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https://www.nationthailand.com/international/40007969

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NAIROBI – Sudans military on Monday detained the prime minister, dissolved the government and declared a state of emergency, in what could be the end of a democratic transition propelled by the millions of Sudanese who marched in the streets for the overthrow of longtime dictator Omar Hassan al-Bashir more than two years ago.

The Biden administration will suspend $700 million in bilateral assistance to Sudan in response to the military’s takeover, the State Department said Monday. Speaking to reporters in Washington, State Department spokesman Ned Price called for the military to release civilian leaders, restore civilian control, and refrain from using violence, including live ammunition, against protesters.

“We are watching very closely to see how the military responds, to do everything we can to see to it that the military respects the right of peaceful assembly and ultimately to see to it that the military respects the aspirations of the Sudanese people to restore the country’s path to democracy,” Price said. “Our entire relationship with this entity in Sudan will be evaluated in light of what has transpired unless Sudan is returned to the transitional path.”

The coup comes just days after the U.S. envoy to the region met with Sudan’s military leaders and warned them that American support – which aims to prop up an economic renewal after decades of sanctions – was conditional on sticking to an agreement that would see power put squarely in civilian hands this year.

Sudan’s top military commander and head of state, Lt. Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, appeared on state television about noon local time to announce the new measures, but he did not specifically address the arrests of Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and other members of the government. He also did not mention a target date for a transition to full civilian control of the government. He said the military was still committed to democratic elections by mid-2023.

As news of the military’s action spread around Khartoum, crowds gathered in the streets in protest – just days after the capital witnessed the biggest pro-democracy demonstrations since 2019, when Bashir was toppled by a wave of popular discontent. Locals described security forces out in droves using batons and live ammunition to scatter protesters, who uploaded videos of the chaos despite Internet services being disrupted.

“Everyone is on the streets. People are feeling like this is a major determining moment for our future,” said Asma Ismail, 35, a pro-democracy activist who spoke by phone from Khartoum. “Two and a half years of progress could disappear. It could all have been in vain.”

Local news channels reported the closing of roads and bridges connecting Khartoum with the rest of Sudan by large contingents of security forces, as well as the suspension of flights at the airport. A prominent doctors association said in a statement posted to Twitter that two people had died of gunshot wounds and more than 80 were injured.

Since Bashir’s ousting, the country has been governed by a civilian-military transitional council, and tensions over power-sharing have repeatedly threatened to boil over into outright confrontation. Divisions within the military have also contributed to the instability. Last month, pro-Bashir elements in the army attempted a coup but were thwarted.

The civilian side of the government, led by former economist Hamdok, had recently set a Nov. 17 deadline for a full transition to civilian power.

In a statement posted on the Facebook page of Sudan’s civilian-run Information Ministry, Hamdok was quoted as calling on the Sudanese people to peacefully “occupy the streets to defend their revolution.” A separate post said Hamdok had been arrested and transferred to an unknown location. His whereabouts remained unclear Monday afternoon.

The United States, European Union and United Nations all issued statements calling for the immediate release of civilian leaders and their restoration in the government, and the African Union suspended Sudan’s membership. Saudi Arabia, a close ally, expressed concern in a statement but did not call Monday’s events a coup or military takeover.

“The kingdom calls for the importance of self-control, calm and de-escalation, and preserving all that was achieved from political and economic gains,” the Saudi Foreign Ministry’s statement read.

Washington’s special envoy to the Horn of Africa region, Jeffrey Feltman, met on Saturday with Hamdok and Sudan’s two most powerful military figures, Burhan, and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as Hemedti, a former warlord who now commands a powerful paramilitary unit called the Rapid Support Forces.

Feltman had used the meeting to warn that U.S. support for Sudan was tied to its transition toward elections and civilian rule, which military leaders have agreed to while pushing for a longer transition period.

On Monday, Feltman’s office said in a tweet: “The US is deeply alarmed at reports of a military take-over of the transitional government. This would contravene the Constitutional Declaration and the democratic aspirations of the Sudanese people and is utterly unacceptable. As we have said repeatedly, any changes to the transitional government by force puts at risk U.S. assistance.”

