After a bitterly contested assembly election in Karnataka state in India in May 2018, the result was a hung assembly, with no individual party getting absolute majority. The Karnataka Governor, who has to invite a party to form the government in a situation when no party has got absolute majority, faced a piquant situation. Finally, the governor has taken his decision.

The Governor’s decision is applauded by some and criticized by others and now hotly debated in India. Some people say that the governor’s decision amounts to violating democratic principles and others argue that he has acted correctly.

Is the decision of Karnataka Governor to call BJP to form government wrong?

After the Karnataka election, when BJP with 104 seats and Congress and JDS combine with 116 seats staked claims to form government, Karnataka Governor justifiably and reasonably invited the BJP to form the government and asked it to undergo a floor test within fifteen days.

Though Congress and JDS combined have 116 seats, the ground reality is that it is a post-election alliance and not pre-election alliance. If it were pre-election alliance, governor would have accepted their claim.

During the election, JDS and Congress abused each other in the campaign, contested against each other and in some seats Congress defeated JDS and in some other seats JDS defeated Congress. Even the Chief Minister was defeated by a JDS candidate.

The Governor must be wondering as to how can these two parties who were such bitter rivals seven days back could join together and run the government. Can they give a stable government or will they continue the quarrel? The Governor must have considered the alliance as opportunistic alliance devoid of principles that would not result in stable government.

The governor could neither believe BJP’s claim nor believe Congress and JDS.

In the circumstances, the only option left for the governor was to invite the party with largest number of seats to form government and test the majority in the floor of the assembly.

If BJP would lose, then its claim would be proved wrong. Then, Congress, JDS combined would form the government.

If JDS Congress combine would be so confident of their majority, then why could not they defeat the BJP government in the assembly and assume power. The JDS Congress combine complain that BJP may indulge in horse trading. Are their MLAs only horses? Have they given seats to horses to contest?

By accusing the Governor with all sorts of impolite language and Congress President talking about democracy in Pakistan in derisive terms and comparing the Karnataka situation to the scenario in Pakistan, the Congress JDS combine is not showing any quality of maturity.

Why drag Pakistan in this Karnataka controversy? It is extremely unfair and unwarranted.

LUKOIL said Wednesday it has built an integrated geological and geophysical model of fields and exploration structures of the Denisov depression in Timan-Pechora oil and gas province.
The modelling, completed with 3D seismic surveys, provides greater accuracy of structure mapping and significantly contributes to the quality of pre-drilling at prospective features.

Four oil fields with 85 million tonnes of C1+C2 total recoverable reserves have been discovered in the course of geological exploration since 2005. With the cumulative amount of recoverable reserves having grown 60 times over during that time, the success rate of drilling exceeds 90%.

By Nick Cunningham

Geopolitics has taken over the oil market, driving oil prices up to three-year highs. The inventory surplus has vanished, and more outages could push oil prices up even higher. Yet, there are some signs that demand is starting to take a hit as oil closes in on $80 per barrel.

In the IEA’s May Oil Market Report, the agency said that OPEC might be needed to step in and fill the supply gap if a significant portion of Iran oil goes offline. Saudi Arabia suggested shortly after the U.S. announced its withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal that OPEC would act to mitigate any supply shortfall should it occur.

But while geopolitical fears helped push Brent up to $79 per barrel in recent days, the underlying fundamentals are also mostly bullish.

Venezuela’s production is plummeting, and output is 550,000 bpd below it’s agreed upon target as part of the OPEC deal. Conservative estimates suggest that the country could lose several hundred thousand barrels per day over the course of 2018, but there are several massive threats to PDVSA’s operations that could make that forecast look optimistic.

ConocoPhillips continues aggressive action to obtain control of PDVSA’s assets after an international arbitration court awarded it $2 billion in awards.

There is a great deal of confusion about what Conoco’s actions mean for Venezuela’s oil production, but the asset seizures could be pivotal. Reuters reports that the American oil major is now trying to seize two cargoes of crude and fuel near a terminal in Aruba run by Citgo, a subsidiary of PDVSA. The cargoes are holding 500,000 barrels of oil and 300,000 bpd of jet fuel, gasoline and diesel.

On top of that, Venezuela is set to hold a presidential election on May 20, an event that could be met with more painful U.S. sanctions. Conoco’s actions, combined with a crackdown by the U.S. Treasury, could send Venezuela’s oil production deeper into a death spiral.

The big question is if supply will be lost in Iran, which, coupled with the supply losses in Venezuela, could severely tighten the oil market. “The potential double supply shortfall represented by Iran and Venezuela could present a major challenge for producers to fend off sharp price rises and fill the gap, not just in terms of the number of barrels but also in terms of oil quality,” the IEA wrote in its report.

OECD crude inventories fell in March by 27 million barrels, putting total stocks at a three-year low and, crucially, 1 million barrels below the five-year average. That data point is worth emphasizing: OPEC has claimed for more than a year that it was trying to erase the inventory surplus, and at least according to IEA data, that mission has now been accomplished.

Still, the group may not be ready to take their foot off of the accelerator. They meet in a few weeks in Vienna to figure out their next steps. But with inventories now back at average levels, there is some upward pressure on oil prices, particularly with more outages looming in 2018.

However, the cure for higher oil prices tends to be higher oil prices. The IEA lowered its demand forecast for 2018 by 40,000 bpd – not a massive revision, but notable because it offers some signs that demand will slow as prices rise. Some other reports back up this notion.

There are reportedly spot cargoes for oil from West Africa, Russia and Kazakhstan that are going unsold, forcing steep discounts. “While recent data continue to point to very strong demand in 1Q18 and the start of 2Q18, we expect a slowdown in growth in 2H18.” Up until now, demand growth looked strong, but “the recent jump in oil prices will take its toll.”

“On balance, the report is tending more to the negative side. Demand for oil has been revised downwards for the second half of the year from April,” PVM Oil Associates strategist Tamas Varga told Reuters.

The IEA noted that the global economy is still “doing well,” and that “underlying demand growth remains strong around the world.” That suggests demand won’t suddenly fall off of a cliff. “Still, the fact is that crude oil prices have risen by nearly 75% since June 2017,” the agency cautioned. “It would be extraordinary if such a large jump did not affect demand growth, especially as end-user subsidies have been reduced or cut in several emerging economies in recent years.”

Source: https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/IEA-High-Oil-Prices-Taking-a-Toll-On-Demand.html

The Philippines and Russia get closer to signing an agreement that would protect Filipino workers in the Russian Federation. As the number of migrant Filipino workers increases, Moscow and Manila are busy negotiating a bilateral labour agreement that could allow thousands more overseas workers into various sectors of the Russian economy.

On May 15, formal discussions were held by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov with Philippines’ Secretary of Foreign Affairs Alan Peter Cayetano in Moscow.

Sergey Lavrov noted: “We are interested in ensuring that Filipino workers, who work in the Russian Federation, are socially protected. Many of them were here through private companies, often without the necessary licenses.”

“All this does not provide social protection for Filipino citizens working in the Russian Federation. With the conclusion of the agreement, the beginning of preparation of which we have agreed today, we will solve these issues. We have such agreements with a number of other countries, including ASEAN member States,” he promisingly added.

Earlier, a Regional Migration Specialist at the International Labour Organisation (ILO)’s Regional Office for Asia-Pacific in Bangkok (Thailand), explained in an interview with me that a comprehensive labour agreement between Russia and the Philippines could be positive, if it established procedures and standards for the recruitment, employment and subsequent return of migrant workers.

