004, according to the report by a group of energy- and environment-focussed research organisations and NGOs.
"Last year was a harbinger of things to come for coal as the clean energy transition moves full speed ahead," said Christine Shearer of the Global Energy Monitor, which co-authored the report.
But new capacity still outstripped coal closures, meaning a net increase in the global coal fleet, the report noted.
China began construction on a record number of coal plants last year.
Last year also saw a record number of new coal proposals in India, the report warned.
"Work is still needed to ensure coal power is phased out in line with the Paris climate agreement, particularly in the world's wealthiest nations," Shearer said.

'Dubious' coal technologies

The International Energy Agency (IEA) says global coal demand will plateau from 2024-2027, with declining use in developed countries largely off-set by growth in emerging economies.
China's electricity sector accounts for a third of all coal consumed worldwide, according to the IEA, making its transition from the fuel key to global trends.
While coal construction hit record highs in China last year, new permits in the country fell back from the breakneck levels seen the two years prior, the report said.
And in Southeast Asia, where coal has powered emerging economies like Indonesia, new proposals for the fossil fuel have declined.
That is the result of various deals and pledges in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam to phase out the use of coal, the report said.
But among wealthy economies, Japan and South Korea were singled out for their promotion of "dubious 'decarbonisation' coal technologies domestically and abroad."
The report warned these technologies are "expensive and unlikely to deliver the deep emission cuts needed for climate stability."
Chief among them is co-firing with ammonia at coal-powered plants. Substituting ammonia for some of the coal used in a plant can reduce emissions, but ammonia's emissions profile depends on how it is produced.
And even co-firing with low-emissions ammonia still produces more carbon dioxide than many other power generation technologies, the report warned.
The groups also flagged uncertainty over coal commitments in the United States after Donald Trump returned to the presidency.
But they pointed out that more coal plants were shut during Trump's first term than under his predecessor Barack Obama, or successor Joe Biden.
"Trump's first term shows the difficulty of counteracting the declining economic feasibility of coal power in the US, coupled with the advanced age of the country's coal plants," the report said.
sah/dhw

yodelling

Revealed: Why monkeys are better at yodelling than humans

  • A "cheap trick" in their larynx means these monkeys will always beat humans, senior study author Jacob Dunn of the UK's Anglia Ruskin University told AFP. Both humans and monkeys have a pair of vocal folds in their larynx which vibrate to create sound.
  • Yodellers of the world, you never stood a chance: Monkeys will always be better at yodelling than humans because they have a "cheap trick" hidden in their voice box, scientists revealed Thursday.
  • A "cheap trick" in their larynx means these monkeys will always beat humans, senior study author Jacob Dunn of the UK's Anglia Ruskin University told AFP. Both humans and monkeys have a pair of vocal folds in their larynx which vibrate to create sound.
Yodellers of the world, you never stood a chance: Monkeys will always be better at yodelling than humans because they have a "cheap trick" hidden in their voice box, scientists revealed Thursday.
When monkeys howl -- or yodellers yodel -- they rapidly switch back and forth between low and high frequency sounds.
This is in contrast to opera singers, who are trained to precisely control how they gradually move from note to note, in a way that is pleasing to listen to.
Yodellers and monkeys, however, make bigger jumps far more abruptly, creating vocal breaks that sound like Tarzan's yell.
When yodelling, a human might be able to jump an octave, which doubles the frequency.
Monkeys can manage three and half octaves, according to a new study. 
A "cheap trick" in their larynx means these monkeys will always beat humans, senior study author Jacob Dunn of the UK's Anglia Ruskin University told AFP.
Both humans and monkeys have a pair of vocal folds in their larynx which vibrate to create sound.
But monkeys have an additional pair of membranes that gives them a far wider pitch range, the international team of researchers discovered.
This is thought to give monkeys, which are social creatures, a more complex way of communicating with each other.
All other primates, and even ancient human ancestors, appear to have this special tissue, Dunn said.
At some during our evolution, humans seem to have lost these membranes, he added.
But the shame of being inferior yodellers may have been worth the trade-off.
To be able to speak clearly, humans needed a "streamlined" larynx -- and these membranes would have gotten in the way, Dunn explained.
"If you put a human brain on the primate larynx" it would struggle to speak intelligibly because of the membranes and other things like air sacs, he said.
For the study, the researchers put sensors on the necks of some monkeys at Bolivia's La Senda Verde Wildlife Sanctuary.
This allowed them to see what was going on in the larynx of black and gold howler monkeys, tufted capuchins, black-capped squirrel monkeys and Peruvian spider monkeys.
The spider monkey was the best yodeller, managing around four octaves, Dunn said.
The researchers also studied the larynges of dead monkeys and used computer modelling to analyse the frequencies.
The study was published in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.
dl/giv

weather

Most deadly 2024 hurricane names retired from use: UN agency

  • Instead, the names Brianna, Holly, and Miguel have been added to the list of possibilities for future storms in the Atlantic, while Jake was added for the eastern Pacific roster. 
  • They were most destructive and deadly: hurricanes Beryl, Helene, Milton in the Atlantic and John in the eastern Pacific are names no longer an option to christen future storms, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) announced Wednesday. 
  • Instead, the names Brianna, Holly, and Miguel have been added to the list of possibilities for future storms in the Atlantic, while Jake was added for the eastern Pacific roster. 
They were most destructive and deadly: hurricanes Beryl, Helene, Milton in the Atlantic and John in the eastern Pacific are names no longer an option to christen future storms, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) announced Wednesday. 
Instead, the names Brianna, Holly, and Miguel have been added to the list of possibilities for future storms in the Atlantic, while Jake was added for the eastern Pacific roster. 
By giving hurricanes and cyclones human names, the WMO believes it is easier to warn populations about a storm's potential dangers. 
Names are assigned in alphabetical order, alternating between feminine and masculine names that are short and easy to pronounce. 
"The names are repeated every six years, unless a storm is so deadly that its name is retired," the WMO explained in a statement.
In 2024, "Hurricane Beryl was the earliest Atlantic basin Category-5 hurricane on record, with major impacts in the Caribbean," it said. 
"Hurricanes Helene and Milton caused catastrophic damage in the United States. Hurricane John triggered deadly and extended flooding in the Mexican state of Guerrero."
Climate change has affected the severity and frequency of such storms, scientists warn. 
Tropical cyclones -- the term for hurricanes, cyclones, and typhoons -- feed on moisture in the air and draw their energy from the heat of the water.
"The proportion of intense tropical cyclones (categories 4-5) is expected to increase at the global scale with increasing global warming," the WMO said in 2022, a message reiterated many times since. 
Rising sea surface temperatures are fuelling more powerful and frequent storms. 
The 2024 Atlantic hurricane season was the ninth consecutive season with above-average activity, with 18 storms intense enough to be named. 
Five storms developed into major hurricanes of categories 3 to 5 on the Saffir Simpson scale, with winds of 178 kilometres (111 miles) per hour or more, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. 
vog/giv/rmb

crime

Deutsche Bank asset manager DWS fined 25 mn euros for 'greenwashing'

BY SAM REEVES

  • DWS had already been hit in 2023 with $19-million penalty by financial regulators in the United States over misleading green statements.
  • Deutsche Bank's asset management arm DWS was hit Wednesday with a 25-million-euro ($27-million) fine over misleading advertising for supposedly sustainable products, with activists hailing one of the world's biggest ever "greenwashing" penalties.
  • DWS had already been hit in 2023 with $19-million penalty by financial regulators in the United States over misleading green statements.
Deutsche Bank's asset management arm DWS was hit Wednesday with a 25-million-euro ($27-million) fine over misleading advertising for supposedly sustainable products, with activists hailing one of the world's biggest ever "greenwashing" penalties.
The case has dogged the German financial firm for several years since a top executive came forward with "greenwashing" allegations, with investigators repeatedly raiding the asset manager's offices and DWS's boss forced to quit in 2022. 
It has also highlighted growing worries about how to police a surge in "environmental, social and governance" (ESG) investing as companies and institutions seek to bring portfolios in line with climate targets.
Unveiling the penalty, prosecutors in the German financial capital Frankfurt said DWS had "extensively" advertised financial products which claimed to have ESG characteristics from 2020 to 2023. 
But investigations, carried out by prosecutors and police, found that "statements in external communications, such as claiming to be a 'leader' in the ESG area or stating 'ESG is an integral part of our DNA' did not correspond to reality," they said.
While a "transformation process" was underway at the firm, it had not yet been completed, they said, adding: "Statements in external relations must not go beyond what can actually be implemented."
The asset manager said it accepted the fine, admitting that "in the past our marketing was sometimes exuberant" but insisting that improvements had already been made.
DWS had already been hit in 2023 with $19-million penalty by financial regulators in the United States over misleading green statements.