Price, the State Department spokesman, on Monday suggested that while U.S. economic aid was paused, U.S. humanitarian aid to Sudan would continue. “Our humanitarian commitment to the people of Sudan will not change,” he said, without providing details.

Price said the United States had not been in touch with Hamdok and did not get advance notice from military officials about their takeover.

The Sudanese Congress Party, which is part of Hamdok’s coalition of civilian stakeholders in the transitional government, posted numerous videos to its social media accounts of protesters gathering Monday in symbolically important places in Khartoum, including in front of the military headquarters, the focus of the vast protests in 2019 in the months before and after Bashir’s eventual unseating by his military commanders.

The protesters reprised a central slogan of the 2019 revolution as they marched up Africa Avenue past the airport and toward the center of the city: “Freedom, peace and justice, the revolution belongs to the people.”

The prime minister’s political coalition, largely made up of groups that supported Bashir’s overthrow, had made progress with Western governments in normalizing Sudan’s diplomatic and economic relations with the rest of the world after decades of sanctions. Sudan was taken off the United States’ state sponsors of terrorism list last year and had begun engaging with Western lending institutions to clear enormous debt arrears and secure loans to stabilize the country’s inflation-rocked economy.

The military’s role in Sudan’s transitional government was presented to civilian leaders in 2019 as a largely honorary one, but Burhan and others have figured prominently in the country’s domestic and foreign policy since then, and they accused Hamdok of trying to monopolize control.

Over the past half-century, Sudan has been rocked by coups and wars, creating an intricate and shifting web of alliances and rivalries. In 2011, following a decades-long civil war, the country was split in two after largely non-Muslim southerners voted to secede and create the new country of South Sudan. A particularly brutal conflict in the western region of Darfur, along the border with Chad, still simmers and has displaced hundreds of thousands of people this year alone, according to the United Nations.

Militia leaders from Darfur who once fought Burhan and Hemedti have now sided with them in an alliance that has made supporters of the civilian government, especially among displaced communities in Darfur, deeply uncomfortable. Pro-democracy demonstrators have also alleged that Sudanese military leaders still maintain close ties with Bashir’s inner circle despite claiming to be vanguards of the movement that ousted him.

A particularly sore point has emerged over Bashir’s outstanding warrant from the International Criminal Court in The Hague on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity, relating to atrocities in Darfur carried out by state security forces between 2003 and 2008. The civilian government has approved measures to hand Bashir over to the court from a Sudanese jail, but the military has blocked the move. Burhan, Hemedti and other prominent military and paramilitary figures served in Darfur under Bashir, but there are no outstanding cases against them.

Published : October 26, 2021

By : The Washington Post

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https://www.nationthailand.com/international/40007967

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The number of Covid-19 cases crossed 13.02 million across Southeast Asia, with 26,848 new cases reported on Monday (October 25), lower than Sunday’s tally at 30,022. New deaths are at 380, decreasing from Sunday’s number of 441. Total Covid-19 deaths in Asean are now at 275,852.

Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo said the country will reopen in selected areas provided that they have over 70 per cent vaccination rate against Covid-19. Indonesia will also gradually ease up travel restrictions for foreign visitors who have been fully vaccinated and tested negative. The country reported 460 new cases and 30 deaths on Monday, bringing cumulative cases to 4,240,479 patients and total 143,235 deaths.

Meanwhile, Health authorities in Laos have launched a new enhanced Covid-19 vaccination certificate with a QR Code that will allow for greater authenticity and digital verification. The QR code on the Covid-19 vaccination certificate will ensure that the certificates are authentic and can be more easily monitored, as well as being of greater use when traveling abroad. Personal data, as well as the vaccine information of the recipients, will be recorded in the Covid-19 vaccine database before the QR code is created and printed on the back of the vaccination certificate.
 

Published : October 26, 2021

By : THE NATION

#SootinClaimon.Com : ขอบคุณแหล่งข้อมูล : หนังสือพิมพ์ The Nation.

https://www.nationthailand.com/international/40007968

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In the early summer, with less than five months to go before a critical United Nations climate conference in Scotland, John Kerry told President Joe Biden that he wouldnt achieve his goal of tackling climate change, a key administration priority, unless the U.S.-China relationship improved.

