The Hywind Tampen project is located in waters off the Norwegian coast.
Ole Berg-rusten | AFP | Getty Images
A facility described as “the world’s largest floating offshore wind farm” was officially opened by Crown Prince Haakon of Norway on Wednesday, marking the culmination of a major renewable energy project years in the making.
Located around 140 kilometers (86.9 miles) off the coast of Norway in depths ranging from 260 to 300 meters, Hywind Tampen uses 11 turbines. The wind farm produced its first power in Nov. 2022 and became fully operational this month.
While wind is a renewable energy source, Hywind Tampen helps power operations at oil and gas fields, the idea being that it will cut these sites’ carbon dioxide emissions in the process.
“Hywind Tampen has a system capacity of 88 MW and is expected to cover about 35 per cent of the annual need for electricity on the five platforms Snorre A and B and Gullfaks A, B and C,” Norwegian energy firm Equinor said.
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Floating offshore wind turbines are different from fixed-bottom offshore wind turbines, which are rooted to the seabed. One advantage of floating turbines is that they can be installed in far deeper waters than fixed-bottom ones.
In recent years a range of companies and major economies like the U.S. have laid out goals to ramp up floating wind installations.
Equinor, a major player in the fossil fuel industry, describes the turbines at Hywind Tampen as being “mounted on floating concrete structures with a common anchoring system.”
Alongside Equinor, partners in the Hywind Tampen project include Vår Energi, INPEX Idemitsu, Petoro, Wintershall Dea and OMV.
The project off Norway’s coast marks Equinor’s latest move in the floating wind sector. Back in 2017, it started operations at Hywind Scotland, a five-turbine, 30 MW facility it calls the planet’s first floating wind farm.
“With Hywind Tampen, we have shown that we can plan, build and commission a large, floating offshore wind farm in the North Sea,” Equinor’s Siri Kindem, who heads up the firm’s renewables business in Norway, said in a statement.
“We will use the experience and learning from this project to become even better,” she added. “We will build bigger, reduce costs and build a new industry on the shoulders of the oil and gas industry.”
Powering the oil and gas industry
The use of a floating wind farm to help power the fossil fuel industry is likely to spark significant debate at a time when discussions about climate change and the environment are at the front and center of many people’s minds.
This is because fossil fuels’ effect on the environment is considerable. The United Nations says that, since the 19th century, “human activities have been the main driver of climate change, primarily due to burning fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas.”
“Burning fossil fuels generates greenhouse gas emissions that act like a blanket wrapped around the Earth, trapping the sun’s heat and raising temperatures,” it adds.
The stakes are high. Speaking at the COP27 climate change summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, last year, the U.N. Secretary General issued a stark warning to attendees.
“We are in the fight of our lives, and we are losing,” Antonio Guterres said.
“Greenhouse gas emissions keep growing, global temperatures keep rising, and our planet is fast approaching tipping points that will make climate chaos irreversible.”
Here’s a look at the life of Nikki Haley, former US ambassador to the United Nations and former Republican governor of South Carolina.
Birth date: January 20, 1972
Birth place: Bamberg, South Carolina
Birth name: Nimrata Nikki Randhawa
Father: Ajit S. Randhawa, professor and business owner
Mother: Raj Kaur Randhawa, teacher and business owner
Marriage: Michael Haley (1996-present)
Children: Rena and Nalin
Education: Clemson University, B.S., 1994
Religion: Christian
Haley’s parents are Indian immigrants who owned Exotica International Inc., a small foreign goods store that evolved into a multimillion-dollar clothing and gift venture. Exotica closed in 2008 when the Randhawas retired.
Her husband served in the National Guard and was deployed in Afghanistan for a year. He was part of an agricultural team that trained Afghan farmers how to turn their poppy crops into food crops.
Haley was raised in the religion of Sikh but converted to Christianity in her 20s. In an interview with the New York Times, Haley said she and her husband, “chose Christianity because of the way we wanted to live our life and raise our children.”
In 2011, she made history by being the first woman and the first person of an ethnic minority to hold the governorship of South Carolina. She is also the second Indian-American governor in US history. Bobby Jindal was the first, in Louisiana.
1998 – Is named to the Orangeburg County Chamber of Commerce’s board of directors.
2003 – Is named to the Lexington Chamber of Commerce’s board of directors.
2004 – Becomes the president of the National Association of Women Business Owners.
2004 – Haley is elected to South Carolina House of Representatives’ 87th District.
2005 – Is elected chairman of the State House’s Freshman Caucus.
2006 – Serves as majority whip in the South Carolina General Assembly.
2006 and 2008 – Is reelected to her seat in the South Carolina state House of Representatives.
December 10, 2017 –Haley says that any women who speak up about inappropriate sexual behavior “should be heard,” including Trump’s accusers.
December 21, 2017 – In a speech in front of the UN General Assembly, Haley warns participating countries that the United States will think twice about funding the world body if it votes to condemn Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move the US embassy there. Despite Haley’s threat, member nations overwhelmingly vote in favor of the resolution condemning the Trump administration for its decision on Israel.
December 26, 2017 – Haley says the United States has negotiated a $285 million reduction of the UN budget for 2018-2019, compared to the budget for 2016-2017.
April 29, 2019 – Haley is elected to Boeing’s board of directors during the company’s annual shareholder meeting.
November 12, 2019 – Haley’s memoir, “With All Due Respect: Defending America with Grit and Grace” is published.
December 2019 – During an interview with conservative podcaster, Glenn Beck, Haley revisits her decision to remove the Confederate flag from the South Carolina State House after the 2015 mass shooting at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston. Haley says that gunman Dylann Roof “hijacked” the meaning of the flag. She explains the flag signified service, sacrifice and heritage to many people. She later says, via Twitter, that her remark was misconstrued by “the outrage peddlers in the liberal media.”
March 19, 2020 – Boeing releases a March 16 letter from Haley in which she resigns from the board of directors. She states, “I cannot support a move to lean on the federal government for a stimulus or bailout that prioritizes our company over others and relies on taxpayers to guarantee our financial position. I have long held strong convictions that this is not the role of government.”
October 4, 2022 – Haley’s book, “If You Want Something Done: Leadership Lessons from Bold Women,” is published.
Editor’s Note: A version of this story appears in CNN’s Meanwhile in the Middle East newsletter, a three-times-a-week look inside the region’s biggest stories. Sign up here.
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Moored five miles off the coast of Yemen for more than 30 years, a decaying supertanker carrying a million barrels of oil is finally being offloaded by a United Nations-led mission, hoping to avert what threatened to be one of the world’s worst ecological disasters in decades.
Experts are now delicately handling the 47-year-old vessel – called the FSO Safer – working to remove the crude without the tanker falling apart, the oil exploding, or a massive spill taking place.
Sitting atop The Endeavor, the salvage UN ship supervising the offloading, UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen David Gressly said that the operation is estimated to cost $141 million, and is using the expertise of SMIT, the dredging and offshore contractor that helped dislodge the Ever Given ship that blocked the Suez Canal for almost a week in 2021.
How to remove one million barrels of oil from a tanker
Twenty-three UN member states are funding the mission, with another $16 million coming from the private sector contributors. Donors include Yemen’s largest private company, HSA Group, which pledged $1.2 million in August 2022. The UN also engaged in a unique crowdfunding effort, contributing to the pool which took a year to raise, according to Gressly.
The team is pumping between 4,000 and 5,000 barrels of oil every hour, and has so far transferred more than 120,000 barrels to the replacement vessel carrying the offloaded oil, Gressly said. The full transfer is expected to take 19 days.
The tanker was carrying a million barrels of oil. That would be enough to power up to 83,333 cars or 50,000 US homes for an entire year. The crude on board is worth around $80 million, and who gets that remains a controversial matter.
Here’s what we know so far:
The ship has been abandoned in the Red Sea since 2015 and the UN has regularly warned that the “ticking time bomb” could break apart given its age and condition, or the oil it holds could explode due to the highly flammable compounds in it.
The FSO Safer held four times the amount of oil spilled by the Exxon Valdez off Alaska in 1989 which resulted in a slick that covered 1,300 miles of coastline. A potential spill from this vessel would be enough to make it the fifth largest oil spill from a tanker in history, a UN website said. The cost of cleanup of such an incident is estimated at $20 billion.
The Red Sea is a vital strategic waterway for global trade. At its southern end lies the Bab el-Mandeb strait, where nearly 9% of total seaborne-traded petroleum passes. And at its north is the Suez Canal that separates Africa from Asia. The majority of petroleum and natural gas exports from the Persian Gulf that transit the Suez Canal pass through the Bab el-Mandeb, according to the US Energy Information Administration.
The sea is also a popular diving hotspot that boasts an impressive underwater eco-system. In places its banks are dotted with tourist resorts, and its eastern shore is the site of ambitious Saudi development projects worth hundreds of billions of dollars.
The first step of the mission was to stabilize and secure the vessel to avoid it collapsing, Gressly said. That has already been achieved in the past few weeks.
