"Michael Jordan has the shortest memory I’ve ever seen": BJ Armstrong, former Bulls teammate of MJ, was in… – The Sportsrush

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BJ Armstrong was one of the best shooters Michael Jordan ever had alongside him in a Bulls uniform. He narrates his impressions of MJ.

Armstrong was among the leagues premier 3-point shooters at a time when it was still a developing art form. Individual players like Steph, Dame or Harden bomb more 3-pointers than entire 90s teams.

However, Armstrong also brought a clutch mindset and steely defensive resolve with his offense. In his best years, Armstrong was a crucial member of the Bulls rotation during their first 3-peat.

Also Read: LeBron James wished Michael Jordan a happy birthday before he won a single ring, 9 years ago: Happy birthday to my idol

In his appearance on The Last Dance, Armstrong had a ton to say about MJ. Specifically, Armstrong was in awe of Jordans ability to put previous disappointments aside:

Theres Michael and then theres the rest of us. Michael just didnt have a memory. He had the shortest memory of anyone Ive ever seen.

Whether he made the shot or missed the shot he had already moved on to the next play. He had an amazing capacity to just be in the moment.

I always used to joke with him, Do you even remember what you did yesterday? He always used to say, B.J. the score is still 0-0. That was always his thing. He just stayed neutral to every situation and it was a great quality to have and one that I just picked up over the years playing alongside him.

Also Read: If your best shooter is 7 feet tall, you f***in suck: Charles Barkley with the NSFW rant about big men who play away from the basket

Hes a very unique personality, unlike anyone Ive seen. And thats because he only really had one goal and that was to win. He wasnt very complex, he didnt play because he wanted glory.

He didnt play because he wanted to be the greatest player, or because he wanted to be the hero. MJ didnt play because he wanted to score the most points. He just wanted to win. All the other things really didnt matter to him.

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"Michael Jordan has the shortest memory I've ever seen": BJ Armstrong, former Bulls teammate of MJ, was in... - The Sportsrush

What is the Milky Way? | Astronomy Essentials – EarthSky

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View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Michael Zuber caught the bright planets Jupiter and Saturn above the building in this photo near the starry band of the Milky Way, from Terlingua, Texas, on November 11, 2020. Thank you, Michael.

Do you think of the Milky Way as a starry band across a dark night sky? Or do you think of it as a great spiral galaxy in space? Both are correct. Both refer to our home galaxy, our local island in the vast ocean of the universe, composed of hundreds of billions of stars, one of which is our sun.

Long ago, it was possible for everybody in the world to see a dark, star-strewn sky when they looked heavenward at night, rather than the obscuring glow of city lights. In those ancient times, humans looked to the starry sky and saw a ghostly band of light arcing across the heavens, from horizon to horizon. This graceful arc of light moved across the sky with the seasons. The most casual sky-watchers could notice that parts of the band are obscured by darkness, which we now know to be vast clouds of dust.

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Myths and legends grew up in different cultures around this mysterious apparition in the heavens. Each culture explained this band of light in the sky according to its own beliefs. To the ancient Armenians, it was straw strewn across the sky by the god Vahagn. In eastern Asia, it was the Silvery River of Heaven. The Finns and Estonians saw it as the Pathway of the Birds. Meanwhile, because western culture had become dominated by the legends and myths of first the ancient Greeks and then the Romans, it was their interpretations which were passed down to a majority of languages. Both the Greeks and the Romans saw the starry band as a river of milk. The Greek myth said it was milk from the breast of the goddess Hera, divine wife of Zeus. The Romans saw the river of light as milk from their goddess Ops.

Thus it was bequeathed the name by which, today, we know that ghostly arc stretching across the sky: the Milky Way.

View at EarthSky Community Photos. | William Mathe captured this image on August 15, 2020, and wrote: Hiked up to the top of Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado just below 12,000 feet. Was greeted with a raging forest fire about 10 miles to the west hung around long enough to get a couple of snaps of the Milky Way. You can see the brown clouds of smoke hanging in the valley below the rock outcrop on which I was perched. Thank you, William.

When you are standing under a completely dark, starry sky, away from light pollution, the Milky Way appears like a cloud across the cosmos. But that cloud betrays no clue as to what it actually is.Until the invention of the telescope, no human could have known the nature of the Milky Way.

Just point even a small telescope anywhere along its length and you will be rewarded with a beautiful sight. What appears as a cloud to the unaided eye resolves into countless millions of stars, whose distance and close relative proximity to each other do not permit us to pick them out individually with just our eyes. In the same way, a raincloud looks solid in the sky but is made up of countless water droplets. The stars of the Milky Way merge together into a single band of light. But through a telescope, we see the Milky Way for what it truly is: a spiral arm of our galaxy.

We cant get outside the Milky Way, so we have to rely on artists concepts, like this one, to show us how it might look. The larger orange/yellow blob in the lower part of the image is a massively glorified representation of our sun, showing its approximate location with respect to the center. Image via ESA.

Thus we arrive at the second answer to the question of what the Milky Way is. To astronomers, it is the name given to the entire galaxy we live in, not just the part of it we see in the sky above us as that river of light. If this seems confusing, we must acknowledge the need for our galaxy to have a name. Many other galaxies are designated by catalogue numbers rather than names, for example the New General Catalogue, first published in 1888, which merely assigns a sequential number to each. More recent catalog numbers contain information of far more use to astronomers, for example the galaxys location on the sky and during which survey it was discovered. Moreover, a galaxy may appear in more than one catalog and thus possess more than one designation. For example,the galaxy NGC 2470 is also known as 2MFGC 6271.

These galaxy designations are certainly unromantic, belying the dazzling beauty of the objects they are attached to. But other galaxies, particularly those brighter, closer galaxies which appear as more than just fuzzy smudges of light in a telescope, were given names by astronomers of the 17th and 18th centuries according to their appearance: the Pinwheel, the Sombrero, the Sunflower, the Cartwheel, the cigar and so forth. These names were attached to galaxies long before there were any systematic sky surveys that made it necessary to use numerical labeling systems, due to the sheer number of galaxies the surveys discovered. In time, the galaxies bearing these descriptive labels were incorporated into various catalogs, but many are still known by their names. Our own galaxy does not appear in any index of galaxies. There was, however, a need for a name to refer to it by. Thus we call it The Milky Way instead of the galaxy or our galaxy. So that name refers to both that river of light across the sky, which is part of our galaxy, and the galaxy as a whole. When not using the name, astronomers refer to it with a capital G (the Galaxy), and all other galaxies with a lowercase g.

In this artists conception of the Milky Way, the suns location is shown below the central bar, at the inward side of the Orion Arm (called by its slightly dated name, the Orion Spur). The Orion Arm lies between the Sagittarius Arm and the Perseus Arm. Image via NASA/ JPL/ ESO/ R. Hurt/ Wikimedia Commons.

Our solar system is located about 2/3 of the way out from the Galactic Center toward the edge of the galaxy. We are, in fact, 26,000 light years from the center, or 153,000 trillionmiles (246,000 trillion km). Under the stars we can look toward the middle of the galaxy or we can look in the other direction, out toward the edge. When we look to the edge, we see a spiral arm of the Milky Way known as the Orion-Cygnus Arm (or the Orion spur): a river of light across the sky that gave rise to so many ancient myths. The solar system is just on the inner edge of this spiral arm. If we look in the other direction, one would naturally expect to be able to see the center of the galaxy, which is located in the constellation of Sagittarius. But unfortunately, we cannot see it. The Galactic Center is hidden from us behind vast clouds of dark gas that telescopes operating in visible light cannot see through. It is only in recent decades that astronomers have been able to pierce that dusty fog with infrared telescopes to reveal what, throughout human history, has been concealed. With these new additions to astronomers arsenal of instruments, the study of around 100 stars at the galactic center revealed that those giant clouds of dark dust were hiding a monster: a black hole, designated Sagittarius A*, with a mass four million times the mass of our sun.

The Milky Way as seen in different lights, that is, different wavelengths of light. The most familiar view is the one seen in optical light, which is the 3rd image from the bottom. Here, most of the galaxy is obscured by gas clouds (dark areas). But look in the same direction in infrared light, and you can see through the clouds (4th, 5th and 6th image from the bottom)! Read more about these images. Image via NASA.

Our Milky Way galaxy is one of billions in the universe. We do not know exactly how many galaxies exist: a modern estimate vastly increases previous counts to as many as 2 trillion. The Milky Way is approximately 100,000 light-years across, or 600,000 trillion miles (950,000 trillion km). We do not know its exact age, but we assume it came into being in the very early universe along with most other galaxies: within perhaps a billion years after the Big Bang. Estimates of how many stars live within the Milky Way vary quite considerably, but it seems to be somewhere between 100 billion and double that figure. Why is there so much variance? Simply because it is so difficult to count the number of stars in the galaxy from our vantage point here on Earth. Imagine being in a crowded room full of people and trying to count them without being able to move around the room. From where you are standing, all you can do is make an estimate because those people farther away from you are hidden by those closer. Neither can you even see what size and shape the room is; its walls are hidden from you by the mass of people. Its exactly the same from our position in the galaxy.

It is this inability to see the structure of the Milky Way from our location inside it that meant for most of human history we did not even recognise that we live inside a galaxy in the first place. Indeed, we did not even realise what a galaxy is:a vast city of stars, separated from others by even vaster distances. Without telescopes, most of the other galaxies in the sky were invisible. The unaided eye can only see three of them: from the Northern Hemisphere we can see only the Andromeda galaxy, also known as M31, which lies some two million light-years from us and which is in fact the farthest object we can see with our eyes alone, under dark skies. The skies in the Southern Hemisphere have the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds, two amorphous dwarf galaxies orbiting our own. They are far larger and brighter in the sky than M31 simply because they are much closer.

The Andromeda Galaxy (M31) is the closest large galaxy to our Milky Way. Its seen here with two satellite galaxies: M32 is the compact fuzzy object located to the right of the Andromeda Galaxys center, and M110 is the more extended nebulous object at the top left of the central galaxys nucleus. Image via Zolt Levay/ Flickr.

The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds over Paranal in Chile. These are satellite galaxies of the Milky Way and are only visible from the Southern Hemisphere. Image via the European Southern Observatory.

Until the 1910s, the existence of other galaxies had not been observationally confirmed. Those fuzzy patches of light astronomers saw through their telescopes were long believed to be nebulae, vast clouds of gas and dust close to us, and not other galaxies. But the concept of other galaxies was born earlier, in the early and mid-18th century, by Swedish philosopher and scientist Emanuel Swedenborg and English astronomer Thomas Wright, who apparently conceived the idea independently of each other. Building upon the work of Wright, German philosopher Immanuel Kant referred to galaxies as island universes. The first observational evidence came in 1912 by American astronomer Vesto Slipher, who found that the spectra of the nebulae he measured were redshifted and thus much further away than previously thought.

And then, Edwin Hubble, through years of painstaking work at the Mount Wilson Observatory in California, confirmed in the 1920s that we do not live in a unique location: our galaxy is just one of perhaps trillions. Hubble came to this realization by studying a type of star known as a Cepheid variable, which pulsates with a regular periodicity. The intrinsic brightness of a Cepheid variable is directly related to its pulsation period: by measuring how long it takes for the star to brighten, fade and brighten again you can calculate how bright it is, that is to say, how much light it emits. Consequently, by observing how bright it appears from the Earth you can calculate its distance, in the same way that seeing distant car headlights at night can tell you how far away the car is from how bright its lights appear to you. You can judge the distance of the car because you know all car headlights have about the same brightness.

An example of a Cepheid Variable star is RS Puppis. It varies in brightness by almost a factor of 5 every 40 days. Image via NASA/ ESA/ Wikimedia Commons.

