XRP Price Expected to Hit $1 Minimum as We Approach 2021 – U.Today

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Since the XRP price slumped back to $0.28 on February 16, the third-largest coin has been doing its best to recover the $0.30 psychological level. At press time, it is changing hands at $0.29, according todata from CoinMarketCap.

The XRP community remains bullish as ever. Meanwhile, a crypto trader has shared a tweet, saying that he expects XRP to surge to at least $1 as 2021 approaches.

Semi-retired crypto trader, as he describes himself on his Twitter page, @AngeloBTC, has taken to social media to share his expectations regarding the prices of some top cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple and Tezos. He expects the coins to achieve the followingprice marks by 2021.

It's good news for all who are betting on Bitcoin the trader reckons it will hit $30,000 (contrary to John McAfees prediction of BTC surging to $1 mln). As for XRP the figure he named is $1.

Twitter user @cryptomocho, who boasts over 126,000 subscribers on Twitter, has posted an XRP/USDT chart from Binance, saying that if the third largest coin manages to stay above the $0.28 level, odds are that it willmakeanother attempt to skyrocket.

Meanwhile, XRP liquidity continues to rise via Ripples ODL corridors set up together with its partner MoneyGram.

Crypto investor Dave Jones has shared data from the Mexican Bitso exchange. Last week, it says, around $54 mln was transferred from USD to MXN using XRP 7.5 percent of the transfers in this corridor. This information initially came from the recent interview of Brad Garlinghouse to CNN.

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Despite the aforementioned good news, last week the media reported that MoneyGram had set up a new product, FastSend, without Ripples XRP. The remittance behemoth preferred Visa Direct instead.

Now, MoneyGram can allow its clients to send cash directly to millions of Visa cards.

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XRP Price Expected to Hit $1 Minimum as We Approach 2021 - U.Today

Binance CEO Strikes Back At FUD Over Reports That Exchange Is Not Authorized To Operate In Malta – ZyCrypto

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The CEO of Binance cryptocurrency exchange is striking back at a report that the exchange is not licensed to operate in Malta, calling it quite a bit of FUD. This case about Binance operating in Malta stems from a public statement recently published by Maltas chief financial regulatory body stating that the crypto exchange is not licensed to operate in the country.

The question about where Binance is actually headquartered has always been a mystery. But many assumed that the exchange is based in Malta after it announced that it was setting up an office there after being forced out of Japan by regulators.

At that point, Malta Prime Minister, Joseph Muscat welcomed Binance to the country with open arms. However, the Maltese crypto-friendly leader stepped down earlier this year. Noted cryptocurrency advocate John McAfee suggested that the new Prime Minister would not allow cryptocurrency operations in Malta.

But, Binances chief growth officer, Ted Lin, recently acknowledged that the exchange indeed has offices based in Malta.

Lin explained:

We have offices in Malta for customer services, and some compliance people there, but its not the headquarters per se. Its the spiritual headquarters. Its a name that people think about when they think about Binance.

However, the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) has published a statement affirming that Binance is not authorized to conduct any cryptocurrency operations in the country. As such, it is not subject to regulatory oversight by the MFSA. MFSA also noted that it is currently investigating whether Binance has conducted any activities in the nation which may not fall within the realm of regulatory oversight.

MFSA further said:

Admission of virtual financial assets to trading and/or for offering virtual financial assets to the public in and from Malta requires an MFSA license in terms of the Financial Assets Act (CAP 590) of 2018

Following this statement from MFSA, Binance CEO, Changpeng Zhao took to Twitter to clear the air. In a series of tweets, he opined that this report is old news and bringing it up again is quite a bit of FUD. He also cited that Binance has no headquarters because it is a decentralized company.

Nonetheless, this response has seemingly not answered the nagging question on where is Binance is really based. A slew of the comments below CZs tweet noted that every time there is a story about Binance headquarters, CZ always calls it FUD. The CEO of The Block, Mike Dudas, even pointed out that a Binance document stating that the exchange is governed by the law of Malta has since been deleted.

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Binance CEO Strikes Back At FUD Over Reports That Exchange Is Not Authorized To Operate In Malta - ZyCrypto

Johnny Depp: Upcoming Movies He Will Be Seen In – The Digital Weekly

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Johnny Depp is an actor, producer, and musician from the United States. He was nominated for three Academy Awards and won the Best Actor Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Awards. Thanks to the 1980s T.V. series 21 Jump Street, Depp became a teen idol.

Depp is considered to be one of the biggest movie stars in the world. He has received praise from the critics for his portrayals of Ed Woods screenwriter assistant, Joseph D. Pistone in Donnie Brascos undercover F.B.I. Agent, author J. J. In Finding Neverland Mr. Barrie and in Black Mass the Boston Gangster Whitey Bulger. He is the third biggest actor in the world, as movies featuring in his box office in the United States amount to over $3.7 billion and over $10 billion worldwide.

McAfee is your computer systems antivirus program that protects you from unwanted malware, unexpected ad-clicks, and poor downloads for years. John McAfee, a man with drogue-related problems, was started by driving schools out of work and still managed to make $100 million at a time in his life. Just imagine that Johnny Depp is playing a guy like that. And there is good news if youre excited about the idea. It has been confirmed that the film King of the Jungle will be directed by Glen Ficarra and John Requa based on Johns life. And not all of that. And not all of that.

Under a Snow Moon is a fantasy film starring Jamie Brewer and Johnny Depp. Sean Stone will direct the movie with a script written by the writers Alexandria Altman and Melody Rowland. The film uncovers events that take place under a snow moon deep in the Bayou of Louisiana, where a mysterious child is mysteriously delivered to a two-centuries-old plantation where two older adults care for her. In time, the ancient legend of six hundred years reveals her ancestral journey to her destiny.

Universal Pictures announced in 2014, with Dracula Untolds publication, that it will launch a new series, called Dark Universe, which is rebooting its original Monster Film Franchise. In 2015 The Mummy was revealed, and in 2017, Dracula Untold was released from the franchise. Universal soon released single-film adaptations of the characters Frankenstein, Jekyll & Hyde, and The Invisible Man.

In September 1996, when Tupac Shakur was fatally shot, the music industry received a devastating blow. The assassination of the famous singer got a lot of media attention. His rap competitor, Christopher Wallace, aka The Notorious B.I.G., was killed six months later in a similar manner before it could all settle down.

Waiting for the Barbarians is a Ciro Guerra film based on Js novel of the same name. Mr. Coetzee. Johnny Depp is the star of the film, such as Colonel Joll, Mark Rylance, Robert Pattinson, and Gana Bayarsaikhan. In October 2016, it was reported that director Ciro Guerra had been working on an adaptation to the novel Waiting for the Barbarians.