Kerry, a former secretary of state and Biden’s envoy for climate, had been traveling the globe trying to secure commitments on carbon-emission reductions among allies and adversaries in the hope of keeping global temperature increases at or below 1.5 degrees Celsius, a level that scientists say could stave off the worst effects of climate change.

But his discussions with Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua were lagging as Beijing insisted that cooperation on climate would not commence amid strained relations over human rights, Hong Kong, Taiwan, trade and a range of other issues.

Now, with less than a week before leaders of nearly 200 countries arrive in Glasgow for the U.N. summit known as COP26, expectations for a major breakthrough are dim: Chinese President Xi Jinping will not attend in person, and Washington and Beijing face domestic political constraints on their international climate ambitions.

The desire to make progress on climate change has led to tensions among Biden’s top aides over how to manage Washington’s competing priorities with Beijing.

Kerry has repeatedly pushed for direct diplomacy between Biden and Xi, believing that an improved bilateral relationship can produce better outcomes in Scotland. White House aides, including national security adviser Jake Sullivan, are more skeptical that the United States alone can coax China into reducing emissions. Just as Washington would be averse to overhauling its energy policies on the basis of foreign pressure, so too would Beijing.

“They’re going to make their decisions based on their national interest,” said a senior administration official, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

The standoff with China, the world’s largest carbon emitter and home to half the world’s coal-fired power plants, has presented a significant challenge for the Biden administration, which has identified both climate change as an “existential threat” and China as “the biggest geopolitical test of the 21st century.”

The United States is pressing China to set more ambitious commitments for when it will peak its carbon emissions and offer specifics about Xi’s promise to stop financing coal-fired power plants abroad. Absent those actions, global temperature increases are expected to surpass 2 degrees Celsius in the coming years, resulting in a rise of extreme weather events, hurricanes, droughts, forest fires, loss of biodiversity, and food and water scarcity.

As it presses its climate initiatives, the Biden administration is also demanding that Beijing stop threatening Taiwan, cease its crackdown on freedoms in Hong Kong, end its campaign of mass detention and sterilization of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, and address a range of other grievances related to trade and cybersecurity.

Managing these priorities is Sullivan, who has ruled out accommodating China to make gains on climate.

“We are not in the business of trading cooperation with China on climate change as a favor that Beijing is doing for the United States,” Sullivan said at a security conference this spring, a message he repeated in a meeting with his Chinese counterpart in Zurich earlier this month.

The hard line has pleased the East Asia divisions at the State Department and Pentagon as well as China hawks on Capitol Hill who have cheered Biden’s continuation of Trump-era tariffs, imposition of new sanctions on Beijing and use of the word “genocide” to describe Beijing’s actions in Xinjiang.

But the tensions between the two nations have worried liberal lawmakers and climate activists concerned that poor relations between the world’s two biggest polluters will translate into an unproductive climate conference at a time of existential peril.

“U.S. collaboration with China on climate is fundamental due to China’s major role in emitting carbon dioxide but also as a leading producer of the green technologies required for decarbonization,” said a draft of a letter to Biden that Democratic Reps. Raúl Grijalva of Arizona, chair of the Natural Resources Committee, and Judy Chu of California, chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, are organizing. “Simply put, there is no conceivable way to address the climate crisis without substantially strengthening communication and collaboration between our nations.”

Climate watchers view the policies of Beijing and Washington as limited by domestic political constraints.

“Glasgow will be one of the most difficult COPs in history,” said Shuo Li, a senior global policy adviser at Greenpeace.

“I hope it doesn’t go as bad, but it already bears some resemblance to Copenhagen,” he said, referencing a 2009 climate conference many view as a failure.