According to the Philippines Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), Russia officially registered nearly 15, 000. Consequently, such an agreement (could) guarantee the labour rights of migrant workers and eliminate or limit recruitment costs. It will further provide Filipino workers with access to emerging labour market there.

The Federal Migration Service (FMS) office in Moscow has also explained that “official” Filipino workers are entering the country on tourist or business visas, assisted by middlemen and local licensed agencies that often act as migrants’ direct employers and channel them straight into labour market.

The Philippine government has been negotiating for better regulations and working conditions for its citizens for the past several years with little or no conclusive results.

In March 2012, for instance, the then Philippine Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Albert Del Rosario held an official discussion in Moscow with Minister Sergey Lavrov on the possibility of sealing a bilateral labour agreement.

Besides, a string of events and conferences over the years have highlighted renewed interests in developing the market of overseas Filipino workers, who are believed to be one of many solutions to Russia’s human resource needs.

Many experts believe that economic modernisation in Russia depends heavily on skilled foreign labour, limited to certain specific sectors like domestic work, finance, and construction.

The fact that Russia willingly entered into the negotiations implies not only that it has an urgent need for the services of foreign workers but also that it is fully aware of the benefits of such an agreement.

Experts have pointed to the Philippine government’s success in deploying its workforce abroad, in many foreign countries. About 10 percent of The Philippines’ population of 90 million people works abroad, with regular remittances accounting for up to 25 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).

Some estimates put the total contribution to the Philippine economy by specialists working abroad at $50 billion last year.

The Philippine Overseas Labour Office in Rome (Italy), explained to me that the Philippine government has an official policy of deploying Filipino workers only to countries that guarantee protection and promotion of their rights, welfare and interests.

Under a recently enacted law, the Philippine government banned its nationals from seeking employment in countries that do not guarantee the rights and welfare of foreign workers, or whose local labour and social legislation does not cover migrant workers.

Quite recent, the Philippines government and the Kuwaiti government signed an agreement on the recruitment, use and protection of Filipino workers after a diplomatic row over abuse and inhuman treatment of working Filipinos.

It therefore implies that The Philippines and Russian authorities have to work on effective ways to establish and improve the bilateral legal framework for mutual benefit for both countries. *This special report from Kester Kenn Klomegah, an independent researcher and policy consultant, in Moscow.

A military base of the U.S.-led international coalition established in 2014 in Syria has already become a point of concern for most parties in the region. There is no doubt that the declared purpose of fighting against ISIS is far from being primary intention of the U.S. It is no secret either that the base serves to train anti-governmental military formations that actually haven’t succeeded in the fight against terrorism so far.

So-called moderate opposition groups are key tools of the Pentagon in its war against Assad regime in Syria. Americans supply militants with weapons and give them the ideological drive in order to make them fight for vague values.

It should be also noted that the Al-Tanf base was established without any approval from the UN. In fact such military presence is a violation of international law and a direct intervention in the domestic affairs of the country. A 55-kilometer zone unilaterally created by Americans around their military base gives them a significant control over the border area between Syria, Iraq and Jordan.

Even Jordanians who are considered to be allies of the U.S. express some concern over the American military base. According to the political expert Osama al-Sharif, a flare up in southern Syria ignited by Pentagon would have unpredictable results for all including Jordan. Amman fears a fresh influx of refugees, a possible infiltration by terror groups and an advance by pro-Iranian militias close to its borders.

Hussein al-Majali, a former Jordan’s Interior Minister, has similar views on the situation in the south of Syria. He pointed out that after recent missile strikes against Syria carried out by the USA, Britain and France the situation may evolve unpredictably and Jordan might face problems on its northern borders.

It is evident that al-Tanf military base and its unlawful, destabilizing activity delay peace settlement of Syrian crisis. Rebels who are trained there not only commit crimes against Syrian people but also create a number of problems for other countries in the region including one of Major non-NATO ally. Amman has already started distrusting the U.S. as their real intentions might be a threat to Jordan’s security.

Adel Karim is an independent journalist with a focus on Middle East issues.

“If thou seest the oppression of the poor, and violent perverting of judgment and justice in a province, marvel not at the matter: for he that is higher than the highest regardeth; and there be higher than they” (Ecclesiastes 5:8)..

On Monday, May 14th 2018, in Gaza, 60 people were killed and 2771 wounded among crowds walking unarmed towards their villages, from which they had been compelled to leave. They were killed in cold blood and posed no threat to anybody.

At the same time, the American embassy was relocated to Jerusalem in violation of international law. The transgressor is the great power that should call on others to respect international law.

Thus, the situation in which we are living is not one of rejoicing and the inauguration of a new embassy. We live in an inhumane situation that must be changed.

The siege on Gaza, on two million people living on land of merely 380 km², must be lifted. The West Bank must be liberated and the people in it regain their freedom and complete equality must be ensured for all inhabitants of the land.

This is the 70th year of the catastrophe that befell the Palestinian people, and that started to deform the face of the Holy Land into a land of war and death. Our catastrophe remains ongoing.

This is the 70th year of this painful truth: the Holy Land has become the land in which human beings kill each other. This is the anniversary of the creation of the State of Israel, the anniversary of the catastrophe of the Palestinian people, and the anniversary of the beginning of the phase of war and death in the Holy Land.

It is an anniversary of death and not a celebration, including for Israel that still fears and rejects the application of United Nations resolutions. Israel is still afraid of peace and the peaceful march of unarmed Palestinians in Gaza and in the Occupied Territories. Israel which still feels obliged to give orders to its soldiers to kill unarmed people who claim their freedom.

We call upon the international community to remember its own resolutions and to abide by them. We call upon churches to be the conscience of humanity and hear the cry of the oppressed in the Holy Land.

We call upon them to condemn the Christian Zionists whom we saw in these days, contradicting the Gospel of love and peace, by supporting oppression and injustice, under the pretext of prophecies, and standing with the powerful of this world in their injustices.

We urge the international community to shoulder its responsibilities. We call upon it to exert every pressure, even sanctions if necessary, to force Israel to follow the path of peace and justice, to lift the oppression from the people of Gaza and all the Palestinian people, to prevent death in the Holy Land, abandon its apartheid practices, and comply with international law.

We call on churches in our Holy Land and throughout the world to be courageous and faithful to their mission, to assume their responsibilities towards the Holy Land and all those who live in it, to bring through their prayers awareness of what is going on in the Holy Land, and to take effective steps towards justice, equality and peace in this land where the roots of their faith lie.

We call on our people to remain steadfast in the face of all plots and intrigues.

This is our call; this is the cry of the Christian conscience in the Holy Land, the cry of all Christians, leaders and people, on this anniversary, the anniversary of the year when the killing of each other began in the land made holy by God, not to kill but to let all people love each other.

*Kairos Palestine is Christian Palestinian movement, born out of the Kairos Document, which advocates for ending the Israeli occupation and achieving a just solution to the conflict.

The Military Drone Market will have a market value of more than USD 13 billion by 2024, with a fleet size exceeding 18 thousand units; according to a new research report by Global Market Insights.

The military drone market growth is credited to increasing investments in the drone technology by military and defense departments with governments in many countries spending heavily to increase their UAV fleet size.