'Historically high' fine

Greenpeace said it was the highest ever penalty imposed in Europe's biggest economy for a such an offence. 
"This historically high penalty payment for greenwashing is a clear wake-up call for the entire industry: consumer deception is not a trivial offence but fraud," said Mauricio Vargas, a financial expert with the environmental advocacy group.
He accused DWS of scaling back its sustainable finance efforts in response to the allegations, which he described as a "slap in the face to its customers", and also of continuing to invest heavily in fossil fuels.
The "greenwashing" scandal first emerged at DWS after its former chief sustainability officer, Desiree Fixler, came forward with "greenwashing" allegations in 2021.
Several raids followed at the asset manager and Deutsche Bank's offices in Frankfurt, and DWS chief executive Asoka Woehrmann stepped down in June 2022, saying the allegations had become a "burden".
While ESG products have in recent years become a major asset class, critics worry about what they say is a lack of standardised data and criteria to prove such investments are truly sustainable.
The European Union's markets authority last year issued new rules to combat "greenwashing" in finance, laying out what criteria needed to be met for a fund to have "ESG" or "sustainable" in its name.
Troubles at its asset management arm are also another blow to Deutsche Bank, which has undergone a major restructuring in recent years after an aggressive shift in the early 2000s into investment banking drew it into multiple scandals.
sr/fz/lth

Amazon

How a Brazilian chief is staving off Amazon destruction

BY FACUNDO FERNáNDEZ BARRIO

  • He now resides mostly in the nearby city of Peixoto de Azevedo for health reasons, but will be back on his home soil Friday to receive President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
  • You don't need a GPS to find the home turf of the Amazon's most famous resident, Brazilian Chief Raoni Metuktire. 
  • He now resides mostly in the nearby city of Peixoto de Azevedo for health reasons, but will be back on his home soil Friday to receive President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
You don't need a GPS to find the home turf of the Amazon's most famous resident, Brazilian Chief Raoni Metuktire. 
As you approach his Capoto/Jarina Indigenous territory in Mato Grosso state, large single-crop farms of soybean or maize give way to lush, verdant rainforest.
This is the epicenter of a half-century battle led by the globe-trotting activist against illegal miners and loggers hacking away at the world's biggest rainforest.
Instantly recognizable by his wooden lip plate and feathery headdress, Raoni's date of birth is unknown, but he is believed to be about 90. 
Three decades ago, he toured the world with British activist-rock star Sting to press for Indigenous rights.
His home village of Metuktire, named after his clan belonging to the Kayapo people, is accessible chiefly by boat along the Xingu River, a tributary of the Amazon.
The formidable chief lived most of his life in one of the straw-and-wood huts arranged in a wide circle around a forest clearing. 
He now resides mostly in the nearby city of Peixoto de Azevedo for health reasons, but will be back on his home soil Friday to receive President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Raoni told AFP in an interview ahead of the visit that he would press Lula to halt plans for an oil mega-project at the mouth of the Amazon river, and urge that the community should get custodianship of a bigger slice of forest.
"I don't allow illegal miners or timber traffickers on our land," the chief told AFP emphatically.
Raoni's 1,600-strong community has a two-pronged approach to defending its ancestral homeland: conducting patrols against intruders and teaching Indigenous youth to resist the temptation of getting rich quick at the cost of rainforest destruction.
Only 0.15 percent of Capoto/Jarina territory, which occupies an area four times the size of the mega-city of Sao Paulo, has been affected by deforestation, according to official statistics.

'This land is ours'

Designating land as Indigenous territory -- where deforestation is a crime -- has proven effective in holding back the ferocious onslaught from illegal mining and agriculture.
Indigenous territories have lost less than 2.0 percent of their native plant species since 2008, compared to 30 percent on non-Indigenous lands, according to the Socio-Environmental Institute, a Brazilian NGO.
Bu to have his clan's land recognized as Indigenous territory by the state, Raoni had to resort to desperate measures.
Brazilian media have recounted how in 1984 he and his nephew hijacked a ferry, taking hostage officials from the military dictatorship then in power.
Forty days later, the state conceded.
"Garimpeiros (miners) and Whites wanted to occupy our land, but we fought until we expelled them forever," Beptok Metuktire, another leader of the community, where most use the clan name as a surname, told AFP.
"We showed them that this territory is ours," the 67-year-old added in the community's Kayapo language. 

22,000 football fields

Indigenous lands are nonetheless under attack, stripped every year of thousands of hectares of native vegetation.
Near the Capoto/Jarina territory, in an area inhabited by other branches of Raoni's Kayapo people, the emerald-green jungle is pockmarked by huge brown craters and pools of brackish water -- the hallmarks of illegal gold mining.
AFP saw dozens of hydraulic excavators operated by workers camped out at the site during a flight organized by environmental NGO Greenpeace.
Kayapo territory has lost the equivalent of 22,000 football fields of forest to illegal gold mining, according to Greenpeace, which notes the growing presence of organized crime groups such as Comando Vermelho, one of Brazil's biggest gangs, in the region.
"White people persuade some Indigenous leaders to mine for gold, which leads to disputes and even murders among families," said Roiti Metuktire, territorial protection coordinator at the Raoni Institute, which defends Indigenous rights.
"Changing this is difficult because people got used to the money from crime and because the land has already been degraded, they don't have anything to eat," he said.

'End of our world'

While Raoni's homeland has so far managed to ward off the worst threats, one looms larger than ever: wildfires.
The Brazilian Amazon was ravaged by a staggering 140,000 fires last year -- many of them started to clear land for livestock or crops. 
A blaze in Capoto/Jarina wiped out crops and medicinal plants, fellow community leader Pekan Metuktire said.
"When I was young, the climate in this village was normal. But now the sun burns, the land dries up and the rivers overflow. If this continues, it's the end of our world," he added.
The community hopes that UN conference on climate change that Lula will host in the Amazon city of Belem in November will help halt the destruction.
Ngreikueti Metuktire, a 36-year-old woman, summed up the tall task awaiting Brazil's leader, before heading to the fields to harvest cassava.
"We need Lula to speak to the world to ensure the future of our grandchildren."
ffb/app/cb/mlr/tgb