In Washington, the most potent aspect of Biden’s climate agenda, a $150 billion program to replace the nation’s coal- and gas-fired power plants with solar, nuclear and wind energy, has been dropped due to opposition from Sen. Joe Manchin, a coal-friendly Democrat from West Virginia. The program was designed to show foreign leaders that the United States is taking the steps necessary to meet its goals of cutting emissions by 50% from 2005 levels in the next four years.

In China, a chronic electricity shortage reverberating across factories and industries this month is raising doubts about whether it will be willing to take coal-fired plants offline as it tries to meet its massive energy needs.

The Biden administration rejects the notion that it’s traveling to Scotland empty-handed, noting its ambitious emissions target and pledge to double U.S. financial support for developing countries to adopt clean-energy technologies.

But many world leaders may see those commitments as merely words on a page rather than concrete action.

A potential disappointment in Glasgow is something Kerry has tried desperately to avoid. Since early summer, he began advocating for a phone call between Biden and Xi in the hopes of finding common ground on climate ahead of COP26, viewing the tense relationship as a major problem.

Sullivan disagreed, sensing that such a call was premature, said senior administration officials.

Instead, contacts between the United States and China proceeded at a lower level through the summer, with Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman traveling to Tianjin in July, and Kerry traveling to the same city to meet officials last month.

Before Sherman’s visit, Chinese officials refused to confirm her counterpart would see her until just before Sherman’s arrival in a move widely seen as disrespectful. The Chinese spent much of the meeting complaining bitterly about U.S. behavior, said officials familiar with the matter. On Kerry’s visit, they again ruled out any progress on climate while the United States continued to criticize China on human rights and other issues.

The disappointing meetings ended up uniting Biden’s team behind the need to connect the two presidents.

“The importance of a call between the leaders became clear after a number of meetings at the sub-leader level that were not constructive,” said a second senior administration official. “There was unanimity in the administration at this point that we were not getting anywhere in the bilateral relationship at that level and we were concerned that Beijing was not being responsible in its management of the competition.”

“Due to the centralization of power in Xi’s hands, we assessed that we needed to engage at the top to move the ball forward,” the official added.

So on Sept. 9, the two presidents held a 90-minute call in which Biden broached the idea of a meeting with Xi, said officials familiar with the discussion. Xi made clear that an in-person meeting was off the table, but U.S. and Chinese officials remained in touch. After Sullivan traveled to Zurich for a six-hour meeting with Chinese foreign policy adviser Yang Jiechi last month, the two presidents agreed to hold a virtual summit by year’s end.

Officials insist Kerry and Sullivan are in line on an overall strategy and differences are mostly tactical.

“Kerry’s job is to advocate for policies that will yield improvement on climate. He is seized with the mission,” said Danny Russel, a former career diplomat who has worked with both Kerry and Sullivan. “It’s a different set of variables for the national security adviser. From Jake’s perspective, there is a whole universe of factors to consider.”

White House officials believe what will move China on climate is the sense that it is the diplomatic outlier as the United States encourages countries such as Indonesia, Australia and India to reduce emissions.

They do not believe “if we’re nicer to China, they’ll do more for us on climate or anything else,” said the first senior administration official.

Advocates for Kerry say his actions have been in line with this viewpoint, first traveling to the capitals of U.S. allies and partners in Europe and elsewhere to drum up support for emissions reductions.

But Kerry’s focus on climate coordination has made him a target of Republicans in Congress, who view him as a phantom presence behind any less-than-confrontational move with China the Biden administration makes.

“It’s time to fire John Kerry,” Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida said in a news release last month.

Rubio and other Republicans accuse Kerry of single-handedly stalling the Uyghur Forced Labor Act, a bill designed to ban products made with forced labor in Xinjiang.

U.S. officials say the administration remains staunchly opposed to forced labor, but there is concern across the executive branch that the bill could effectively ban all polysilicon from Xinjiang, the material inside most of the world’s solar panels, a critical tool in transitioning away from a carbon economy.

“Our goal is to figure out how best to lift up workers’ rights and meet our climate commitments,” said the first senior administration official.

In meetings on Capitol Hill, Kerry’s deputy, Jonathan Pershing, has told lawmakers that the U.S. government will need more time, five to 10 years, to move the global supply chain for solar panels away from Xinjiang, according to notes taken from a meeting with him and provided to The Washington Post. Pershing said the administration wants flexibility in the legislation to manage a transition.