The US federal government has allocated approximately 4.5 billion for drone procurement in the 2017 budget proposal. The proposal indicates a paradigm shift in the technology, as the major drone procurement program was launched, with the funding assigned for new research and development, according to the report.

Similarly, the government of India has also formed an alliance with General Atomics to deliver 22 Sea Guardian drones worth approximately USD 2.0 billion. The South Korean government has also announced a five-year plan to invest more than USD 1 billion in the industry for the next five years.

According to the report, the advancements in the UAV technology will also foster the military drone market growth. The integration of advanced machine learning algorithms and artificial intelligence in the drones will fuel their demand for traffic monitoring, surveillance, and spy applications.

For example, the U.S. Customs and Border protection is using drones for monitoring the Mexican-American Border and the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) are using drones for law enforcement and protection. However, the safety and security issues associated with the use of drones and stringent government regulations across the countries are estimated to hinder the military drone market growth, according to the report.

During the last few years, a lot of debate has been had over the promise and perils of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). Many education advocates argued we must embrace ESSA because it promised to reduce the federal chokehold of high stakes standardized testing that was wielded, starting with No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and ramped up further under Race to the Top.

The promise of ESSA seemed too good to be true. Why would the same people who devoted decades to dismantling public schools, creating avenues for de facto segregation, and privatizing a public system suddenly want to turn around and “do the right thing?” ESSA authors (Lamar Alexander) claimed that testing would take a “back seat” And it has. The argument in support of ESSA was “to restore responsibility to state and local leaders [sic] what to do about educational decisions. If a state decides to move away from Common Core, they don’t have to call Washington and ask permission—they can just do it.”

And so many supporters of democratic public education “bought in” to the hype. Exactly what ARE states deciding to do instead? Those are the details we need to examine, and it’s vital (if we are really to reclaim public spaces and democracy) that we understand that there is a global paradigmatic shift occurring beyond the scope of what we already think we know or can anticipate. We must broaden our understanding of the end-game.

In unwritten or loosely defined ways, ESSA ushers in a host of opportunities for corporations and private entities to avail themselves of every child’s most private funds of data. See Emily Talmage. The data surveillance tactics have found their ways into what otherwise might have been meaningful community and classroom practices.

Companies and government agencies still have access to students test scores (via online daily competency-based education data), despite claims of reducing end-of-year testing. ESSA may, in fact, be reducing the role that high stakes testing plays in education policy and practice. But don’t be fooled. It is not because those of us in the opt-out movement “won” the battle. The powers-that-be manufactured that move as a distraction.

The formulators of ESSA have created the illusion that these new policies will be what we want. The opposite is true. The new avenues of data collection formulated for ESSA, in addition to academic (test) data, including social-emotional data, measuring such things a “grit and tenacity.”  They evaluate “mindfulness.” Some might be asking the question “why?”—what is to be gained from this data collection? The answer is: A great deal if you are keeping up with the research. You know this answer– at least in part.

In part, it is because, in the traditional neoliberal framework, any data means money. For example, “Silicon Valley is going all out to own America’s school computer-and-software market, projected to reach $21 billion in sales by 2020.”

Data also means knowing how to anticipate outcomes through predictive analytics, how to sort and track students as future consumers, workers, or prisoners (using third-grade data to build prisons goes back decades). But wait….there’s more. We need to understand what this “more” is, and why high stakes testing (as insidious as it is/was) PALES in comparison to the new data collection mechanisms and forms of data being mined, and the ways in which this data will significantly erode global democracy and human rights. This is because “a mechanism that is at the heart of biocapitalism in its ever-expanding attempts to commodify all aspects of life.” (Haraway).

The capitalist/consumer paradigm is shifting beneath our feet. With the growing capacities of new technologies, such as artificial intelligence and the push for Big Data (McKinsey),  we have seen in the last few decades the development of education policies mirroring something more (i.e. Common Core becomes Competency-Based Education which becomes online learning which means more and more uses for artificial intelligence and tracking student behavior because now the computers must monitor the children once the teachers are all gone)…. See a summary here.

The growing technological advances are slowly forming a new relationship between human and capital. It’s called biocapitalism. And the education policies underway, invited in through the gates of ESSA and other tactics such as social impact bonds, are the way forward for biocapitalism to successfully engender us unto it. Those “innovative assessments” being developed for ESSA are a vehicle by which corporations can build a new biocapital world for all of us. In a biocapital reality, data becomes surveillance becomes total control.

Biocapitalism transforms the interdependent systems of capital and labor (as external phenomena) into a capitalist system that utilizes more abstract form of labor that are internal and intangible. The relationship between man and machine is far more enmeshed in a biocapital relationship.

As this article Harpers from 1997 clearly describes,

“Scratch the surface of information and biotech revolutions ….and what one discovers underneath is a ‘control revolution’….a massive transfer of power from bureaucracies to individuals and corporations. In an unregulated control revolution free markets and consumer choice become even more dominant forces and in virtually every arena social regulation gives way to economic incentive. …even such social intangibles as privacy become commodified.”

To learn more about how biocapitalism controls bodies and minds of children via public education policy read Clayton Pierce –Education in the Age of Biocapitalism: Optimizing educational life for a flat world. Pierce explores how generations of “extractive schooling” (of which standardized testing has been a part since the birth of the eugenics movement in the early 1900’s) and how this has begun to transform itself through “technologies of control” of which the increasing push toward computer learning, machine learning, and artificial intelligence as the mode of education delivery for all children. He concludes, “education life is ever more becoming the target of an expanding range of sophisticated technologies of control (p. 142) … calling for greater and greater degrees of regulation and discipline over the body of the students” (p. 143). This makes me wonder even more about Class Dojo and other uses of privately owned technologies to monitor the student body and mind. And the purpose of them becomes yet more evident.

So as we continue to fight yesterday’s battle, i.e for a reduction in standardized testing and believe that that’s a “win” while also ignoring the profound destruction these other education policies (see McDowell) being quietly floated under our noses are having, the effort to control the next generation (our children) will be complete. We cannot become distracted by a bait-and-switch set of tactics.  Look for the forest, not the trees. We have to see the picture of these corporate reformers is much bigger than most parents and teachers and citizens can even imagine. It explains why global billionaires and tech giants like Bill Gates and Google have such a vested interest in “disrupting” education and taking education over with “21st-century technology.”

Biocapitalism relies on “the use of the relational, emotional and cognitive faculties of human beings.” In a biocapitalist framework of which 21st-century education is a necessary part, “what is exchanged in the labour market is no longer abstract labour (measurable in homogeneous working time), but rather subjectivity itself, in its experiential, relational, creative dimensions. To sum up, what is exchanged is the ‘potentiality’ of the subject. Whereas in the Fordist model it was easy to calculate the value of labour according to the average output and professional skills based on workers’ education and experience, in bio-capitalism the value of labour loses almost any concrete definitional criterion.”

The goal is not merely to sell us all iPads or market education materials and services. The scope is greater than that, and personal data (to be gathered via educational systems sold out to private interests) will use our children’s data not simply to sort and track them by test scores, not simply to close schools in black and brown neighborhoods to profit Wall Street charter schools)….sure all of that is true….but that’s not the end game.

We cannot continue to fight yesterday’s demons and expect to reclaim the rights to our schools, our children’s futures, or our democracy. First, we have to see and understand the nature of biocapitalism as all-encompassing and global phenomena and the clear pathways between the new ESSA assessments and education delivery systems and the mechanisms of control being constructed.  We have to construct systemic avenues of wholesale resistance instead piecemeal compromises. We cannot afford distractions or avoidance.