quake

Chinese developer under scrutiny over Bangkok tower quake collapse

BY SALLY JENSEN AND CHAYANIT ITTHIPONGMAETEE

  • The Bangkok construction collapse is not the first time CREC and its subsidiaries have come under fire after deadly incidents.
  • A Chinese construction company is facing questions over the deadly collapse of a Bangkok skyscraper -- the only major building in the capital to fall in a catastrophic earthquake that has killed more than 2,000 people in Thailand and neighbouring Myanmar.
  • The Bangkok construction collapse is not the first time CREC and its subsidiaries have come under fire after deadly incidents.
A Chinese construction company is facing questions over the deadly collapse of a Bangkok skyscraper -- the only major building in the capital to fall in a catastrophic earthquake that has killed more than 2,000 people in Thailand and neighbouring Myanmar.
The 30-storey tower, still under construction, was to house government offices, but the shaking reduced the structure to a pile of rubble in seconds, killing at least 13 people and injuring nine.
It was the deadliest single incident in Thailand after Friday's 7.7-magnitude quake, with the majority of the kingdom's 20 fatalities thought to be workers on the building site and hopes fading for around 70 still trapped. 
Sprawling Bangkok bristles with countless high-rise blocks, but none have reported major damage, prompting many to ask why the block under construction gave way.
"We have to investigate where the mistake happened," said Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra, who has ordered a probe into the materials and safety standards at the construction site.
"What happened from the beginning since it was designed? How was this design approved? This was not the first building in the country," she told reporters on Saturday.
The development near Bangkok's popular Chatuchak market was a joint project involving China Railway No. 10 Engineering Group (Thailand) -- an offshoot of China Railway Group (CREC), one of the world's largest construction and engineering contractors.

Questions raised

Testing of steel rebars -- struts used to reinforce concrete -- from the site has found that some of the metal used was substandard, Thai safety officials said on Monday.
Industry Minister Akanat Promphan announced that a committee would be set up to investigate, saying one supplier of the steel had failed safety tests in December and may have its licence withdrawn. He did not name the supplier.
Professor of Civil Engineering at King Mongkut's Institute of Technology Ladkrabang Suchatwee Sunaswat said there were questions to be answered.
"We have to look at the design. At the beginning, how they calculate, how they design. And in the rescue mission, how they collect evidence at the same time," he told reporters on Saturday.
- Safety complaints - 
The local partner in the project, Italian-Thai Development (ITD) offered condolences on Monday to quake victims but said it was "confident" the incident would not impact its other projects.
Beijing-owned building conglomerate CREC is one of the world's largest construction and engineering contractors, with projects in more than 90 countries and regions, according to its website.
The Bangkok construction collapse is not the first time CREC and its subsidiaries have come under fire after deadly incidents.
A tide of anger was unleashed at authorities in Serbia following the deaths of 14 people when a roof collapsed in November last year at a train station built by CREC subsidiaries -- largely focused on reports of alleged shortcuts made with building projects.
Roisai Wongsuban of the Migrant Working Group advocacy organisation said there have been a large number of complaints from migrant workers employed by Chinese companies in Thailand about lax safety standards and poor labour rights.
"For Chinese companies we can't see the human rights due diligence, to see if labour standards are being met," she told AFP. 
"There is always a power imbalance between employer and employee."
Bangkok's construction boom is powered by an army of labourers, a large proportion of them migrant workers from Myanmar, toiling on hot building sites for low pay.
The Migrant Working Group has called on Thailand's labour ministry to hold the employers involved in the construction project criminally liable if they have failed to meet health and safety laws.

China sensitivities

AFP has asked China Rail No. 10 Engineering Thailand and CREC for comment but has not had a response.
An announcement celebrating the completion of the main structure at the Chatuchak construction site posed on China Rail No. 10's official WeChat channel was deleted soon after Friday's quake.
AFP archived the post shortly after the tremors hit but before the page was removed.
Local media said that four Chinese nationals were apprehended on Saturday for attempting to retrieve documents from the collapse site.
But China is the largest source of foreign direct investment in Thailand, injecting $2 billion into the kingdom in 2024, according to Open Development Thailand, and the government typically handles anything linked to Beijing with kid gloves.
Paetongtarn said an investigation into the collapse launched on Monday would not be "specific to one country".
"We do not want one particular country to think we are only keeping eyes on (it)," she said on Tuesday.
At a small shelter near the site on Monday, 45-year-old Naruemol Thonglek waited for news of her boyfriend, electrician Kyi Than, who was missing under the enormous mound of concrete and twisted metal being lifted by mechanical diggers.
"I'm devastated," she told AFP. "I've never seen anything like this in my entire life."
sjc-ci/pdw/dhw

quake

Sirens wail and families cry at Myanmar disaster site

BY SEBASTIEN BERGER AND HLA-HLA HTAY

  • The Sky Villa block was one of Mandalay's better housing options, with a generator offering 24-hour electricity -- a rarity in war-ravaged Myanmar even before Friday's quake -- as well as a gym and a swimming pool.
  • As the sirens wailed outside the ruins of Mandalay's Sky Villa condominium and Myanmar began a minute's silence for its more than 2,000 earthquake dead, Shwe Sin thought of her missing child.
  • The Sky Villa block was one of Mandalay's better housing options, with a generator offering 24-hour electricity -- a rarity in war-ravaged Myanmar even before Friday's quake -- as well as a gym and a swimming pool.
As the sirens wailed outside the ruins of Mandalay's Sky Villa condominium and Myanmar began a minute's silence for its more than 2,000 earthquake dead, Shwe Sin thought of her missing child.
"She is such a good daughter," said the 40-year-old.
The last time she saw Chit Yamin Pyae, she told AFP in tears, "she paid homage to me and her father by touching her forehead to my feet".
The 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck at 12:51:02 (0621 GMT) on Friday, rocking the earth, toppling some buildings and destroying others. 
On Tuesday at precisely the same time, it was hearts that were ripped asunder as the nation fell silent to remember the dead.
A farmer in northern Shan state, Shwe Sin had been on a call with her 20-year-old daughter, an accountant at Sky Villa -- among the worst disaster sites in the city -- when the quake struck.
Her daughter called out to a friend: "Sister Sister! It is an earthquake! I am scared!"
"What happened? What happened, daughter?" her mother asked.
"I heard her voice but she didn't hear mine," Shwe Sin told AFP.
Minutes later the tremors reached her 140 kilometres (87 miles) away in the Shan town of Momeik, and the connection was cut.
The Sky Villa block was one of Mandalay's better housing options, with a generator offering 24-hour electricity -- a rarity in war-ravaged Myanmar even before Friday's quake -- as well as a gym and a swimming pool.
Those who could afford its creature comforts would choose to live there, said one onlooker.
For an unknown number -- and the staff who served them -- it has become their tomb.

11th floor escape

Some sections collapsed completely, each storey pancaking down on to the next. In another area, the top six levels remained twisted and broken but standing on the remains of those below.
Zhu Zhu was with a friend on the 11th floor when the quake hit.
"I thought that was the day I would die," the 20-year-old student told AFP. 
"I thought about my parents. I thought I was going to die soon and kept thinking about my mum and dad. It felt like the end for me."
She ran for the emergency exit and escaped through a hole in the wall.
"In the chaos, people collided with each other. As I was jumping and running through the rubble, the rest of the building collapsed, and many people were trapped underneath," she said.
"I was running blindly, not knowing where I was going. After a while, the dust cleared, and I realised the building had collapsed behind me."
Among those trapped was her friend Si Si, 26, who was like an older sister to her, Zhu Zhu said.
She has been keeping a vigil at the apartment block every day since the disaster, she said, arriving at 6:00 am and not leaving until after nightfall.
"I hoped she would survive for three days without food or water, but after four days, all I can do is wait for her body to be found. Her family is grieving, and there is no hope left," she said, wiping tears from her eyes.
"She was so happy before all of this happened. Now, I can't even imagine what she looks like. I don't want to imagine it."