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Johnny Depp: Upcoming Movies He Will Be Seen In - The Digital Weekly

John McAfee Praises Privacy Crypto, Reveals the Secret of Technical Progress – U.Today

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The antivirus guru and a prominent crypto bull John McAfee has not been tweeting about cryptocurrencies for a while busy talking to his followers about the permanent faults of the US government and the taxation system.

However, a few hours ago, he resumed his perpetual discussion of virtues that cryptocurrencies privacy coins in particular have.

In a recent tweet, John McAfee praises privacy coins or rather he praises criminals for being the first to adopt all valuable technical novelties automobiles, the telephone and now they are welcoming privacy coins.

McAfee tweets:

Authorities are always behind. Now, they [criminals] have validated the power of privacy. Thank God!

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In the second tweet in the thread, McAfee continues the discussion, revealing the reasons, why the authorities are perpetually behind.

McAfee believes that this is down to bureaucracy. Bureaucrats have a high level of incompetence, the crypto baron says.

They use their power to slow the rate of society's progress down to their own level of incompetence.

Recently, the former antivirus mogul revealed that he believes Bitcoin to be ancient technology, saying that he no longer bets on BTC as a toolto change the global financial system.

As per him, blockchains that are appearing now are much better and all his BTC promo campaign, the prediction that BTC will hit $1 mln and a promise to eat his penis if it does not have proved to be just a bait to attract new users into the crypto sphere.

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John McAfee Praises Privacy Crypto, Reveals the Secret of Technical Progress - U.Today

Greece has to act regarding "unsustainable situation" for refugees on the islands – The Brussels Times

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Saturday, 22 February 2020

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, called on Greece to act regarding the unsustainable situation for refugees on the Greek islands on Friday.

These refugees are mainly living on the islands opposite Turkey. Grandi said Greece would have support from Europe.

The living conditions on the islands are shocking and shameful, Grandi said, adding they had gotten worse since his last visit in November.

The High Commissioner also appealed for European solidarity and requested that the responsibilities be shared. This could involve relocating non-accompanied children and other vulnerable people to other EU countries and speeding up family reunions.

Around 36,000 people are currently living in over-crowded and unsanitary camps in five islands on the Aegean Sea (Lesbos, Samos, Chios, Kos, Leros) which are only designed to hold 6,200.

Many people are living without electricity, or even running water, in filth and waste, Grandis press release says.

Asylum seekers difficulty in accessing healthcare is also a big concern: the risks incurred by the most vulnerable people are among the worst seen in refugee crises across the world.

Grandi says the situation must be resolved quickly by relocating refugees to the Greek mainland, where extra capacity to house refugees must be found radiply.

The Greek government transferred 9,000out of the planned 20,000 asylum seekers last year. The delay is due to the lack of accommodation and increasing opposition from local authorities.

Five years after the 2015 migrant crisis, the situation Greece finds itself in as the migrant gateway to Europe has led to slightly xenophobic demonstrations (which have been marred by incidents) on the Aegean islands and several cities on the mainland.

Sarah Johansson

The Brussels Times

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Greece has to act regarding "unsustainable situation" for refugees on the islands - The Brussels Times

Thousands gather in Germany to mourn 9 killed in racist shooting – Axios

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Approximately 10,000 people marched in the town of Hanau, Germany, Sunday to mourn the deaths of nine victims who were killed by an anti-immigrant gunman last Wednesday, AP reports.

Catch up quick: The attacker killed the nine people five of which were reportedly Turkish citizens in Hanau, a suburb of Frankfurt, before turning the gun on his mother and himself. He left behind racist videos and texts in which he called for genocide and claimed that he'd been surveilled since birth.

The big picture: Per AP, this was Germany's third deadly attack inspired by far-right views in just a few months. Since Chancellor Angela Merkel permitted a wave of over 1 million refugees to enter the country during the height of the migrant crisis in 2015, Germany's far-right, anti-immigrant AfD party has seen historic electoral success. It now has representation in all 16 regional parliaments.

Go deeper: Hate crimes reach 16-year high, according to FBI report

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Thousands gather in Germany to mourn 9 killed in racist shooting - Axios

How the American dream died on the world’s busiest border – The Guardian

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Milson, from Honduras, sits with his 14-year-old daughter, Loany, on the reedy riverbank beside the bridge connecting Matamoros, in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, with downtown Brownsville, Texas, across the Rio Grande.

On the far reach a few yards but another world away is a vast tent (officially a soft-sided facility) erected to cope with the sheer numbers seeking asylum in the US. In a few weeks time, on the date stipulated on their notice to appear document, the people staying here will have their credible fear interview by video link.

On the Mexican side, clinging to the bridge like barnacles, are hundreds of smaller tents, where roughly 1,000 people are gathered for safety, in fear of the mafia that has kidnapped, murdered or disappeared hundreds of migrants over the past decade. It is a tent city where, says Milson, time passes very, very slowly. Almost all are from Central America.

Upriver at Ciudad Acua, about 250 people are encamped in the ecological park, staring across at the lights of Del Rio, Texas. Most are from Cameroon, Angola or the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Further west, at Ciudad Jurez, a mix of Cubans, Central Americans, a Ugandan and an Indian kill the endless time in the yard of a Methodist-run shelter. On the borders far western edge, in Tijuana, Haitians trade on the streets a community of hundreds who came to cross, but remained in Mexico.

Ten years ago, most people trying to cross into the US from these various places were Mexicans, in flight from poverty or violence.More recently, though, there had been a lull, with Mexicans nowhere to be seen at some crossing points. But 2019 figures show a renewed rise in Mexican asylum seekers, as the narcotraffic cycle of violence returns to record levels. Roughly half the asylum-seekers on the border are now Mexican.

As the migration crisis on the US-Mexican border becomes a full-blown humanitarian catastrophe and the centrepiece of Donald Trumps re-election campaign, one thing is clear to those who have supported migrants over decades: the world has converged here. Such are the historical and geopolitical layers of migration to the busiest border in the world, gateway to the globally ubiquitous American dream a dream now twisting into a nightmare.

Woody Guthrie wrote his song Deportee about migrants working and dying in Americas deserts in 1948. It remains resonant, but the cast has changed.

Mass migrations began with poor Mexicans crossing to work in Americas farms, and continued with the bracero programme a Spanish term for a labourer initiated in 1942, which gave limited access to American jobs. The scheme ended in 1964, yet vast numbers of Mexicans continued to cross, legally and illegally.

During the 80s, when civil wars erupted across Central America, tens of thousands tried to cross, many finding a place in the US thanks to the sanctuary movement, which gave a path to legality.

All the while millions of Mexicans came to the border not to cross but to live on it, in maquiladora assembly plants, producing goods exported duty-free to the US.

From 2006, as the cartel wars devoured Mexico, more fled, seeking safety in the north. The demographics changed again.