One of Edwin Hubbles great achievements was finding Cepheid variables in M31, the Andromeda galaxy. Hunched under the eyepiece of the huge Hooker Telescope in the cold night air, Hubble repeatedly photographed it, eventually finding what he was seeking in that distant spiral: stars which changed in brightness over a regular period. Performing the calculations, Hubble realised that M31 is not astronomically close to us at all. It is 2 million light years away. It is a galaxy like our own, long thought to be a third as big again as the Milky Way but which is now believed to be about the same size.

Hubble, for whom this discovery must have been a monumental shock, surmised that our galaxy was no different from M31 and the others he observed, thus relegating us to a position of lesser importance in the universe. This was as big a revelation and diminution of our position in the universeas when humans came to understand that the Earth is not the center of the universe: that we, along with the other planets we see, orbit the sun. We do not live in a special or privileged location. The universe does nothave any vantage points which are superior to others. Wherever you are in the universe and you look up at the stars, you will see the same thing. Your constellations may be different, but no matter in which direction you look, you see galaxies rushing away from you in all directions as the universe expands, carrying the galaxies along with it. Until the work by Slipher and Hubble (and others), we did not know the universe was expanding and it took a surprisingly long time for this fact to be accepted by the astronomical community. Even Albert Einstein did not believe it, introducing an arbitrary correction into his Relativity calculations which would result in a static, non-expanding universe. However, Einstein later called this correction the greatest error in his career when he finally accepted that the universe is expanding.

Although Hubble showed us that ours is just one galaxy among perhaps trillions, this did not tell astronomers what the Milky Way would look like it if you were to see it from outside. We knew it has spiral arms: that band of light across the sky was clear evidence of that. But as to how many spiral arms there are, or how big the galaxy is, or how many stars inhabit it, those were questions still unanswered in the 1920s. It took most of the 20th century after Hubbles discoveries to piece together the answers to these questions, through a combination of painstaking work with both Earth- and space-based telescopes. So if one could travel outside our galaxy, what would it look like? A standard analogy compares it to two fried eggs stuck together back-to-back. The yolk of the egg is known as the Galactic Bulge, a huge globe of stars at the center extending above and below the plane of the galaxy. The Milky Way is now thought to have four spiral arms winding out from its center like the arms of a Catherine wheel. But these arms do not actually meet at the center: a few years ago astronomers discovered that the Milky Way is in fact a barred spiral galaxy, having a bar of stars running across its center, from which the spiral arms extend at either end. Barred spiral galaxies are not uncommon in the universe, so our galaxy is certainly nothing out of the ordinary. We do not yet, however, understand how that central bar forms.

This Hubble image shows galaxy NGC 7773, an example of a barred spiral galaxy thought to be similar to the Milky Way. Its bulge is stretched out into a bar-shaped structure, extending to the inner parts of the galaxys spiral arms. Astronomers believe a bar in the center of a galaxy is a sign of galaxy maturity. Younger spiral galaxies do not feature barred central structures as often as older spirals do. Image via ESA/Hubble, CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons

Only two years ago, another major discovery was made: the Milky Way is not a flat disk of stars but has a kink running across it like an extended S. Something has warped the disk. At the moment the finger points at the gravitational influence of the astronomically-close Sagittarius dwarf galaxy, one of perhaps twenty small galaxies that orbit the Milky Way, like moths around a flame. As the Sagittarius galaxy slowly orbits around us, its gravity has pulled on our galaxys stars, eventually creating the warp.

These dwarf galaxies are not the only astronomical objects bound to our own. The Milky Way is surrounded by a halo of globular clusters, concentrations of stars looking like fuzzy golf balls, containing perhaps a million or so extremely ancient stars.

It is highly probable that we will continue to make more landmark discoveries about the Milky Way. The study of its nature and origin is accelerating as new astronomical tools become available, such as the European Space Agencys orbiting Gaia telescope, which is making a three-dimensional map of our galaxys stars with exquisite and quite unprecedented accuracy: it aims to map a billion of them. Gaias data allows astronomers to see where the stars are, in which direction they are moving and how fast. This incredible map is already revealing previously-unknown features of our galaxy: the discovery of the galaxys warp by Gaia is one such feature. It is an extremely exciting time for the study of our galaxy, and the discoveries being made are telling us so much about not just our own galaxy but other spiral galaxies as well.

A composite image of the orbiting telescope Gaia, mapping the stars of the Milky Way. Image via ESA.

It is all a far cry from when, thousands of years ago, our ancestors ascribed fantastic beasts and gods to that mysterious band of light they saw as they stood in awe under the starry sky.

Bottom line: Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is a lot more than we can see from Earth without instruments. Here, we look into the origin of the name, the structure, and the fascinating history of how our knowledge of our own galaxy has developed over the centuries and continues to develop today.

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What is the Milky Way? | Astronomy Essentials - EarthSky

Mysterious Origins of Super-Earths Uncovered by Astronomers – SciTechDaily

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This artists impression shows the planet orbiting the Sun-like star HD 85512 in the southern constellation of Vela (The Sail). This planet is one of 16 super-Earths discovered by the HARPS instrument on the 3.6-meter telescope at ESOs La Silla Observatory. This planet is about 3.6 times as massive as the Earth and lies at the edge of the habitable zone around the star, where liquid water, and perhaps even life, could potentially exist. Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser

Study shows super-Earths are not leftovers of mini-Neptunes, challenging our understanding of planetary formation.

Mini-Neptunes and super-Earths up to four times the size of our own are the most common exoplanets orbiting stars beyond our solar system. Until now, super-Earths were thought to be the rocky cores of mini-Neptunes whose gassy atmospheres were blown away. In a new study published in The Astrophysical Journal, astronomers from McGill University show that some of these exoplanets never had gaseous atmospheres to begin with, shedding new light on their mysterious origins.

From observations, we know about 30 to 50 percent of host stars have super-Earths or mini-Neptunes, and the two populations appear in about equal proportion. But where did they come from?

This artists impression shows the planet orbiting the Sun-like star HD 85512 in the southern constellation of Vela (The Sail). This planet is one of 16 super-Earths discovered by the HARPS instrument on the 3.6-meter telescope at ESOs La Silla Observatory. This planet is about 3.6 times as massive as the Earth and lies at the edge of the habitable zone around the star, where liquid water, and perhaps even life, could potentially exist. Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser

One theory is that most exoplanets are born as mini-Neptunes but some are stripped of their gas shells by radiation from host stars, leaving behind only a dense, rocky core. This theory predicts that our Galaxy has very few Earth-sized and smaller exoplanets known as Earths and mini-Earths. However, recent observations show this may not be the case.

To find out more, the astronomers used a simulation to track the evolution of these mysterious exoplanets. The model used thermodynamic calculations based on how massive their rocky cores are, how far they are from their host stars, and how hot the surrounding gas is.

Contrary to previous theories, our study shows that some exoplanets can never build gaseous atmospheres to begin with, says co-author Eve Lee, Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics at McGill University and the McGill Space Institute.

The findings suggest that not all super-Earths are remnants of mini-Neptunes. Rather, the exoplanets were formed by a single distribution of rocks, born in a spinning disk of gas and dust around host stars. Some of the rocks grew gas shells, while others emerged and remained rocky super-Earths, she says.

Planets are thought to form in a spinning disk of gas and dust around stars. Rocks larger than the moon have enough gravitational pull to attract surrounding gas to form a shell around its core. Over time this shell of gas cools down and shrinks, creating space for more surrounding gas to be pulled in, and causing the exoplanet to grow. Once the entire shell cools down to the same temperature as the surrounding nebular gas, the shell can no longer shrink and growth stops.

For smaller cores, this shell is tiny, so they remain rocky exoplanets. The distinction between super-Earths and mini-Neptunes comes about from the ability of these rocks to grow and retain gas shells.

Our findings help explain the origin of the two populations of exoplanets, and perhaps their prevalence, says Lee. Using the theory proposed in the study, we could eventually decipher how common rocky exoplanets like Earths and mini-Earths may be.

Reference: Primordial Radius Gap and Potentially Broad Core Mass Distributions of Super-Earths and Sub-Neptunes by Eve J. Lee and Nicholas J. Connors, 10 February 2021, The Astrophysical Journal.DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/abd6c7

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Pune, this week: From an art exhibition to an astronomy course and a lot more – The Indian Express

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Different Visions

Origins of a Perennial Bouquet, an exhibition curated by Bose Krishnamachari features works that reflect a range of material, artisanship and workmanship. Among the featured artists is Benitha Perciyal, whose practice encapsulates the use of primarily organic materials, with a strong focus on those that induce olfactory experiences such as myrrh, cinnamon and frankincense; Tanya Goel, who focuses on textured pigments though she uses a diverse array of materials from urban climes such as aluminum, concrete, glass, soil and mica to accentuate the equally versatile effect of light on them; Manish Nai, who is set apart by his thrust on minimalism at a time where excessive ornamentation is the norm; and Sumedh Rajendran, in whose works one finds contradictory values and social apathy juxtaposed. At Vida Heydari Contemporary Art Gallery till February 28.

Space and Beyond

Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute and Jyotirvidya Parisanstha have launched a course on astronomy in ancient India. The topics include Introduction to astronomical concepts, Indian Time Measurement Systems, Indian Astronomers, Ancient Indian Concepts about Astral Bodies, Planetary Motion and Space, Instruments and Observatories and Archeo-Astronomy. A batch in Marathi begins on February 15. The course will be held till February 20, 8 pm-9.30 pm. Entry: Rs 1,000. Registration Link https://forms.gle/omCeH9Dcf9HqzASs7

Light and Shadow

A performance, titled Tholu Bommalata, brings the traditional shadow theater tradition of Andhra Pradesh to an online performance. Tholu Bommalata refer to puppets created from goat and sheep skin and designed and painted by artisans. They appear on stage, behind a white curtain, and the audience can only view the coloured shadows, but not the actual puppets, by means of a light source. In the performance, painting, music, dance, engraving, acting and narrative storytelling come together in a riveting entertainer. On BookMyShow on February 15 onward. Charges: Rs 30. Click onhttps://in.bookmyshow.com/plays/tholu-bommalata/ET00305516

Things of Beauty

A workshop on making jewellery from resin not only takes you through the process but also ensures you go home with six works you have created, from neckpieces to earrings to finger rings. At Studio Artzone on February 16 and 17, 11 am-2 pm. Entry: Rs 1,500. Contact: 9822254472

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Pune, this week: From an art exhibition to an astronomy course and a lot more - The Indian Express

7 reasons Astronomy Club deserves its flowers for being the future of comedy – REVOLT TV

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If theres one thing Black people have mastered, it is resilience. Throughout history, our people have found ways to make the best out of situations. Weve managed to educate and enlighten through jokes, while simultaneously using entertainment as an escape from the sometimes painful reality of being Black. Whether its beautifully painted or holds a hurtful truth, Black peoples ability to express Black joy has been one of the strongest forms of overcoming.

This week, as we highlight another groundbreaking Black entity for Black History Month, we have to bring attention to the Astronomy Club. Founded in New York in 2014, the all-Black improv comedy group has made a name for itself on stage and television. Each person in the collective has talents that spread beyond the group, but they come together to create stories larger than life, and funnier than most.

Astronomy Club arrived at a time when Black sketch shows really made a come up. They offered a different approach with a wide range of topics. They gave light, laughter and used their own confidence to put themselves into new rooms. They created a world fit for them a world that different types of Black people could find themselves and find joy within. The group was created with the for us, by us mentality.

Without further ado, here are seven reasons why the collective deserves its flowers.

1. Black and Proud

Astronomy Club is composed of eight Black improvisers: Shawtane Bowen, Jonathan Braylock, Ray Cordova, James III, Caroline Martin, Jerah Milligan, Monique Moses, and Keisha Zollar. The crew tells stories from the average Black persons gaze with topics that range from the entertainment industry, race relations, and the overall Black experience leaving audiences with a message each time.