“There are a number of things that had to be done to secure the oil from exploding,” Gressly told CNN, including pumping out gases in each of the 13 compartments holding the oil. Systems for pumping were rebuilt, and some lighting was repaired.
Booms, which are temporary floating barriers used to contain marine spills, were dispersed around the vessel to capture any potential leaks.
The second step is to transfer the oil onto the replacement vessel, which is now underway.
Oil being removed from tanker near Yemen in Red Sea
After The Safer is emptied, it must then be cleaned to ensure no oil residue is left, Gressly said. The team will then attach a giant buoy to the replacement vessel until a decision about what to do with the oil has been made.
“The transfer of the oil to (the replacement vessel) will prevent the worst-case scenario of a catastrophic spill in the Red Sea, but it is not the end of the operation,” Gressly said.
While the hardest part of the operation would then be over, a spill could still occur. And even after the transfer, the tanker will “continue to pose an environmental threat resulting from the sticky oil residue inside the tank, especially since the tanker remains vulnerable to collapse,” the UN said, stressing that to finish the job, an extra $22 million is urgently needed.
A spill would shut the Yemeni ports that its impoverished people rely on for food aid and fuel, impacting 17 million people during an ongoing humanitarian crisis caused by the country’s civil war and a Saudi-led military assault on the country. Oil could bleed all the way to the African coast, damaging fish stocks for 25 years and affect up to 200,000 jobs, according to the UN.
A potential spill would cause “catastrophic” public health ramifications in Yemen and surrounding countries, according to a study by researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine. Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Eritrea would bear the brunt.
Air pollution from a spill of this magnitude would increase the risk of hospitalization for cardiovascular or respiratory disease for those very directly exposed by 530%, according to the study, which said it could cause an array of other health problems, from psychiatric to neurological issues.
“Given the scarcity of water and food in this region, it could be one of the most disastrous oil spills ever known in terms of impacts on human life,” David Rehkopf, a professor at Stanford University and senior author of the study, told CNN.
Up to 10 million people would struggle to obtain clean water, and 8 million would have their access to food supplies threatened. The Red Sea fisheries in Yemen could be “almost completely wiped out,” Rehkopf added.
The tanker has been an issue for many people in Yemen over the past few years, Gressly said. Sentiment on social media surrounding the removal of oil is very positive, as many in Yemen feel like the tanker is a “threat that’s been over their heads,” he said.
The tanker issue remains a point of dispute between the Houthi rebels that control the north of Yemen and the internationally recognized government, the two main warring sides in the country’s civil conflict.
While the war, which saw hundreds of thousands of people killed or injured, and Yemen left in ruins, has eased of late, it is far from resolved.
Ahmed Nagi, a senior analyst for Yemen at the International Crisis Group think tank in Brussels, sees the Safer tanker issue as “an embodiment of the conflict in Yemen as a whole.”
“The government sees the Houthi militias as an illegitimate group controlling the tanker, and the Houthis do not recognize (the government),” Nagi told CNN.
The vessel was abandoned after the outbreak of the Yemeni civil war in 2015. The majority of the oil is owned by Yemeni state firm SEPOC, experts say, and there are some reports that it may be sold.
“From a technical point of view, the owner of the tanker and the oil inside it is SEPOC,” Nagi said, adding that other energy companies working in Yemen may also share ownership of the oil.
U.N. begins high-risk operation to prevent catastrophic oil spill from Yemen tanker
The main issue, Nagi added, is that the Safer’s headquarters are in the government-controlled Marib city, while the tanker is in an area controlled by the Houthis. The Safer is moored off the coast of the western Hodeidah province.
Discussions to determine the ownership of the oil are underway, Gressly said. The rights to the oil are unclear and there are legal issues that need to be addressed.
The UN coordinator hopes that the days needed to offload the oil will buy some time for “political and legal discussions that need to take place before the oil can be sold.”
While the UN may manage to resolve half of the issue, Nagi said, there still needs to be an understanding of the oil’s status.
“It still poses a danger if we keep it near a conflict zone,” he said.
The United Nations said temperature records show July is on track to be the hottest month ever recorded on Earth, and likely the warmest human civilization has ever seen. Over 180 million Americans — more than half of the U.S. population — were under heat alerts Thursday, from the Southwest to the Northeast. CBS News correspondent Roxana Saberi has the latest from New York.
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A “conversation has commenced” with North Korea over US Army Pvt. Travis King, who crossed the border between North and South Korea last week in the demilitarized zone separating the two nations, the deputy commander of the United Nations Command (UNC) said Monday.
King, believed to be the first US soldier to cross into North Korea since 1982, had a history of assault, was facing disciplinary action over his conduct and was meant to go back to the US the day before the incident.
Gen. Andrew Harrison said the case of King is still under investigation and he could not provide further detail on the private, who the US military said “willfully and without authorization” crossed into North Korea while taking a civilian tour of the Joint Security Area, a small collection of buildings inside the demilitarized zone (DMZ) that has separated North and South Korea since the end of the Korean War in 1953.
“There is a mechanism that exists under the armistice agreement, whereby lines of communication are open between the UNC and the Korean People’s Army, and that takes place in the JSA. That process has started,” Harrison told journalists at the Seoul Foreign Correspondents Club.
He acknowledged that the answers he could provide were “disappointing,” but “I’m constrained by what I can say.”
“You may not get the answers for what you’re desperate for,” Harrison told the journalists.
The UN Command was making King’s welfare its primary concern as the process goes forward, he said.
“Obviously, there is so much welfare at stake, and clearly we’re in a very difficult and complex situation which I don’t want to risk by speculation or going into too much detail about the communications that are existing,” he said.
The UNC is a multinational military force that includes the United States which fought on the side of South Korea during the 1950-53 Korean War.
It controls the South Korean side of the JSA, the one place where the North and South can meet for talks.
King has not been publicly seen or heard from since he crossed into North Korea last Tuesday. North Korea has also not said anything about the status or condition of the missing soldier.
His reasoning for crossing the border into one of the world’s most authoritarian places – and a country which the US does not have diplomatic relations with – has so far remained a mystery.
A US Army official told CNN the private was set to be administratively separated from the service when he returned to Fort Bliss in Texas.
But before he could board an American Airlines flight from Incheon International Airport outside of Seoul last Monday, King bolted.
“He passed through all the security points up to the boarding gate but he told the airline staff that his passport was missing,” an official at the Incheon airport told CNN. The airline staff then escorted him back outside to the departure side, the official said.
King had reservations for a Joint Security Area tour for the next day and somehow made it to the excursion, joining other tourists as they went into the DMZ and the Joint Security Area, where he then ran into North Korea.
Threats against civilian vessels in the Black Sea are “unacceptable,” a senior U.N. official said Friday following statements by Moscow and Kyiv after Russia withdrew from a key grain export deal.
Russia announced on Monday that it was pulling out of the initiative, which allowed the safe export of Ukrainian grain, effectively ending the agreement signed in July last year between Moscow, Kyiv, Istanbul and the U.N. Russian authorities then announced they would consider any ships heading for Ukrainian grain ports on the Black Sea as military targets.
Ukraine responded by issuing a warning to ships heading for Russian-controlled ports.
“Threats regarding potential targeting of civilian vessels navigating in the Black Sea waters are unacceptable,” the U.N.’s under-secretary-general for political affairs, Rosemary DiCarlo, told the U.N. Security Council.
“We are also concerned about the reports of sea mines laid in the Black Sea, endangering civilian navigation,” she added. “We strongly urge restraint from any further rhetoric or action that could deteriorate the already dangerous situation.”
— Pamela Falk CBS News Correspondent United Nations (@PamelaFalk) July 21, 2023
DiCarlo said that Russia withdrawing from the grain deal, “coupled with its bombardment of crucial ports, will further compound the crisis.” She said the U.N. would continue its efforts to allow Ukrainian and Russian grain, a key food source for the world, to reach global markets.
Outside the Security Council chamber, Ukraine Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya told CBS News as he was going into the meeting: “It’s about many millions of people around the world on the brink of starvation…what happens as a result of the egregious decision to terminate the agreement with the United Nations.”
Kyslytsya said that the Ukrainian government is trying to broker various ways of delivering grain and food to the most needy around the world.
“We do not use grain as weaponized means of foreign policy or waging war,” Ukraine’s U.N. top diplomat told CBS News.
The U.N.’s humanitarian affairs chief Martin Griffiths said this week had been one of “sadness and disappointment.” But for many of the 362 million people in need of humanitarian aid around the world, it was a “threat to their future.”
“They’re not sad, they’re angry, they’re worried, they’re concerned. Some will go hungry. Some will starve, many may die as a result of these decisions,” Griffiths added.
Meanwhile, Russia said Friday that it understood the concerns African nations may have after Moscow left the grain deal, promising to ensure deliveries to countries in need.
Those countries in need would receive the necessary assurances at a summit later this month, Russian deputy foreign minister Sergey Vershinin told journalists.
“We understand the concerns our African friends may have,” said Vershinin. “But I want to say that these concerns are not only understandable but will be fully taken into account.