Share merit

Missing posters printed on plastic sheets have begun to appear in the area around the site, sometimes held in place by bricks. In one, a man in blue gives a jaunty thumbs-up in the doorway of what looks like an office building.
In another, four images apparently from the same family show a middle-aged woman, a younger one and a toddler waving uncertainly at the camera.
"They have not yet been found at Sky Villa condo," reads the caption. "If you find them please contact these numbers."
In places, the smell of decaying corpses wafts from the debris.
A mechanical digger halfway up a pile of rubble pawed at the concrete, breaking it up.
Nearby a woman stood quietly, looking at the section where her younger brother lived on the third floor and was still inside.
"Please take my good deeds so you can pass to the next life," said her friend, sharing her accumulated merit in a Buddhist spiritual practice.
"Please don't share yet, he could still be alive," the woman replied.
slb-hla/pdw/sco

climate

'Heartbreaking' floods swamp Australia's cattle country

BY STEVEN TRASK

  • Officials said more than 100,000 livestock -- cattle, sheep, goats and horses -- had been swept away, were missing, or had drowned.
  • Whole herds of cattle have drowned in vast inland floods sweeping across the Australian outback, officials said Tuesday, as the muddy tide drenched an area the size of France.
  • Officials said more than 100,000 livestock -- cattle, sheep, goats and horses -- had been swept away, were missing, or had drowned.
Whole herds of cattle have drowned in vast inland floods sweeping across the Australian outback, officials said Tuesday, as the muddy tide drenched an area the size of France.
Swollen rivers burst their banks after unusually heavy downpours last week over outback Queensland, an arid region home to some of the country's largest cattle ranches.
Officials said more than 100,000 livestock -- cattle, sheep, goats and horses -- had been swept away, were missing, or had drowned.
"These are only early indications of the magnitude of this disaster and while these preliminary numbers are shocking, we are expecting them to continue to climb as flood waters recede," said state agriculture minister Tony Perrett.
"It's heartbreaking to consider what western Queenslanders will be going through over the weeks and months as they discover the full extent of losses and damage -- and start the long slog to start again."
Researchers have repeatedly warned that climate change amplifies the risk of natural disasters such as bushfires, floods and cyclones.

Fodder drop

Flood waters stretched some 500,000 square kilometres (190,000 square miles) across sparsely populated western Queensland, Perrett said, a landmass roughly equivalent to France.
Industry body AgForce told local media some cattle ranches may have lost almost 100 percent of their herd.
The government Bureau of Meteorology said some towns had recorded as much as 500 millimetres (20 inches) of rain in the space of a week -- their typical yearly total.
"Unfortunately, more rainfall is on the way," forecaster Dean Narramore said.
"The reason why we are so concerned about that is because we have numerous flood warnings current for much of Queensland."
Muddy livestock survived by crowding together on the few small hills cresting above the flood waters, photos posted to social media showed.
Queensland's fire department used helicopters to drop bales of fodder near surviving animals cut off from food.
The state's primary industries department said some 4,000 kilometres (2,500 miles) of road had been flooded -- a distance greater than the famed Route 66 connecting Chicago to Los Angeles.
Rising waters on Tuesday morning encircled the remote outpost of Thargomindah, which describes itself as Australia's farthest town from the sea.
A makeshift dirt flood levy was dug around the town to protect its 200 residents.

Cattle country

"Preparations are well underway, including securing food deliveries, ensuring the airport has enough aircraft fuel and if need be an evacuation point and accommodation," the shire council said.
"Our shire's isolated properties are stocked with food and supplies and doing okay under the circumstances."
Australia's so-called "channel country" is one of the nation's biggest cattle fattening grounds.
Most of the time its sweeping plains are dry and inhospitable. 
But cattle gorge themselves on the pastures that sprout whenever wet season rains fill the dry creek beds -- or channels -- that snake through the region.  
sft/djw/cms/mtp

automobile

French prosecutors demand Volkswagen face fresh Dieselgate trial

BY GUILLAUME DAUDIN

  • On top of numerous lawsuits still pending against the company in the United States and other countries, French prosecutors have now called for it to face charges of aggravated fraud in France too.
  • Prosecutors in Paris have called for German carmaker Volkswagen to face justice in France to compensate French consumers over the Dieselgate emissions fraud scandal, according to a court filing seen by AFP on Tuesday.
  • On top of numerous lawsuits still pending against the company in the United States and other countries, French prosecutors have now called for it to face charges of aggravated fraud in France too.
Prosecutors in Paris have called for German carmaker Volkswagen to face justice in France to compensate French consumers over the Dieselgate emissions fraud scandal, according to a court filing seen by AFP on Tuesday.
In one of the biggest scandals to hit the auto industry, Volkswagen admitted in 2015 it had sold 11 million vehicles equipped with devices designed to cheat environmental regulations by lowering cars' emissions during testing.
On top of numerous lawsuits still pending against the company in the United States and other countries, French prosecutors have now called for it to face charges of aggravated fraud in France too.
The company in response contested the French allegations, saying it was not liable to face trial in the Paris case.
In a court filing in late February and later seen by AFP, prosecutors said nearly a million French customers had to pay for servicing and repairs after the emissions breach was revealed.
They said that a 2021 experts' report concluded the company used the test-cheating software under a "cost-benefit" strategy "approved by management".
They cited as an aggravating factor the harm to health from the nitrogen dioxide emissions whose levels were falsely represented by the manufacturer.
Volkswagen told AFP in a statement it "contests the grounds of the accusations of aggravated fraud".
It "judges that French consumers did not suffer any harm such as to make them liable for compensation".
It said that vehicles sold in France had already been covered by a court case in Germany that ended in 2018 with it paying out a billion euros (more than $1 billion) in compensation.
"A double conviction on identical allegations is totally prohibited," it said.
The Paris prosecutors insisted the French charges were "complementary" to the German case with a focus on consumers' rights.
gd/cal/rlp/rl

SpaceX

SpaceX launches private astronauts on first crewed polar orbit

BY GREGG NEWTON

  • SpaceX has carried out five private astronaut missions to date -- three in collaboration with Axiom Space to the ISS, and two free-flying in Earth orbit.
  • SpaceX launched the first human spaceflight directly over Earth's polar regions on Monday -- a days-long, privately funded orbital mission involving four astronauts.
  • SpaceX has carried out five private astronaut missions to date -- three in collaboration with Axiom Space to the ISS, and two free-flying in Earth orbit.
SpaceX launched the first human spaceflight directly over Earth's polar regions on Monday -- a days-long, privately funded orbital mission involving four astronauts.
Named "Fram2" after the famed Norwegian ship built in the 19th century for Arctic and Antarctic expeditions, the mission will feature a range of experiments including taking the first X-ray in space and growing mushrooms in microgravity.
It's hoped that the research will support future long-duration space travel to Mars.
The crew launched aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule on a Falcon 9 rocket at 9:46 pm Monday (0146 GMT Tuesday) from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Cheers rang out in the control room as the powerful rocket roared upward, lighting up the night sky with a long, orange plume of flame as the craft began its journey toward Earth's North and South Poles.
"With the same pioneering spirit as early polar explorers, we aim to bring back new data and knowledge to advance the long-term goals of space exploration," mission commander Chun Wang said before the launch. 
Wang, a Chinese-born Maltese adventurer and co-founder of crypto companies f2pool and skatefish, selected the rest of the crew: vehicle commander Jannicke Mikkelsen, a Norwegian film director; mission pilot Rabea Rogge, a robotics researcher from Germany; and mission specialist and medical officer Eric Philips, an Australian polar explorer. 
The team trained for eight months in preparation for the approximately four-day trip, including a wilderness expedition in Alaska to simulate living in close quarters under harsh conditions.
Upon returning to Earth, the crew will attempt to exit the spacecraft without additional medical support -- part of a study to help researchers understand how well astronauts can perform basic tasks after spaceflight.
Except for the Apollo lunar missions, Earth's polar regions have remained out of view for astronauts, including those aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Even on Apollo, they did not fly directly over the Earth's poles.
SpaceX has carried out five private astronaut missions to date -- three in collaboration with Axiom Space to the ISS, and two free-flying in Earth orbit.
The first of these was Inspiration4 in 2021, followed by Polaris Dawn, which featured the first spacewalk conducted by private astronauts.
Both free-flying missions were chartered by e-payments billionaire Jared Isaacman, who has also been nominated by President Donald Trump to serve as the next NASA administrator.
Isaacman is also a close associate of SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.
ia/cha-jgc/dw