Published : October 26, 2021

By : The Washington Post

#SootinClaimon.Com : ขอบคุณแหล่งข้อมูล : หนังสือพิมพ์ The Nation.

https://www.nationthailand.com/international/40007960

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Investigators from the U.S. attorneys office met with officials of the Metropolitan Museum of Art earlier this month to discuss whether relics in the famed museums collection had been stolen from ancient sites in Cambodia.

Museum officials said that “new information” about some pieces in their collection spurred them to reach out to officials in the Southern District of New York. They declined to describe what facts precipitated the meeting, which occurred about two weeks ago.

The Washington Post and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists reported three weeks ago that the Met holds 12 pieces once owned or brokered by Douglas Latchford, a man prosecutors said was involved in decades of trafficking in looted artifacts. Another seven pieces at the Met came to the museum through his associates.

The reporting revealed that Latchford had created two offshore trusts that held relics. Those trusts were exposed in the Pandora Papers, a trove of more than 11.9 million financial records obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and shared with news organizations, including The Post.

In total, according to the investigation, 10 museums around the world were holding at least 43 relics that had passed through the hands of Latchford or those of his associates.

The Met’s move to meet with investigators comes as the Denver Art Museum is preparing to return four pieces to Cambodia that also had been cited in the Pandora Papers.

“Recently, in light of new information on some pieces in our collection, we reached out to the US Attorney’s office – to volunteer that we are happy to cooperate with any inquiry,” the Met said in a statement Sunday. “The Met also has a long and well documented history of responding to claims regarding works of art, restituting objects where appropriate, being transparent about the provenance of works in the collection, and supporting further research and scholarship by sharing all known ownership history.”

Bradley Gordon, an attorney representing the Cambodian government, said that the Met has not contacted government officials there regarding the pieces.

“The amazing thing is that these museums say they’re researching [the relics’ origins] but they have not contacted us,” Gordon said. “How can they say they’re researching when they aren’t calling the country of origin?”

The Met reached out to U.S. authorities after ICIJ and The Post sent the museum detailed questions about pieces linked to Latchford, Gordon said.

Officials with the U.S. attorney’s office in the Southern District of New York declined to comment Monday.

Cambodian investigators have been researching pieces they believe were looted during decades of war and tumult in the country beginning in the 1970s, when thieves ravaged the treasures of the ancient Khmer Empire. Today, scholars say, many valuable pieces sit in prestigious private collections and museums around the world.

Phoeurng Sackona, Cambodia’s Minister of Culture and Fine Arts, said she was surprised to learn that the Met had acquired so many Khmer relics during periods of war and tumult in Cambodia. “The Cambodian government never gave permission for our national treasures to be trafficked to the United States,” she said. “Today, we wish for the Metropolitan Museum to act as a moral and just leader in the global museum community and to return our precious looted antiquities to our people.”

In 2013, the Met returned two pieces to Cambodia, and the museum says that it has conducted research to determine whether other pieces in its collection have been acquired legally.

But critics say the Met, like other museums, has been reluctant to investigate Cambodian pieces that likely have been looted.

Tess Davis, the executive director of the Antiquities Coalition, an organization that campaigns against the trafficking of cultural artifacts, criticized the museum for not responding more thoroughly after a Latchford associate was indicted in 2016 and Latchford himself was indicted three years later.

“The Met owed it to Cambodia – and itself – to do a full and public accounting of its Khmer collection then. That didn’t happen,” Davis said. “There has still been no full and public accounting from the Met. It’s never too late to do the right thing, but what is the Met waiting for at this point?”

The Met collection, for example, has a sandstone statue of a figure called a Harihara.

The information published by the museum says the piece came from southern Cambodia and describes its style as “pre-Angkor period.” A very similar piece is described in the Latchford indictment – same religious figure, same dealer, same period, same location.

According to the indictment, Latchford had consigned the Harihara to a dealer who helped him sell looted art in 1974. The museum bought its Harihara from the same dealer three years later.