Asked about Putin’s upcoming meeting with African countries, Kyslytsya told CBS News, “I have lots of confidence in the maturity of many African leaders ….I don’t think they will be easily bought by freebees and giveaways,” adding that they are “not ready to go up against the very fundamental principles of international law.”
U.K. Ambassador Barbara Woodward also addressed the consequence of Russia’s exit from the grain deal.
“It’s hardly surprising that we heard Kenya say that this is a real stab in the back for the hungry and the poor in Africa, in the Horn of Africa, particularly as they face worst drought impacted by climate change… that’s a real humanitarian consequence of Russia’s withdrawal from the grain deal,” Woodward told CBS News and reporters at the press area before the meeting.
CBS News correspondent Pamela Falk contributed to this report.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — North Korea’s U.N. ambassador defended his country’s recent long-range missile launch in a rare appearance at the U.N. Security Council on Thursday where he also accused the United States of driving the situation in northeast Asia “to the brink of nuclear war.”
Kim Song told the council that Wednesday’s test-flight of the developmental Hwasong-18 missile was a legitimate exercise of the North’s right to self-defense. He said the United States was raising regional tensions with nuclear threats and deploying a nuclear-powered submarine to South Korea for the first time in 14 years.
Kim said the missile launch had “no negative effect on the security of a neighboring country,” pointing to Japan’s announcement that the ICBM — which flew at a steep angle — landed in open waters outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone.
The highest-ranking U.S. military officer is praising Japan’s moves to double its defense spending over the next five years. Gen.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has vowed to bolster his country’s nuclear fighting capabilities as he supervised the second test-flight of a new intercontinental ballistic missile designed to strike the mainland United States.
North Korea has test-fired its first intercontinental ballistic missile in three months after it threatened “shocking” consequences to protest alleged spying by United States military flights.
The powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has alleged that the country’s warplanes repelled a U.S. spy plane that flew over its exclusive economic zone.
South Korea’s U.N. Ambassador Hwang Joon-kook countered, asking: “How can an ICBM launch ever make neighboring countries appear safe?”
Diplomats said Kim’s appearance was the first time a North Korean diplomat addressed the Security Council since 2017.
Hwang said each of North Korea’s repeated ballistic missile launches allow the country to advance its technology toward its goal of having an arsenal of nuclear-armed weapons.
Immediately before the meeting, a statement from nine council members including the U.S. and Japan, joined by South Korea, was read to reporters condemning the launch “in the strongest possible terms” and stressing that it was the 20th ballistic missile launch this year in blatant violation of multiple Security Council resolutions banning such tests.
In Pyongyang, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, slammed the U.N. Security Council for convening a meeting to “pick a quarrel with” her country’s self-defense step while ignoring the U.S. push to increase the danger of a nuclear war. In a statement carried by state media, Kim Yo Jong called the council “a new Cold War mechanism totally inclined to the U.S. and the West.”
She also warned that the United States would pay a price for its hostility toward the North. “I do not conceal the fact that very unlucky things will wait for the U.S.,” she said without elaborating but reiterated her country’s push to build up its nuclear deterrence capability.
The Security Council imposed sanctions after North Korea’s first nuclear test explosion in 2006 and tightened them over the years in a total of 10 resolutions seeking — so far unsuccessfully — to cut funds and curb its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
The last sanctions resolution was adopted by the council in December 2017, and China and Russia vetoed a U.S.-sponsored resolution in May 2022 that would have imposed new sanctions over a spate of intercontinental ballistic missile launches.
The two veto-wielding permanent members have blocked any council action including statements to the media since then.
The statement by the 10 countries said the Security Council cannot remain silent in the face of so many North Korean provocations and must send a message to all proliferators “that this behavior is unlawful, destabilizing, and will not be normalized.” It also called on all countries to confront North Korea’s illicit activities to generate revenue such as cybercrime.
But Russia and China remained opposed to any council action.
China’s U.N. Ambassador Zhang Jun took note of the latest missile test but criticized the heightened U.S. military pressure on North Korea and its deployment of strategic weapons to the Korean Peninsula.
He said the long-time view of the U.S. and other countries that North Korea poses a security threat and their obsession with sanctions put North Korea under “existential pressure,” while the country’s own legitimate concerns “have never been addressed.”
Zhang said history since the 1990s clearly shows that dialogue and negotiation are the only way to ease tensions, and he urged the U.S. and North Korea to resume talks.
The statement from the 10 countries said they remain committed to diplomacy without preconditions. Song made no mention of talks, which have been stalled since 2018.
__
Associated Press writer Hyung-jin Kim in Seoul, South Korea, contributed to this report.
The head of a United Nations agency has called for an investigation into the killing of at least 87 people who were discovered in a mass grave in Sudan’s West Darfur region.
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk has demanded a “prompt, thorough and independent investigation” into the grim discovery outside the region’s capital El-Geneina.
Inside the mass grave were bodies of ethnic Masalit who along with other non-Arab communities are often targeted by Arab militias, supported by the RSF, according to Human Rights Watch.
“According to credible information gathered by the Office, those buried in the mass grave were killed by RSF and their allied militia around 13-21 June in El-Geneina’s Al-Madaress and Al-Jamarek districts…,” the UN body said in a statement Thursday.
The statement added that the bodies included individuals who were victims of the violence that occurred following the assassination of Khamis Abbaker, the Governor of West Darfur, on June 14.
Furthermore, the victims also include those who died due to untreated injuries.
Türk strongly condemned the killings and said he was “appalled by the callous and disrespectful way the dead, along with their families and communities, were treated.”
“There must be a prompt, thorough and independent investigation into the killings, and those responsible must be held to account,” Türk added.
He urged the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and other parties involved in the conflict to abide by international law and facilitate prompt searches for the deceased, their collection, and evacuation, without discrimination based on ethnic background.
“The RSF’s leadership and their allied militia as well as all parties to an armed conflict are required to ensure that the dead are properly handled, and their dignity protected,” Türk stressed.
West Darfur remains one of the most conflict-ridden areas in the Sudanese Darfur region, with a long history of severe violence.
The recent killings reflect the atrocities committed during the early 2000s, where hundreds of thousands of people lost their lives in an ethnic cleansing campaign led by the Janjaweed, an Arab militia that preceded the RSF.
The U.N.’s humanitarian agency says thousands of people living in the Jenin refugee camp in the Israeli-occupied West Bank still have no reliable access to fresh water a week after Israel’s military carried out a deadly, two-day raid on the camp. Israel has defended the raid, arguing that it was necessary to target Palestinian militant groups that operate out of the refugee camp.
“Jenin Refugee Camp, home to about 23,600 people, including 7,150 children, still lacks access to water, a week after the destruction of the local water network in a two-day operation carried out by Israeli forces,” a report from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said Tuesday. It estimated that access to water for 40% of the Jenin camp’s residents was still cut.
A boy looks at damage inside a house in the occupied West Bank Jenin refugee camp, July 6, 2023, following a large-scale Israeli military operation.
ZAIN JAAFAR/AFP/Getty
Last week’s operation, which left at least 12 Palestinians and one Israeli soldier dead, also drove many Palestinians from their homes in Jenin and left a trail of damage and destruction in its wake, according to the report.
The U.N. agency said at least 173 people, or about 40 families, were still displaced from their homes a week after the military operation.
The report says thousands of others have returned to homes left “uninhabitable” by the Israeli assault, which included strikes by armed drones.
An estimated $5.2 million will be needed to address immediate humanitarian needs in Jenin, according to the OCHA report.
The operation was Israel’s biggest in the West Bank in almost two decades. The Israel Defense Forces struck the camp in an operation it said was aimed at destroying and confiscating weapons from terrorists.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas visited Jenin Wednesday to survey the damage. His visit came just days after three of his senior officials were forced to flee a funeral by heckling crowds furious at the PA’s response to the Israeli assault, the Reuters news agency reported.
Palestinian authorities have launched a ministerial committee to provide reconstruction assistance in the Jenin camp, and the U.N. has said it is in contact with local officials to coordinate those efforts.
Tension has risen steadily since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned to power last year, bringing with him Israel’s most far-right government ever.
Netanyahu’s cabinet includes members of ultra-nationalist political parties that had long been relegated to the sidelines of Israel politics, including his new domestic security minister, who once chanted “death to Arabs” and was convicted of inciting racism.
Aside from the mounting tension with Palestinians, the new Israeli government has also faced a major backlash from Israelis who believe Netanyahu and his political allies are eroding democratic checks and balances in the country.
Motion at the UN Human Rights Council urges action over Quran burning incidents in Sweden, which Pakistan says incited ‘religious hatred’.
Muslim nations including Iran and Pakistan say the desecration of the holy Quran amounts to an incitement of violence and called for accountability after a series of stunts in Sweden caused a backlash around the world.
A motion filed at the United Nations human rights body on Tuesday was in response to the latest incident last month, and calls on countries to review their laws and plug gaps that may “impede the prevention and prosecution of acts and advocacy of religious hatred”.