Methodist pastor Juan Fierro Garca, who runs the shelter in Jurez, says: More people than ever are on the move from generalised violence all over the world, seeking safe places for themselves and their children. And if anyone thinks this is going to stop, think again this is just the beginning.

The Trump administration has met this surge in arrivals with a policy of deterrence based on fear and brutality.

The separation of children from their parents for incarceration outraged the world. The policy was ruled illegal by US courts and abandoned, though hundreds of children remain separated after their parents were deported. Internal documentation leaked from US Customs and Border Protection shows full knowledge of the traumatic affects of child separation. Unaccompanied minors crossing the border continue to be detained in appalling conditions. In December, ProPublica published CCTV footage that appears to show a Guatemalan teenager left to die in a concrete cell.

An internal report from last July, seen by the Guardian and written by Jennifer Costello, the inspector general of homeland security, to acting director Kevin McAleenan, warned that at-risk populations are subject to overcrowding and prolonged detention. But Trump intends to expand the number of those detained rather than deported under migrant protection protocols (MPP).

Under MPP, non-Mexicans from Spanish-speaking countries cannot remain in the US to await their credible fear interview, as is mandated under the 1939 Montevideo treaty on asylum. They must instead wait on the Mexican side, with the result that 57,000 asylum seekers, mostly from Central America, are now encamped south of the border in unsanitary conditions, prey to kidnap and extortion.

Under another policy, called metering, daily asylum applications are limited, so that unofficial waiting lists, thousands-long, are drawn up on the other side. The Trump administration announced in January that it plans to extend the MPP to Portuguese-speaking Brazilian asylum seekers.

The policies are working: US Customs and Border Protection report that the number of arrests for illegal crossings fell 75% from May to November last year, from 132,000 to 33,510. The reason is simple: word reaching the Mexican side of how appalling conditions are.

The chapel at the Methodist Buen Pastor shelter in Jurez has become a dormitory for young mothers and children, among them Marisela del Carmen Espinosa, who lays her seven-year-old son, Diego, on a blanket; the child is running a fever. Marisela fled El Salvador when the MS-13 gang demanded she join them the problem being that Diegos father was among them.

They came to my house, armed, saying they needed me to do tasks for them, and if I didnt theyd kill me and the boy, she says. Marisela has spent the past year on trucks and railway cars, crossing Mexico, paying $8,000 (6,211) to coyotes and other people smugglers. To her horror, Diegos father has traced her to Jurez, and Im scared when I go out for food, because he said his contacts here would take our son and kill me. I know that the police and gangs are friends if I go to them for help, Ill be killed.

In the mens dorm, Evian Mvouba, from DRC, prepares to cross and make his asylum claim. He stands a better chance than his Central American companions since MPP does not apply to Africans. But he does fall under the metering system, and more than 2,000 people are ahead of him on the list.

Evians village was attacked by government forces 18 months ago. He has since journeyed through Angola, Brazil, Colombia and Central America, with no word of many of his family members. It is limbo, he says, not knowing where I live, and whether they are alive. Most of my fellow Africans have moved on, and a few have been successful because they are politically persecuted more than the people here from Guatemala and Honduras.

In all these shelters the Cubans look different better clad and fed, escaping not violence or desperation, but a regime they fear or despise.

Pedro Ruz Tamayo is an opposition leader, educated and erudite. Youll not find a Cuban in Jurez who supports the regime, he says, but youll not find many who contest it. They just want to try their luck in the US.

Pedro commutes between the shelter and an emerging Little Havana in Jurez, consisting of people waiting to cross or refused asylum and returned.

Ariel Busquet kneads burritos in the Llenadora caf. He was number 13,527 on the waiting list to cross. After hearing from a friend who returned following three months incarceration on the other side, he elected to remain in Jurez. We Cubans left our country to work for a wage something we cannot do there, he says. But thats what Im doing here in Jurez! My relatives call themselves Cuban-Americans; I call myself a Cuban-Mexican.

In El Paso, Ruben Garca has seen each migration wave arrive since 1978, when he first opened Annunciation House, which is now a network of shelters for migrants. The shelters have been vital to current efforts to abate the suffering.

Without radical Catholicism of the kind that inspires Garca, far less would happen on the migrants behalf. To overlook the faith of those who do this is to not accurately report what is happening.

Forty years ago, a group of us started this work, he says. We made a decision to offer hospitality to undocumented migrants.

But we also talked to reporters, universities, hoping we could bring about change for the better. And 40 years later, we have Mr Trump as president and below him very capable officials whose sole task is to make life unbearable for refugees. It makes me think of Lazarus, restored to life by Jesus, who turned to the community and said: Unbind him. In this situation, it is the refugees who unbind us, sharing their stories, their struggles. Thereve been days when weve received hundreds of people.

One night, up to 1,000 migrants were released on to the streets around El Paso bus station. TV coverage showed Garca, arms wide, saying to a group: Bienvenidos! welcome and it seemed the first kind gesture they had encountered in months.

Garca has seen generations of migrants flee death squads in the 1980s, when war was war, and you knew who the sides were, to this new kind of undeclared war, where no one knows the rules, and you live in a state of permanent insecurity. Plus drought and crop failure.

You either give up your children to those realities back there, or you pay the coyote, subjecting yourself to debt bondage and whatever risk, and leave.

Migrants need guidance through a system designed to fail, says Molly Molloy, up the road in Las Cruces. Molloy worked as an archivist at New Mexico State University, but has retired to work with migrants, something she first did in the 80s. She is now a paralegal, translator and researcher for immigration lawyer Nancy Oretskin.

In the civil wars in the 1980s migrants were mainly people who had never been to school or left their hamlet and, with successive waves of migrants, blocks have been laid in response, says Molloy. September 11 2001 was a dividing line, after large numbers, mainly Mexican men, fled poverty as the result of the North American Free Trade Agreement and clearance of subsistence farms. Then came two further push factors: Mexicans fleeing violence after 2006, and the great recession, after which there were just fewer jobs for these people.

And now climate change, and in Central America, violence of gangs that were initially deported from Los Angeles. A level of violence more extreme, on a daily, monthly basis more people killed even than during the civil wars.

Oretskins family were migrants. I was raised by crazy Jewish entrepreneurs raised to think: dont you ever forget.

Handling 10-15 asylum cases a year, she works in the immigration courts where 90% lose, affording a second bite at the cherry to the Board of Immigration Appeals, where 99.9% of the 90% lose.

The evidence required by an applicant is often impossible to produce, says Oretskin. If you dont have a doctors report, it did not happen. If you are attacked in El Salvador, the gang will say: Go to the doctor and well kill you. We have reports of doctors in cahoots with gangs.

Occasional successes are usually among Africans. Oretskin shows a wedding photo of one client, from Cameroon, permitted to stay after being kept in a gym in Ciudad Jurez for three weeks, and staying at my house when she had nowhere else to go.