In a written statement last month, a spokeswoman for the Met said it was “unknown” whether the Harihara in its collection is the same as the Harihara that prosecutors say was looted. Latchford died before trial.

In recent years, the Cambodians have assembled a team of archaeologists and art experts in an effort to recover their looted national heritage. One of the people who has been critical to repatriation efforts is a former looter from Latchford’s network known as the “Lion,” who has been helping archaeologists excavate temples from which he had stolen relics. Lion is also essential in trying to recover fragments that might help ensure their return.

The group has begun to compile a list of treasures that the team believes were looted. According to the records, there are 45 relics in the Met’s collection that are highly significant culturally, and which the team members believe were looted. The “Lion” said that he recognized 33 of the relics as pieces he had stolen himself, and another 11 that he or others in his network had stolen versions of, according to Cambodian officials.

Gordon, the lawyer representing the Cambodians, said that his team recently sent the list of 45 relics to the U.S. attorney’s office. The Cambodian government wants all of the objects returned.

Published : October 26, 2021

By : The Washington Post

#SootinClaimon.Com : ขอบคุณแหล่งข้อมูล : หนังสือพิมพ์ The Nation.

https://www.nationthailand.com/international/40007940

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Ejina Banner, a county in north Chinas Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, reported 12 new locally transmitted confirmed COVID-19 cases from 12 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Sunday, according to the local health commission.

Ejina Banner has confirmed a total of 43 COVID-19 cases so far in the latest wave of infections, all of whom have been sent to designated hospitals for treatment.

As of 10 a.m. Sunday, 621 close contacts as well as 436 second close contacts have been placed under medical observation, while an epidemiological investigation is underway.

Published : October 25, 2021

By : Xinhua

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https://www.nationthailand.com/international/40007939

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“The aggressive position of NATO has never been a secret,” Peskov said.

Russia isn’t wrong for halting official dialogue with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) given its aggressiveness, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Sunday.

“The aggressive position of NATO has never been a secret. This is a bloc that was created against our country. No peace-loving statements, no camouflage of this aggressive orientation can hide its true purpose,” Peskov told a Russian TV program.

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“Nothing terrible will happen if we simply abandoned these relations against the background of the aggravation of its aggressiveness, against the background of such declarations that its main task is to restrain us,” he said.

Commenting on Ukraine’s attempt to join NATO, Peskov said it is impossible for Russia to prevent it, but Moscow will do everything necessary to minimize the consequences in the event of Ukraine’s admission.

On Monday, Moscow announced that it was suspending its Permanent Mission to NATO, the NATO Military Liaison Mission and the NATO Information Office in Moscow, in retaliation for the alliance’s “unfriendly actions,” including the expulsion of Russian diplomats earlier this month. 

Published : October 25, 2021

By : Xinhua

#SootinClaimon.Com : ขอบคุณแหล่งข้อมูล : หนังสือพิมพ์ The Nation.

https://www.nationthailand.com/international/40007937

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Water supplies can be adversely affected during the active burning of a wildfire and for years afterwards, according to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

One year after the most destructive wildfire in U.S. Colorado history torched 208,913 acres (845.4 square kilometers), biologists were lamenting the slow recovery of the nearby water system.

“As feared, recent surveys of the river showed thousands of fish were killed as a result of the fire and its lasting impact,” CBS 4 Denver reported Saturday.

“The runoff events we shot this summer, post fire, have had a detrimental impact on the fishery,” aquatic biologist Kyle Battige told the Denver station.

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The survey was conducted one year after the Cameron Peak Fire, the Centennial State’s worst fire on record, by Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW). It also engulfed some 461 structures, consumed millions of dollars of resources and took thousands of fire fighters to contain.

Despite widespread drought conditions throughout U.S. West, Colorado has seen significant precipitation this fall, and “since the rain on the burn scar caused flooding in the Poudre Canyon in July of this year,” that resulted in several deaths, wildlife officers with CPW have been monitoring “the detrimental impact the blaze had on fish in the Poudre River,” CBS reported.