The debate highlighted rifts in the UN Human Rights Council between the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and Western members concerned about the motion’s implications for free speech and challenges posed to long-held practices in rights protection.
An Iraqi immigrant to Sweden ripped, burned, and stomped on the Quran outside a Stockholm mosque last month during the Eid al-Adha holiday, sparking outrage across the Muslim world and angry protests in several Pakistani cities.
“We must see this clearly for what it is: incitement to religious hatred, discrimination and attempts to provoke violence,” Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari told the Geneva-based council via video, saying such acts occurred under “government sanction and with the sense of impunity”.
— Spokesperson 🇵🇰 MoFA (@ForeignOfficePk) July 11, 2023
‘Irresponsible and wrong’
Bhutto Zardari’s remarks were echoed by comments from ministers from Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Indonesia, with the latter calling the Quran burning an act of “Islamophobia”.
“Stop abusing freedom of expression,” said Indonesia’s Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi. “Silence means complicity.”
Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian urged Sweden and European nations to take “urgent and effective measures” against such incidents.
Some Western nations condemned the stunts, but also defended “free speech”.
Germany’s UN Ambassador Katharina Stasch called the acts in Sweden a “dreadful provocation”, but added “freedom of speech sometimes also means to bear opinions that may seem almost unbearable”.
France’s envoy said human rights were about protecting people, not religions and their symbols.
UN Human Rights Chief Volker Turk told the council that inflammatory acts against Muslims, as well as other religions or minorities, are “offensive, irresponsible and wrong”.
The @UN Human Rights Council is holding an URGENT DEBATE to “discuss the alarming rise in premeditated & public acts of religious hatred as manifested by recurrent desecration of the Holy Quran in some European & other countries” https://t.co/Rp5jDsAkcg
— United Nations Human Rights Council 📍 #HRC53 (@UN_HRC) July 11, 2023
Taliban targets ‘Sweden’
The Taliban administration said in a statement it halted all activities by Sweden in Afghanistan “after the insulting of the holy Quran and granting of permission for insulting of Muslim beliefs”.
It did not provide details on which organisations would be affected by its ban. Sweden no longer has an embassy in Afghanistan since the Taliban took over in 2021.
The Swedish Committee for Afghanistan (SCA) aid organisation said it was seeking clarification with authorities.
“SCA is not a Swedish government entity. SCA is independent and impartial in relation to all political stakeholders and states, and strongly condemns all desecration of the holy Quran,” the NGO said in a statement.
“For over 40 years SCA has been working in close collaboration with the rural population and in deep respect of both Islam and local traditions in Afghanistan.”
Thousands of Afghan staff work for the organisation throughout the country in health, education and rural development. SCA treated 2.5 million patients in its health clinics last year.
SCA strongly condemns all acts of desecration of the Holy Quran and seeks clarity on the July 11 directive from the DFA on Sweden’s activities in Afghanistan. SCA is not a government entity. Full statement here: https://t.co/J3XoOa3txd
— Svenska Afghanistankommittén SAK/SCA (@SAK_Sweden) July 11, 2023
Washington — The Biden administration will provide cluster munitions to Ukraine, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Friday, vowing the U.S. will not leave Ukraine defenseless and asserting that Kyiv has promised to use the controversial weapons carefully.
The decision comes on the eve of the NATO summit in Lithuania, where President Biden is likely to face questions from allies on why the U.S. would send a weapon into Ukraine that more than two-thirds of alliance members have banned because it has a track record for causing many civilian casualties. And it was met with divided reactions from Congress, as some Democrats criticized the plan while a Republican backed it.
The munitions — which are bombs that open in the air and release scores of smaller bomblets — are seen by the U.S. as a way to get Kyiv critically needed ammunition to help bolster its offensive and push through Russian front lines. U.S. leaders debated the thorny issue for months, before Mr. Biden made the final call this week.
In an interview with CNN, Mr. Biden said it was a “very difficult decision” and that it “took me a while to be convinced to do it.” But he said Ukraine’s dwindling ammunition supply tipped the scale in favor of providing the cluster bombs.
“The main thing is they either have the weapons to stop the Russians now — keep them from stopping the Ukrainian offensive through these areas — or they don’t. And I think they needed them,” Mr. Biden said.
Sullivan also defended the decision, saying the U.S. will send a version of the munition that has a reduced “dud rate,” meaning fewer of the smaller bomblets fail to explode. The unexploded rounds, which often litter battlefields and populated civilian areas, cause unintended deaths. U.S. officials have said the U.S. will provide thousands of the rounds, but provided no specific numbers.
The remains of artillery shells and missiles including cluster munitions are stored on Dec. 18, 2022, in Toretsk, Ukraine.
Pierre Crom/Getty Images
“We recognize the cluster munitions create a risk of civilian harm from unexploded ordnance,” he said during a White House briefing. “This is why we’ve deferred the decision for as long as we could. But there is also a massive risk of civilian harm if Russian troops and tanks roll over Ukrainian positions and take more Ukrainian territory and subjugate more Ukrainian civilians, because Ukraine does not have enough artillery. That is intolerable to us.”
Questioned at length about the move, Sullivan said Ukraine provided written assurances that it will use the cluster munitions “in a very careful way that is aimed at minimizing any risk to civilians.” And noting that the U.S. consulted closely with allies before finally making the decision, he said the U.S. made the determination that “we will not leave Ukraine defenseless at any point in this conflict. Period.”
According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, some cluster munitions leave behind bomblets that have a high rate of failure to explode — up to 40% in some cases. The rate of unexploded ordnance for the munitions that will be going to Ukraine is under 3% and therefore will mean fewer unexploded bombs left behind to potentially harm civilians.
A convention banning the use of cluster bombs has been joined by more than 120 countries that agreed not to use, produce, transfer or stockpile the weapons and to clear them after they’ve been used. The U.S., Russia and Ukraine are among those who have not signed on.
Ryan Brobst, a research analyst for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said that while the majority of NATO members have signed on to the cluster munitions ban, several of those nearest Russia — Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Romania and Turkey — have not.
“The most important of those are Poland and Romania,” Brobst said, noting that the U.S. weapons will probably go through those countries en route to Ukraine. “While some allies raise objections, this is not going to prevent [cluster munitions] from being transferred into Ukraine.”
The cluster munitions are included in a new $800 million package of military aid the U.S. will send to Ukraine. Friday’s package, which will come from Pentagon stocks, will also include Bradley and Stryker armored vehicles and an array of ammunition, such as rounds for howitzers and the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, officials said.
A launch truck fires the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) produced by Lockheed Martin during combat training in the high desert of the Yakima Training Center in Washington state on May 23, 2011.
Tony Overman / AP
Providing the cluster bombs will also ease the pressure on limited U.S. ammunition stockpiles. The U.S. has been taking massive amounts of 155 mm rounds from Pentagon stocks and sending them to Ukraine, creating concerns about eating into American stores. The cluster munitions, which are fired by the same artillery as the conventional 155 mm, will give Ukraine a highly lethal capability and also allow them to strike more Russian targets using fewer rounds.
At a Pentagon briefing Thursday, Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said the Defense Department has “multiple variants” of the munitions and “the ones that we are considering providing would not include older variants with [unexploding] rates that are higher than 2.35%.”
He said the U.S. “would be carefully selecting rounds with lower dud rates, for which we have recent testing data.”
So far the reactions from allies have been muted. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg stressed on Friday that the military alliance takes no position on cluster munitions and it is a decision that allies will make. And Germany, which has signed the ban treaty, said it won’t provide the bombs to Ukraine, but expressed understanding for the American position.
“We’re certain that our U.S. friends didn’t take the decision about supplying such ammunition lightly,” German government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit told reporters in Berlin. “We need to remember once again that Russia has already used cluster ammunition at a large scale in its illegal war of aggression against Ukraine.”
Oleksandra Ustinova, a member of Ukraine’s parliament who has been advocating that Washington send more weapons, noted that Ukrainian forces have had to disable mines from much of the territory they are winning back from Russia. As part of that process, Ukrainians will also be able to catch any unexploded ordnance from cluster munitions.
“We will have to de-mine anyway, but it’s better to have this capability,” Ustinova said.
The last large-scale American use of cluster bombs was during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, according to the Pentagon. But U.S. forces considered them a key weapon during the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, according to Human Rights Watch. In the first three years of that conflict, it is estimated the U.S.-led coalition dropped more than 1,500 cluster bombs in Afghanistan.
Proponents of banning cluster bombs say they kill indiscriminately and endanger civilians long after their use.
Marta Hurtado, speaking for the U.N. human rights office, said Friday that “the use of such munitions should stop immediately and not be used in any place.”
“We will urge the Russian Federation and Ukraine to join the more than 100 states that have ratified the convention of cluster munitions and that effectively ban their use,” she added.
FUTABA, Japan (AP) — The head of the U.N. atomic agency toured Japan’s tsunami-wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant on Wednesday and said he is satisfied with still-contentious plans to release treated radioactive wastewater into the Pacific Ocean.