What sets Trump apart, even in an environment systematically stacked against refugees, is the brutality of the manner in which rules applied. Former secretaries of homeland security, she says, had some idea of what cannot be done because it is illegal. But the people there now are there just because someone has to be. We do not even have due process, let alone justice.

Night is eerie in the ecological park at Ciudad Acua, where the Rio Grande is shallow enough to wade to Texas. Many do it to surrender to the Border Patrol and apply for asylum, but as metering limits the numbers and the wait lengthens, so the temptation rises to slip across illegally.

Charly and Loreley, a father and daughter from Cameroon, have travelled on foot, by ship and bus, via Nigeria, Brazil, Ecuador and Central America, paying $6,000 to smugglers.

Charly, a schoolteacher, says his community was continually harassed by militias of the French-speaking government, until one raid last year incinerated dozens of houses, and he was arrested, detained and tortured.

This cannot be the end of our long road: lavatories that leak into the ground, rubbish piling up that no one collects, he reflects.

Not all migrants want to cross. Some are stung by experiences on the other side, others just tired of waiting.

On the borders far western edge, Tijuana has become home to thousands of people who once intended to cross, but have remained.

Robenson Metellus is among the hundreds who arrived from Haiti after the 2010 earthquake, having travelled through Belize, Guatemala and Mexico only to be refused asylum in the US. Rather than return, he proceeded from the Casa del Migrante shelter to selling souvenirs to tourists.

After a year, Robenson got a job in a coffee house and by night started a food delivery service Mexican and soul food. He is now arranging for a sister and son to join him from Port-au-Prince.

Robenson is part of a singularly successful assimilation, says the citys prosecutor, Jos Alberto lvarez: Theyve been largely welcome; people find them interesting, and admire their work ethic. Do you know how many Haitians Ive indicted on a serious felony since they arrived? Zero.

At the Zacazonapan bar in the red light district of Tijuana, thick with marijuana smoke and packed with Tijuaneros plus gringos in town for cheap drink, a Norteo band is playing. Resistencia Migrante was formed in the Espacio Migrante shelter. On keyboard is Olivr, who spent two years travelling from El Salvador and seven months in Tijuana. He has given up trying to cross the border; his flight from gang threats was insufficient for entry to the US, so he tried to cross illegally but was caught. Weve abandoned the American dream as a nightmare, he says, and its OK here. We are survivors.

In Tijuana, lawyers and volunteers are mostly concerned with what Nicole Ramos, at the Al Otro Lado migrant resource centre, calls trying to get the US authorities to abide by their own laws, which they dont. Though, she adds, terrifying numbers of our people just disappear in this city.

The Mexican state is nowhere to be seen in all this. Grupo Beta, an organisation formed by the Mexican government to help migrants, has been withdrawn from some areas after allegedly taking bribes to move people up the waiting list. Almost all in Matamoros are from Central America, awaiting their credible fear interview on the other side. Conditions here are so bad that migrants blocked the bridge to Brownsville in protest in October.

Milson and Loany sit by the river. Lack of fresh water makes them tempted to wash, with others, among the same eddies and whirlpools that drowned another father and daughter recently as they tried to swim to the far bank. Milson and Loany come from Tegucigalpa. This is Milsons third attempt to cross, and we joke about a hit song by Los Tigres del Norte, Tres Veces Mojado three times wet (from swimming the Rio Grande).

Milson made it in 2014, but was deported. Before his second attempt, he was kidnapped by a gang, Los Zetas, and held in the desert for eight days. He is coy about how he was released, suggesting payment by a cousin in St Louis. They told me that if I ever came back, theyd kill me, he adds. He crossed, was again deported, and returned to Honduras for good, he thought. But then the MS-13 informed me: Were having your daughter. I said: Come on my love, were leaving.

Father and daughter were separated for a week on the US side. They kept us in the heat by day, and as cold as the air-conditioning would go by night, with filthy blankets and toilets, says Loany. When we asked them to turn the cold air off, they refused.

Milson is clear. I know some of the parents whose children have left [to go to the US alone]. Theyre devastated, whether they knew or not. Id never let Loany go without me thats why we are here, so she can be safe with me. It has to be legal, and together or not at all.

Loany concurs: Im staying with my Papa.

The conviviality in such extreme hardship is remarkable; there is almost no friction. They line up for breakfast in respect of priority for women and children, served by a group called Team Brownsville from across the river, founded by Michael Benavides, a former bomb disposal soldier, now Mormon missionary.

People disappear. Its so scary, he warns. Youll agree to meet someone next day, come back, ask around, and no one knows where they are. They cannot do everything to defend against the mafia, but they look after each other. Watch them, he says, as volunteers hand out plates of beans, not a push or shove.

Benavides has the names of two teenagers who died in US government custody on two crosses, tattooed above his heart.

Team Brownsville started out cooking in a tiny kitchen a block from the border, then expanded raising money and buying tents, driven by a belief, explains Benavides: that this is what America should be. My grandparents came from Mexico, and raised me to think of America as a country of compassion and open arms to those in need. This is my idea of patriotism. The operation feeds more than 600 people, we just need to keep raising the funds to keep it going, he says.

Lining up for breakfast are Jocelyne Flores and her daughter, Imena, four, sent back under migrant protection protocols. Pregnant Jocelyne left San Salvador after Imenas father who beat her - threatened to kill them both. It has been explained to her that domestic violence is no longer grounds for asylum, but Jocelyne is confident theyll make an exception. Glady Caas Aguilar takes her under her wing and makes an arrangement with the local hospital.

Glady runs the list of those waiting to cross. La lista, la lista! - how I hate it, she says, as they call out names of those due to cross at 4am.

Fork lightning and rain break over the camp. Night falls, and a group sits among the puddles, as torrential water lashes the concrete, singing they all know the lyrics a hit by Tropa Vallenata, called The Roads of Life:

Los caminos de la vida / No son como yo pensabaComo los imaginaba / No son como yo crea

(The roads of the life / Theyre not as I thought / Not as I imagined them / Not as I believed)

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How the American dream died on the world's busiest border - The Guardian

Local and global factors fuelling far-right violence in Germany – The Guardian

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The deadly terrorist shooting in the German town of Hanau represents the latest in a string of far-right attacks and plots in what has long been considered one of Europes most stable countries.

The murderous actions of the gunman, identified in the German media as Tobias Rathjen, came only days after a dozen German men were arrested for allegedly plotting armed attacks on mosques around the country.

Their extraordinary suspected goal was to kill Muslims in commando style attacks with the explicit intention of provoking revenge, and even civil war. Each member was expected to contribute 50,000 to fund the operation.

Part of the inspiration was global: German prosecutors say the plotters were influenced by the violent attacks on mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in which a gunman killed 51 people, streaming some of it live on Facebook.