2. From Theater to TV

After finding each other and working within their unique chemistry, Milligan and James III wanted to give sketch comedy a shot. This decision became one of their defining moments. In 2013, they wrote their first sketch during Black History Month that ran for an entire year at the theater. The same show made it to the New York Comedy Festival where Comedy Central named Astronomy Club comics to watch in 2016. Two years later, the network dropped the collectives digital series in 2018. The following year, Netflix picked up the show for one hilarious season.

3. First of Many

Astronomy Club has already made a name for itself. It is known to be the first all-Black house team at the Upright Citizen Brigade Theater in New York. On the flip side, though the groups series only aired one season on Netflix, the shows reviews were nearly 100 percent in favor of its sketches.

4. Breaking the Mold

A major theme of the show is capturing moments from their podcast and turning them into real, yet funny life. They use their sketches often to tell stories that break away from the usual stereotypes Black people face. In an interview, Braylock shared that the team felt freedom being able to create alternative worlds and realities. In an industry dominated by the white counterparts, the team basked in their moment and did what needed to be done with each episode.

5. Power of Laughter

As stated before, Black joy is one of the strongest forms of resistance. With each decade, struggles arise and Black people can fight the pain through laughter. Astronomy Clubs main tool is comedy fits perfectly into the narrative. Scenarios that might otherwise disturb the community can now make thousands laugh, while at the same time educate.

6. Fighter Spirit

When Astronomy Clubs series was not renewed on Netflix for a second season, the cast took the news with grace. At the same time, they made sure to bring awareness to the lackluster job the streaming service did of providing users with access and information regarding their show. Feeling slighted, the cast was vocal about their issues. Fans even created petitions to get it back, but their efforts fell short. Netflix pulled the plug but the cast didnt back down.

7. Inspire Resilience

In true form, Astronomy Club sends a message to all to keep going. In many ways, their own personal story tells one of faith. With their sketches, Astronomy Club vowed to never make Black people the butt of their jokes. They showed respect to our history and, at times, created a reality that is one of hope. Their ability to twist the narrative, to be creative, to inspire other comedians, and to enjoy themselves is a nod to the nature of resilience we carry as a community.

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7 reasons Astronomy Club deserves its flowers for being the future of comedy - REVOLT TV

Astronomers figure out why some galaxies are missing dark matter – Big Think

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Astronomers discovered that extreme tidal loss may be a possible explanation for why some galaxies seem to have no dark matter, a mystery type of matter that's supposed to take up to 27 percent of the universe, according to NASA. Dark energy takes up another 68 percent, creating a repulsive force that speeds up the universe's expansion. Neither has been directly seen so far but rather inferred through their effects on space.

The team from the University of California, Riverside, found anomalies in some smaller galaxies, known as "dwarf galaxies" (containing up to a billion stars, compared to the Milky Way's 200-400 billion). Some appear to have no dark matter at all. This is despite the fact that they were formed in galaxies that were teeming with dark matter previously. What is the explanation for this phenomenon, which muddies our understanding of dark matter?

The scientists used a cosmological simulation called Illustris on dark-matter-free galaxies DF2 and DF4. They wanted to understand how similar space objects would evolve and what might have happened that led them to lose dark matter. The simulation could create galaxies, with evolving stars, supernovas, and growing and merging black holes. Within the simulation, the researchers found "dwarf galaxies" similar to DF2 and DF4 which lost over 90 percent of their dark matter through the process of tidal stripping, in which material is stripped from the galaxy by galactic tidal forces.

The study's first author was the physics and astronomy graduate student Jessica Doppel, while the co-author Laura Sales, an associate professor of physics and astronomy, was Doppel's graduate advisor.

"Interestingly, the same mechanism of tidal stripping is able to explain other properties of dwarfs like DF2 and DF4 for example, the fact that they are 'ultradiffuse' galaxies," said Sales. "Our simulations suggest a combined solution to both the structure of these dwarfs and their low dark matter content. Possibly, extreme tidal mass loss in otherwise normal dwarf galaxies is how ultradiffuse objects are formed."

Besides Sales and Doppel, the study involved Julio F. Navarro from the University of Victoria in Canada, Mario G. Abadi and Felipe Ramos-Almendares of the National University of Crdoba in Argentina, Eric W. Peng of Peking University in China, and Elisa Toloba of the University of the Pacific in California.

Laura Sales (seated, left) and her research group of students, including Jessica Doppel (seated, right).

Credit: UCR/Stan Lim

Sales's team is currently collaborating with the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Germany to improve the simulations with more advanced physics and a resolution that's 16 times better than the Illustris they used on this study.

Check out the new paper, published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

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Astronomers figure out why some galaxies are missing dark matter - Big Think

Astronomers Mapped The Spectacular Accelerating Outflows of a Stellar Explosion – ScienceAlert

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Material accelerating away from the site of a stellar explosion has been discovered in a star-forming cloud.

It's only the second time molecular outflows of this kind have ever been clearly seen, but it could help astronomers understand how the most massive stars get their start in life.

In the 1980s, astronomers discovered something peculiar in the star-forming Orion nebula: streamers of dense molecular gas, travelling at speed through space. When these streamers were mapped, they seemed to originate from a single point.

Since then, molecular outflows have been discovered in many star-forming regions. They are thought to play an important role in the formation of low-mass stars, transporting away the excess angular momentum that would otherwise cause baby stars to spin themselves into oblivion.

The Orion outflow, however, was one of a kind. Molecular outflows in low-mass stars are bipolar; that is, there are only two of them, shooting out in opposite directions. The outflows in Orion were much more numerous and they were also found in a region where much more massive stars - over 10 times the mass of the Sun - are forming.

Combined X-ray, radio and optical image of W28, the region's parent complex. (NASA/ROSAT; NOAO/CTIO/P.F. Winkler et al; NSF/NRAO/VLA/G. Dubner et al.)

Now, we don't know as much about the formation of massive stars as we do about the smaller ones. Massive stellar nurseries are rarer and tend to be more distant, making them harder to see. So astronomers thought that maybe the Orion outflows could yield some clues.

Yet there was nothing at the source of the outflows - no baby massive star. This could imply several explosive scenarios, such as a merger between two massive baby stars, or gravitational energy liberated by the formation of a nearby massive binary. But with only one observation of its kind, it's difficult to make a firm ruling.

To try and learn more about this phenomenon, a team of astronomers led by Luis Zapata of the National Autonomous University of Mexico decided to turn one of our most powerful radio telescopes, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), at a known massive stellar nursery.

False-colour image of W28. (NRAO/AUI/NSF and Brogan et al.)

G5.890.39, also known as W28 A2, is around 9,752 light-years away. It contains a bright, expanding shell-like ultra-compact hydrogen cloud and powerful molecular outflows. Zapata and his team had previously noted that six of these filaments seemed to point directly at the centre of the hydrogen cloud, but their results were inconclusive.

ALMA cleared that ambiguity right up. It detected dense streamers based on the millimetre-wavelength emission from carbon dioxide and silicon monoxide.

(Zapata et al., ApJL, 2020)

The astronomers were able to identify 34 molecular streamers zooming radially away from the heart of the cloud, accelerating outwards. Based on their velocities of up to 130 kilometres (80 miles) per second, the outflows are about 1,000 years old; whatever explosion produced them occurred about a millennium ago.

They are not as powerful as the outflows you'd expect from a supernova explosion, which occurs when a massive star dies. In addition, as was also seen in the case of Orion, there was no star in the centre - just a region of ionised gas, possibly the result of heating during an explosive event.

If there was a star (or multiple stars) associated with the event that produced the outflows, it could have been ejected from the region.

Because massive stars always form in clusters, such interactions are possibly quite common, which in turn could shed some light on massive star formation. If two protostars merged, they would likely have ended up as one much larger star.

Based on the Orion outflows, the G5.89 outflows, and the marginal detection of what could be similar outflows in a star-forming region known as DR-21, the team estimates that these events occur every 130 years or so. That's very close to an estimated rate of supernova explosions.

The unpredictability of these events, and the short duration of the outflow phase, may make them pretty hard to find; but, now that we know what to look for and how, astronomers may be able to build a catalogue of these kinds of events. In turn, that will help us understand why they occur.

"If enough of these outflows can be detected in the future, the merging of clusters of stars may be an important formation mechanism of massive stars," Zapata said.

The research has been published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

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Astronomers Mapped The Spectacular Accelerating Outflows of a Stellar Explosion - ScienceAlert

Tracking down mystery boats on the high seas – The Verge

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Out on the high seas, more than 200 miles from shore, seafood companies can operate with almost no oversight. These are ungoverned, international waters where its easier for companies to get away with overfishing and abuses like modern-day slavery.

Scientists using new hacks for old technology are slowly changing that.

Two decades ago, large vessels began carrying a little box that connects to whats called the maritime Automatic Identification System (AIS). It sends out a radio signal with information about the ship, like an identifying number, and its size, course, and speed. Thats supposed to help ships avoid running into each other. It also helps authorities see where vessels are when theyre close to shore.

After the 9/11 attacks, AIS started getting more attention from the US government. It saw the tech as a way to keep an eye on potential threats to national security at sea. The US Coast Guard contracted the telecommunications company Orbcomm to launch satellites that could pick up on AIS signals from space. Meanwhile, the Norwegian government and the European Space Agency were developing similar technology. When the first AIS-enabled satellites were launched in 2008, that was a game-changer.

Now, satellites can pick up on a vessels AIS signals no matter where the ship is sailing. In 2014, environmental groups and Google partnered up to create a near real-time map that traces the movement of about 60,000 commercial fishing boats with AIS. The effort is called Global Fishing Watch.

The Verge spoke with Jennifer Jacquet and Gabrielle Carmine, two scientists on a mission to find out whos doing what out on the open ocean. Check out the video above to see how they used AIS and some old-school sleuthing to spot corporate actors on the high seas.

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Tracking down mystery boats on the high seas - The Verge

This 262-Foot Superyacht Concept Comes With Its Own Stage for Concerts on the High Seas – Robb Report

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In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, Charly Phitoussi started the Instagram @prestigeyachts to showcase the worlds preeminent luxury vessels and help users momentarily escape. The account now has some 120,000 followers and the Parisian content creator has decided to take things to the next level and design his own floating palace.

Phitoussi partnered with French yacht designer Julien Cadro to create the new concept, which fittingly goes by the name of Boss. The fast displacement yacht, which is designed to cruise the Mediterranean, features a sleek silhouette with clean lines and a needle-like bow to cut through waves. Phitoussi told Robb Report in an email that aviation was also a source of inspiration, which explains the two wings protruding amidships that double as sundecks.

The 262-footer is fitted with three generous decks and geared toward outdoor living. The main deck features a sprawling beach club, along with two large doors so seafarers can store one or more vehicles on board when needed. Elsewhere, theres a big space that can be used as an open-air cinema or a private concert stage depending on whether you prefer movies or music. This deck also offers one visitor cabin.

The infinity pool cascades from the upper deck.Charly Phitoussi/Julien Cadro

The upper deck, meanwhile, is equipped with a fully stocked bar and open dining area from where you can enjoy the sea views. (Its also where youll find the aforementioned sun decks.) This deck also features an enclosed dining room and saloon, plus the remaining VIP guest cabins and the owners suite.

One of the standout features is the infinity pool that cascades from the upper deck alongside a set of stairs that lead all the way to the swim platform. Boss also features a lounge area in front of the wheelhouse with a dedicated jacuzzi, plus space for two helicopters.

Regarding propulsion, Phitoussi and Cadro told Robb Report the yacht would ideally run on clean energy such as hydrogen.

Our goal was to create the best possible yacht experience for the owner and their guests, the duo said in a statement. We hope to make our subscribers dream with our project in these difficult times.