SpaceX

SpaceX to launch private astronauts on first crewed polar orbit

  • Except for the Apollo lunar missions, Earth's polar regions have remained out of view for astronauts, including those aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
  • SpaceX is set to launch the first human spaceflight directly over Earth's polar regions on Monday -- a days-long, privately funded orbital mission involving four astronauts.
  • Except for the Apollo lunar missions, Earth's polar regions have remained out of view for astronauts, including those aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
SpaceX is set to launch the first human spaceflight directly over Earth's polar regions on Monday -- a days-long, privately funded orbital mission involving four astronauts.
Named "Fram2" after the famed Norwegian ship built in the 19th century for Arctic and Antarctic expeditions, the mission will feature a range of experiments including taking the first X-ray in space and growing mushrooms in microgravity.
It's hoped that the research will support future long-duration space travel to Mars.
The crew will launch aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule on a Falcon 9 rocket in a window that opens at 9:46 pm Monday (0146 GMT Tuesday) from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Three other launch windows are available at 11:20 pm Monday, as well as 12:53 am and 2:26 am Tuesday, SpaceX said, adding that other windows could be opened if needed. 
"With the same pioneering spirit as early polar explorers, we aim to bring back new data and knowledge to advance the long-term goals of space exploration," said mission commander Chun Wang. 
Wang, a Chinese-born Maltese adventurer and co-founder of crypto companies f2pool and skatefish, selected the rest of the crew: vehicle commander Jannicke Mikkelsen, a Norwegian film director; mission pilot Rabea Rogge, a robotics researcher from Germany; and mission specialist and medical officer Eric Philips, an Australian polar explorer. 
The team trained for eight months in preparation for the approximately four-day trip, including a wilderness expedition in Alaska to simulate living in close quarters under harsh conditions.
Upon returning to Earth, the crew will attempt to exit the spacecraft without additional medical support -- part of a study to help researchers understand how well astronauts can perform basic tasks after spaceflight.
Except for the Apollo lunar missions, Earth's polar regions have remained out of view for astronauts, including those aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Even on Apollo, they did not fly directly over the Earth's poles.
SpaceX has carried out five private astronaut missions to date -- three in collaboration with Axiom Space to the ISS, and two free-flying in Earth orbit.
The first of these was Inspiration4 in 2021, followed by Polaris Dawn, which featured the first spacewalk conducted by private astronauts.
Both free-flying missions were chartered by e-payments billionaire Jared Isaacman, who has also been nominated by President Donald Trump to serve as the next NASA administrator.
Isaacman is also a close associate of SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.
ia/cha-sla/sst

quake

Myanmar to mark minute of silence as quake toll passes 2,000

BY SEBASTIEN BERGER AND HLA-HLA HTAY

  • Officials say they have not given up hope of finding more survivors.
  • Myanmar will mark a minute of silence Tuesday in tribute to victims of the country's devastating earthquake that has killed more than 2,000 people, as hopes dim of finding more survivors in the rubble of ruined buildings.
  • Officials say they have not given up hope of finding more survivors.
Myanmar will mark a minute of silence Tuesday in tribute to victims of the country's devastating earthquake that has killed more than 2,000 people, as hopes dim of finding more survivors in the rubble of ruined buildings.
National flags will fly at half-mast until April 6 "in sympathy for the loss of life and damages" from Friday's massive quake, the ruling junta said in a statement Monday.
As part of a week of national mourning, the junta announced the minute's silence to begin Tuesday at 12:51:02 pm (0621 GMT) -- the precise time the 7.7-magnitude quake struck.
People should stop where they are to pay respect to the victims, the junta said, while media should halt broadcasting and show mourning symbols, and prayers will be offered at temples and pagodas.
The announcement came as the tempo and urgency of rescue efforts wound down in Mandalay, one of the worst-affected cities and the country's second-largest, with more than 1.7 million inhabitants.
"The situation is so dire that it's hard to express what is happening," said Aung Myint Hussein, chief administrator of Mandalay's Sajja North mosque.
People prepared to camp out in the streets across Mandalay for a fourth successive night, either unable to return to ruined homes or nervous about repeated aftershocks that have rattled the city.
Some have tents but many, including young children, have been bedding down on blankets in the middle of roads, trying to keep as far from buildings as possible.
The junta said Monday that 2,056 have now been confirmed dead, with more than 3,900 people injured and 270 still missing, but the toll is expected to rise significantly. 
Three Chinese nationals are among the dead, China's state media said, along with two French people, according to the foreign ministry in Paris.
At least 19 deaths have been confirmed hundreds of kilometres away in Thailand's capital Bangkok, where the force of the quake caused a 30-storey tower block under construction to collapse.
Diggers continue to clear the vast pile of rubble at the site, where a dozen deaths have been confirmed and at least 75 people are still unaccounted for. Officials say they have not given up hope of finding more survivors.
- Outdoor hospital - 
Mandalay's 1,000-bed general hospital has been evacuated, with hundreds of patients being treated outside.
Patients lay on gurneys in the hospital car park, many with only a thin tarpaulin rigged up to shield them from the fierce tropical sun.
Relatives held their hands or waved bamboo fans over them.
"We're trying to do what we can here. We are trying our best," said one medic, who asked to remain anonymous.
The sticky heat has exhausted rescue workers and accelerated body decomposition, which could complicate identification.
But traffic began returning to the streets of Mandalay on Monday, and restaurants and street vendors resumed work. 
Hundreds of Muslims gathered outside a destroyed mosque in the city for the first prayer of Eid al-Fitr, the holiday that follows the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan.
- Humanitarian crisis - 
The challenges facing the Southeast Asian country of more than 50 million people were immense even before the earthquake.
Myanmar has been ravaged by four years of civil war sparked by a military coup in 2021, with its economy shattered and healthcare and infrastructure badly damaged.
The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the quake a top-level emergency as it urgently sought $8 million to save lives, while the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies has launched an appeal for more than $100 million.
International aid and rescue teams have been arriving after junta chief Min Aung Hlaing made an exceptionally rare appeal for foreign assistance.
In the past, isolated Myanmar's ruling generals have shunned aid from abroad, even after major natural disasters.
Junta spokesman Zaw Min Tun thanked key allies China and Russia for their help, as well as India, and said the authorities were doing their best.
"We are trying and giving treatment to injured people and searching for missing ones," he told journalists.
But reports have emerged of the military carrying out air strikes on armed groups opposed to its rule, even as Myanmar grapples with the quake's aftermath.
One ethnic minority armed group told AFP on Sunday that seven of its fighters were killed in an aerial attack soon after the quake, and there were reports of more air strikes Monday.
UN special envoy to Myanmar Julie Bishop called Monday for all parties to cease hostilities and focus on protecting civilians and delivering aid.
Myanmar's raging civil war, pitting the military against a complex array of anti-coup fighters and ethnic minority armed groups, has displaced around 3.5 million people.
burs-pdw/bfm/sst