But there are also local factors. In the period since the migration crisis of 2015, when large numbers of often desperate people arrived in the country from Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East, far-right activity appears to have increased.

German police said last week they were monitoring 53 potentially violent individuals associated with the extreme right, up from 22 in 2016, and the domestic intelligence and security agencies are under intense pressure because of the growing number of plots and incidents.

Part of the problem is that until now the German security community doesnt seem to have been very good at dealing with the situation, said Patrik Hermansson, of the far-right monitoring group Hope Not Hate. In some cases, extremists have had links with the police and the military.

Last June it emerged that a group of rightwing extremists called Nordkreuz (Northern Cross) had used police data to compile a death list of leftwing and pro-refugee targets. Some of the 30 or so group members had security links, with at least one still employed in a special commando unit.

The group had ordered body bags and quicklime to dispose of their potential victims, but despite the plot, Nordkreuz was not even noted as a threat by the BfV, the countrys domestic intelligence agency, in its annual report.

More recently, an antisemitic gunman, Stephen Balliet, used an improvised homemade shotgun to kill a 40-year-old woman and a 20-year-old man outside a synagogue in the eastern city of Halle. The attack, in October, could have been even worse: the gunman had tried and failed to enter the place of worship, where a congregation was marking Yom Kippur.

As in Christchurch, the attacker streamed the episode online from a head-mounted camera, saying at one point: Nobody expects the internet SS. The mosque plotters arrested last week allegedly tried to acquire similar slam gun shotguns.

Last summer Stephan Ernst, a 45-year-old with a string of convictions for violent anti-migrant crime, was arrested for allegedly shooting dead a conservative politician, Walter Lbcke, at close range outside his house in Istha, central Germany.

Lbcke was well known for his pro-migrant stance, and videos of his comments had circulated among far-right circles on YouTube. Ernst, whose DNA was recovered from the crime scene, was allegedly incensed by his opinions.

Last month Germany banned the neo-Nazi group Combat 18, with which Ernst was believed to be in contact. Founded in Britain in the early 1990s as a militant wing of the British National party, the organisation had found a new life in a country that, on the whole, remains particularly sensitive about its fascist past.

Around 200 police officers carried out raids in six German states, seizing phones, computers, weaponry as well as Nazi keepsakes from members of the group which Horst Seehofer, Germanys interior minister, said enjoys great respect within the far-right extremist scene because of the countrys history.

British investigators say there are links between British, German and Nordic far-right groups online, where most people are radicalised, connecting with like-minded individuals across national boundaries using specialist social media networks such as Telegram.

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Local and global factors fuelling far-right violence in Germany - The Guardian

Coronavirus Live Updates: Outbreaks Around the World Raise Fears of Pandemic – The New York Times

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Wuhan walks back an announcement that it will ease a lockdown.

The announcement was striking: Wuhan, the Chinese city at the center of the coronavirus epidemic, would begin easing a sweeping lockdown imposed by officials in late January by allowing some people to leave.

But just hours after news of the change on Monday, the authorities backtracked, saying the announcement had been made in error.

The reversal prompted anger and confusion in China and added to fears that the government was mishandling its response to the virus. The government in Wuhan, a city of 11 million, has previously come under attack for acting too slowly and concealing information about the outbreak.

I just went to the bathroom and the policy was changed when I came out, one user wrote on Weibo, a popular Chinese social media site. Who is Wuhan listening to?

In the initial announcement, the authorities in Wuhan said that healthy people who did not reside in the city, as well as locals who required specialized medical treatment, would be eligible to leave.

Such a decision the first relaxation of a lockdown that has kept millions of people indoors for weeks would most likely have required approval from the central government in Beijing.

But a few hours later, the government reversed course, deleting the original announcement.

In a fresh statement, the authorities in Wuhan said that the original directive had been issued without the approval of top leaders, and that it would seriously criticize the people responsible for the error.

Death toll in Iran rises to at least 12, drawing fears of further spread in the Middle East.

The outbreak has killed at least 12 people in Iran as of Monday, state news outlets reported the largest number of coronavirus-linked deaths outside China.

Experts have said that, based on the number of dead, the total number of cases in Iran is probably much higher, as the illness linked to the virus appears to kill about one of every 50 people infected.

Iran said just days ago that it was untouched by the virus, and the sudden increase in cases has raised concerns that it may be experiencing a significant outbreak. The countrys health ministry said on Saturday that 43 people had tested positive, with eight deaths, state-run Press TV reported. Tehran announced a weeklong closure of schools, universities and cultural centers across 14 provinces in an effort to curb the coronavirus.

Updated Feb. 10, 2020

Amid evidence that the virus may be spreading elsewhere in the Middle East with cases confirmed in both Bahrain and Kuwait linked to Iran neighboring nations have put measures in place to try to limit transmissions. Pakistan and Turkey temporarily closed their borders with Iran on Sunday.

Pakistans 596-mile border with Iran is mostly porous, and controlling a potential spread of the coronavirus poses a major challenge.

Afghanistans National Security Council said on Sunday that all travel to Iran would be reduced to essential humanitarian needs, and the first case of the disease was confirmed in the country on Monday.

Within Iran, long lines have formed outside pharmacies, and there is a shortage of masks and disinfectants, according to health officials and people in Iran. Officials have warned that hospitals are overstretched and said that people should refrain from going to the emergency room unless they have acute symptoms.

Although the origin of the outbreak in Iran is unclear, the Fars news agency on Sunday quoted the countrys health minister as saying that Chinese carriers of the virus were a source of the outbreak in the country.

Ahmad Amir-Abadi, a lawmaker who represents Qom in the Iranian Parliament, criticized the governments response and said that the death toll was much higher than reported, according to Irans Labor News Agency. He said that 50 people with the virus had died in his constituency.

But Eraj Harirchi, Irans deputy minister of health, called those claims false and vowed to resign if they proved to be true.

We reject the death of 51. No one has the authority for announcing such news, Mr. Harirchi said, according to state-run Fars news agency, maintaining the death toll was still at 12.

South Korea on Monday reported 231 more cases of the virus that causes the disease Covid-19, bringing the nations total to 833 cases and seven deaths.

President Moon Jae-in on Sunday put South Korea on the highest possible alert in its fight against the coronavirus, a move that empowers the government to lock down cities and take other sweeping measures to contain the outbreak.

The coming few days will be a critical time for us, he said at an emergency meeting of government officials to discuss the outbreak. The central government, local governments, health officials and medical personnel and the entire people must wage an all-out, concerted response to the problem.

Many of South Koreas coronavirus cases are in the southeastern city of Daegu, which has essentially been placed under a state of emergency, though people are still free to enter and leave the city.