The devil is in the details.

The devil is in the data.

*Morna McDermott is one of the co-founders of the Classrooms Not Computers campaign. McDermott has been in education for more than 25 years and a co-founder of the United Opt-Out movement that challenged high stakes testing,

The last few years have been tough for India, not just in context of economic reforms but also environment— specifically in terms of climate. As per the India Meteorological Department, 2017 was the fourth warmest year of the country, with the last quarter of 2017 being the hottest since 1901.

In the beginning of the 20^th century, India, a British colony then, suffered from significant climate change accompanied by droughts and famines, which were further fueled by fatal British economic policies. Notably, India’s economic backwardness wasn’t due to any niggardliness of geography, but was rather anthropogenic. There was no dearth of natural resources in the country, but as the British tightened their grip over the socio—economic fabric of the country, by ways of policy structures focusing on exploitation and economic drain— India slowly became a country of poor people living in a rich country. With all traditional flourishing industries of textiles, handicrafts, artisans etc. destroyed, the Indian population had agriculture as the only choice to fall back on. This expansion of cropland and urban sprawl resulted in significant loss of grasslands and forests. In 1880, as per Science Direct Report, approximately 89 million hectares of land was converted. For example, Richards and Flint (1994) reported that the total forest cover decreased from 100 million ha to 81 million ha; whereas the cropland area increased from 100 million ha to 120 ha during 1880–1950.

In present times, such change in land use and land cover, has been a major cause for changing climatic patterns, biogeochemical cycles and food production capacity amongst others as it was then. Coupled with this is India’s fast rising population, which often is shackled by poverty and other development needs—pushing carbon emissions higher by the day. As a matter of fact, India’s carbon emissions are still rising versus other polluting nations (the US, China, Russia, Japan and the EU Bloc), with a 5% increase recorded in 2016. Given, India is embarking on one of the fastest rural-to-urban transformation, the country is yet to install a vast amount of energy-using efficient infrastructure, which will double its energy consumption as well by 2030. Though the carbon footprint increase per person is small, yet with a population of 1.3 billion, it magnifies— which might render India as the largest polluter.

Currently, India has been speculated to be one of the most vulnerable nations to climate change. The Global Climate Risk Index 2018, released by Berlin-based NGO Germanwatch at Cop23, listed India as the 6^th most vulnerable nation, where the erratic climate patterns, in form of thunderstorms, floods and heatwaves, will result in economic and human loss. The implications are expected to be particularly severe for India. “In 2016, India had reported the highest number of deaths due to extreme weather (2,119 fatalities) and suffered losses of more than INR 1.4 trillion (USD 21 billion) in property damage. This is almost 1% of India’s GDP of USD 2.5 trillion, and almost equivalent to the country’s whole health budget.” The report is based on the socio-economic data of the International Monetary Fund, and it reflects the connection between global warming and extreme El Niño events, which directly impact the Indian monsoons.

In the last four years, as per Ministry of Earth Science, more than 4,620 people have succumbed to heat waves, whose frequency and severity has increased drastically due to climate change as a result of GHG emissions (carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide etc.). The country’s climate is continuously getting warmer since 1901 at a steady and fast rate. Whether it is the drying river systems, rising sea levels, extended droughts, change in oceanic acidity, glacier melting, stronger tropical storms, heavy rainfalls etc. all are results of rising temperature. Notably, India has dense coastal population, which will be hard hit apart from food security, agriculture, water shortage and disease outbreak, in wake of above mentioned consequences of changing weather patterns.

India’s Economy and Energy Needs

In wake of climate change and enhanced global warming, India faces a tough challenge to work towards its economic growth without increasing its carbon footprint. Though lower than the western countries, India still is one of the major emitters of GHG emissions after the US, China and EU Bloc. India’s energy sector is a significant contributor here, as fossil fuels remain an important factor in India’s energy policy. The country is focused at becoming a manufacturing hub, which involves rapid industrialization and high energy demand. This is critical to the growth of the world’s third largest economy which houses at least one—sixth of the world population. Even though the energy consumption per capita per person in India is way less than in Europe, China or America; and approximately 18% of Indian populace is without access to electricity (2016), yet the emissions are high,  given the demographic count of the country; which is expected to further rise with time.

Of course, as a signatory to the Paris Climate Agreement and SDG Agenda, India is keen to control its carbon footprint. In this regards, the country has actively been promoting renewable energy resources and intends to invest tens of billions of dollars to expand generation capacity in the next decade. Target is 40% electricity from renewables and other low—carbon resources by 2030. The country wants to achieve “175 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy capacity by 2022 – of which 100 GW will be from solar energy.”

Supporting India in this ambitious undertaking are countries like France and Japan.

• France and India are set to launch an alliance of 121 countries to boost solar power sector. This will help India become a key player in the solar industry as well.
• Japan and India too have decided to cooperate over clean, reliable and economical energy, with both of them keen on initiating dialogue on next generation electric vehicles, worldwide energy security, energy access and climate change issues.
• Climate Justice: India has sought shared responsibility, i.e. Climate Justice, from the industrialized nations, seeking them to address the problem through technology transfer and meeting their $100 billion a year from 2020. The climate justice is also sought from these developed nations on account of their historical actions; consequences of which have been instrumental in shaping the present—day capabilities of the least developed and developing nations, majority of which are erstwhile colonies.
• India is also aggressively working towards transforming its automotive market, and plans to focus only on hybrid and electric vehicles by 2030.

India is definitely working towards developing a green economy, however holding it accountable for the enormous rise in GHG emissions since industrial revolution won’t be right. The country on several occasions has reiterated the point, putting it in the context of its 1.3 billion population and its colonial legacy.  Balancing the economy and environment for India is undeniably a challenge, where economic growth is equally important to alleviate issues such as poverty and food shortage amongst others. In the end, India is walking on a delicate path which links its twin goals of boosting economic development and safeguarding environmental sustainability, the results of which will be unveiled only with time.

*Apurvaa Pandey writes on topics falling under the umbrella of “Geopolitics of Environment, Energy, Sustainability and Climate Policy.” Apurvaa Pandey is a PR professional specializing in Public Affairs and formerly worked with The Times of India as a reporter, as well as having further gained specialization in UN agencies from the Institute of UN Studies, IFUNA.

A version of this article appeared at Geopolitics of Environment Journal.

The Frontline Public Broadcasting Services (PBS) has meticulously televised the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingyas by the Tatmadaw (Myanmar Army), followed by the Australian and BBC televisions. Hypothetically or rather hypocritically why it is highlighted only now when the Tatmadaw has been implementing this ethnic cleansing since its inception, when the then Burma Independence Army threw a grenade into a Karen church during the Worship service way back in 1940s?

But this legal ethnic cleansing became known only, when the Tatmadaw launched a military coup in 1962 and since then there was no stopping of the ethnic cleansing over its more numerous non-Myanmar indigenous ethnic nationalities of Burma.