And dream we shall.

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Charly Phitoussi/Julien Cadro

Charly Phitoussi/Julien Cadro

Charly Phitoussi/Julien Cadro

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This 262-Foot Superyacht Concept Comes With Its Own Stage for Concerts on the High Seas - Robb Report

2018 covert op that is embarrassing India – The Tribune India

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Vappala Balachandran

Ex-Special Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat

On April 27, 2018, a leading Indian business paper, quoting highly placed government sources, said that a secret Coast Guard operation was authorised at the highest level to intercept an unarmed yacht carrying runaway Dubai royal princess Latifa Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum. This was after key national security officials felt it necessary to secure Indias counter-terrorism and strategic interests. However, new revelations in the form of secret videos released on February 16, 2021, would embarrass us further as this was apparently done without following the legal procedure.

If true, this was an unprecedented action as no such forcible rendition, as the Americans call it, was allowed by India in its history. I know personally that Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi did not oblige even his personal friend, Afghan President Mohammad Najibullah, when he requested, through secret intelligence channels, the rendition of his key aide who had deceived him and escaped to the West through India with large sums of money. That was at a time when Najibullah was helping India through a number of sensitive operations to frustrate Pakistans covert war against us.

America justifies such demands based on Article IV, Section 2 of its Constitution which requires a state to hand over such fugitives if found within its jurisdiction. Also, America has been claiming universal jurisdiction since the 19th century against piracy on the high seas, quoting a judgment in United States vs Smith (1820). This has been criticised by human rights groups as it was originally meant against slaves.

Extraordinary rendition is adopted when such fugitives are nabbed with the help of local security services in a foreign country or merely kidnapped without following the legal extradition procedure. The first such case was in 1883 when the Pinkerton Detective Agency, their oldest private detective company, kidnapped one Frederick Kerr from Peru for a Chicago court.

In 1997, the CIA abducted Mir Aimal Kansi from a Pashtun tribal area with covert Pakistani police help for shooting and killing two CIA employees in 1993 outside their office in

Langley. Kansi was executed in the US after a trial in 2002.

After 9/11, the US pressured foreign governments to agree to extraordinary rendition in which the fugitive was forcibly nabbed and sent to other countries for interrogation. Stephen Grey, author of Ghost Plane: The True Story of the CIAs Rendition & Torture Programme, says that Pakistan had handed over more than 500 persons to the CIA after 9/11.

In 2009, Sabrina De Souza, a CIA employee of Indian origin, was convicted along with 21 CIA officials in absentia by an Italian court for aiding the abduction of a 9/11 suspect of Egyptian origin, Abu Omar, from Milan, Italy, in 2003 and forcibly sending him to Egypt in a US Air Force plane where he was tortured. The European Court of Human Rights had also imposed a fine of 70,000 euros on Italy to be paid to Abu Omar and 15,000 euros to his wife.

Faced with these embarrassments, the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing on July 26, 2007 to discuss Extraordinary rendition, extra-territorial detention and treatment of detainees: Restoring our moral credibility and strengthening our democratic standing. Quoting the Italian case, the then Chairman Senator Joe Biden, now the US President, had said in his opening statement that the controversial rendition programme had created a toll on our relationship with some of our closest foreign policy partners as it operated outside the rule of law.

It is not anybodys case that Princess Sheikha Latifa was wanted for any crime in her home country and that we had only cooperated for rendering her to justice in the UAE. Our unprecedented March 4

operation, according to the above daily, had involved three Coast Guard ships, including the state-of-the-art offshore patrol vessels Samarth and Shoor, helicopters and a maritime surveillance aircraft to locate the United States-flagged yacht, Nostromo, some 50 km off the coast of Goa carrying Princess Latifa and her friends.

The paper had also reported that Latifa had said, at the time of

apprehension, that she was seeking to escape torture inflicted on

her and her elder sister Shamsa

by their father, United Arab Emirates Prime Minister and Dubai ruler Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum. BBCs investigative current affairs Panorama Programme said on February 17, 2021, that they were releasing videos that Latifa had secretly recorded during her captivity in Dubai.

These facts were also judicially noticed by the London High Court which issued a fact-finding judgment on December 11, 2019, describing how the victims were nabbed by the Indian Coast Guards using smoke grenades or gas, together with gunshots after spotting them from air.

The judgment corroborated Latifas allegation that armed Indian Coast Guard forces commandeered her boat on March 4, 2018, from international waters 20 nautical miles off the coast of India. After boarding, they kept her face down on the floor with her hands bound. They threatened to kill Latifa, her friend Tiina Jauhiainen and others. They physically assaulted another friend Herve Jaubert, Tiina Jauhiainen and crew members and forcibly made them return to Dubai. At Dubai, they continued to mistreat them. Tiina Jauhiainen was denied any legal aid and forced to sign a false statement. Latifa was held against her will, locked in a house and her movements tightly controlled.

Former Irish President Mary Robinson, who was the UN Human Rights Commissioner, said on February 16, 2021 that she felt horribly tricked over her involvement in this affair. She said she was invited to Dubai by a friend in December 2018 where she attended a lunch where Latifa was present. This friend was none other than Princess Haya, the Dubai rulers wife, who is also suing him in the London court.

Robinson was later blamed by human rights groups when the Dubai administration released a photo of this lunch to prove that Latifa was safe and healthy. She was originally told of Latifas bipolar disorder, which she now feels she did not have. Robinson has now joined in calls for immediate international action in order to establish Princess Latifas current whereabouts.

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2018 covert op that is embarrassing India - The Tribune India

Will NPFC Protect Pacific Saury by Cutting Fish Catch? China and Taiwan Might Disagree – JAPAN Forward

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~~

Japan is poised to propose a reduction of the total allowable catch (TAC) of Pacific saury at the upcoming annual meeting of the North Pacific Fisheries Commission (NPFC), scheduled to take place online from February 23 to 25.

The Pacific saury fishery has been plagued by seriously depleted catches in recent years, calling for conservation measures throughout its range. The NPFC, which provides a forum for international discussion of the long-term management of Pacific saury resources, known as sanma in Japanese, is set to take up the issue.

There is concern, however, that some members of the commission such as China and Taiwan, which have been fishing for Pacific saury mainly on the high seas of the North Pacific, may raise objections to Japans proposal and prevent the NPFC from reaching a consensus.

The NPFC is made up of eight countries and regions. There are the coastal fishing nations of Japan and Russia, the pelagic fishing countries and regions of China, South Korea, Vanuatu and Taiwan, and the United States and Canada as interested countries. Only the United States and Canada do not participate in the Pacific Saury fishery.

The annual meeting was initially scheduled to be held in Sapporo last June 2019, but was postponed owing to the spread of new coronavirus infections. Given that the Pacific saury fishery could begin as early as late April, the timing of the coming NPFC conference comes just before the deadline for concluding resources management negotiations for 2021. The NPFC secretariat has noted that prolonged negotiations could cause the meeting to extend into February 26.

The current fishing limits on Pacific saury are based on an agreement made at the last NPFC meeting in 2019, which addressed management measures for 2020. That agreement set the TAC for the entire distributional range of sanma at 556,250 metric tons, of which the ceiling on high seas catch was limited to a total of 330,000 metric tons. An accord was also reached to allocate the remaining 226,250 tons of allowable catch to fisheries within the exclusive economic zones (EEZs) of Japan and Russia.

Japan is set to put forth a proposal for an overall cut in the TAC this time. Lower catches on the high seas, which are allocated 60 percent of the Pacific saury quota, are called for in order to materialize the conservation goals. As it is difficult to seek reduced catch limits on high seas fisheries alone, Tokyo has also determined that a certain level of reduction of the upper limits on catches in the EEZs of Japan and Russia is inevitable.

However, China and Taiwan are both engaged in pelagic fisheries in the North Pacific for Pacific saury, and they may be adverse to any tightening of regulations of fishing on the high seas.

Interests differ between nations such as Japan, that takes Pacific saury primarily in coastal waters around the country, and China and Taiwan, both of which focus their fisheries on the high seas. Regarding the need for reducing the TAC, China and some others took exception to Japans proposal as premature at the 2018 NPFC meeting, resulting in a compromise that delayed introduction of the fishery curbs until a year later, at the 2019 meeting.

In recent years, the actual high seas catch has made up about 80 percent of the total Pacific saury haul. China and Taiwan, and possibly others could call for a change in the way the total quota is apportioned to match the current reality of the Pacific saury fishery.

There are many different views on causes of the poor Pacific saury catch. In addition to the increasing impact from high seas hauls by fishing vessels from China and Taiwan, there are theories pointing to a decline in the Pacific saury stock itself, and shrinkage of the saurys distribution range due to a rise in the population of true sardines that compete for the same food source.

Japans haul of sanma nationwide for 2020, announced in January this year by the National Cooperative Association of Saury Stick-Held Dip Net Fisheries (called Zen-Sanma in the Japanese abbreviation), stood at 29,566 metric tons. This was a decrease of 27 percent from the year before, marking a record low for the second straight year.

Poor Pacific saury catch is not limited to Japan. It is obvious that the overall stock circumstances of the saury have been worsening, with an official of Japans Fisheries Agency noting: All countries and regions concerned may have a common sense of crisis over the situation.

This will be the first virtual annual meeting of the NPFC. The markedly different format brings with it a host of uncertainties concerning the course of the discussion.

Concerns are growing that the poor sanma harvests will affect consumers at the table. Prices of canned Pacific saury have been rising sharply. For example, in early January Maruha Nichiro Corporation, one of Japans major marine products companies, announced that the wholesale price of four kinds of canned saury will be raised 30 yen per can before tax, effective from its April 1 shipments.

Kohei Oishi, executive director of Zen-Sanma, said, Id like to see the NPFC meeting implement sound conservation management measures so that fishermen, food processors, distributors and consumers all come out of this comfortably.

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(Read the Sankei Shimbun report in Japanese at this link.)

Author: Akihiro Morita

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Will NPFC Protect Pacific Saury by Cutting Fish Catch? China and Taiwan Might Disagree - JAPAN Forward

Opinion: The other environmental treaties the US must confront – Ensia

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February 19, 2021 A U.S. president announced Americas distancing from the most significant climate treaty in history. Sixteen years later, President Donald Trump followed suit. In other words, whiplash is not new to U.S. environmental politics and, for decades, it has been at the center of our treaty-making.

Trump took a page out of President George W. Bushs playbook when he announced in 2017 he was ditching the Paris climate deal. Bush had taken similar action when he refused to move forward with the Kyoto Protocol, the 1990s precursor to the Paris Agreement. On Inauguration Day of this year, President Joe Biden initiated the rejoining of the Paris Agreement. Today it becomes official.

Rejoining the Paris deal, according to John Kerry, the new U.S. envoy on climate change, will allow the U.S. to become a global climate leader. He summarized the administrations core belief about the global climate crisis: It is existential.

But climate change isnt the only existential crisis the world is facing. Biodiversity loss and ocean health, to name just two, are crises happening concurrently with climate change and much of the rest of the world has turned to a number of lesser-known environmental treaties to address these. But, the U.S. government has never signed, has failed to ratify, or still dances around them. America may re-sign the Paris Agreement but it will not be a convincingly green leader on the global stage until it confronts the forgotten environmental treaties it has trapped in limbo, sometimes for decades and the world will suffer more from all the existential crises it faces than if the U.S. led the way.

From Walden Pond to Paris

When I teach college students in my U.S. environmental policy courses, I start with Thoreaus cabin on Walden Pond and end with the Paris Agreement. America popularized the genre of nature writing, came up with national parks, and drafted the first federal endangered species lists nature-saving solutions now adopted by many nations around the world. Yet weve failed to fully embrace the global communitys choice of nature-saving solution: environmental treaties. By hyper-focusing and hyper-villainizing any one former administrations climate legacy, America obscures its past failing as a whole to step into environmental leadership positions.