More than half of the people confirmed to have been infected are either members of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, a secretive religious sect with a strong presence in Daegu, or their relatives or other contacts.

On Monday, the United States Forces Korea confirmed that a dependent of a member of the armed forces living in Daegu was among those who tested positive for the virus.

Europe confronts coronavirus as Italy scrambles to contain spike in cases.

As Italy scrambled on Sunday to contain the first major coronavirus outbreak in Europe, a new nervousness pervaded the continent, with officials in nearby countries pledging to keep the outbreak from spreading further.

The virus presents Europe with perhaps its greatest challenge since the 2015 migration crisis, which radically altered the politics of the European Union and exposed its institutional weaknesses. If the virus spreads, the fundamental principle of open borders within much of Europe so central to the identity of the bloc will undergo a stress test, as will the vaunted but strained European public health systems, especially in countries that have undergone austerity measures.

A European commissioner said the European Union was in constant contact with the authorities in Italy. And Frances health minister, Olivier Veran, said at a news conference on Sunday that the country was watching the problematic situation in Italy closely.

The spike in Italy has already prompted an aggressive response from Italian officials. The country locked down more than 50,000 people in 10 towns in the northern Lombardy region, where a sizable cluster of coronavirus infections has emerged, and passed emergency measures that apply throughout the country.

Residents on lockdown were supposed to leave or enter their towns only with special permission. Police and armed forces personnel were deployed to monitor the entrances to the towns. Officials closed schools and canceled the last two days of the Venice carnival, which draws thousands of people from around the world, and canceled trade fairs, opera performances and soccer matches.

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Italy rose to 152, officials said on Sunday, from three on Thursday. More than 100 of those cases are in the Lombardy region. At least four people have died, including a 77-year-old woman and a 78-year-old man, and at least 26 are in intensive care, officials said.

Markets fall in response to outbreaks spread.

European and Asian markets fell on Monday as investors worried that the economic disruption already seen in China because of the coronavirus outbreak might have impacts elsewhere.

In Europe, most stock markets were down more than 3 percent. The FTSE MIB index, which measures stocks on the Borsa Italiana in Milan, fell 4.3 percent. Italy locked down at least 10 towns over the weekend in response to an outbreak of the virus.

Oil prices also slid, and futures markets suggested Wall Street was headed to a rough opening.

In Asia, the South Korean market slumped nearly 4 percent after a surge in cases of the coronavirus confirmed there over the weekend. The Australian market dropped over 2 percent, while the Hong Kong market fell 1.8 percent.

The Shanghai stock market was down only slightly, while shares in Shenzhen rose. The worse the virus outbreak, the better the chance the central bank will release more money into the financial system, which would tend to support share prices, said Hao Hong, the research director for the international operations of Chinas Bank of Communications.

The stock market in Japan was closed on Monday, a public holiday there in honor of the emperors birthday.

The coronavirus epidemic in China has already severely curtailed economic growth in the country. Factories have been slow to reopen, partly because mass quarantines have prevented many employees from returning to their jobs but also because demand in China has at least temporarily collapsed for a wide range of goods. Auto sales plummeted 92 percent in the first two weeks of February compared to the same time last year.

One of the big questions facing investors now lies in whether economies elsewhere will be similarly affected. In addition to the reports in Italy, South Korea also now faces a rapidly growing number of cases as well, and President Moon Jae-in on Sunday put the country on its highest level of alert.

Samsung, the worlds largest smartphone maker, said on Monday that it had restarted operations at a factory in South Korea that was shut down over the weekend after an employee there tested positive for the new coronavirus.

Also on Monday, the fellow South Korean gadget maker LG Electronics said it had closed a research facility in Incheon after an employees family member was confirmed to have contracted the virus. The facility is expected to reopen on Tuesday, an LG spokesman said.

Samsungs plant, in the southeastern city of Gumi, is not far from the city of Daegu, which South Korean officials have essentially placed on lockdown after discovering a large number of infections there.

Disease control experts are watching South Korea closely, concerned that it could become another hot zone for the new virus outside of China. South Korea has so far reported 763 infections and seven deaths. President Moon Jae-in put the nation on the highest possible alert on Sunday, empowering the government to lock down cities and restrict peoples movements.

Samsung, a pillar of the South Korean economy, manufactures mobile devices in Vietnam and India in addition to its home country.

An employee at the Gumi complex was found to be infected with the new virus on Saturday, Samsung said, and the facility was shut the same day. A company spokeswoman said the floor where the infected employee worked would remain closed until Tuesday.

Afghanistan on Monday declared a state of emergency in the western province of Herat after health officials confirmed the countrys first case of coronavirus, in a region that shares a porous border with Iran.

The case was identified right away and measures taken the patients health is under control and there isnt concern about the individuals health at this point, Health Minister Ferozuddin Feroz said.

Mr. Feroz said it was estimated that over the past few weeks, more than 1,000 Afghans from Herat had traveled to Qom, Iran, a place of pilgrimage for Shia Afghans because of its many shrines, and the site of the first coronavirus cases in that country. He said officials were identifying those people for more screening and tests. Five were staying in an 80-bed quarantine center that had been established in Herat, he added.

The patient was among five Afghan citizens who had been in Qom, where the first cases and fatalities were reported in that country. They transited through Dubai before coming to Herat in Afghanistan, where they are now in quarantine, Mr. Feroz said.

On Sunday, Afghanistans National Security Council announced that the country had suspended air and ground transport to neighboring Iran and asked for consular services to be limited to essential humanitarian needs. Usually, huge numbers of Afghan migrant workers travel back and forth across the border.

Beyond that, the border between the two countries is punctured by extensive smuggling routes, leaving concern even after official measures to limit formal movement.

Reporting and research was contributed by Choe Sang-Hun, Raymond Zhong, Russell Goldman, Javier C. Hernndez, Albee Zhang, Elisabetta Povoledo, Austin Ramzy, Motoko Rich, Makiko Inoue, Salman Masood, Mujib Mashal, Steven Lee Myers, Claire Fu and Amber Wang.

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Coronavirus Live Updates: Outbreaks Around the World Raise Fears of Pandemic - The New York Times

Tsipras: Greek Gov’t Is Trying to Square the Circle in the Migration Crisis (Vid) – The National Herald

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By ANA February 18, 2020

SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras. (Photo by Eurokinissi/ Andrea Bonetti)

ATHENS Main opposition SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras attacked the government over its handling of the refugee issue in an interview with Alpha TV on Tuesday.

Our criticism of the government relates to how it addresses the crisis, not who is to blame for it. They said that SYRIZA is responsible for the refugee arrivals, and when New Democracy came into power more refugees arrived. When we left Moria hotspot had 5,000 people and now there are 25,000, said Tsipras.