A flash flood swept through the canyon on July 26, where three people died and one was missing after being swept away by flooding and mudslides, according to the website of the Colorado Public Radio.

Battige surveyed the burn-scarred region and river drainage in July, one day after the deadly flash flood, and told Kiowa County Press, “a loss of fish has been observed and we will continue to monitor the situation.”

Senior CPW aquatic biologist Jeff Spohn also told the media, “we will hold off on fish population impact comments until we can collect standardize data.”

The results of this week’s survey were called “shocking” by CBS 4.

The cause of the Cameron Peak Fire is still under investigation. It burned for 62 days beginning Aug. 13, 2020, and on Oct. 18 became the first wildfire in Colorado history to burn more than 200,000 acres,” according to Inciweb, an interstate incident information system.

The fire, controlled on Jan. 12, 2021, destroyed a total of 461 structures and required 549 water pump, 110 miles of bulldozer trails, and 232 miles of road work to contain the blaze in northern Colorado not far from the Wyoming border.

According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the authority started new researches for the impact of wildfires on water supply, including drinking, irrigation, fishing and recreation, two years ago.

Water supplies can be adversely affected during the active burning of a wildfire and for years afterwards, the EPA said, noting the impacts on the western states is more significant, because 65 percent of fresh water supply in the region originates from forested watersheds, which, depending on conditions, can be highly susceptible to forest fires.

During active burning, ash and contaminants associated with ash settle on streams, lakes and water reservoirs. Vegetation that holds soil in place and retains water is burned away. In the aftermath of a large wildfire, rainstorms flush vast quantities of ash, sediment, nutrients and contaminants into streams, rivers, and downstream reservoirs.

The absence of vegetation in the watershed can create conditions conducive to erosion and even flooding, and naturally occurring and anthropogenic substances can impact drinking water quality, discolor recreational waters, and may potentially contribute to harmful algal blooms, the EPA’s research said.

According to the latest data released by the National Interagency Fire Center, as of Oct. 20, a total 47,884 wildfires occurred in the United States this year and had scorched 6,515,883 acres (26,368.8 square kilometers) of land.
 

Published : October 25, 2021

By : Xinhua

#SootinClaimon.Com : ขอบคุณแหล่งข้อมูล : หนังสือพิมพ์ The Nation.

https://www.nationthailand.com/international/40007919

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The number of Covid-19 cases crossed 13 million across Southeast Asia, with 30,022 new cases reported on Sunday (October 24), lower than Saturday’s tally at 31,057. New deaths are at 441, increasing from Saturday’s number of 355. Total Covid-19 deaths in Asean are now at 275,472.

Cambodia lifted its 15-month flight ban from Malaysia, Philippines and Indonesia on Saturday as the country continues its roadmap towards living with Covid-19. The lifting of the ban came after Prime Minister Hun Sen had earlier called for a review on the temporary ban as several Asean countries had relaxed or lifted quarantine requirements to kick start their economies, and the travel and hospitality industry.

Meanwhile, Singapore’s Ministry of Health announced that the Sinovac-CoronaVac Covid-19 vaccine will be included in the country’s national vaccination programme as a three-dose regime. The move aims to let those who are unable to take mRNA vaccines due to medical reasons to receive three doses of the Sinovac vaccine instead. Those who started with mRNA vaccines but developed allergies of severe adverse reactions after the first dose should follow up with two doses of Sinovac. 

Furthermore, starting from January next year, unvaccinated people in Singapore and those without negative test results will not be allowed to enter workplaces or office buildings.
 

Published : October 25, 2021

By : THE NATION

#SootinClaimon.Com : ขอบคุณแหล่งข้อมูล : หนังสือพิมพ์ The Nation.

https://www.nationthailand.com/international/40007916

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Michael Jordans earliest known regular season game-worn Nike sneakers sold at a Sothebys auction in Las Vegas Sunday for $1.472 million, breaking a record for sneakers sold at auction.

The shoes were worn in Jordan’s fifth NBA game in his rookie season in 1984, the same year that Nike and Jordan created his signature line of shoes and clothes. The shoes were estimated to sell for $1 million to $1.5 million. The buyer hasn’t been identified yet.