Few of the non-climate environmental agreements are household names the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Bonn Convention, Law of the Sea but Americas lack of official participation makes it a major holdout on global efforts to stop biodiversity loss, protect migratory animals, and steward our global ocean. While America still sends observers to meetings that further negotiate or expand these treaties, formally speaking, the country of Liechtenstein (estimated population 38,000) currently has a more legitimate voice in global environmental governance than America.

Take the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Paris Agreement-equivalent for the extinction crisis. In 1993, the Clinton Administration signed the treaty, it arrived at the U.S. Senate for ratification, and the Senate did nothing. The documents wait for action in a kind of treaty purgatory, with a sad internet presence, alongside thirty-six others. Consider the Bonn Convention, officially known as the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS). It coordinates transboundary operations that conserve the migratory routes and habitat of mobile species. Canada and Mexico join the U.S. and a handful of other major nations that never signed on to this convention. Its true that America has signed on to a few of CMSs memorandums of understanding, but on a species-by-species basis. Meanwhile, billions of birds continue vanishing from North Americas migratory routes over just one generation, including climate-sensitive seabirds like albatross and petrels.

Lastly, the UN Law of the Sea Convention (UNCLOS), an agreement that governs human activities in seas and oceans: America was one of its earliest architects in the 1980s, but in the 1990s the treaty followed the similar signed-but-not-ratified fate as the biodiversity agreement. Today, scientists in the U.S. are again helping to design an international legal binding agreement that will address problems resulting from UNCLOSs gaps, notably: how to deal with the overfishing of biodiversity on the high seas, technically called Marine Biodiversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ). After the pandemic subsides, the BBNJ treaty will likely be on the diplomatic table, but scientists are cautious, based on Americas fickle history, that political leaders will formally join, despite the urgent message of ocean exploitation.

Such concrete action would make absolutely clear where America will and will not lead when it comes to environmental problems, from climate change to biodiversity loss to overfishing of the high seas.

There is no shortage of political explanations and diplomatic rationales for Americas historical self-distancing from these agreements. First, the U.S. Senate must advise to ratify treaties by a two-thirds vote. Somesenatorshave long been treaty-averse, witharguments circling that claim treaties risk U.S. sovereignty and its global economic position. Second, the U.S. has in these cases preferred to make progress through soft diplomacy, making handshakes and good neighbors without signing the dotted line.

These political traditions are like our battleships they dont turn on a dime, no matter which party is in power. But from a scientific and historical perspective, a smart approach would be the one that is most comprehensive: confronting all the treaties that are in limbo now, in a transparent way. Such concrete action would make absolutely clear where America will and will not lead when it comes to environmental problems, from climate change to biodiversity loss to overfishing of the high seas.

Reconciling the Past to Move Forward

The lack of clear-eyed and transparent treaty-making has long-term consequences, as seen in another instance where the U.S. has failed in this area: the injustices wrought by not honoring and breaking treaties by the U.S. government against Native Americans. Many Native Americans still have high levels of mistrust for non-tribal government because of this historical trauma and, because of this and many other reasons, often low levels of voter turnout. When Native American communities do engage, they can swing political outcomes. The lack of Native American participation in democratic processes is a lasting bruise on our democracy. As with other injustices, our ability to successfully move forward on this front requires a full recognition of the past.

Americas leaders have a window and opportunity in 2021 to turn this legacy around and make it clear where the country will and where it will not lead on the environment.

Turning the page on Americas environmental story also involves an honest telling of the past. That story is rich in national vision but undeniably fickle when it comes to the hard work arguably the hardest work of saving the whole planet through global cooperation and agreements.

Americas leaders have a window and opportunity in 2021 to turn this legacy around and make it clear where the country will and where it will not lead on the environment. One of President Bidens orders signed on January 27 seeks the U.S. Senates advice on ratifying the Kigali amendment an important amendment to the lesser-known climate treaty, the Montreal Protocol which could reduce the use of climate-warming hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) pollutants. This treaty expansion ratification is possible due to at least some bipartisan agreement, in part because of its potential economic benefits for the U.S.

And further bipartisan environmental agreement in the Senate does exist. The 2020 passage of The Great American Outdoors Act, the largest land conservation legislation in the 21st century, had bipartisan support. Similarly, there may be bipartisan support for the creation of a jobs corps bill that has the same appeal of supporting public lands and rural jobs, while also focusing on the new administrations climate agenda. This kind of bipartisan momentum matters for seeking ratification of green treaties in the Senate.

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If successful, the ratification of an expanded Montreal treaty still stays within the climate action realm the Biden Administration seems most comfortable in at least for now. By ratifying or at least confronting the treaties that have been left in the lurch all these years, the country has the opportunity to show its environmental leadership in a way that is clear about what it does and does not consider existential enough to address meaningfully in concert with other nations.

President Biden says he will host global leaders on Earth Day 2021 for a dialogue about the climate crisis, echoing Kerrys language, that climate change is an existential threat. And just as with the pandemic, Biden said, it requires global cooperation.

With the pandemic, another science-based crisis, America can build trust with other nations with laser focus and moving forward. But for America to become an environmental leader, the country must reckon with its past failings to lead, take stock, and understand that climate change is not the only environmental problem that needs leadership and global cooperation.

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Opinion: The other environmental treaties the US must confront - Ensia

AI can help reduce the risk of HIV in high-risk communities – Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

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Working with the social workers and the participants themselves, the researchers mapped the social networks of participants and used their algorithm to find leaders with the most diverse set of connections, across different network clusters.

Facilitators from the social work research team then trained the chosen peer leaders on sexual health, HIV prevention, communication skills, leadership skills, and self-care. The peer leaders were asked to promote regular HIV testing and condom use through communication with their social ties at the drop-in center.

The research team found that youth enrolled in the AI-assisted strategy, dubbed CHANGE (CompreHensive Adaptive Network samplinG for social influencE), were significantly less likely to engage in unprotected sex than their peers enrolled in the observation-only group. The researchers also found that behaviors changed faster in the CHANGE group than in a group where the most popular youth were recruited as peer leaders. Most of the improvement for participants in CHANGE occurred by the one-month survey, while improvements in the "most popular" group werent seen until month three.

The speed in which we saw results in the CHANGE group is really important, said Bryan Wilder, a graduate student at SEAS and first author of the study. Not only does the rapid adoption of protective behaviors help to immediately reduce transmission of HIV in a high-risk population, but this population is also highly transient. Many of these young people will have left the center by the time a three-month intervention is completed so, you need to be able to reach as many people as possible within a short time period.

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of the use of AI methods to optimize social network interventions for health, said Tambe. We hope that this project can provide general lessons about how AI research can be successfully employed for social good.

This strategy could be used to disseminate information within communities about nutrition, substance abuse and other public health crises that impact the most vulnerable people in our society, said Wilder.

The research was co-authored by Laura Onasch-Vera, Graham Diguiseppi, Chyna Hill and Eric Rice of the Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work and Center for Artificial Intelligence in Society at the University of Southern California; Amulya Yadav, of the College of Information Sciences and Technology at Pennsylvania State University; and Robin Petering, of Lens Co.

The research was funded by the Army Research Office (MURI W911NF1810208) and the California HIV/AIDS Research Program.

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AI can help reduce the risk of HIV in high-risk communities - Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

China’s New Coast Guard Law and Implications for Maritime Security in the East and South China Seas – Lawfare

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Introduction

The Standing Committee of Chinas National Peoples Congress passed the China Coast Guard (CCG) Law () on Jan. 22, and the law is scheduled to take effect on Feb. 1. The new law hasnt attracted tons of attention, but it violates the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

The change builds on other shifts that have militarized Chinas maritime law enforcement apparatus. In 2013, China created the CCG Bureau (), which unites the previously separate maritime law enforcement agencies known as the Five Dragons: the China Marine Surveillance, the CCG, the China Maritime Patrol, China Fisheries Law Enforcement Command () and the General Administration of Customs. The CCG was reorganized further into the Chinese Peoples Armed Police Force Coast Guard Corps () in 2018 and came under the command of the Peoples Armed Police Force. This change led to some practical shifts. The CCG has been transformed into a military-like organization under the centralized command of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee and the Central Military Commission (), at least from the viewpoint of a command and control structure. This operating structure mirrors that of the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA).

Putting military organizations in charge of maritime law enforcement is not unique to China and is not a problem in itself. In the United Kingdom, for example, the navy performs coast guard duties. And in some countriesas is the case with Italys Carabinieri and Frances Maritime Gendarmeriethe military takes on law enforcement and coast guard duties. Others, like the U.S., have coast guard units that are responsible for maritime law enforcement but are considered an additional armed force, separate from the naval branch. By contrast, Japan stipulates in Article 25 of the Japan Coast Guard Law that [n]othing in this Act shall be construed as authorizing the Japan Coast Guard (hereinafter JCG) or its personnel to be organized, trained, or to perform military functions'' and specifies that it is a civilian coast guard agency.

In the case of the CCG, it is a maritime law enforcement organization that does not deny that it is a military force even under international law.

Wang Wenbin, deputy press secretary of Chinas Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said at a press conference on Nov. 12, 2020, that the promulgation of the CCG Law enacted this time is a normal legislative activity of the [National Peoples Congress], and the relevant contents of the draft are in line with international conventions and practices of many countries. Chinas policy and position on maritime issues remain unchanged. In other words, China argues that all of the articles of the CCG Law are completely legitimate and lawful as a matter of international law, but a closer look at the text of the law reveals that it differs from the provisions of UNCLOS, to which China is a party, as well as from state practices.

Vague Wording of Chinas Jurisdictional Waters

Article 1 of the CCG Law stipulates its purpose: This Act is enacted to establish norms and guarantees for the CCG organization and its employees to fulfill their responsibilities in accordance with the law, to protect the sovereignty of the State, and to safeguard the legitimate interests of the public, corporations, and other organizations. Article 2 says the Peoples Armed Police Forces Coast Guard, that is, the coast guard organization, shall uniformly perform maritime rights enforcement duties. With regard to the waters in which the CCG operates, Article 3 stipulates that the CCG Organization shall conduct law enforcement operations in the waters under the jurisdiction of China and in the airspace above the waters under the jurisdiction of China, and apply this Law. Under the UNCLOS, the waters under the jurisdiction of a state are the internal waters, territorial sea, contiguous zone, exclusive economic zone and the waters of the continental shelf (including the extended continental shelf). But Chinas position on jurisdictional waters in the South China Sea has long clashed with the UNCLOS text. China claims the nine-dash-line in the South China Sea. The roots of the nine-dash-line date back to 1 December 1947, when the Government of the Republic of China (R.O.C.) promulgated two documents created by the Ministry of the Interior: The Cross Reference Table of the New and Old Names of the South China Sea Islands and The Location Map of the South China Sea Islands. These documents depicted an eleven-part, U-shaped line that encompassed the Spratly Islands and the Paracel Islands. This line was redrawn when territorial rights to the Bach Long Vi Island in the Gulf of Tonkin were transferred from the P.R.C. to Vietnam in 1953, changing the eleven-dash-line to a nine-dash-line. This is the line that has since come to be known as the nine-dash-line. In 2009, China submitted a note verbal to the United Nations. In the note verbal, a map was attached and a vast area of the South China Sea was surrounded by nine-dash-line and China claimed that China has indisputable sovereignty over the area inside of the dash lines belonging to China without explaining the reasons for the change. Article 14 of Chinas 1998 Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf Act stipulates that the provisions of this law shall not affect the historical rights of China'' and recognizes the existence of waters other than the exclusive economic zone and continental shelf over which China exercises jurisdiction. The same law also adds historical waters other than those recognized by the UNCLOS as Chinas jurisdictional waters by using the expression other jurisdictional waters.