He explained that the major problem with the governments management is that they said before the general elections two contradictory things: decongestion of the islands and no foreigner on the mainland. How this can be done? It is impossible, its like trying to square the circle, he said. He added that the problem will not be resolved with authoritarianism, only through serious planning of the relocation of the vulnerable migrant segment to the mainland, noted Tsipras, adding that the islands must not be abandoned to their fate.

The main opposition leader said that if the government brings to parliament a serious plan on the relocation of the population, he will support it.

On matters referring to his party and its enlargement he said that SYRIZA has accumulated experience because it is not enough to have a will, you must also know how to implement your governmental plan.

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Tsipras: Greek Gov't Is Trying to Square the Circle in the Migration Crisis (Vid) - The National Herald

Without migrant workers, Boris Johnsons promises of new homes and HS2 will remain a fantasy – The Independent

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The governments plans to deny visas to low-skilled workers are going to affect many industries, but arguably none more so than the construction sector.

Thats because the building industry has, since the last recession, relied heavily on migrant workers. That downturn meant when construction projects were curtailed and domestic workers left the industry, foreign-born labour was easily accessible once business picked up again, because of the skills shortages that existed in the UK-born workforce. Figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that EU nationals now comprise a crucial part of the construction workforce, accounting for around 8 per cent of all construction workers in the UK, 28 per cent in London.

This migrant labour source has also helped the industry counter the shortfall of apprentices. According tothe Construction Industry Training Board, the industry needs to fill some 168,500 new jobs over the next five years, and grow much more of its own domestic workforce, given the limits on future access to migrant workers after Brexit. But the latest government figures show the number of people starting an apprenticeship in England (overall, not just in construction) fell to 125,800 between August and October last year, down 4.7 per cent from 132,000 in the same quarter a year earlier.

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At the same time, the sector is being squeezed at the other end. ONS figures show that in 2011, one in every five UK-born construction workers was aged over 55 meaning that by 2021, those people will nearly have reached retirement age, about the same time that any limits on migrant workers will kick in. Restricting access to all-important migrant labour could sound the death-knell for many construction companies.

The government also has little understanding of what constitutes a skilled worker in the construction sector. Immigrants recruited into the industry from abroad today are highly skilled tradesmen and women far removed from the Brexiteers stereotype. On the upside, the government is proposing that theshortage occupation list the official list of occupations for which there are not enough resident workers to fill vacancies will now include carpenters and plasterers. Bewilderingly, however, the list will still not include many of the other trades that are crucial for fulfilling a building project, such as bricklayers, plumbers and electricians.

Viking re-enactors during the Jorvik Viking Festival in York, recognised as the largest event of its kind in Europe

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Former Greek Finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, fashion designer Vivienne Westwood and editor in chief of WikiLeaks Kristinn Hrafnsonn attend a protest against the extradition of Julian Assange outside the Australian High Commission in London

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Police officers outside Regents Park mosque in central London after a man was reportedly been stabbed in the neck. Footage from the scene showed a young white man in a red hooded top being led from the mosque by police

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Resigned as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Mr Javids departure comes just one month before a crucial budget, intended to chart the course for the new government and makes him the shortest-serving chancellor for more than 50 years

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Robyn Peoples, left, 26, and Sharni Edwards, 27, at the Loughshore Hotel, in Carrickfergus, after they became the first couple to have a same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland

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Residents attempt to remove water from their property as the streets flood in Appleby-in-Westmorland, Cumbria, as Storm Ciara hits the UK

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England's Ellis Genge celebrates scoring the first try of their Six Nations match against Scotland with teammates. The weather at Murrayfield Stadium hampered the playing conditions, with winds and rain from Storm Ciara approaching the UK. The away side won the match late on, with the scoreline ending 6-13

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Activists surround a wooden trojan horse in the courtyard of the British Museum in London. The horse, which is 4 metres tall and can seat 10 people inside, was pulled in by a group of supporters with flags reading "BP Must Fall"

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Members of the Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme team examine a dead whale that died after becoming stranded in the Thames estuary at Medway over the weekend

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Children from Oaklands Secondary School in Bethnal Green and Families Belong Together campaigners in Westminster before handing a petition in to the Home Office, as they call on the government to amend the UK's refugee family reunion laws

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Rasputin the polar bear, shakes off water as he is unveiled at the Yorkshire Wildlife Park, Doncaster

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Micheal Ward with his Rising Star Award alongside Daniel Kaluuya Baftas

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Activists attend an anti-Conservative government, pro-Scottish independence, and anti-Brexit demonstration outside Holyrood, the seat of the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh

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Pro EU supporters display a banner ' Here to Stay, Here to Fight, Migrants In, Tories Out' from Westminster bridge in front of the Houses of Parliament in London. Britain officially exits the EU on 31 January, beginning an eleven month transition period

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Kiko the 2-year-old British Bulldog skateboarding with his owner, Ebel Perez, from Shiremoor, North Tyneside

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British MEP's and their assistants along with members of the political group Socialist and Democrats at a ceremony prior to the vote on the UK's withdrawal from the EU at the European Parliament in Brussels

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Torches are lit using a flare ahead of the Up Helly Aa Viking festival. Originating in the 1880s, the festival celebrates Shetland's Norse heritage

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England bowler Mark Wood is lifted aloft by Joe Root after taking the final wicket of South Africa to win the match and series during day four of the Fourth Test at Wanderers in Johannesburg

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Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, speaks with Prime Minister Boris Johnson as they attend the UK-Africa Investment Summit at the Intercontinental Hotel in London. Johnson is hosting African leaders and senior government representatives along with British and African businesses during the UK-Africa Investment Summit, aimed at strengthening the UKs economic partnership with African nations

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Joe Root celebrates with his England team mates after taking the wicket of Rassie van der Dussen during day four of the third Test against South Africa in Port Elizabeth. He took a career-best four wickets during the day's play, which saw the home side follow on in their second innings. They trail England by 188 runs going into day five

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Drag queens pose on the pink carpet as they participate in the "Queen's Walk" during RuPaul's DragCon UK at Kensington Olympia

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Kitty Ross, curator of social history, is pictured reflected in a display cabinet while holding a skeleton violin from the 1880s that forms part of the Sounds of our City exhibition at the Abbey House Museum in Leeds

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Britain's Harry, Duke of Sussex (C), hosts the Rugby League World Cup 2021 draw in the gardens of Buckingham Palace in London, Britain, 16 January 2020. The Duke, who is expected to step back from senior Royal duties, spoke with Ruby League ambassadors and children from St Vincent de Paul Catholic Primary School in London

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Vehicles negotiate the flooded B4069 road at Christian Malford in Wiltshire after the river Avon burst its banks

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Huge waves hit the sea wall in Porthcawl, Wales, as gales of up to 80mph from Storm Brendan caused disruption around the UK

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Puppeteers from Vision Mechanic rehearsing with Scotland's largest puppet, a ten-metre tall sea goddess called Storm, in the grounds of the Museum of Flight, East Lothian. Made entirely from recycled materials, it was unveiled ahead of its debut at the Celtic Connections Costal Day celebrations in Glasgow this weekend

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Mikuru Suzuki celebrates winning the women's championship of the BDO World Professional Darts Championships 2020 in London

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One of seven new lion cubs at the West Midlands Safari Park in Kidderminster

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Rawson Robinson, from Nenthead, on the Cumbria and Northumberland border clears snow from the model village he has built in his garden

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People read messages written on the David Bowie mural in Brixton, south London, on what would have been the singer's 73rd birthday

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Without migrant workers, Boris Johnsons promises of new homes and HS2 will remain a fantasy - The Independent

We need to intensify marine conservation efforts – Cosmos

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By Natalie Parletta

At least a quarter of the Earths oceans need urgent conservation measures to preserve marine biodiversity, according to an international study, and more than eight million square kilometres need new conservation initiatives.