accident

Spain coal mine blast kills five

BY CESAR MANSO

  • It was the deadliest mining accident in Spain since 1995 when 14 people died following an explosion at a mine in Asturias near the town of Mieres.
  • Five people died and four were seriously injured in a blast Monday at a coal mine in northern Spain's Asturias region, the nation's deadliest mining accident in decades.
  • It was the deadliest mining accident in Spain since 1995 when 14 people died following an explosion at a mine in Asturias near the town of Mieres.
Five people died and four were seriously injured in a blast Monday at a coal mine in northern Spain's Asturias region, the nation's deadliest mining accident in decades.
Two other workers at the Cerredo mine in Degana, around 450 kilometres (280 miles) northwest of Madrid, were unharmed in the accident, local emergency services said.
It was the deadliest mining accident in Spain since 1995 when 14 people died following an explosion at a mine in Asturias near the town of Mieres.
Initial indications were that the blast was caused by firedamp, a term referring to methane forming an explosive mixture in coal mines, the central government's representative in Asturias, Adriana Lastra, told reporters at the scene.
"Police are already investigating what happened, they are already at the scene," she added.
The explosion occurred underground in the mine at around 9:30 am (0730 GMT) and as news of the blast spread, workers' families flocked to the site, which was surrounded by police and emergency services vehicles.
"It's scandalous. Companies used to guarantee safety, but they are doing it less and less," Jose Antonio Alvarez, a relative of one the miners who died, told regional newspaper El Comercio.

'Weight of the law'

The five people who died were between the ages of 32 and 54, the regional government of Asturias said on X.
The injured were taken to hospitals in nearby cities, two of them by helicopter. They had suffered burns and, in one case, a head injury.
The mine is owned by a recently created local company called Blue Solving, which was trying to repurpose the site for the extraction of "high-performance minerals" for industrial use, according to local daily newspaper La Voz de Asturias.
Visiting the site of the accident, Labour Minister Yolanda Diaz vowed that the "weight of the law will fall" should anyone be found responsible for the tragedy.
"In the 21st century no one should die like this," Diaz added. 
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez sent his "sincere condolences" to the families of the victims and wished a "speedy recovery" to the injured, in a message posted on X.
The head of the regional government of Asturias, Adrian Barbon, declared two days of mourning "as a sign of respect for the deceased".
Mining has for centuries been a major industry in Asturias, a densely forested mountainous region.
pho-al-we/sbk/js

earthquake

Thai authorities probe collapse at quake-hit construction site

  • The confirmed death toll for Bangkok stood at 19 on Monday, with fears that the number could significantly rise as dozens remain missing under the building's rubble.
  • Authorities in Thailand are investigating possible factors that led to the devastating collapse of a Bangkok construction site, where dozens remained missing on Monday, three days after a massive earthquake centred in Myanmar.
  • The confirmed death toll for Bangkok stood at 19 on Monday, with fears that the number could significantly rise as dozens remain missing under the building's rubble.
Authorities in Thailand are investigating possible factors that led to the devastating collapse of a Bangkok construction site, where dozens remained missing on Monday, three days after a massive earthquake centred in Myanmar.
The planned skyscraper was to house government offices, but the shaking reduced the structure to a pile of rubble in seconds.
The collapse is the worst damage inflicted in Thailand by the 7.7-magnitude quake, which caused widespread destruction -- and at least 1,700 deaths -- in neighbouring Myanmar.
Numerous high-rise buildings elsewhere in Bangkok were left unscathed with limited reports of major damage, prompting questions as to why the one tower was destroyed.
Bangkok governor Chadchart Sittipunt told reporters on Monday that only two buildings in the city remained inaccessible.
Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra had expressed concerns on Saturday, questioning why the collapsed building was the only one in the capital to suffer major damage.
"I have questions in my mind," she said. "What happened from the beginning since it was designed? How was this design approved? This was not the first building in the country.
"We have to investigate where the mistake happened."
Paetongtarn ordered a probe into the incident involving a group of experts who she said would report back to her this week.

Some substandard steel

Critics have said that the steel bars used to link the building's concrete structures may have been too thin, or not of sufficient quality.
A number of steel rods were taken from the rubble and put through various technical examinations in front of journalists on Monday afternoon.
Industry minister Akanat Promphan said on Sunday that six types of steel had been found, all from a single producer.
"The collapse of a building can come from several factors, from design, construction (and) material specification," he said.
"Most important is the standard of the materials."
Nontichai Likhitaporn, inspections director at the Thai Industrial Standards Institute, told a news conference that some of the steel was found to be substandard, though most was acceptable.
Nattaphol Suthitham, from the Engineering Institute of Thailand, said the use of substandard steel would put the building at greater risk, but was not necessarily the sole cause of the collapse.
The confirmed death toll for Bangkok stood at 19 on Monday, with fears that the number could significantly rise as dozens remain missing under the building's rubble.
Morning rain on Monday gave way to a hot, humid and overcast afternoon as responders worked to remove debris and locate any remaining survivors.
Meanwhile, concerns have also been raised about Thailand's emergency response system, after a text message alert system experienced delays when Friday's quake struck.
"Our problem is that the sending of messages was slow and did not cover enough people," Paetongtarn said Saturday.
The prime minister has called a meeting for Monday with government departments responsible for sending the SMS alerts to the public, Thai media reported.
tp-pdw/dhw

quake

'Devastated': Relatives await news from Bangkok building collapse

BY WATSAMON TRI-YASAKDA

  • She told AFP she had lit incense and candles, prayed and wished, begging her boyfriend to return alive.
  • Three days after a Bangkok skyscraper collapsed in the wake of a devastating earthquake in neighbouring Myanmar, Naruemol Thonglek is still praying that her boyfriend will emerge from the immense pile of rubble where the building once stood.
  • She told AFP she had lit incense and candles, prayed and wished, begging her boyfriend to return alive.
Three days after a Bangkok skyscraper collapsed in the wake of a devastating earthquake in neighbouring Myanmar, Naruemol Thonglek is still praying that her boyfriend will emerge from the immense pile of rubble where the building once stood.
The sudden crumbling of the 30-storey tower, which was under construction at the time of Friday's 7.7-magnitude quake, has killed at least 11 people and rescue workers are racing to find 76 others still trapped among the debris.
Electrician Kyi Than, the boyfriend of Naruemol, is among those missing under the enormous mound of concrete and twisted metal being lifted by mechanical diggers as part of the desperate search.
"I'm devastated... I've never seen anything like this in my entire life," 45-year-old Naruemol told AFP from a small shelter near the site, where a group of around 50 relatives await news.
"I still pray that he is alive but if he is no longer alive then I hope that we can retrieve his body," she said.
Among the missing are Thais, Laotians, Cambodians and Myanmar nationals.  
Many relatives are choosing to sleep in the shelter, on camp beds or directly on the stone floor, and are reluctant to leave in case news emerges.