International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Mariano Grossi observed where the treated water will be sent through a pipeline to a coastal facility, where it will be highly diluted with seawater and receive a final test sampling. It will then be released 1 kilometer (1,000 yards) offshore through an undersea tunnel.
“I was satisfied with what I saw,” Grossi said after his tour of equipment at the plant for the planned discharge, which Japan hopes to begin this summer. “I don’t see any pending issues.”
South Korea’s military says the satellite North Korea failed to put into orbit in May wasn’t advanced enough to conduct military reconnaissance from space as it claimed.
The U.N. nuclear agency has given its endorsement to Japan’s planned release of treated radioactive wastewater into the sea from the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant, saying it meets international standards and its environmental and health impact would be negligible.
South Korea has adopted a new law that changes how people count their ages. The country’s previous age-counting method made people a year or two older than they really are.
Japan and South Korea have agreed to revive a currency swap agreement for times of crisis. The move is the latest sign of warming ties as the countries work to smooth over historical antagonisms.
The wastewater release still faces opposition in and outside Japan.
Earlier Wednesday, Grossi met with local mayors and fishing association leaders and stressed that the IAEA will be present throughout the water discharge, which is expected to last decades, to ensure safety and address residents’ concerns. He said he inaugurated a permanent IAEA office at the plant, showing its long-term commitment.
The water discharge is not “some strange plan that has been devised only to be applied here, and sold to you,” Grossi said at the meeting in Iwaki, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of the plant. He said the method is certified by the IAEA and is followed around the world.
The IAEA, in its final report on the Fukushima plan released Tuesday, concluded that the treated wastewater, which will still contain a small amount of radioactivity, will be safer than international standards and its environmental and health impact would be negligible.
Local fishing organizations have rejected the plan because they worry their reputation will be damaged even if their catch isn’t contaminated. It is also opposed by groups in South Korea, China and some Pacific Island nations due to safety concerns and political reasons.
The fishery association chief, Tetsu Nozaki, urged government officials at Wednesday’s meeting “to remember that the treated water plan was pushed forward despite our opposition.”
Grossi is expected to also visit South Korea, New Zealand and the Cook Islands to ease concerns there. He said his intention is to explain what the IAEA, not Japan, is doing to ensure there is no problem.
In an effort to address concerns about fish and the marine environment, Grossi and Tomoaki Kobayakawa, president of the plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, signed an agreement on a joint project to determine whether they are impacted by tritium, the only radionuclide officials say cannot be removed from the wastewater by treatment.
In South Korea, officials said in a briefing Wednesday that it’s highly unlikely that the released water will have dangerous levels of contamination. They said South Korea plans to tightly screen seafood imported from Japan and that there is no immediate plan to lift the country’s import ban on seafood from the Fukushima region.
Park Ku-yeon, first vice minister of South Korea’s Office for Government Policy Coordination, said Seoul plans to comment on the IAEA findings when it issues the results of the country’s own investigation into the potential effects of the water release, which he said will come soon.
China doubled down on its objections to the release in a statement late Tuesday, saying the IAEA report failed to reflect all views and accusing Japan of treating the Pacific Ocean as a sewer.
“We once again urge the Japanese side to stop its ocean discharge plan, and earnestly dispose of the nuclear-contaminated water in a science-based, safe and transparent manner. If Japan insists on going ahead with the plan, it will have to bear all the consequences arising from this,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry said.
Grossi said Wednesday he is aware of the Chinese position and takes any concern seriously. “China is a very important partner of the IAEA and we are in close contact,” he said.
A massive earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011, destroyed the Fukushima Daiichi plant’s cooling systems, causing three reactors to melt and contaminating their cooling water, which has leaked continuously. The water is collected, treated and stored in about 1,000 tanks, which will reach their capacity in early 2024.
The government and TEPCO, the plant operator, say the water must be removed to prevent any accidental leaks and make room for the plant’s decommissioning.
Japanese regulators finished their final safety inspection last week, and TEPCO is expected to receive a permit within days to release the water.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, after meeting with Grossi, said Japan will continue to provide “detailed explanations based on scientific evidence with a high degree of transparency both domestically and internationally.”
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Associated Press video journalist Haruka Nuga in Tokyo and reporter Kim Tong-hyung in Seoul, South Korea, contributed to this report.
TOKYO (AP) — The U.N. nuclear agency gave its endorsement on Tuesday to Japan’s planned release of treated radioactive wastewater into the sea from the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant, saying it meets international standards and its environmental and health impact would be negligible.
The plan is opposed by groups in South Korea, China and some Pacific Island nations because of safety concerns and political reasons. Local fishing organizations are worried that their reputation will be damaged even if their catch isn’t contaminated.
Rafael Mariano Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, submitted its final assessment of the plan to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Tuesday.
Hiroshima and Pearl Harbor, two symbols of World War II animosity between Japan and the United States, are now promoting peace and friendship through a sister park arrangement.
Carlos Ghosn says that the $1 billion lawsuit he recently filed against Nissan and others is just the beginning of his fight.
The governor of Japan’s southern prefecture of Okinawa has called for more diplomatic efforts toward peace on the 78th anniversary of one of World War II’s bloodiest battles.
Lebanese officials say auto tycoon Carlos Ghosn has filed a $1 billion lawsuit against Nissan and about a dozen individuals in Beirut over his imprisonment in Japan and what he says is misinformation spread against him.
The report is a “comprehensive, neutral, objective, scientifically sound evaluation,” Grossi said. “We are very confident about it.”
The report said IAEA recognizes the discharge “has raised societal, political and environmental concerns, associated with the radiological aspects.” However, it concluded that the water release as currently planned “will have a negligible radiological impact on people and the environment.”
Japan’s plan and the equipment for the discharge are “in conformity with the agreed international standards and its application,” Grossi said.
He said the dilution of treated but still slightly radioactive wastewater for gradual release into the sea is a proven method widely used in other countries, including China, South Korea, the United States and France, to dispose of water containing certain radionuclides from nuclear plants.
Much of the Fukushima wastewater contains cesium and other radionuclides, but it will be filtered further to bring it below international standards for all but tritium, which is inseparable from water. It then will be diluted by 100 times with seawater before it is released.
But Haruhiko Terasawa, head of the Miyagi prefectural fisheries cooperatives, said they will continue to oppose the release while concerns remain.
“The treated water is not a problem that ends after a single time or a year of release, but lasts as long as 30-40 years, so nobody can predict what might happen,” he told TV Asahi.
Japan has sought the IAEA’s support to gain credibility for the plan. Experts from the U.N. agency and 11 nations have made several trips to Japan since early 2022 to examine preparations by the government and the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings.
Some scientists say the impact of long-term, low-dose exposure to radionuclides remains unknown and urge a delay in the release. Others say the discharge plan is safe but call for more transparency in sampling and monitoring.
Kishida, after meeting with Grossi, said Japan will continue to provide “detailed explanations based on scientific evidence with a high degree of transparency both domestically and internationally.”
A massive earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011, destroyed the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant’s cooling systems, causing three reactors to melt and their cooling water to be contaminated and leak continuously. The water is collected, treated and stored in about 1,000 tanks at the plant which will reach their capacity in early 2024.
The government and TEPCO say the water must be removed to prevent any accidental leaks and make room for the damaged plant’s decommissioning.
Japanese regulators finished their final safety inspection of the equipment last Friday and TEPCO is expected to receive a permit in about a week to begin gradually discharging the water at a location 1 kilometer (1,000 yards) offshore through an undersea tunnel. The start date for the release, which is expected to take decades, is still undecided.
The IAEA will continue to monitor and assess the release, Grossi said.
During his four-day visit, Grossi will also visit the Fukushima plant and meet with TEPCO officials, local fishing groups, heads of nearby municipalities and other stakeholders.
“I believe in transparency, I believe in open dialogue and I believe in the validity of the exercise we are carrying out,” he said.
Grossi is also expected to visit South Korea, New Zealand and the Cook Islands after his visit to Japan to ease concerns there.
A United Nations monitoring mission in Ukraine finds both Russia and Ukraine guilty of breaching international law.
A United Nations mission in Ukraine has expressed grave concern over the summary execution of more than 70 Ukrainian civilians by Russian forces while also documenting other breaches of international law by both warring sides.
“OHCHR is gravely concerned by the summary execution of 77 civilians – 72 men and 5 women – while they were arbitrarily detained by the Russian Federation, and the further death of one detainee (a man) as a result of torture, inhumane detention conditions and/or denial of necessary medical care,” read the report, referring to the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
The UN agency also documented 864 cases of arbitrary detention by Russian troops, many of which also amounted to enforced disappearances.
It also reported the detention of 260 civilians “based on their perceived political views or other legitimate exercise of freedom of expression”.
The true number of cases might vary considering that Russia did not provide OHCHR with any access to conflict-related detainees, despite repeated requests, the UN agency said.
More than 90 percent of the reported cases described being subjected to torture and ill-treatment, including sexual violence.
“Such treatment appeared to be carried out to force the victims to confess to provision of assistance to Ukrainian armed forces, to compel them to cooperate with the occupying authorities, or to intimidate those considered to hold pro-Ukrainian views,” said the report.