Numerous NGOs have systematically recorded and published this ethnic cleansing policy but the civilized world including the UN were muted. It is only now that the Western Corporate media picked it up and highlighted. Is this because the Burmese proverb “when the Burmese cries no one hears, only when the Ka Lar cried everybody hears” prove to be true or rather because the fifty seven member strong OIC (Organisation of Islamic Cooperation منظمة التعاون الإسلامي‎;) backed by the petro dollars has its say? Whatever the rai·son d’ê·tre we are residing in the 21st century where business always overrules the conscience and at least the Western media have highlighted only now, a microcosm of the last half a century of ethnic cleansing. How will the world react? Will it indirectly shore up the dictatorial Tatmadaw regime by blaming the pro-democracy group led by Daw Suu Kyi, knowing full well that there are two governments and that the army is calling all the shorts as simplified by Kofi Annan Commission.

Or will the international community able to differentiate the bad Myanmar from the good ones and following the sensational news will tantamount to giving much needed ammunition to the bad Myanmar led by Tatmadaw and making things worse. The more, the international community heap the blame on the civilian government of Burma led by Daw Suu, the more the happier will be the Tatmadaw whose generals are itching to take back power as it had done for more than half a century. If this episode ended in this scenario, Burma will be forced to lean back on the dictatorial countries like Russia and China and obviously democracy and human rights will take a back seat in this this last frontier. If so the Western world will soon witness that not only South China Sea but also the Indian Ocean becoming the Chinese lake which can soon encompass the world with its One Belt One Road initiative. If so let us start greeting each other Ni How Mar (你好吗) instead of our usual salutations of ‘how do you do’?

Any average man glimpsing back to Burma may realize that the Tatmadaw has completely ruled and ruined the country since its military coup in 1962 to date, more than half a century taking the country to the least developed status, and is still power hungry and have grudgingly handed some power back to the civilian administration only when its proxy the USDP (Union Solidarity and Democratic Party) lost overwhelming. But, what the world didn’t knew was these ex-brass party was the same party that orchestrated the attempted murder of Aung San Suu Kyi herself at Depaeyin way back in May 2003 and when it failed, it mechanized a Muslim incident to initiate the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya. Of course this thuggish party were able to exploit and organized the Buddhist zealot like U Wirathu (Burma’s Bin-laden funded and advice by the Tatmadaw had labelled the UN special Rapporteur Yanhee lee as a bitch) organizing the poor and uneducated local Arakanese and exploiting the religious fever. Even now they are organizing the local people not to accept back the Rohingya refugees.

Care must be taken that the international community must not underestimate the Myanmar Tatmadaw think tank who in their vain attempt to rule the country in perpetuity had deliberately targeted the universities and higher institutions, so as the upcoming brains may not get the required education while on the other hand encouraging its military academies for the young vipers to rule the country often sending their offspring to study the latest technology abroad. Hence Burma, became the only country in the world that did not hark back to democracy when all the Afro-Asian countries changed back to democracy after a few decades of military rule. Even now it has able to install the 2008 Nargis Constitution after a fraudulent referendum and manipulated elections in 2011, and the international community had easily acquiesce by recognizing it as the Union of Myanmar instead of the Union of Burma indirectly encouraging that ethnic cleansing of the Myanmar over the Non Myanmar ethnic nationalities (including Rohingya) proving beyond doubt that dictators can change the fair name of the country without the consensus of the people. So the simple logic is why the hue and cry over ethnic cleansing only now?

Lamentably, we discovered that many countries does not have a Burma Desk in their foreign ministry and have little or no knowledge except that it is a good place for exploiting its natural and human resources which is just opening up. Hence, when this problem rose up they did not know how to react except to base its conclusion on the corporate’s sensational news and unwittingly making it worst. The world need to study the making of modern Burma to know the psyche and the rationale of the Myanmar Tatmadaw and its long history of ethnic cleansing before finding a solution.
The architect of modern Burma Aung San (father of the lady) had laid down the federal type of administration fore seeing that only the amalgamation of different independent states under the British colonial empire will make modern Burma. But he was assassinated by Tatmadaw proxy who even attempted to delete his name during the Junta days eventually taking the country to the Least Developed Status.

It is also a fact that the Rohingya (original name Mujahid) were pardoned when they attempted to take the northern Arakan to join the then East Pakistan and legal recognized by the Burmese government. But, they not only refused to speak the lingua franca and insisted on practicing polygamy in proselytization, refusing to honour the flag and the national anthem of the country couple with their allegiance to Pakistan, compelling the Myanmar Tatmadaw to embark on this ethnic cleansing by the ever marauding Myanmar Tatmadaw. Not only must the Tatmadaw be ostracized but their economic conglomerate must be targeted, whose crony capitalism in the country have prevented the well-being of the populace and prevented democracy from taking its roots.

One object is very sure as long as Myanmar Tatmadaw is not replaced by the Union army composed of all the ethnic nationalities as in the British had done, this rapist Myanmar Tatmadaw will continue the ethnic cleansing of the more numerous indigenous non Myanmar will go on forever. It is time for the UNSC and the international community should teach how to live in this civilized world and the Trump administration could begin by appointing the Asian Pacific Secretary to tackle it properly.

“La Forza Del Destino” (The Power of Fate) Opera by Giuseppe Verdi took place on stage on May 3 (Premier) and 5, 12, 14, 2018 at the Izmir Alhambra opera house. Opera will be at festivals during the summer season, next season we will see it again at Alhambra.

The four-act “La Forza Del Destino” (The Power of Fate) opera was composed by Giuseppe Verdi. It was ordered by the Russian Saint Petersburg palace orchestra. The opera’s premier was performed in 1862 at the Bolshoi Kamenny theater in Saint Petersburg, then in 1877 for the first time in Istanbul and in 1964 in the Ankara State Opera House.

The opera begins in Spain and continues in Italy and ends again in Spain. Leonore, daughter of Calatrava Marquis is in love with Don Alvaro. Alvaro’s mother comes from the Inca heritage from the indigenous peoples of South America. Her father is not willing to marry her daughter with Alvaro who is not a pure Spanish person. Leonore is determined to do everything she can to marry Alvaro. While trying to escape, Alvaro accidentally kills Leonora’s father. Lovers leave while unaware of each other’s lives. Leonora’s brother, Don Carlo, calls and seeks illegal lovers to get revenge. In the end, the heroes all die, unhappy end comes.

The work was first written in Spanish as a theater work, and then it was transformed into opera by Verdi with a solid dramatic editing. The music is amazingly beautiful. The melodies in the music that we listen to at the beginning are repeated throughout the opera.

The Orchestra Conductor is Tulio Gagliardo, Stage Director Evin Atik. Orchestra plays smooth, choir is strong, İzmir orchestra permanent conductor performs wonderfully. The work is put on the classic interpretation scene in İzmir. The decor is reasonable, the costumes are beautiful. However we could not get the meaning of the gun sounds coming from the microphone before the overture in the first act.

The first act starts in Leonora’s bedroom.

The second scene is in Spain. Here, the fortune-teller Gypsy girl mezzo soprano Preziosilla has a beautiful song praising the war.

The second act is again in the monastery in Spain.

The third act takes place in Italy at the war zone. The ruthless face of the war is emerging in the same horror front. Preziosilla comes out on the stage again and tries to cheer people up with her songs, while people are poor because of the war, relatives are lost. Meanwhile, the monk, who was there to heal them, says that all the evils that have come to them are due to the sins they committed.

The Fourth Act goes back to the monastery in Spain. People who are trying to take refuge in the church because of hunger. We see absence of mercy and greed of monks and other people who are rude.

Then we see the encounter of Don Carlo and Don Alvaro. Opera ends with the final scene in front of the cave where Leonora was sheltered.