'We wait, we wait'

Rain fell Monday at the site, where sniffer dogs and thermal imaging drones have been deployed to seek signs of life in the collapsed building, which is close to the Chatuchak weekend market popular among tourists.
Around lunchtime, Tavida Kamolvej, the deputy governor of Bangkok, raised hopes over a noise or movement in the rubble that could be a survivor, but cautioned that the situation was still extremely unclear and they needed "a quiet moment" to work out its origin.
Thailand Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra was ushered away from the site, which she had been visiting, as experts rushed to help.
At least 18 people have been killed in Bangkok following the quake that struck near Mandalay early Friday afternoon, causing severe damage in central Myanmar in particular and killing more than 1,700 people across the country.
In the Thai capital, 33 people have been injured and 78 are still missing, most of them under the rubble of the building site.
Naruemol said Kyi Than, a Myanmar national, was among a group of electricians -- including his son -- working on the 26th floor. 
She told AFP she had lit incense and candles, prayed and wished, begging her boyfriend to return alive.
"If you can hear my voice, if you're still alive, please shout and let the officials know," she said, calling out to Kyi Than.
Elsewhere in the shelter, Daodee Paruay said she had been at the site for two days, hoping for a miracle. Her brother, a tiler, is under the rubble.
"We wait. We wait. We will wait until (they are) found," she said.
wjt-aph/pdw/dhw

quake

Fear of aftershocks in Myanmar forces patients into hospital car park

  • Fear of aftershocks is widespread across the city, with many people sleeping out in the streets since the quake, either unable to return home or too nervous to do so.
  • Hundreds of patients, including babies, the elderly and Buddhist monks, lie on gurneys in a hospital car park in the sweltering heat of Mandalay, a city still living in fear of aftershocks three days after a deadly quake struck Myanmar.
  • Fear of aftershocks is widespread across the city, with many people sleeping out in the streets since the quake, either unable to return home or too nervous to do so.
Hundreds of patients, including babies, the elderly and Buddhist monks, lie on gurneys in a hospital car park in the sweltering heat of Mandalay, a city still living in fear of aftershocks three days after a deadly quake struck Myanmar.
Mandalay General Hospital -- the city's main medical facility -- has around 1,000 beds but despite high heat and humidity, most patients are being treated outside in the wake of the massive earthquake that killed more than 2,000 people in Myanmar and neighbouring Thailand.
Friday's 7.7-magnitude quake was followed by repeated aftershocks that rattled Mandalay, Myanmar's second-largest city, over the weekend, and patients are being kept outside in case more tremors cause damage inside.
"This is a very, very imperfect condition for everyone," one medic, who asked to remain anonymous, told AFP. 
"We're trying to do what we can here," he added. "We are trying our best."
As temperatures soared to 39 degrees Celsius (102 degrees Fahrenheit), patients sheltered under a thin tarpaulin rigged up to protect them from the fierce tropical sun.
Relatives took the hands of their loved ones, trying to comfort them, or wafted them with bamboo fans.
Small children with scrapes cried amid the miserable conditions, while an injured monk lay on a gurney, hooked up to a drip.
It is not only the patients that are suffering. Medics sat cross-legged on the ground, trying to recuperate during breaks in their exhausting shifts. 
Although the hospital building itself has not been visibly affected, only a handful of patients who need intensive care, and the doctors who look after them, remain inside. 
The rest crammed themselves under the tarpaulin, or a shelter close by with a corrugated iron roof surrounded by motorbikes.
Fear of aftershocks is widespread across the city, with many people sleeping out in the streets since the quake, either unable to return home or too nervous to do so.
Some have tents but many, including young children, have simply bedded down on blankets in the middle of the roads, trying to keep as far from buildings as possible for fear of falling masonry.
The tempo and urgency of rescue efforts wound down Monday in Mandalay, one of the cities worst hit by the quake, as hopes faded of finding more survivors in the rubble of ruined buildings. 
Nearly 300 people remained missing across the country.
bur-aph/pdw/sco

nature

Tourists and locals enjoy 'ephemeral' Tokyo cherry blossoms

  • "After enduring the cold winter, the cherry blossoms bloom and it makes you feel like you're motivated to head towards summer," she told AFP. Nurse Nanami Kobayashi, 31, said the peak of the blossom season left her without words.
  • Tourists and Japanese locals marvelled at Tokyo's cherry trees on Monday at the peak of the annual blossom season that traditionally represents fresh starts but also life's fleeting impermanence.
  • "After enduring the cold winter, the cherry blossoms bloom and it makes you feel like you're motivated to head towards summer," she told AFP. Nurse Nanami Kobayashi, 31, said the peak of the blossom season left her without words.
Tourists and Japanese locals marvelled at Tokyo's cherry trees on Monday at the peak of the annual blossom season that traditionally represents fresh starts but also life's fleeting impermanence.
Crowds flocked to the city's top locations to take photos and hold picnics under the elegant dark branches bursting with pink and white flowers, known as "sakura" in Japanese.
"Honestly it feels pretty amazing to be here. It's honestly better than we expected. And it only comes around every once in a while and only for a short span of time," Christian Sioting, a tourist from the Philippines, told AFP.
"It's an ephemeral experience and we're pretty happy that we got to be here and to witness it in full bloom too."
The Japanese Meteorological Agency (JMA) on Sunday declared the country's most common and popular "somei yoshino" variety of cherry tree in full bloom in Tokyo.
Although this year's blooming dates are around the average, the JMA says climate change and the urban heat-island effect are causing sakura to flower approximately 1.2 days earlier every 10 years.
"Seeing photos is another thing, but being here, (to) really see the sakura in your eyes... it's really amazing," said Ralf Ng from Hong Kong.
A weak yen is attracting more visitors than ever to Japan, with national tourism figures released in January showing a record of about 36.8 million arrivals last year.
Tokyo resident Kayoko Yoshihara, 69, organises annual flower-viewing picnics with her friends, including one held last week as the cherry trees began to bloom.
"After enduring the cold winter, the cherry blossoms bloom and it makes you feel like you're motivated to head towards summer," she told AFP.
Nurse Nanami Kobayashi, 31, said the peak of the blossom season left her without words.
"When the trees are at full bloom, it's so beautiful that you just become speechless," she said.
ap-oh-kaf/sco

energy

Japan-Australia flagship hydrogen project stumbles

BY KATIE FORSTER AND KYOKO HASEGAWA

  • Hydrogen's climate credentials also depend on how it is produced.
  • Japan wants to become a hydrogen fuel leader to meet its net-zero goals, but one blockbuster project is hanging in the balance over questions about its climate credentials.
  • Hydrogen's climate credentials also depend on how it is produced.
Japan wants to become a hydrogen fuel leader to meet its net-zero goals, but one blockbuster project is hanging in the balance over questions about its climate credentials.
The Hydrogen Energy Supply Chain (HESC) is billed as a billion-dollar attempt to ship liquid hydrogen from Australia to Japan.
However, cold feet about the project in Australia means HESC will source hydrogen from Japan to meet a 2030 deadline for its demonstration phase.
Hydrogen sounds promising on paper: while fossil fuels emit planet-warming greenhouse gases, burning hydrogen creates only water vapour.
But it has not yet lived up to its promise, with several much-hyped projects globally struggling to overcome high costs and engineering challenges.
Hydrogen's climate credentials also depend on how it is produced.
"Green hydrogen" uses renewable energy, while "blue hydrogen" relies on fossil fuels such as coal and gas, with carbon-capture technology to reduce emissions.
"Brown hydrogen" is produced by fossil fuels without any carbon capture.
The HESC project aims to produce blue hydrogen in the Australian state of Victoria, harnessing abundant local supplies of lignite coal.
With the world's first liquid hydrogen tanker and an imposing storage site near Kobe in Japan, HESC had been touted as a flagship experiment showcasing Japan's ambitions for the fuel.
HESC says it aims to eventually produce enough hydrogen to "reduce about 1.8 million tonnes per annum of CO2 from being released into the atmosphere".
Japan's energy sector emitted 974 million tonnes of CO2 from fuel combustion in 2022, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

'Strong opposition'

Japan's government pledged 220 billion yen (now $1.4 billion) to HESC's current "commercial demonstration" phase, which has a completion deadline of 2030.
But to meet this deadline, the project will now source hydrogen in Japan.
That has been blamed on cold feet among Australian officials concerned about the project's environmental payoff.
A spokesman for Japan's Kawasaki Heavy Industries, one of the companies behind HESC, said the decision to shift production to Japan was taken "chiefly because of delay in procedures on the Australian side".
The Victoria government did not respond to repeated requests for comment, though Australian officials have told local media that the move was a Japanese "commercial decision".
Australia's cooling interest in the project is due to "strong opposition" from environmental activists and energy experts opposed to carbon capture and storage, said Daisuke Akimoto of Tokyo University of Information Sciences.
"The main problem the project faces is the lack of approval of the blue hydrogen project by the Victorian government," Akimoto said.
Kawasaki said it has not yet decided what type of hydrogen it will procure in Japan and downplayed the project's challenges.
"We are very positive" about HESC and "there is no change" to the goal of building a new supply chain, the spokesman said, declining to be named.