Ukrainian security forces have also been found guilty of unlawfully detaining at least 75 individuals – mostly suspected of conflict-related criminal offences. They also held 65 civilians incommunicado to extract confessions.
“Fifty-seven percent of interviewed detainees described being subjected to torture and ill-treatment by Ukraine, predominantly in unofficial places of detention and, to a lesser extent, in pre-trial detention facilities,” it said.
OHCHR also raised concern over the “vagueness and overly broad” wording of a law introduced in Ukraine in March last year that established criminal liability for collaborationists.
Under this law, the office of Ukraine’s prosecutor general opened more than 5,400 criminal proceedings leading to 500 guilty verdicts.
“The vagueness and overly broad terminology in the legal provisions raise concerns with respect to the principle of legality and have led to arbitrary detention in a number of cases,” the UN agency said.
So far, Ukraine has convicted 23 Russians, OHCHR said, adding that it was not aware of any criminal proceeding launched against Ukrainians involved in arbitrary detention or enforced disappearance.
Alpine nation’s main intelligence agency says at least a third of Russia’s 220 accredited officials are probably spies.
Switzerland’s main intelligence agency, the Federal Intelligence Service (FIS), says Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine has made the country an espionage hotspot, with at least a third of the 220 officials Russia has accredited in the country suspected of being spies.
While Russian spying elsewhere in Europe and in North America had been weakened by expulsions, Russian agents continued to operate in Bern, the Swiss capital, and at Moscow’s mission to the United Nations in Geneva, the FIS said in its annual report.
“In Europe, Switzerland is one of the states with the highest numbers of Russian intelligence officers operating under diplomatic cover, in part due to its role as a host to international organisations,” it said in the report released on Monday.
The UN has its European headquarters in Geneva and the city also hosts several UN agencies and international organisations. Hundreds of diplomats are posted in the city or regularly gather there for key meetings.
“Of the approximately 220 people accredited as diplomatic or techno-administrative staff in the Russian missions in Geneva and Bern, probably at least a third work for the Russian intelligence services,” FIS chief Christian Dussey told a press conference.
The Swiss secret service, which has 450 staff, said the war in Ukraine was forcing it to extend its monitoring to areas that had previously received little attention, such as Turkey and India, because Russia had been using companies in such countries for procurement.
While China is also believed to have dozens of spies at its diplomatic missions in Switzerland, their number is significantly less than Russia’s, the agency said.
China’s agents rely more on non-diplomatic cover, the FIS said, and are mainly described officially as scientists, journalists or business executives.
“We are doing the maximum, on the ground, to show the lines” not to be crossed, the FIS chief said, adding that espionage operations had a negative impact on Geneva’s international importance and were detrimental to Switzerland’s credibility.
Asked about the report in the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs regular press conference on Tuesday, spokesperson Mao Ning rejected the Swiss findings and said that China was opposed to espionage. She also urged an end to what she described as “groundless smears”.
The FIS also noted that the security picture had been affected by the growing rivalry between the world’s major powers, which had been intensified by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
“Russia has destroyed the rules-based order for peace in Europe,” the FIS said.
“The effectiveness of international forums for maintaining peace and security, such as the UN or the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), has continued to decline; there are no signs of a stable new world order.”
United Nations — The United Nations on Monday adopted the first-ever legally binding international treaty governing the high seas. Known as the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Treaty (BBNJ), but widely referred to as the High Seas Treaty, the measure approved by the 193 U.N. member states imposes rules aimed at protecting the environment and heading off disputes over natural resources, shipping and other matters in waters beyond any country’s national jurisdiction.
Until now, there has never been any international law governing the high seas, so many individuals and organizations hope the U.N.’s adoption of the measure will mark a clear turning point for vast stretches of the planet where conservation efforts have long struggled in a sort of wild west of exploration, overfishing, oil exploration and deep-sea mining.
“You have delivered,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the member nations Monday upon the treaty’s adoption. “And you have done so at a critical time.”
What’s the point of a High Seas Treaty?
“To prevent a cascading of species extinctions, last year we universally agreed to the Global Biodiversity Framework’s target of protecting 30% of the planet’s land and sea by 2030,” Peter Thomson, the U.N. Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for the Oceans, told CBS News. “To reach that target, we’ll have to establish Marine Protected Areas in the High Seas, and happily the BBNJ Treaty will give us the legal means to do that.”
“Roughly two thirds of the Earth’s oceans lie beyond national boundaries in an area known as the ‘high seas’ — yet only about 1% of that largely unexplored expanse has been protected. This year, nearly 200 nations finally agreed on the first treaty to protect the high seas,” the Conservation International organization said.
The only treaty that came close previously was the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, which came into force three decades ago. But that treaty regulated seas within country’s territorial waters and exclusive economic zones, leaving nearly half the planet’s surface and two-thirds of the ocean unregulated — particularly when it comes to protecting biodiversity. The new high seas treaty was agreed to under the authority of the previous Law of the Seas Treaty.
“The high seas are among the last truly wild places on earth,” said Monica Medina, the Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, who was the Biden administration’s chief negotiator and supporter of the treaty.
“It is often said that the ocean is too big to fail. That is simply not true,” Medina said. “The ocean is more fragile than most people understand. It is also more essential. It provides the oxygen we breathe and food for tens of millions of people.”
A marine biologist inspects signs of coral bleaching during a dive on Tubbataha reef, April 23, 2018, off the Philippines in the Sulu Sea.
Alexis Rosenfeld/Getty
Nichola Clark, who works with the Pew Charitable Trusts’ ocean governance project, told CBS News the treaty was “critical for our climate, as the world’s oceans play “an important role in regulating our climate – absorbing carbon dioxide and excess heat from the atmosphere, regulating temperatures, and driving our global weather patterns.”
So, what’s in the treaty? Here are the key points:
MPAs: The treaty establishes a framework for “Marine Protected Areas” — beyond the ones already within national territorial waters — to counter biodiversity loss and degradation of ecosystems of the ocean caused by the impact of climate change, including warming and acidification of oceans, as well as plastics, pollutants and overfishing.
It establishes standards and guidelines to determine the environmental impacts of high seas activities, including their impact on marine life and ecosystems. It requires signatory countries to present an assessment of pollution or other impacts of their proposed activities on the high seas, such as deep-sea mining.
The treaty creates a Conference of Parties (COP) to monitor and enforce compliance with the treaty’s terms, which will include a scientific advisory board.
It creates a mechanism for the transfer of marine technology to developing countries to ensure equitable sharingof benefits and resources from the high seas, including materials that could prove ground-breaking in medical and nutrition science.
Final hurdle: National ratifications
There is a final hurdle — or 60, actually — that the new treaty must still clear: It will only go into effect 120 days after it is ratified by at least 60 U.N. member nations individually. In the U.S., that means Senate approval.
Clark, of the Pew Charitable Trusts, told CBS News the hope was that the requisite 60 ratifications would be in-hand by the next U.N. Ocean Conference, set to convene in the summer of 2025.
“As with all treaties, ratification is the key to bringing it into force, and only then can we implement the benefits accruing. All parties should work towards this being achieved by the time of the next UN Ocean Conference, June 2025, in Nice, France,” the U.N.’s Thomson told CBS News.
But in a sign of the work still to come, Russia’s delegate Sergey Leonidchenko on Monday made it clear that his country, “distances itself from the consensus on the text of the agreement prepared by the conference.”
While Moscow did not seek to block adoption of the treaty by the U.N., his remarks made it clear that Russia could not yet be counted on for one of the 60 required ratifications, calling the international treaty as written, “unacceptable.”
His worn trousers bagging over the top of borrowed rubber rain boots, Kueaa Darhok attempts to make his way through the sucking mud and deep-set puddles, on his way to the communal feeding kitchen at the center of the transit camp he now calls home.
There, under his calming gaze and soft-spoken reassurances, Sudanese refugees and returning South Sudanese wait as aid workers and local women ladle through steel pots filled with lentils and porridge.
In Sudan, Darhok, who is of South Sudanese origin, was the headmaster of an English language secondary school in the capital Khartoum, where he taught his students texts by legendary African authors like Chinua Achebe to instil in them, he says, a sense of cultural pride.
After fighting broke out over two months ago in Khartoum, he and his family made the terrifying journey back to South Sudan and he has become a community elder here at the camp.
Set up a week into the fighting in Sudan, when desperate families arrived seeking shelter, the Renk transit camp near the border of South Sudan and Sudan was not supposed to hold more than 3,000 people. It now houses more than double that. There are no sanitation facilities, not enough waterproof sheets and not enough food. Not enough of anything.
“I eat once a day, sometimes not even that,” Darhok says, keeping an eye on the meal distribution. “Most of the men here are the same, so that the most vulnerable – the women and children – can eat.”
Even then, Darhok says, not all those queuing up will get food, and they’ll return to expectant families empty-handed.