The sneakers are “simply an incredible artifact that dates to the nascency of Michael Jordan’s rookie season,” said Brahm Wahter, head of Sotheby’s Streetwear and Modern Collectibles in a statement ahead of the auction.

The Jordans aren’t the most expensive sneakers ever sold. In April, the company Rares bought a $1.8 million pair of Kanye West’s Nike Air Yeezy 1 sneakers in a Sotheby’s private sale, making them the most expensive known pair of shoes ever sold.

Rares is one of dozens of similar companies that have sprung up in recent years, all of which offer shares in luxury goods, artworks and collectibles. Rares didn’t bid on the Jordan sneakers, a spokesperson said.

The shoes were sold as part of Sotheby’s Icons of Excellence & Haute Luxury auction in Las Vegas Sunday, which also includes jewelry, watches and collectors’ cars.

Today, the Jordan brand brings Nike billions of dollars each year and hard-to-get Jordan sneakers are resold on marketplaces like StockX and GOAT, sometimes for tens of thousands of dollars a pair.

Published : October 25, 2021

By : Bloomberg

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https://www.nationthailand.com/international/40007909

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BEIRUT – Saudi Arabias crown prince pledged Saturday that OPECs largest producer will reach “net zero” greenhouse gas emissions by 2060, joining other nations in setting ambitious targets before next months U.N. climate summit.

The announcement was made by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in a televised statement at the kingdom’s first Saudi Green Initiative Forum. Previously, the powerful Saudi energy minister, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, had ridiculed the International Energy Agency’s 2050 target for reaching net-zero emissions, calling it “a sequel to (the) ‘La La Land’ movie.”

But there was no indication in Saturday’s announcement that Saudi Arabia aims to slow down its investments in new oil and gas development. The Saudi economy still heavily relies on revenue from fossil fuels, despite an aggressive campaign spearheaded by the crown prince to diversify its commerce away from the production of fossil fuels.

The announcement also provided little detail as to how the kingdom aims to reach its goals and cut emissions in the short term, which experts say is a necessity for capping global warming at the level agreed upon in the 2015 Paris accord.

At next month’s COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, more than 100 countries will hold further talks on ways to slow Earth’s warming amid alarming evidence that the pace of climate change could be moving faster than earlier predictions.

The prince emphasized his intention to turn the Saudi capital, Riyadh, into one of world’s most sustainable global cities. By 2030, he vowed to plant 450 million trees, to rehabilitate nearly 20 million acres of land – about the size of South Carolina – and to reduce 278 million tons of carbon emissions a year.

The transition to net-zero carbon emissions, the prince said, will be reached through a “carbon circular economy” – a plan built around initiatives such as recycling and carbon removal – but he gave no specific details.

This transition will be reached in a way that “preserves the kingdom’s leading role in enhancing the security and stability of global energy markets, in light of the maturity and availability of the necessary technologies to manage and lower emissions,” he said.

During the Riyadh forum, the Saudi energy minister said the goal could be achieved earlier than 2060 and would not have any adverse financial or economic impact.

The minister promised that what is happening now “is only a prelude of what kind of a vision we would have that would enable us to build the bridges between sustainability, economic diversity, economic growth and the enhancement of the well-being of Saudi Arabia.”

Saudi Arabia also joined the Global Methane Pledge, an agreement to cut methane emissions by 30 percent by 2030. The pledge has become a high priority for the United States and the European Union. Saudi Arabia is one of the world’s largest producers of natural gas, which is made up almost entirely of methane, much of which leaks into the atmosphere.

About half of the world’s 20 largest emitters have now signed up to reducing their methane, which is one of the most potent greenhouse gases.

Saudi officials and Amin Nasser, chief executive of Saudi oil giant Aramco, expect demand for oil to continue and for it to be the dominant energy source for decades to come, and argue that reducing supply before demand drops risks a dangerous oil price spike, hurting economies such as Saudi Arabia’s that are dependent on oil and gas.

Published : October 24, 2021

By : The Washington Post