Let’s put together some of the main Arias that stand out in the opera and can be found easily on YouTube:

Leonora: 1st Act: Me pellegrina ed orfana,

2nd Act: Sono giunta! …. Madre pietosa vergine
4th Act: Pace, pace mio (Soprano Leyla Gencer is recommended!)

Preziosilla: 2nd Act: Al suon del Tambura

Don Alvaro: 3rd Act: La vita é inferno ….. o tu che in seno agli angeli

Don Carlo: 2nd Act: Son pereda latest ricco d’onore

3rd Act: Morir Tremenda cosa …. Urna fatale del mio Destino

Main roles are alternately performed by, Burçin Savigne, Ayşe Tek, Feryal Türkoğlu, Lorenzo Mok Arranz, Oğuz Çimen, Levent Gündüz, Aydin Uştuk, Nejad Begde, Gökhan Koç, Tamer Peker, Cengiz Sayin, Doğukan Özkan, Tevfik Rhodes, Engin Suna and Murat Duyan , Gökhan Varkan, Ebru Captain, Ayşe Özkan, Ferda Yetiser, Sabri Çapanoğlu, Tankut Eşber, Kaner Sumer, Başak Karataş, Evrim Keskin Özülgen, Christopher Gagliardo, Soner Yıldırım, Barış Yener.

The premier night, on May 3, was performed by the artists settled in Izmir. On May 5, we observed that the performers from outside Izmir were performing more impressively than the first night. Feryal Türkoğlu, Cengiz Sayın and Engin Suna have a big share when we get this impression. Tenor Aydin Uştuk was spectacular on both nights. The other roles, Preziosilla and Melitone, were performed beautifully on both days.

Giuseppe Verdi wrote this opera work with the order of Tsarist Russia. It was a period in which intolerance in Europe is most brutally practiced when the work was written. Giuseppe Verdi has given support to national- revolutionary works throughout his life. His works have rich melody, solid theatrical fiction, big and glorious orchestra, and powerful chorus music.

A few details from performance. We were waiting for an article telling us how woman director put opera on stage in the program book.

There were two more available tickets on May 5, while there was no buyer, we left it open in ticket box.

İzmir audience do not get tickets at the opera gate. There’s always a lot of available

Tickets at the gate before performance. There is always a last minute ticket purchase in Istanbul and Ankara.

During 2018-2019 season, this opera is in England’s “Royal Opera House” program. The main roles are shared by Anna Netrebko and Jonas Kaufmann. The opera will be in Munich, Augsburg, Dresden, Paris and Zürich. The staging of the Munich opera has contemporary interpretation with horrors of war introduced.
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By Michael Bowman

The U.S. Senate on Thursday confirmed Gina Haspel as the Central Intelligence Agency’s first female director by a vote of 54-45, ending a tumultuous nomination process in which lawmakers revisited the CIA’s past interrogation practices.

Six Democrats voted in favor of Haspel, while two Republicans opposed her nomination to replace Mike Pompeo, who was confirmed last month as secretary of state.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, praised Haspel, a career CIA employee, as “uniquely qualified to face America’s biggest national security challenges,” adding that she has “earned the respect and admiration of the men and women of the CIA.”

President Donald Trump’s selection of Haspel sparked controversy, given her oversight of harsh detainee interrogations after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America. She also wrote a memo authorizing the spy agency’s destruction of videotapes showing what many legal scholars said was the torture of terror suspects.

Democrat Patrick Leahy of Vermont announced his opposition to Haspel shortly before the vote, calling some of her known record “disturbing.”

“I do not question Ms. Haspel’s commitment to our national security. But I do question her fidelity to a core value of our nation — that all people have certain inalienable rights,” Leahy said in a statement, adding that the basic dignity of human beings “is incompatible with inhumane practices like torture.”

Haspel’s confirmation came one day after the Senate Intelligence Committee voted 10-5 to advance the nomination. At her confirmation hearing last week, Haspel told the committee her post-9/11 actions had the backing of the Justice Department and came during a period of intense fears about U.S. security.

“She has acted morally, ethically and legally over a distinguished 30-year career and is the right person to lead the Agency into an uncertain and challenging future,” the committee’s chairman, North Carolina Republican Richard Burr, said in a statement.

Several Democrats disagree

Several Democrats sharply disagreed, alleging that as acting CIA director, Haspel engineered an incomplete disclosure of her record to senators and the broader American public.

“The Haspel nomination is one of the most self-serving abuses of power in recent history,” Ron Wyden of Oregon said. “I don’t know of another occasion when the person who was up for nomination was given the sole ability to decide what about her background would be classified and what wouldn’t.”

During her confirmation hearing, Haspel repeatedly declined to say whether harsh interrogation techniques were morally wrong. Earlier this week, however, she wrote a letter to the committee’s top Democrat, Mark Warner of Virginia, saying the CIA should not have conducted abusive interrogations.

“As Director of the CIA, Gina Haspel will be the first operations officer in more than five decades to lead the Agency,” Warner said in a statement. “I believe she is someone who can and will stand up to the President if ordered to do something illegal or immoral like a return to torture.”

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin held talks on Thursday with President of the Syrian Arab Republic Bashar al-Assad in Sochi.

Following the talks, the two leaders addressed the press, at which Putin congratulated Assad on the major success of the Syrian Government Army in the struggle against terrorist units.

“Due to the efforts of your army recently, important steps have been made towards the further consolidation of the legitimate government,” Putin said, adding that, “Terrorists have laid down arms in key areas of Syria, which made it possible to restore the country’s infrastructure, push them back and practically end their operations near the Syrian capital.”

Putin said that much has been accomplished during the Astana process and the Syrian National Dialogue Congress in Sochi.

“Now we can take further steps jointly with you. The next goal is, of course, economic recovery and humanitarian relief for the people who have found themselves in a predicament,” Putin said.

For his part, Assad stressed that the terrorist-controlled areas have decreased significantly and that hundreds of thousands of Syrians have been able to return to their homes in recent weeks, millions more Syrians are on the way.

“Stability is improving, and this opens doors for the political process that we launched some time ago,” Assad said. “I always said, and I will repeat it now, that we always enthusiastically support the political process that should unfold alongside the fight against terrorism.”

Without mentioning the US specifically, Assad did say that path toward peace, “is not going to be easy as there are countries that do not want stability in Syria. However, we will firmly move on with you and with our other partners on the issue of the peace process to achieve peace.”

“Today’s meeting gives us a good opportunity to work out our joint positions for the coming period regarding the negotiating process in Astana and Sochi,” Assad said.

By Terri Moon Cronk

Despite claims from the Taliban that they now control the western Afghanistan city of Farah, the city has not fallen into their hands, chief Pentagon spokesperson Dana W. White told reporters Thursday.

This week, Afghanistan’s national defense and security forces, supported by U.S. air power and advisors, defeated a major Taliban offensive in Farah, White said.

Today, in spite of vain Taliban attempts to challenge the Afghan government’s control of the city, it remains under the control of Afghan forces, she added.

“Our Afghan partners’ success in places like Farah are a testament to the tremendous improvements in the Afghan National Army, Afghan special security forces and the Afghan air force,” White said, noting that Afghan A-29s and MI-17s conducted multiple airstrikes during the offensive in Farah.

Six Afghan Corps on the Offensive

For the first time, all six Afghan army corps are on the offensive against the Taliban across Afghanistan, she added.