The UN estimates at least 860 people have been killed since fighting erupted on April 15 between Sudan’s Armed Forces and the rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
With 6,000 people injured across Sudan as of June 3, half a million people have fled the country and more than 1.4 million are internally displaced.
Blighted by decades of fighting both before and after independence from the Republic of Sudan, South Sudan was already Africa’s largest refugee crisis, with 2.2 million people displaced outside the country’s borders and 2.3 million internally displaced. Now at least 800,000 South Sudanese have been driven back by the fighting in Sudan.
A spokesperson for the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Renk, Charlotte Hallqvist told CNN that an average of 1,500 people have been arriving daily since the fighting began in Sudan, adding to the burden of a country where 75% of the population are in need of assistance.
Hallqvist says the UN’s emergency response was already critically underfunded, “and the new emergency is adding additional strain to already limited resources.”
To respond to the Sudan crisis, the UN needs $253 million, with the South Sudan response alone in need of $96 million.
According to UNHCR figures, two months into the crisis, international donors have so far only contributed 10% of the total figure, and 15% of the overall Sudan regional emergency response.
On June 19, the United Nations, the governments of the Arab Republic of Egypt, the Federal Republic of Germany, the State of Qatar and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the African Union and the European Union will convene a High-level Pledging Event to support the humanitarian response in Sudan and the region in a bid to drive up donor contributions.
For many here in Renk, it’s too late; the international community’s delayed response has already cost lives.
Malnutrition and unsanitary conditions are triggering an epidemic of communicable diseases, and every day, Darhok tells us, a little boy or girl dies.
A CNN team visiting the camp witnessed the burial of one boy, not quite two-years-old, who had died in the early hours of that morning from measles.
His mother and grandmother sat in shocked silence as men shoveled earth onto his grave at the local cemetery, pausing to plant a spindly wooden cross before heading back to their own tents and their own vulnerable families, carrying with them the specter of a death that could have been prevented.
CAIRO (AP) — The United Nations has secured an insurance coverage to start a ship-to-ship transfer of 1.1 million barrels of crude from a rusting tanker moored off the coast of war-torn Yemen — oil that could cause a major environmental disaster.
The United Nations Development Program described the insurance is “a pivotal milestone” in a yearslong effort to evacuate the cargo of the FSO Safer, which is at risk of rupture or exploding.
The UNDP has been trying to start a salvage operation to avert what it says could amount to “one of the world’s largest, man-made disasters in history.” It secured tens of millions of dollars in pledges for the operation, which started late in May with experts pumping inert gas to remove atmospheric oxygen from the oil chambers of the vessel.
“Insurance became a critical element of enabling this salvage operation to proceed. Without it, the mission could not go forward,” said Achim Steiner, a UNDP administrator.
Transferring the stored oil is expected to start later this month, according to David Gressly, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Yemen. After completing the transfer of oil, Safer would eventually be towed away and scrapped, he has said.
“Work is progressing well,” Gressly told the Yemen International Forum on Monday at The Hague.
The tanker was built in Japan in 1980, and the Yemeni government purchased it in 1980s to store up to 3 million barrels of oil pumped from fields in Marib, a province in the Arabian Peninsula country’s east.
Yemen, the Arab world’s most impoverished country, has been engulfed in civil war since 2014, when the Iran-backed Houthi rebels seized the capital, Sanaa, and much of the country’s north, forcing the government to flee to the south, then to Saudi Arabia.
The following year, a Saudi-led coalition entered the war to fight the Houthis and try to restore the internationally recognized government to power.
The Safer is 360 meters (1,181 feet) long with 34 storage tanks. It has not been maintained since 2015, and in recent years, seawater entered its engine compartment, causing damage to pipes and increasing the risk of sinking.
Rust has covered parts of the tanker and the inert gas that prevents the tanks from gathering inflammable gases has leaked out.
Ever since China abandoned its zero-COVID policy at the end of last year, Beijing has been involved in a flurry of engagements from East to West.
A summit in India’s Goa, military drills in Singapore and South Africa, visits by the German chancellor and the French president as well as Chinese President Xi Jinping’s own visits to Russia and Saudi Arabia are just a few examples of Beijing’s recent whirlwind diplomacy.
And while Western leaders have talked about decoupling or de-risking economic ties with China, the nation remains deeply integrated with the world economy and is the largest trading partner of more than 120 countries.
Long gone are the days when China was an isolated loner or the Chinese government seemed satisfied with observing world affairs quietly from the sidelines. Now, Beijing is reaching for the diplomatic status that matches its position as the world’s second-biggest economy.
In a speech at a United Nations conference held to mark the 50-year anniversary of the People’s Republic of China’s joining the UN, Xi addressed China’s diplomatic rise and spoke of Beijing’s commitment to a world order defined by the pursuit of peace, democracy and human rights as well as the rejection of unilateralism, foreign interference and power politics.
In mid-March, at a so-called dialogue meeting between global political parties in Beijing, Xi reinforced his commitment to the same principles.
In his keynote speech, Xi introduced the Global Civilization Initiative (GCI) as a way of formalising these principles with the added purpose of encouraging countries to “fully harness the relevance of their histories and cultures” and “appreciate the perceptions of values by different civilizations and refrain from imposing their own values or models on others”.
With the previously proposed Global Development Initiative (GDI) and Global Security Initiative (GSI), the GCI appears to encapsulate – although in amorphous terms – much of the Chinese president’s overall vision for a new international order.
Yao Yuan Yeh teaches Chinese Studies at the University of St Thomas in the United States. According to him, such an order would partly supplant and partly remould the international system into a new set of structures that better align with the worldview of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
“It would be a world order that does not constrain communist China but contributes to its rise,” he said.
An alternative narrative
The purpose of the dialogue meeting in March was, to some extent, to act as a Chinese counterpart to the Summit for Democracy that the United States held for a second time that month as part of an effort to rally the world’s democracies.
While leaders from Mongolia, Serbia and South Africa were invited to both events, the US summit mostly included traditional Washington allies, while the gathering in Beijing included leaders from Kazakhstan, Russia, Sudan and Venezuela.
The Chinese leadership and state media portrayed the CCP’s dialogue meeting as part of China’s vision of embracing countries across the world, which includes maintaining or even deepening diplomatic contact with nations like Russia and Myanmar.
The Chinese government’s willingness to engage with a variety of world actors has indeed been on display in recent months.
Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang reads a letter from Xi Jinping at the Chinese Modernization and the World Forum in Shanghai in April [File: Ng Han Guan/AP Photo]
Chinese diplomacy played a role in the rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia in March. Also in March, the Chinese foreign minister visited Myanmar coup leader Min Aung Hlaing, while Xi travelled to Moscow to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In April, Xi held a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and, last month, his envoy attempted to build support for a Beijing-led plan to end Russia’s war in Ukraine. Beijing has also been mentioned as a potential peace broker in conflict-ravaged Sudan.
Andy Mok, a senior research fellow at the Beijing-based Center for China and Globalization, says the Chinese approach to international relations is defined by a live-and-let-live mindset.
“It is less defined by shared values and more defined by a shared future,” he told Al Jazeera.
That means that while Western countries sometimes condition interactions and cooperation on adherence to a set of values, China wants to base its engagements on the potential for development and future benefits, Mok said.
The policy largely follows a CCP conviction that development and prosperity do not have to lead to adopting these – so-called Western – values. The Chinese leadership has frequently criticised “certain countries” for supposedly imposing their principles onto others and lacking respect for the ways non-Western nations with different cultures and traditions run their affairs.
Beijing’s world order would be defined by multipolarity, according to Mok, who says China has no plan to be a dominant power.
“I don’t see a change in the world order being a case of a new boss simply replacing the old boss.”
Reconfiguring the existing world order
Although the Chinese leadership regularly opposes the imposition of Western values, this does not mean Beijing wants to discard democracy, human rights and the rule of law on the global stage, according to the Chinese government.
Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin toasted an ever-closer relationship between their two countries when Xi travelled to Moscow in March [File: Pavel Byrkin/Sputnik via AP Photo]
Using China as an example, Xi has claimed that China is “democratic” because the CCP and the state represent the people and run the country on behalf of the people to promote the will of the people. Chinese state media have insisted that liberal democracies neglect the needs of the people by measuring democracy “only” on the basis of electoral cycles.
“They see these values as more relative terms and have in their own view provided a more inclusive definition of them with freedom from hunger and freedom from fear for your life being seen as examples of more basic human rights,” Mok said.
The modern understanding of human rights can be traced back to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which details a set of basic rights and freedoms seen as inherent, inalienable and applicable to all people.
Adopted in the early years of the UN, the rights were enshrined into the foundation of the international system. Since then, more than 70 human rights treaties have sprouted from the UDHR, many of which have been signed and ratified by China.
Trying to reinterpret the language on human rights and democracy is therefore not something to be taken lightly, according to Elaine Pearson, the director of the Asia division of the rights organisation Human Rights Watch (HRW).
“It is not up to individual states to redefine human rights as they like,” Pearson told Al Jazeera.
“Totalitarian North Korea also calls itself the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea – simply saying something doesn’t make it true.”