China has faced pushback in international forums over its land claims. The 2016 South China Sea Arbitration Award denied Chinas position, concluding that Chinas claim to historic rights to the living and non-living resources within the nine-dash line is incompatible with the Convention to the extent that it exceeds the limits of Chinas maritime zones as provided for by the Convention. The award reasoned that upon Chinas accession to the Convention and its entry into force, any historic rights that China may have had to the living and non-living resources within the nine-dash line were superseded, as a matter of law and as between the Philippines and China, by the limits of the maritime zones provided for by the Convention. Thus, the South China Sea Arbitration Tribunal concluded that the Convention superseded any historic rights or other sovereign rights or jurisdiction in the excess of the limits imposed by the Convention. With this ruling, the South China Sea Arbitration rejected Chinas claims of historic rights within the nine-dash-line. In sum, Chinas claim of its sovereignty in the South China Sea is groundless as a matter of international law. However, China has refused to implement this ruling, calling it illegal and invalid.

The new CCG Law again uses the phrase waters under the jurisdiction of China and clearly states that the CCG will conduct law enforcement operations to protect maritime rights and interests in waters over which it originally could not exercise jurisdiction under the UNCLOS (waters within the nine-dash line in the South China Sea). This intention was clear in Article 74(2) of the draft of the CCG Law, announced on 4th November, 2020 included other waters under the jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China in addition to internal waters, territorial waters, contiguous zone, exclusive economic zones and continental shelf defined under the UNCLOS. However, the definition was deleted when the new CCG law was adopted and Chinas intention behind waters under the jurisdiction of China was hidden.

The impact of Chinas refusal to budge from this position may be dramatic. Conflicts with Vietnam and the Philippines in the South China Sea seem inevitable. In addition, based on the 1992 Law on the Territorial Sea and the Contiguous Zone, China has unlawfully exercised its legislative jurisdiction and established territorial waters around the Senkaku Islands, which are Japanese territory. Chinas new domestic law adds to the set of tools that China can use to claim the waters as waters under the jurisdiction of China and exercise enforcement jurisdiction over Japan.

Status of the China Coast Guard and Defense Operations

A more important component of the new CCG Law is Article 83, which stipulates that the CCG Organization shall carry out defense operations and other missions in accordance with the National Defense Law, the Armed Police Law, and other relevant laws, military regulations, and orders of the Central Military Commission. In other words, it clearly states that the CCG is an organization with the dual functions of a navy conducting defense operations in waters under its jurisdiction (military activities) and a maritime law enforcement agency (law enforcement activities). The law transformed the CCG into an organization with the mission of national defense.

Such cooperation between the CCG Bureau and the PLA Navy has already begun, and in July 2020, a joint exercise was held between the CCG Bureau and the PLA Navy on Woody Island (Yongxing Island) in the Paracel Islands. In this exercise, the PLA Navys Type 071 landing ship and other vessels participated. The CCG Bureaus troops, supported by the navy, landed on the island and conducted a drill to subdue the resisting citizens. Bryan Clark, a senior fellow and naval expert at the Washington-based Hudson Institute, said that the exercise was not about simulating an attack on another military force but about using the military in a police action to suppress potential civilian unrest.

A Preparatory Step to Prevent Japan From Strengthening Its Effective Control Over the Senkakus

Article 12 of the CCG Law stipulates the responsibilities of the CCG Organization as follows:

(i) In the waters under our jurisdiction, patrol, exercise vigilance, take duty on key islands, manage and protect maritime boundaries, and prevent, restrain, and eliminate acts that threaten the sovereignty, security, and maritime interests of the nation. (ii) To protect the safety of key maritime targets and critical activities, and to take necessary measures to protect the safety of key islands, as well as artificial islands, facilities and mechanisms in the exclusive economic zone and continental shelf.

Article 20 authorizes the CCG Organization to order the suspension of illegal activities, including installing facilities and buildings by foreign organizations and individuals, or to order the improvement of the situation within a stipulated time limit. In the case of refusal to stop illegal activities or refusal to make improvements within the time limit, the law authorizes the CCG Organization, when necessary, to pursue various punitive measures: to remove the facilities and buildings in accordance with the law in a case where foreign organizations or individuals construct buildings or structures, or to install various types of fixed or floating devices in the waters and islands under the jurisdiction of China without the permission of the competent authorities of China.

With the increasing movement of Chinese public vessels around the Senkaku Islands, if Japan develops a port, builds a facility where civil servants are stationed, or otherwise works to strengthen its effective control of the islands, Article 20 of the domestic law makes it more likely that the CCG will remove them.

Compulsory Measures Against Foreign Warships

Article 21 of the CCG Law states that in cases where foreign military vessels or government vessels operating for noncommercial purposes violate Chinas domestic laws in waters under Chinas jurisdiction, the CCG shall have the right to take necessary security and control measures to restrain foreign military vessels and foreign vessels used for non-commercial purposes in waters under Chinas jurisdiction from violating the laws or regulations of China. For those who refuse to leave and cause serious harm or threat, the Maritime Security Organization has the right to take measures such as deportation and forced towing. In Japans case, potentially vulnerable vessels include patrol vessels of the Japan Coast Guard.

This opens the door to potential incompatibilities with the UNCLOS. The convention provides in Article 32 that, with respect to the territorial sea, with such exceptions as are contained in subsection A and in articles 30 and 31, nothing in this Convention affects the immunities of warships and other government ships operated for non-commercial purposes. And with regard to the protection and preservation of the marine environment, Article 236 of the UNCLOS states that [t]he provisions of this Convention regarding the protection and preservation of the marine environment do not apply to any warship, naval auxiliary, other vessels or aircraft owned or operated by a State and used, for the time being, only on government non-commercial service. The convention grants immunity to military vessels, military support vessels and government ships from the enforcement jurisdiction of coastal states. If the CCG were to take measures such as forcibly towing warships or government vessels, it would be a clear violation of the UNCLOS.

Furthermore, Article 22 of the CCG Law states that when the sovereignty, sovereign rights and jurisdiction of a State are confronted with an imminent danger of unlawful infringement or unlawful violation by foreign organizations and individuals at sea, the CCG Organization shall, in accordance with this Law and other laws or regulations, take all necessary measures, including the use of weapons. In addition, Article 47 stipulates that officials of the CCG Organization may use weapons in accordance with the law, and may directly use weapons if there is no time for warning or if there is a risk of serious harm after giving warning.

Until now, the use of weapons by the CCG has been conducted in accordance with a series of other Chinese domestic laws: Articles 10 and 11 of the Peoples Police Law; Articles 2, 4 and 9-11 of the Peoples Police Regulations on Security Equipment and Use of Weapons; and Article 9 of the Regulations on Maritime Law Enforcement Activities of Public Security Organs. All of them state, Law enforcement personnel of marine patrol vessels may fire shots only when necessary. When firing shots, a verbal warning or a warning to fire must generally be issued first. They shall not fire unnecessarily and shall not shoot at the vessel under investigation unnecessarily. The use of weapons should be limited to subduing the other party.

In comparison, Article 22 of the CCG Law expands the scope of the use of weapons to include foreign organizations. Article 47 of the same law can be read as a provision that permits the more aggressive use of weapons. Chinese government vessels, which call the waters around the Senkaku Islands their own territorial waters under their sovereignty and track Japanese fishing vessels, have not been excluded from the possibility of using weapons, although Article 22 also has a requirement for unlawful infringement of individuals and in case of imminent danger. In other words, the CCG has authorization to use weapons without warning against both government vessels and civilian vessels as a matter of its domestic law.

These changes present challenges for other countries in the Pacific. Japan, in particular, needs to be prepared to respond both positionally and legally to these new developments by China. In the case of private vessels such as fishing boats, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, in its ruling on the Saiga case in 1999, stated the following three requirements: (a) The use of weapons must be avoided as much as possible, (b) the use of weapons must not exceed the necessary limits and must be reasonable, and (c) the use of weapons must not endanger human life. If a Chinese vessel were to do things to a Japanese fishing vessel that go beyond those parameters, it would be a violation of international law.

Establishment of Temporary Maritime Alert Zones in Jurisdictional Waters

What is especially noteworthy about this CCG Act is the intent of the provision on establishing temporary maritime alert zones. Article 25 of the CCG Law states:

A CCG organization at the level of a provincial CCG bureau or above may set up a maritime temporary alert zone in the waters under the jurisdiction of China and restrict or prohibit the passage or stopping of ships and personnel if any of the following circumstances exist

(1) When it is necessary to carry out maritime safety and security missions

(2) When it is necessary to control illegal criminal activities at sea

(3) When it is necessary to deal with maritime collision incidents

(4) When it is necessary to protect marine resources and the ecological environment

(5) When it is otherwise necessary to set up an extra maritime alert zone.

The real problem will come if and when China tries to establish a maritime temporary alert zone with the justification of carrying out maritime security and security missions, as referenced in Article 25 of the CCG law. UNCLOS provides in Article 25, paragraph 3, that the coastal State may, without discrimination in form or in fact among foreign ships, suspend temporarily in specified areas of its territorial sea the innocent passage of foreign ships if such suspension is essential for the protection of its security, including weapons exercises. Such suspension shall take effect only after having been duly published.

If the establishment of a maritime temporary alert zone in Chinas territorial waters meets this requirement, especially the requirement that the navigation of foreign vessels be carried out temporarily without legal or de facto discrimination, no problem will arise. However, if a regulation that discriminates de facto is imposed on a foreign country for a long period of time, it would violate the UNCLOS.

The case of contiguous waters requires particular attention. Article 33(1)(a) of the UNCLOS allows coastal states to impose regulations on contiguous zones in order to prevent infringement of its customs, fiscal, immigration or sanitary laws and regulations within its territory or territorial sea. However, Article 13 of Chinas Law on the Territorial Sea and the Contiguous Zone extends its jurisdiction over safety to its contiguous zones, stating that China has the authority to exercise powers within its contiguous zone for the purpose of preventing or punishing infringement of its security, customs, fiscal sanitary laws and regulations or entry-exit control within its land territories, internal waters or territorial sea. When read in conjunction with this law, the CCG law may enable China to establish a temporary maritime zone in the contiguous zone, which would violate the UNCLOS.

In the case of the establishment of a temporary maritime alert zone in the exclusive economic zone or the high seas for the purpose of designating the expected landing zone for military exercises or live missile tests, its legitimacy will be judged based on whether the moves in question meet the requirement of due regard to other states. Article 56(2) of the UNCLOS states that in exercising its rights and performing its duties under this Convention in the exclusive economic zone, the coastal State shall have due regard to the rights and duties of other States and shall act in a manner compatible with the provisions of this Convention. A separate UNCLOS provision, Article 87(2), discusses the freedom of the high seas: [T]hese freedoms shall be exercised by all States with due regard for the interests of other States in their exercise of the freedom of the high seas, and also with due regard for the rights under this Convention with respect to activities in the Area. If China claims that the waters within the nine-dash line are waters under the jurisdiction of China'' and unilaterally establishes a maritime temporary alert zone in waters that originally belong to the exclusive economic zone of other states, the possibility of violating the UNCLOS may arise. The new law adds to Chinas legal arsenal to make frivolous nine-dash line claims. For example, if a temporary maritime alert zone is established by China in the waters surrounding a coastal states fishing grounds, facilities, or structures for resource development, or in the waters adjacent to a major international shipping route, it would not be giving due regard to other states as required by the UNCLOS. If the zone is established around Taiwan, as Capt. Toshinari Matsuo discusses, this may have a serious impact on Taiwan.

The Legal Status of Chinas Government Vessels

The vessels of the Chinese CCG repeatedly trespass into the territorial waters around the Senkaku Islands. They have a white hull with blue markings and are categorized as government official vessels that fall under the category of other government ship operated for non-commercial purposes, as defined in Article 31 of the UNCLOS. The question is whether the patrol ships of the CCG, which have been given a new function of defense, have changed their legal status as a result of the CCG Law from that of government ships to that of warships.