'Evidence gap'

However, sourcing the hydrogen locally leaves "a critical evidence gap at the middle of the project" -- proving carbon capture and storage work -- explained David Cebon, an engineering professor at the University of Cambridge.
That is "difficult and challenging and not being done successfully anywhere", Cebon said.
Kawasaki has said it will continue "feasibility studies" for the HESC project, but Cebon believes it will "quietly die", partly because of the cost of shipping hydrogen to Japan.
To be transported by sea as a liquid, hydrogen needs to be cooled to -253 degrees Celsius (-423.4 Fahrenheit) -- an expensive, energy-intensive process.
"I think wiser heads in the government just realised how crazy it is," said Mark Ogge from the Australia Institute think-tank.
Japanese energy company Kansai Electric has separately withdrawn from a different project to produce "green" hydrogen in Australia.
A company spokesman declined to comment on reports that the decision was due to ballooning costs.

'It will take decades'

Resource-poor Japan is the world's fifth largest single-country emitter of carbon dioxide.
It already produces some hydrogen domestically, mostly using natural gas and oil or nuclear power, although this is limited and expensive.
Some experts are sanguine about HESC's challenges. 
Noe van Hulst, a hydrogen advisor to the IEA, said it was important to take the long view.
"Pilot projects are undertaken to test innovations in practice: learning-by-doing," he told AFP. 
"Yes, it is hard to develop a low-carbon hydrogen market and it will take decades," as with wind and solar energy, van Hulst said.
Solar in particular has seen costs plummet and uptake soar far beyond initial expectations and at greater speed.
And for now, "there isn't really an alternative (to) decarbonise these hard-to-electrify sectors like steel, cement, ships and planes", van Hulst added.
kh-kaf/sah/fox

tree

Storied but sickly, historic W.House magnolia to come down

  • According to tradition, the tree was planted by former president Andrew Jackson to commemorate his wife who died just before his swearing-in in 1829.
  • An enormous tree known as the Jackson Magnolia which has shaded the White House's South Portico for the majority of US presidencies will be taken down this week, Donald Trump said Sunday.
  • According to tradition, the tree was planted by former president Andrew Jackson to commemorate his wife who died just before his swearing-in in 1829.
An enormous tree known as the Jackson Magnolia which has shaded the White House's South Portico for the majority of US presidencies will be taken down this week, Donald Trump said Sunday.
Arborists have struggled for years to keep alive the sickly southern magnolia, whose striking figure marks a focal point along the building's southern facade.
According to tradition, the tree was planted by former president Andrew Jackson to commemorate his wife who died just before his swearing-in in 1829. It was purportedly a sapling brought from his home in Tennessee.
The tree is the oldest on the White House grounds, according to the National Park Service, which notes that starting in the 1870s most presidents began installing their own commemorative trees.
"The bad news is that everything must come to an end," Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform, explaining that the magnolia was "in terrible condition, a very dangerous safety hazard, at the White House Entrance, no less, and must now be removed."
Trump said the historic magnolia would be replaced by "another, very beautiful tree" and that its wood would be preserved "and may be used for other high and noble purposes."
The White House gardens already made headlines earlier this year when Trump said he was planning to pave over the famed Rose Garden that the Oval Office overlooks, to give it the patio-like feel of his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
"The grass just doesn't work," Trump told Fox News, adding that it gets "soaking wet."
During Trump's first term, his wife Melania oversaw a renovation of the Rose Garden, controversially rearranging the fabled plot's traditional design.
bfm/mlm

quake

Myanmar quake: a nation unprepared for disaster

  • - Poor infrastructure - Myanmar's infrastructure and medical system have been ravaged by the civil war.
  • Ravaged by four years of civil war, Myanmar is ill-prepared to cope with the destruction brought by Friday's massive earthquake.
  • - Poor infrastructure - Myanmar's infrastructure and medical system have been ravaged by the civil war.
Ravaged by four years of civil war, Myanmar is ill-prepared to cope with the destruction brought by Friday's massive earthquake.
The 7.7-magnitude quake that struck central Myanmar has killed more than 1,600 people and destroyed thousands of homes.
But the bloody conflict sparked by the 2021 military coup has brought the country's infrastructure, healthcare system and power network to their knees.
Here are some of the challenges facing relief efforts in Myanmar:

Humanitarian crisis

The United Nations and aid agencies have warned that millions were already facing a dire humanitarian crisis before the quake, and are now in urgent need of yet more aid.
Much of the country was already plagued by a punishing mix of conflict, poverty and instability after the civil war that left 3.5 million people displaced and smashed the economy.
"We have estimated that 19.9 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance, and this is just before the earthquake," said UN humanitarian coordinator in Myanmar Marcoluigi Corsi.
"The situation will be further aggravated."
Before the quake, the World Food Programme (WFP) said more than 15 million out of a population of 51 million were unable to meet their daily food needs.
Just two days after the quake, the UN said the aid effort was being hampered by a severe lack of medical supplies, while rescuers on the ground have pleaded for more equipment to comb ruined buildings for survivors.
The quake also struck Myanmar at a time when US President Donald Trump has slashed jobs and funding to Washington's foreign aid agency.
Trump has promised US help but one million civilians in Myanmar face WFP aid cuts after he took an axe to the US Agency for International Development.
Countries around the world have begun sending rescue teams and aid shipments.

Junta rule

The junta, led by General Min Aung Hlaing, has lost control of large parts of Myanmar throughout the conflict, though it remains in charge of major cities including Mandalay -- the closest to the quake epicentre and worst hit. 
But many civil servants chose to switch sides following the military coup and join resistance to the junta.
This loss of personnel has further weakened an already antiquated civil administration, making the management and distribution of relief efforts harder.
In a sign of the enormity of the disaster -- and perhaps in a tacit admission of the state's inability to respond -- Min Aung Hlaing issued a rare appeal for foreign aid on Friday.
This marked a major shift from previous military rulers who shunned all international assistance. 
Poverty is rampant, the economy shattered, and international sanctions combined with the expense of fighting the civil war have drained the junta's coffers.

Splintered control

Much of Myanmar is controlled by a shifting patchwork of junta forces, ethnic armed groups and pro-democracy partisans.
The complex mosaic of control on the ground, often involving competing groups with different agendas, may further frustrate efforts to move relief resources to where they are needed around the country.
Sagaing city -- near the quake's epicentre -- has seen some of the heaviest fighting between junta forces and armed resistance groups.
Ethnic armed groups, border militias and the military have all been vying for control of local resources, spurring fears there will be a similar tussle for aid.

Poor infrastructure

Myanmar's infrastructure and medical system have been ravaged by the civil war.
The junta has bombed hospitals in rebel-held areas and many doctors have abandoned government medical facilities to join the rebellion.
The UN has said hospitals in Mandalay, Magway and the capital Naypyidaw "are struggling to cope with the influx of people injured".
The country was already beset by phone and internet blackouts but the quake has further hurt communications and the ability to direct aid to the most in need.
Internet communications in Mandalay were patchy and land and air routes severely disrupted after the quake buckled roads.
With many houses collapsed, the UN and other NGOs say solutions are needed for the many left homeless.
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