HRW warned in 2020 that Beijing was trying to bring about change within the UN, not only by trying to redefine established principles but also by hampering investigations and diluting condemnations of human rights abuses around the world.
Its efforts come at a time when international NGOs and UN bodies have expressed deep concern about the violation of basic freedoms and rights in China.
Beijing has fired back at such concerns.
When a UN report was released last year detailing possible “crimes against humanity” by the Chinese state against the mostly Muslim Uighurs in the far western Xinjiang region, Beijing responded with a report of its own. It accused alleged anti-China forces in the US and other Western countries of feigning concern for human rights and claimed they wanted to use the Uighur issue to “destabilise Xinjiang and suppress China”.
A vote in October at the UN’s Human Rights Council to debate the issue, however, was narrowly defeated.
Following the vote, human rights group Amnesty International accused the council of failing to uphold its core mission: protecting the victims of human rights violations everywhere.
“The Chinese government has gained more global influence in recent years and has been able to turn that influence into a greater sway at established international institutions,” Liselotte Odgaard, a professor of China Relations at the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies, told Al Jazeera.
Additionally, Beijing has used its veto power in the UN Security Council to block resolutions and statements condemning the military coup in Myanmar and hinder new sanctions on North Korea, while abstaining from condemnation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Besides developing a greater say in traditional global institutions, Beijing has also founded new institutions to further its credibility as an international player.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the BRICS New Development Bank (NDB), the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the Silk Road Fund have all been spearheaded by China, have headquarters in China and have been called alternatives to established global institutions such as the UN, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
But they should not necessarily be seen as an attempt by Beijing to replace existing international institutions, according to St Thomas’s Yeh.
As UN cases show, Beijing has channelled considerable effort into reshaping established institutions as well. At the same time, China is the second-biggest donor of funds to the UN and one of only five members of the security council with permanent veto powers.
“We are seeing Beijing working both inside and outside established structures, depending on what is most conducive to their goals,” said Yeh.
Pursuing the Chinese Dream
The ultimate goal is achieving the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation also known as the Chinese Dream – a vision closely associated with President Xi since his early days in office.
The Chinese Dream represents Beijing’s quest to regain its prestige – damaged in the ‘Century of Humiliation’ by the imperial powers in the late 19th and early 20th century – and turn China into an advanced, world-leading nation by 2049.
This includes developing China internally but also expanding the territory under the PRC into areas currently beyond its direct control that are nonetheless considered inalienable parts of the Chinese nation.
This includes disputed territory along the land border with India and Bhutan, the Senkaku islands (that China calls Diaoyudao) administered by Japan in the East China Sea as well as most of the South China Sea where Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam have rival claims.
Above all else, however, China’s rejuvenation means unification with Taiwan and Beijing has not ruled out the use of force to achieve this goal.
When the Chinese military conducts large-scale exercises around Taiwan or when Chinese vessels intercept ships from other countries in the South China Sea, Beijing argues these are not breaches of China’s international pledges but examples of China upholding sovereignty over territory that rightfully belongs to the Chinese nation.
On the world stage, the Chinese government has repeatedly condemned violations of national sovereignty, foreign interference in other nations’ affairs and the unilateral use of economic sanctions.
But at the same time, it reserves the right to look past international rulings that go against it – such as the 2016 international court ruling that its historic claim to the South China Sea had “no legal basis” – and take action against those perceived to stand between Beijing and its path towards national rejuvenation.
When Lithuania in 2021 allowed the opening of a “Taiwan Representative Office” rather than the usual “Taipei Economic and Cultural Office” in Vilnius, Beijing was furious. Seeing such a naming convention as encouraging Taiwanese independence, it imposed severe economic sanctions on the Baltic state.
But even as Beijing touts “non-interference” for itself and others, it has itself been accused of engaging in interference abroad.
In Canada, a leaked intelligence report revealed in early May that Chinese authorities had allegedly been involved in an intimidation campaign against a Canadian MP and his family in Hong Kong after he sponsored a successful motion declaring the Chinese treatment of the Uighurs a genocide.
Previous Canadian intelligence leaks have led to allegations that Beijing attempted to interfere in the Canadian general elections of 2019 and 2021 to secure the defeat of anti-Beijing candidates.
Chinese diplomatic staff have also been accused of election interference in Denmark, while consular staff in Manchester, England’s second-biggest city, were accused of employing physical violence to disrupt a demonstration outside the Chinese consulate.
In all these cases, Chinese officials have denied engaging in any sort of tampering, claiming instead that forces with “hidden agendas” were “fabricating lies” to “smear” China. At the same time, the Chinese government says it reserves the right to defend its sovereignty and act against those that attempt to interfere in China’s domestic matters.
As Xi allegedly told US President Biden regarding US engagement with Taiwan during a phone call last year: “Those that play with fire get burned.”
The U.N. nuclear chief stressed Tuesday that the world is fortunate a nuclear accident hasn’t happened in Ukraine and asked Moscow and Kyiv to commit to preventing any attack on Europe’s largest nuclear power plant and make other pledges “to avoid the danger of a catastrophic incident.”
Rafael Mariano Grossi reiterated to the U.N. Security Council what he told the International Atomic Energy Agency’s board of governors in March: “We are rolling a dice and if this continues then one day our luck will run out.”
The IAEA director-general said avoiding a nuclear accident is possible if five principles are observed at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, where fighting on seven occasions, most recently last week, disrupted critical power supplies, “the last line of defense against a nuclear accident.”
Grossi “respectfully and solemnly” asked Ukraine and Russia to observe the principles, saying IAEA experts at Zaporizhzhia will start monitoring and he will publicly report on any violations:
Ban attacks from or against the plant, especially targeting reactors and spent fuel storage areas.
Ban the storage of heavy weapons or presence of military personnel that could be used for an attack.
Ensure the security of an uninterrupted off-site power supply to the plant.
Protect “all structures, systems and components” essential to the plant’s operation from attacks or acts of sabotage.
Take no action to undermine these principles.
Grossi asked the 15 Security Council members to support the five principles, stressing that they are “to no one’s detriment and to everyone’s benefit.”
The Kremlin’s forces took over the plant after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy opposes any proposal that would legitimize Russia’s control.
Neither the Russian nor Ukrainian ambassador gave a commitment to support the principles.
Ukraine’s U.N. Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya accused Russia of continuing “to actively use the nuclear plant for military purposes.” He said Russia has mined its perimeter and is responsible for shelling that has inflicted “serious damage” on parts of the plant, undermining its safety. He claimed 500 Russian military personnel are at the plant along with heavy weapons, munitions and explosives.
“The threat of dangerous accident as a result of these irresponsible and criminal actions hangs over us,” he said.
This photo taken on September 11, 2022 shows a security person standing in front of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant amid the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine.
STRINGER/AFP via Getty Images
U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield said recent news reports indicate that Moscow has disconnected Zaporizhzhya’s vital radiation monitoring sensors, which means the plant’s data is now being sent to the Russian nuclear regulator.
“This is a clear escalation of Russia’s efforts to undermine Ukrainian sovereignty and authority over the Zaporizhzhya plant. And this undermines our ability to have confidence in the level of nuclear safety at the plant,” she said. “Let me be clear: the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant belongs to Ukraine. And its data must go to Ukraine, not to Russia.”
In response to a question by CBS News correspondent Pamela Falk after the meeting, Grossi addressed that issue: “This flow of information has been interrupted by the Russian management in control,” he said.
“We have addressed this, in this aspect, with the Russian management at the plant, and we are going to be getting the information and transmitting it to the Ukrainian regulator for their information — which is a mitigation, is not an ideal situation,” Grossi said, adding that the solution to the data question indicates the usefulness of the presence of the IAEA to bridge these gaps.
U.K. Ambassador to the U.N. Barbara Woodward was skeptical about how Russia will comply with the principles.
“New imagery shows Russian forces have established sandbag fighting positions on the rooves of several of the six reactor buildings. This indicates that they will have integrated the actual reactor buildings of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant into tactical defense planning,” Woodward said.
Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia denied that Russia has ever attacked the Zaporizhzhia plant, placed heavy weapons there or stationed military personnel at the plant to carry out an attack from its territory.
Grossi was guardedly optimistic about the views at the Security Council, although he said he was “not naïve” about the challenges ahead.
“We have gotten pretty close to consensus even though everybody wants a little more. … I think this is very encouraging,” he told told Falk in an exclusive sit-down for CBS News after the meeting.
“You know, we have tried to have a practical approach here. We haven’t been seeking Resolutions or things that are cast in stone or set in paper,” he said.
Asked about the interest expressed by both Ukraine’s Ambassador Kyslytsya and the U.S. to have an explicit reference in any agreement to include a recognition of Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity, Grossi told CBS News: “It will be difficult to get universal consensus on that — this is obvious.”
But he went on to say, “The IAEA is very clear, this being part of the U.N. system, that the U.N. Charter should never be violated and national borders are not to be changed by force.”
Grossi said he has an “operational mandate” to do more to prevent a nuclear accident.