Article 29 of the UNCLOS defines a warship as a ship belonging to the armed forces of a State bearing the external marks distinguishing such ships of its nationality, under the command of an officer duly commissioned by the government of the State and whose name appears in the appropriate 35 service list or its equivalent, and manned by a crew which is under regular armed forces discipline.

The police are usually a civilian law enforcement agency, so police units are treated as civilian institutions and receive general protection from attack during armed conflict. The patrol vessels of the JCG, for example, are civilian maritime law enforcement agencies, as outlined by the provisions of Article 25 of the JCG Law. The CCG confronting, though not yet attacking, the JCG vessels in the Senkakus are not merely maritime law enforcement agencies under the domestic law of Chinas CCG Law but also are vessels carrying out military defense mission operations.

Since the principle of police proportionality applies to the use of weapons by maritime law enforcement agencies, the JCG is only equipped with machine guns ranging from 12.7 mm to 40 mm in caliber. However, the CCG has patrol boats equipped with destroyer-class 76 mm guns. If Chinese public vessels are equipped with large-caliber guns or missiles whose use cannot normally be explained by the principle of police proportionalityand if they have the purpose of carrying out organized hostilitiesthe CCG ships may be treated as military forces under the law of armed conflict if the substantive criteria are applied. Japan needs to keep a close eye on whether there will be any changes in the equipment of the CCG vessels following the passage of the CCG Law.

So, will CCG vessels have the legal status of warships? This should be decided based on whether or not these vessels are also registered as warships of the PLA Navy, which is unclear at this point.

Answers about the legal status of CCG vessels may come from looking to another international law text, the San Remo Manual on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflicts at Sea. The San Remo Manual adopts the UNCLOS definition of warships at Rule 13(g). The manual defines auxiliary vessels at Rule 13(h) as vessels either owned by or under exclusive control of the armed forces of a State and used for the time being on government non-commercial service in support of the armed forces. The definition of auxiliary vessels seems much more applicable to the CCG vessels than does the definition of warships. Thus, if the vessel in question were not registered as a Chinese warship, the CCG vessel would be considered an auxiliary vessel. Under Article 236 of the UNCLOS, both military vessels and auxiliary vessels enjoy the same sovereign immunity as government vessels, and regardless of which characterization is adopted by the flag state, the vessel is entitled to sovereign immunity in peacetime.

In armed conflict, naval warfare regulations traditionally use categorical target selection criteria. Legitimate targets at sea are warships, military auxiliaries and some merchant ships meeting certain conditions, and these vessels are therefore subject to attacks without warning. In addition, Paragraph 13.21 of the San Remo Manual states that only warships can exercise belligerent rights, and if a CCG vessel, which is an auxiliary vessel not registered as a warship, were to exercise belligerent rights, it would be a violation of international law.

Implications for the Japan Coast Guard

If a vessel other than a warship, including auxiliary vessels and government vessels, is to be converted to a warship, Article 6 of the Hague Convention No. 7 of 1907 (Convention on the Conversion of Merchant Ships to Warships) requires the country in question to, as soon as possible, announce such conversion in the list of war-ships,and this seems to become customary international law.

JCG patrol vessels may confront CCG vessels assigned defense missions under the CCG Law. However, there are significant differences between CCG vessels and JCG vessels that should be noted in armed conflict.

According to Article 80, Paragraph 1 of the Self-Defense Force Law, in the event of a defense operation based on Article 76, Paragraph 1 or a security operation based on Article 78, Paragraph 1, the prime minister may bring all or part of the JCG under the control of the Minister of Defense if it is deemed specially necessary, and Paragraph 2 of the same article further stipulates that in this case, the Minister of Defense shall be given command of the JCG as specified by a Cabinet Order. Even if they are under the command of the minister of defense, as long as they conduct only CCG duties as before, they can be considered nonmilitary. To ensure nonmilitary status, Article 103 of the Self-Defense Force Law Enforcement Order states that the Minister of Defenses command over all or part of the JCG pursuant to the provision of Article 80, paragraph 2 of the [Self-Defense Force] Law shall be given to the Commandant of the Japan Coast Guard. Thus, in contrast to CCG vessels, the status of JCG patrol vessels will never be changed from civilian ships, even in armed conflict. Therefore, the procedure of Article 6 of the Hague Convention No. 7 will not be applied.

Conclusion

The final-day communiqu of the 5th Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in 2017 states, We will carry out Xi Jinpings strong military ideology and the military strategic policy of the new era, and secure the goal of striving for the 100th anniversary of the founding of the military in 2027. It will be necessary to keep a close eye on whether the goals referred to here are policy goals related not only to strengthening and modernizing the Peoples Liberation Army but also to broader Chinese Communist Party goals for Taiwan and the Senkakus. Chinas adversaries should prepare for the fact that, by 2027, China will see itself as having mustered sufficient force to counter the JCG in the Senkakus and the Self-Defense Force.

In the South China Sea, there have been instances of China mobilizing fishing boats and other vessels to conduct demonstrations in territorial disputes and maritime boundary disputes. A lot of attention is currently being paid to the legal status of such fishing boats when they are armed and deployed in armed conflict. One example of Chinas use of fishing fleets, known as maritime militias, in armed conflict is the 1974 incident between China and South Vietnam over the Paracel Islands. Such incidents are likely to occur in the Senkaku Islands as well.

A more realistic scenario, however, is that in peacetime, maritime militias will secretly land on the uninhabited Senkaku Islands, fly the Chinese flag and refuse to comply with the JCGs request to leave. It seems that the time is approaching that Japan should seriously consider how the JCG and the Self-Defense Force respond in that case. This question is relevant for the United States, too. President Biden reaffirmed during a telephone conversation with Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga that Article 5 of the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty, which stipulates joint defense obligations, applies to the Senkaku Islands. However, in response to Chinas hypothetical occupation of the uninhabited islands, which in the previous scenario would not result in a single death, the United States would be faced with a difficult choicethe so-called Senkaku Paradoxas to what extent it will participate in the risky operation to retake the islands without escalating into a Sino-American war. With such a situation in mind, Japan should strengthen its own response capabilities to prepare for potential Chinese aggression.

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China's New Coast Guard Law and Implications for Maritime Security in the East and South China Seas - Lawfare

‘Wicked Tuna’ rivalry gives way to cooperation | Local News | newburyportnews.com – The Daily News of Newburyport

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GLOUCESTER The coronavirus pandemic's tidal wave of challenges made its way to the high seas, and viewers of National Geographic Channel's "Wicked Tuna" will see a new dynamic when the 10th seasonopens with a 90-minute premiere Sunday at 9 p.m.

The show is known for following Gloucester fishermen in the highly competitive hunt for giant bluefin tuna and the race back to shore in search of the highest price fora fish that is in demand around the world.

That is until COVID-19prompted abusiness shutdown nearly a year ago,with restaurants shuttered or operating at a fraction of their capacity. The market and demand for the usually lucrative bluefin sank.

But the fish buyers and the eight captains on "Wicked Tuna" worked together to create a plan that would not flood the market and would keep them all afloat.

"It was great to see fishermen working together with buyers to do the best we could in these difficult times. We didn't see the prices we saw in the past butit was a fun year to participate in because we wanted it to be fun," said Capt. Dave Marciano, who is back on a newly renovated Hard Merchandise this season.

"We didn't make the money like past years but we were fortunate in this climate to be doing anything at all. A lot of people are unable to do whatever it is they do and many restaurants never opened fully. The one thing we wanted was for it to be a very positive season for the viewers. Collectively, we all have seen enough negativity between elections and the pandemic. We truly want people to have fun watching this show and forget about their worries, and I think we accomplished that," said Marciano, a Beverly resident who fishes out of Gloucester.

Capt. Paul Hebert of the Wicked Pissah suffered a personal loss when his father, Donald Hebert, who was in a nursing home, died of COVID-19 early in the pandemic. At the time,the captainwas filming the spinoff series "Wicked Tuna: Outer Banks" and, because of restrictions, was unable to visit his dad.

"It was one of the worst things I've been through. It was such a surprise to all of us," Hebert said.

He hopes this 10th season willlift spirits and be a bright spot for viewers.

"We worked as hard as we possibly could, and we put a lot of time in my boat because my boat is slower but it paid off," he said. "We are excited for this season and everyone is going to see how we all come together in this pandemic and we all helped each other out. I think the world has had enough with all the fighting, and it goes to show you when times are really tough, people who are competitive can work together."

He gave a shout-out to his crew Rick Schrafft of Rockport and Doug Hittinger of Newburyport for their steadfast labor.

The eight captains set asidetheir maritime rivalries to find some camaraderie.

"The pandemic had huge consequences," Marciano said. "What was interesting this year is we limited ourselves due to the loss of the markets, and it was a great sign that the buyers and fishermen were working together in a gentleman's agreement to sell three days a week and not flood the market, and we didn't need the government to take care of the problem. But there is always a competitive edge because everybody wants to get just one more than the other guy."

Marciano said this is going to be the funnest season yet, and that fun will go worldwide because "Wicked Tuna" airs internationally in 171 countries and in 43 languages.

"We have a fantastic dynamic in the way it all came out that will interest even nonfishing viewers, too. I think they in particular will enjoy this show," he said."We wanted to create something that people would have fun watching and be a part of. With the nearly year anniversary of when this pandemic began, we all are trying to survive in this life."

Reigning champion Capt. T.J. Ott of the Hot Tuna returns along with Gloucester's Capt. Dave Carraro, who has the most wins of all, aboard the FV-Tuna.com. Also competing are Beverly resident Capt. Bob Cook of the Fat Tuna, and new captainsJack Patrican of the Time Flies andSpurge Krasowski of the Moonshine.

Also returning is Capt. Tyler McLaughlin of the Pinwheel, whoalso feels the pressure.

"Its just really hard to make a living right now," he said. "This year in Gloucester, were just hoping to survive and make a couple bucks. These are strange times."

One episode this season will showcase the local fleet's community outreach. New England veterans from the Wounded Warrior Project were invited to join the tuna fishermen and the proceeds from their catches are donated back to the nonprofit project.

"We know these are difficult times," said Carraro, a five-time champion.

He noticed during the pandemic that the docks were unusually quiet at Cape Ann's Marina.

"The fans, especially the kids, love the show," Carraro said. "When we come in from fishing, there is often a crowd, but this year it was much different. There were times when we saw no one, and if there weretourists around, they were afraid to approach us because they didn't want to invade our space."

HOW TO WATCH

What:The new season of National Geographics hit series "Wicked Tuna" kicks off with an extended 90-minute episode.

Where: Season 10 premieres Sunday, Feb. 21, at 9 p.m. on National Geographic Channel; Seasons 1-9 streaming on Disney+.

Details: For more information, visit http://www.natgeotvpressroom.com and follow@WickedTunaon Twitter.

We are making critical coverage of the coronavirus available for free. Please consider subscribing so we can continue to bring you the latest news and information on this developing story.

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'Wicked Tuna' rivalry gives way to cooperation | Local News | newburyportnews.com - The Daily News of Newburyport

Croatia claims that BiH’s Right to the High Seas Access has not been endangered – Sarajevo Times

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The Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of the Republic of Croatia rejected as unfounded the diplomatic note sent by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) in January due to the announcement of the proclamation of an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the Croatian part of the Adriatic Sea.

Bisera Turkovic, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of BiH, intervened due to the announcement of the proclamation of the EEZ, claiming that this would endanger the rights of BiH, ie its right to access the high seas.

In its response to Sarajevo, the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs said it saw no reason for such a reaction because there was no violation of international law in this case, with which high officials of BiH, such as current BiH Presidency Chairman Milorad Dodik, agreed with.