“This is a great milestone for Afghanistan that will allow for coordinated campaigns as they take the fight to the Taliban throughout the country,” White said.

The United States stands firmly beside its Afghan partners and will continue to reinforce the Afghan-led offensive, White told reporters.

“As [Defense Secretary James N. Mattis] has said, we stand by the Afghan people, we stand by the Afghan government, and the NATO mission in Afghanistan will continue as we drive the Taliban to a political settlement,” she said.

Having bitterly split along partisan lines in the probe over Russian influence and “meddling,” the House Intelligence Committee united in decrying the “pre-eminent threat” posed to the US by another rising power ‒ China.

“China has only become emboldened and now may be the pre-eminent threat to American security, our economy and our values,” Committee Chair Rep. Devin Nunes (R-California) said at the hearing on Thursday, even as US and Chinese diplomats began a second round of negotiations to stave off a trade war.

Ranking member Rep. Adam Schiff (D-California) agreed, saying he hoped there would be more public hearings about China.

“We need to consider that the military challenge is part of a larger national strategy by China to project its power and to secure its national interests by whatever means necessary,” Schiff said, adding that this included sales of “potentially compromising” telecommunications equipment by companies like ZTE and Huawei.

Nunes is planning a series of hearings on China in the coming weeks, focusing on a variety of threats to the US, such as “aggressive territorial claims, unfair trade policies, espionage and cyber-attacks,” he told the Washington Free Beacon on Wednesday.

Former intelligence director of the US Pacific Fleet, retired US Navy Captain Jim Fanell, was one of the witnesses at Thursday’s hearing, along with China experts from the Council on Foreign Relations, American Enterprise Institute and the International Assessment and Strategy Center.

US intelligence agencies “had blinders on” for the longest time when it came to China, and misjudged Beijing’s activities, an unnamed committee aide told the Beacon. As an example, the aide cited China’s expansion of naval capabilities, which the US thought would be limited to regional conflicts but are increasingly looking global in scope.

“Our focus in the first hearing is to look at the military advances, quantitative and qualitative, and how it connects to China’s broader strategy for force projection and influence,” he added.

Nunes has been focused particularly on the Chinese military base in Djibouti, recently built next to the major US base in the east African country. He argued that China is looking to invest in ports and infrastructure around the world, not just for military purposes, but as a mechanism of exerting influence and control over host governments.

This assessment was seconded by the Free Beacon Editor Bill Gertz, who wrote a book titled ‘The China Threat’ in 2000. “The Chinese goal is to challenge the United States and coerce regional states into adopting China’s vision for a new global order under an authoritarian, anti-democratic power,” Gertz wrote.

It is unclear, however, how much of this accurately reflects China’s military and economic expansion, and how much is the analysts’ projection of US behaviors and motivations on Beijing.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif deplored Saudi Arabia for siding with the US government in imposing sanctions on leaders of Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which he hailed as the first force to shatter the myth of Israeli invincibility.

“Israeli snipers shoot over 2,000 unarmed Palestinian protesters on a single day. Saudi response, on eve of Ramadhan? Collaboration with its US patron to sanction the first force to liberate Arab territory and shatter the myth of Israeli invincibility. Shame upon shame,” Zarif tweeted on Thursday.

It came after the US Treasury Department and a number of Washington’s Persian Gulf partners imposed additional sanctions on Hezbollah Secretary General Seyed Hassan Nasrallah and his deputy Sheikh Naim Qassem.

The sanctions were imposed jointly by the US and its partners in the “Terrorist Financing and Targeting Center (TFTC)”, which includes Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and United Arab Emirates.

The embargos came a few days after the Israeli regime killed at least 60 Palestinians in Gaza.

They were among Palestinians taking part in protests against the relocation of the US’ Israel embassy to the city of al-Quds (Jerusalem).

More than 2,700 Palestinians were also wounded in the Israeli crackdown on the protesters.

Numerous bat species hunt and migrate at great altitudes. Yet the open sky had, until recently, not been on the radar of conservation scientists as a habitat relevant to a large variety of species.

Christian Voigt and colleagues from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW) in Berlin have collated the current scientific knowledge on potential hazards to one group of animals flying at high altitudes, bats. In their recent article published in BioScience the authors synthesise threats facing bats in troposphere and provide recommendations for potential protective measures to ensure persistence of bats and other high-flying animals.

Bats reach surprising altitudes while out on their nightly hunt. They utilise a large area to forage, stretching from the treetops to the lower troposphere. Bats have been recorded using onboard GPS loggers at heights of 500 metres above the ground in Germany, reaching up to 800 metres in Thailand. Yet the current record holder is the Mexican free-tailed bat Tadarida brasiliensis which has been recorded at the lofty height of 3000 meters above the ground! Even species like the common noctule Nyctalus noctula, inhabiting much of Europe, can reach altitudes above 1000 metres. Thus the high altitudes are an underappreciated habitat for bats and this region has largely been ignored in species conservation efforts. There are currently no specific policies or concepts for aeroconservation in Europe even though 21 of the 53 bat species native to the continent hunt for insects in these open spaces.

“When we think of the term habitat we generally think about features in the landscape: meadows, forests, or bodies of water, and other earth surfaces”, said Christian Voigt. “The lower boundaries of the troposphere escape our attention as a habitat relevant and important to animals.” Yet they are full of life. Both birds of passage and many insect species migrate at high altitudes. “Insects use winds to cover distances that they would not manage on their own.” It’s no surprise that bats use this open space: It’s where their food is.

Insect density varies by region. Their numbers have also generally declined due to air pollution and the increased use of pesticides across the globe. Voigt and colleagues estimate that to bats the open sky is further fragmented into ‘food-rich’ and ‘food-poor’ zones. Large clouds of bats in South East Asia can, depending on the species, cover distances of up to 40 or 50 kilometres during their nightly foraging. Analysis of radar data from North America illustrates that they span out in all three dimensions covering large swathes of land.

“Some bat colonies consist of one, two, or even ten million individuals. Not all of them can locate their prey nearby and they have to utilise high altitudes. There they also feed on insects harmful to human agriculture”, Christian Voigt said.

The animals are exposed to a variety of threats while hunting in the open air. Collisions with anthropogenic structures like high buildings, wind-power farms, drones, helicopters, and airplanes are direct impacts of human activity causing injuries and potentially death. With the increasing volume of air traffic and utilisation of wind energy sources this human influence is a growing threat.

Aside from reduced insect density, indirect impacts include light and air pollution, like dust and chemical pollutants, and exhaust fumes all of which can result in impaired health and reduced reproductive fitness.

“Bats are winged athletes. We have observed two species which ascended and descended several hundred metres repeatedly in a very short timeframe. To do so requires immense effort, leaving the animal potentially highly vulnerable to air pollutants”, Voigt said. In addition, as nocturnal animals bats are highly sensitive to light pollution and the relationship between bats and artificial light at night has yet to be determined at such high altitudes.

Protecting the open sky is far more difficult than conserving clearly defined terrestrial and aquatic habitats.

“It is, basically, the same predicament as with the oceans. The open sky is in public hands and common property which makes accountabilities harder to disentangle, and controls difficult to enforce”, said Voigt.

Bats are the only mammals capable of flight. Next to their immediate worthiness of protection, bat conservation is also of direct economic interest to humans as bats provide agricultural pest control services across the world.

A number of practical aeroconservation approaches do already exist.