In December last year, the Croatian Minister of Foreign and European Affairs, Gordan Grlic Radman, directly informed Minister Turkovic about all plans to declare the EEZ, while Croatian Ambassador to BiH Ivan Sabolic informed the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of BiH, and even Dodik later said that the proclamation of the EEZ does not call into question the rights of BiH.

It should be considered that the rights of BiH have not been violated in the process of declaring the EEZ by Croatia and that this country is behaving correctly in that regard. In order to swim to high seas (more precisely the international waters) from BiH, you need to pass through territorial waters of Croatia, and that is clear to anyone who looks at the map except Turkovic, said Dodik, commenting on a note which was earlier sent from Sarajevo to Zagreb on January 27th.

Considering these facts, the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs informed the BiH Ministry of Foreign Affairs that it could not accept their note as legitimate and official positions of BiH in this regard.

The proclamation of the EEZ of Croatia will take effect today, and the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs stresses that it will not cause any consequences for BiH because the legal regime of the protected ecological-fishing zone of Croatia (in Bosnian: ZERP) has been applied to that country since 2003. which now becomes an IGP.

The Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs reminds that Croatia provided unhindered access to and from the shores of BiH to the ZERP, under its obligations arising from the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), Klix.ba writes.

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Croatia claims that BiH's Right to the High Seas Access has not been endangered - Sarajevo Times

This Sea Dragon Skyrim mod brings a dash of Sea of Thieves to Tamriel – PCGamesN

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Good news, Skyrim fans one of the RPG gamescoolest player home mods has just got a shiny new update. Thay S/Dovahkiinathays Sea Dragon mod which gives your Dragonborn a ship to both live and sail around Skyrims shores in has just beengiven a 3.0 version, which means new features (and adventures) await.

Sea Dragon is back with some new features and finally the way I always wanted it to be, the modder says on Nexus. This ship can be used as home and you can travel to many locations across Skyrim and Solstheim, they explain, highlighting on the page that you can bring your friends and family to join you as crew aboard the mighty ship. Locations you can head to include Solitude (where its initially found), Windhelm, and Dawnstar, as well asTel Mythrin, Raven Rock, and Skaal Village once youve finished up the Dragonborn DLC quest.

As for the ship itself, well, its a luxurious affair. The ship features a lovely master bedroom, four bedrooms for your crew (two of which can become childrens rooms if you like), and aspace for your crew of up to 12 to hang out in.

Additionally, theres an office-like space for all your booty and knick-knacks, with storage for your dragon masks, dragon claws, and other items, a training room, plenty of racks to house your weapons, and even a prison. You can send your foes there, if you so choose. Gulp.

The Sea Dragon isa glorious thing, as you can see in the showcase clip of the mod above, and helps brings a dash of Sea of Thieves and adventures on the high seas to Tamriels frostiest region. If youre keen to grab the new 3.0 version, head to Nexus Mods here. As ever, mod with caution, and be sure to take a peek at our rundown of the best Skyrim mods on PC.

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This Sea Dragon Skyrim mod brings a dash of Sea of Thieves to Tamriel - PCGamesN

WCU professor emeritus explores the adventures of early women explorers in new book – Western Carolina University News

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WCU Stories February 15, 2021

When Jayne Zangleincame back from an excursion with Western Carolina University students to China a few years ago, she had the usual memorable and fun experiences - and an idea.

Then a WCU professor of business law, she envisioned a book about explorers and their discoveries. And not just any explorers. Zanglein wanted to tell about women from a time when female meant the fairer sex and, in the words of Roy Chapman Andrews, president of the men-only Explorers Club in 1932, were not adapted to exploration.

Now a professor emeritus, Zanglein has written The Girl Explorers: The Untold Story of the Globetrotting Women WhoTrekked, Flew and Fought Their Way Around the World, set to be published in March by Sourcebooks.

The women featured in the book proved that women were as capable explorers as men, said Zanglein. They broke a barrier so women today can travel and explore without discrimination.

The Girl Explorers reveals the founding of the Society of Women Geographers, an organization of adventurous female world explorers, and how key members served as early advocates for human rights paving the way for future women scientists by scaling mountains, exploring the high seas, flying across the Atlantic, and recording the world through film, sculpture and literature.

Along the way, Zanglein discovered some favorites. Blair Niles (an American novelist, expeditionist and travel writer) is my favorite, because she wrote about the people she met while traveling with compassion, she said. Annie Peck, who became a mountaineer later in life and was successful on her fifth attempt to climb Mount Huascaran in Peru, is also a favorite. She spoke whatever was onher mind and had no filter. I enjoyed that.

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WCU professor emeritus explores the adventures of early women explorers in new book - Western Carolina University News

Sea Of Thieves: 10 Tips And Tricks To Know Before Playing – TheGamer

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Before setting sail with a trusty crew of friends in Sea of Thieves, here are a few tips and tricks to know to make your life as a pirate easier.

Sea of Thieves has a vast variety of tasks and missions that seems to get updated regularly. The support and fanbase are vast and growing. The ability to sail, plunder, loot, attack, and essentially be the best (or worst) pirate you can be is very enticing.

Related: Sea Of Thieves: Every Trading Company, Ranked

Coupled with crews of fellow gamers and a plethora of ships to sail, this game can be enjoyed by many different types of gamers, solo or with friends. With the proper foreknowledge, you can make a smooth transition from landlubber to sea dog in no time.

Sailing really isn't as easy as it looks. There is a lot to it. In Sea Of Thieves, you will be tested against the ever-growing armada of players who are always out in the high seas. Knowing your route, understanding the wind, watching for incoming attacks from other ships and monsters, and knowing how to stop properly, just to name a few. Once you get the hang of sailing, next is repairing it on the fly, and this is a juggle especially if you're playing solo. Fighting and sailing at the same time entail learning a whole other new set of coordinated skills. Sailing isn't a cakewalk, especially at the beginning.

See that glimmer in the distance? That is a spyglass, not unlike a sniper scope. This is usually a sign you are getting sized up for battle or to be looted, to both. Either way, run. Something not good might be coming your way. In the same, when you use a spyglass yourself, you are also sending that glimmering message to someone that you have them in your sights. Use these signs as a warning. Fight it flee are usually your only options.

Those birds in the sky are a beacon, a marker. Like a buoy in the water, the birds in the sky are telling you there is something to check out. They mark treasure or sunken ships. Usually with one comes the other. Hustle though, you are not the only one who can see them. Pro Tip, grab the loot and get out of that area. If you linger too long another ship might come by and attack and loot you. They will end up taking your loot but your freshly acquired loot as well.

Black water equals terror. When has black water ever meant anything good? If you find black water sailing and you're not a strong ship and have little to no experience, you had better make your way to safety fast. The Meg, Kraken and other creatures may be lurking near. They are hiding in the depths waiting for some poor soul to pass by to attack. Be prepared or avoid it altogether.

Have a crew that wants to join you? Make sure you know your role and everyone else's' role as well. Know your shipmates is like knowing your coworkers. They all have a role in the ship from defense to attacking and sailing to maintaining and repairs. Can you trust these others? make sure you're not setting yourself up to be a victim of pirate plunder and mutiny on your own ship.

In the game, you will probably spend the majority of your sailing on the main upper deck. All the action is there. You have to sail the ship, search the surroundings, attack, and board and offboard. It is easy to forget about the lower deck.

Related: Sea Of Thieves: The 10 Best Ship Customization Items, Ranked

Below the deck is more storage and also where the damage can go unattended during storms and fights. You can start to take on water and not realize it until it's too late. Keep mindful of the entire ship.

That is really just that, the end of the world. Flat earthers rejoice? When you sail to the end of the world in Sea Of Thieves it seems that if you don't turn around fast enough it is certain death. Be wary of your sailing, especially if you're trying to find the limits. If you have a full crew, it's even worse because they will all go down with you.

Don't quit in the middle of a mission. XP is lost and you will actually go backwards. Not only does it not give you the XP, but it also takes it away. Also, all the loot and progress to the said mission is lost as well.

Related: Sea Of Thieves: How To Get Free Ancient Coins From Ancient Skeletons

Make sure you have allotted the time to complete the mission you set out for. If you have a crew it affects them too so be careful in your choosing. If you don't have the time then don't partake.

At the onset when you set sail you have to select a mission by vote, even in a solo game. This is not a glitch, just the way the game is set to play. It makes sense with crews and multiplayer aspects but as a solo player, you just have to go through the motions.

Learn this, make it second nature and make it happen fast. During the battle, if you have mastered hand brake turns you will have the tactical upper hand with being able to turn fast to either get the enemy in your sight or to flea fast from onslaught. Remember, there is a large amount of people all out to do ultimately the same things that you are, and you will be insight of many of them for attack and plunder so be smart and fast in your sailing. Also, as a side note, the cool factor when coming up to a harbor and pulling a handbrake turn to stop at the dock is high. Sail in fast and come into the dock sideways and land in style.

Next: 10 Mistakes Everyone Makes While Playing Sea Of Thieves

Next Genshin Impact: Every Quest In Mondstadt That Gives Primogems

Ryan has been a gamer since the early 80's. Retro gaming, modern gaming, it is all relevant to him. He enjoys writing about many topics but gaming is the fun one. He is a certified auto body tech and 5th degree black belt in Isshin-Ryu Karate. He runs a small dojo in his town of Chilliwack in B.C. He enjoys writing, training, mountain biking, kayaking, and anything else that keeps him busy.

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Sea Of Thieves: 10 Tips And Tricks To Know Before Playing - TheGamer

NEWPORT AREA WEATHER REPORT: Feb. 20-21 – newportri.com

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Newport Daily News

COASTAL RHODE ISLAND

Saturday:Partly sunny, with a high near 36. Northwest wind 10 to 14 mph.Saturday Night:Partly cloudy, with a low around 21. Northwest wind 13 to 15 mph.

Sunday:Sunny, with a high near 35. Northwest wind 6 to 14 mph.Sunday Night:Mostly cloudy, with a low around 27. Light and variable wind becoming southwest around 6 mph after midnight.

EXTENDED

Monday:A chance of snow before 10 a.m., then rain likely. Cloudy, with a high near 41. South wind 9 to 16 mph. Chance of precipitation is 70%.Monday Night:A chance of rain before 9 p.m. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 33. Southwest wind 11 to 13 mph becoming west after midnight. Chance of precipitation is 30%.

Tuesday:Mostly sunny, with a high near 41. West wind 10 to 15 mph.Tuesday Night:Partly cloudy, with a low around 33. West wind 14 to 16 mph.

Wednesday:Sunny, with a high near 43. West wind 15 to 17 mph.Wednesday Night:Mostly cloudy, with a low around 34. West wind 10 to 14 mph.

MARINE

Saturday:Northwestwind 9 to 12 knots. Partly sunny. Seas 1 foot or less.Saturday Night:Northwestwind 11 to 13 knots, with gusts as high as 20 knots. Partly cloudy. Seas 1 foot or less.

Sunday: North-northwestwind 9 to 12 knots decreasing to 5 to 8 knots in the afternoon. Sunny. Seas 1 foot or less.Sunday Night:Variable winds 5 knots or less. Mostly cloudy. Seas 1 foot or less.

TIDES, ETC.

Saturday's high tides: 1:24a.m., 1:53p.m. Low tides: 7:55a.m., 7:19p.m.

Sunday's high tides: 2:17a.m., 2:52p.m. Low tides: 9:17a.m., 8:28p.m.

Saturday's sunrise, 6:34. Sunset, 5:26.

Sunday's sunrise, 6:33. Sunset, 5:27.

Thursday's temperatures: High 30, low 24.

Continued here:

NEWPORT AREA WEATHER REPORT: Feb. 20-21 - newportri.com