“A variety of long-lasting protection strategies have been developed. In Germany, at least, wind power plant operators have to comply with a variety of permit requirements that are designed to limit bat and bird casualties. Unfortunately, how well these are implemented, across the country, is currently unknown”, said Voigt.

The migration corridors and roosting and resting areas of bats and birds have to be kept free of wind power plants. Strategies to reduce the impact of light emission and sky glow to bats are simple and efficient. Focus light toward the ground and limit light spill toward the sky! Voigt and colleagues urge for an expansion of research into the troposphere as an essential habitat as it is crucial for us to understand how the animals that exist in these open spaces can best be protected.

The first whole-genome analyses of ancient human DNA from Southeast Asia reveal that there were at least three major waves of human migration into the region over the last 50,000 years.

The research, published online May 17 in Science, complements what is known from archaeological, historical and linguistic studies of Southeast Asia, defined as the area east of India and south of China.

The work illuminates another critical portion of the story of ancient population dynamics around the world, joining numerous ancient-DNA studies of Europe as well as burgeoning research from the Near East, Central Asia, Pacific Islands and Africa.

“A very important part of the world is now accessible for ancient DNA analysis,” said Mark Lipson, a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of ancient-DNA specialist David Reich at Harvard Medical School and first author of the study. “It opens a window into the genetic origins of the people who lived there in the past and those who live there now.”

An international team led by researchers at HMS and the University of Vienna extracted and analyzed DNA from the remains of 18 people who lived between about 4,100 and 1,700 years ago in what are now Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar and Cambodia.

The team found that the first migration took place about 45,000 years ago, bringing in people who became hunter-gatherers.

Then, during the Neolithic Period, around 4,500 years ago, there was a large-scale influx of people from China who introduced farming practices to Southeast Asia and mixed with the local hunter-gatherers.

People today with this ancestry mix tend to speak Austroasiatic languages, leading the researchers to propose that the farmers who came from the north were early Austroasiatic speakers.

“This study reveals a complex interplay between archaeology, genetics and language, which is critical for understanding the history of Southeast Asian populations,” said co-senior author Ron Pinhasi of the University of Vienna.

The research revealed that subsequent waves of migration during the Bronze Age, again from China, arrived in Myanmar by about 3,000 years ago, in Vietnam by 2,000 years ago and in Thailand within the last 1,000 years. These movements introduced ancestry types that are today associated with speakers of different languages.

The identification of three ancestral populations–hunter-gatherers, first farmers and Bronze Age migrants–echoes a pattern first uncovered in ancient DNA studies of Europeans, but with at least one major difference: Much of the ancestral diversity in Europe has faded over time as populations mingled, while Southeast Asian populations have retained far more variation.

“People who are nearly direct descendants of each of the three source populations are still living in the region today, including people with significant hunter-gatherer ancestry who live in Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines and the Andaman Islands,” said Reich, professor of genetics at HMS and co-senior author of the study. “Whereas in Europe, no one living today has more than a small fraction of ancestry from the European hunter-gatherers.”

Reich hypothesizes that the high diversity of Southeast Asia today can be partly explained by the fact that farmers arrived much more recently than in Europe–around 4,500 years ago compared with 8,000 years ago–leaving less time for populations to mix and genetic variation to even out.

The new findings make it clear that the multiple waves of migration, each of which occurred during a key transition period of Southeast Asian history, shaped the genetics of the region to a remarkable extent.

“The major population turnover that came with the arrival of farmers is unsurprising, but the magnitudes of replacement during the Bronze Age are much higher than many people would have guessed,” said Reich.

Also unexpected were the linguistic implications raised by analyses of the ancestry of people in western Indonesia.

“The evidence suggests that the first farmers of western Indonesia spoke Austroasiatic languages rather than the Austronesian languages spoken there today,” Reich added. “Thus, Austronesian languages were probably later arrivals.”

Additional samples from western Indonesia before and after 4,000 years ago should settle the question, Reich said.

Is there enough space for all the wind turbines and solar panels to provide all our energy needs? What happens when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow? Won’t renewables destabilise the grid and cause blackouts?

In a review paper last year in the high-ranking journal Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Master of Science Benjamin Heard and colleagues presented their case against 100% renewable electricity systems. They doubted the feasibility of many of the recent scenarios for high shares of renewable energy, questioning everything from whether renewables-based systems can survive extreme weather events with low sun and low wind, to the ability to keep the grid stable with so much variable generation.

Now scientists have hit back with their response to the points raised by Heard and colleagues. The researchers from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, the South African Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, Lappeenranta University of Technology, Delft University of Technology and Aalborg University have analysed hundreds of studies from across the scientific literature to answer each of the apparent issues. They demonstrate that there are no roadblocks on the way to a 100% renewable future.

“While several of the issues raised by the Heard paper are important, you have to realise that there are technical solutions to all the points they raised, using today’s technology,” said the lead author of the response, Dr. Tom Brown of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.

“Furthermore, these solutions are absolutely affordable, especially given the sinking costs of wind and solar power,” said Professor Christian Breyer of Lappeenranta University of Technology, who co-authored the response.

Brown cites the worst-case solution of hydrogen or synthetic gas produced with renewable electricity for times when imports, hydroelectricity, batteries, and other storage fail to bridge the gap during low wind and solar periods during the winter. For maintaining stability there is a series of technical solutions, from rotating grid stabilisers to newer electronics-based solutions. The scientists have collected examples of best practice by grid operators from across the world, from Denmark to Tasmania.

Furthermore, these solutions are absolutely affordable, especially given the sinking costs of wind and solar power.

The response by the scientists has now appeared in the same journal as the original article by Heard and colleagues.

“There are some persistent myths that 100% renewable systems are not possible,” said Professor Brian Vad Mathiesen of Aalborg University, who is a co-author of the response.

“Our contribution deals with these myths one-by-one, using all the latest research. Now let’s get back to the business of modelling low-cost scenarios to eliminate fossil fuels from our energy system, so we can tackle the climate and health challenges they pose.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Thursday that EU countries agreed the Iran nuclear deal was “not perfect” but insisted it should be preserved, after the US withdrawal threw the accord into doubt.

EU leaders meeting in Sofia have backed a “united” approach to keeping the deal alive after US President Donald Trump pulled out and reimposed sanctions, complaining the accord did nothing to stop Iran’s ballistic missile program or interference in Middle East conflicts.

“Everyone in the European Union shares the view that the agreement is not perfect, but that we should remain in this agreement and conduct further negotiations with Iran on the basis of other issues such as the ballistic missile program,” Merkel said as she arrived for the summit.

French President Emmanuel Macron said the bloc was working to keep the existing agreement alive “so that our businesses can remain” in Iran.

This effort would run alongside work to “pursue negotiations on a vital broader agreement,” Macron said.

“The 2015 agreement needs to be completed by a nuclear agreement beyond 2025, an agreement on ballistic activities and (Iran’s) regional presence,” Macron said.

Tehran has warned it is prepared to resume “industrial-scale” uranium enrichment “without any restrictions” unless Europe can provide solid guarantees that it can maintain the economic benefits it gained from the nuclear agreement despite Washington reimposing sanctions.

EU experts have begun work drawing up measures to shield the deal from US sanctions, focusing on nine key issues including ensuring Iran can sell its oil and gas products and have access to international finance.

But given the global reach of US government sanctions it is not clear how effective these measures can be, or whether the EU will try to leverage them as a bargaining chip with Washington.