Given only 7.9% of the ocean is currently protected, this represents a pretty large increase, says Kendall Jones from the Wildlife Conservation Society in New York, US, but bold steps like this are necessary if were going to secure the health of our oceans.

Recent decades have seen encouraging growth in marine conservation efforts, but its still not enough, he says.

Were in the middle of an extinction crisis, and one-third of marine species have less than one-tenth of their habitat under strict protection.

Scientists have known for decades that existing conservation efforts are totally insufficient to save most biodiversity; this is obvious given the massive population declines and extinctions we see every year.

But the scale of action needed has been difficult to quantify, so the team, including researchers from Europe and Australia, sought to identify a baseline target for prioritising global conservation efforts.

NOAA

As described in the journal One Earth, they first identified how well each marine species currently is protected.

This was done by overlaying maps where more than 22,000 species inhabit the ocean with marine protected areas (such as no fishing zones), regions of international importance for biodiversity, and marine wildernesses with low human impacts.

They then used a mathematical algorithm to identify other areas where conservation efforts are needed to preserve at least 10% of all species habitats. This minimal amount was chosen to balance conservation with other ocean uses.

To inform actions needed to conserve species within unprotected areas, they mapped the 15 most destructive human activities impacting them.

New priority areas were found in more than half of the worlds coastal nations, especially the East China Sea and the North Sea off the Norwegian Coast, currently affected by intense industrial fishing.

Areas impacted by intensive agriculture and livestock grazing as well as ocean-based activity include the Gulf of Mexico, the South China Sea and the Indus river in Pakistan.

High priority areas include the Northern Pacific Ocean near China and Japan and the Atlantic Ocean between West Africa and the Americas.

Notably, around 40% of the regions they identified as requiring conservation efforts have no jurisdiction by any single country.

Protecting these areas will almost certain require an avenue to regulate use of the high seas, Jones says, something that is currently being debated by the UN.

The worlds governments will be convening in China this year to sign a high seas conservation treaty aimed at protecting areas that currently escape jurisdiction and are exploited by activities such as overfishing and deep-sea mining.

This agreement has the potential to be a watershed moment for biodiversity conservation; just as the Paris Agreement was for climate change, Jones says.

The researchers envisage that their study will help inform the treaty and demonstrate the scale of collaborative, targeted action that is needed.

Given the connected nature of the ocean, a piecemeal approach is doomed to fail, says Jones, emphasising the importance of collective action.

A wide-ranging approach is crucial, says senior author James Watson.

This isnt just about strict marine protected areas.

We need to use a broad range of strategies such as no-fishing zones, community marine reserves and broad-scale policies to put an end to illegal and unsustainable commercial fishing operations.

Jones stresses the need to lobby governments to take marine conservation seriously, and set bold targets in a post-2020 conservation agreement.

This is crucial, not only for biodiversity, but for the millions of people around the world who depend on the ocean as a source of food and income.

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We need to intensify marine conservation efforts - Cosmos

Hunt the high seas as a hyper-evolved super shark in ‘Maneater’ – Engadget

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Maneater is John Wick if Keanu Reeves had gotten whacked and his dog had to embark on a bloody campaign of retribution instead. You play as an ever-evolving bull shark pup with an axe to grind against a local celebrity big game hunter who goes by Scaly Pete. Pete, that surly cajun SOB, caught and gutted your mother while you were being born, killing her, disfiguring you, and thereby earning him a righteous chomping. Of course, Pete has his own qualms about the situation, primarily the fact that you tore off his hand on your way out of the womb and then promptly ate it as you escaped. Whatever, that dude's a jerk.

From the moment the prologue ends, your eventual showdown with Scaly Pete is set. But how well-prepared you arrive at your inevitable loggerhead is an entirely different matter. Maneater mixes the open world environments of GTA with light action RPG elements from Far Cry.

Players start as a newly-born bull shark who must survive the brackish waters of seven explorable Southeastern American delta regions. The initial stages of the game are rather sedate, with a focus on generally snacking on anything smaller than yourself. By predating on smaller animals like catfish and turtles, the player can quickly build up their shark's strength, collect valuable resources for levelling, and gain necessary XP.

Once you bulk up, level up, and evolve sufficiently, you'll be able to expand your hunting range further, eventually overlapping your territory with competing predators like muskogee, alligators -- even orcas. And then eating them.

Once your shark reaches adolescence you'll be able to accept various missions -- fighting off other apex predators, for example, or hunting a specific number of prey species to keep their population in check (yes that especially includes humans) -- in order to accelerate your XP gains.

If the prescribed missions aren't your thing, you can also just tool around looking for trouble. The game offers a number of optional tasks, goals, discoverable checkpoints, hidden resource boxes, and other secrets for players to find. And as soon as your shark hits its adolescent stage, the entire game map opens for exploration.

Your shark will also gain new powers as it eats its way through the seas, including developing a Thresher Shark-like tail whip; a sturdy casing of protective bone armor, or increasingly sensitive sonar skills. Hell yes your shark does sonar.

During my playthrough at a hands-on event in San Francisco last week, my shark's feeding frenzies eventually attracted unwanted attention from the local human population who invariably called out multiple waves of shark hunters (and eventually Coast Guard units) in an effort to end my reign of terror. It was not unlike the police response to earning infamy stars in GTA.

The difference being that, unlike GTA, Maneter has a set number of enemy waves to survive and if players can actually chomp, ram, tail-whip and thrash their way through those opponents, they'll afford themselves the opportunity to face off against one of ten local shark hunter bosses. Ingest all of those fishermen and you'll get a shot at Scaly Pete himself.

The game itself is fairly short -- around 8 - 10 hours for the primary quest alone and about 16 hours if you complete all of the optional missions, according to the developers. Maneater will be available for PS4, XBox One, and at the Epic Game Store for $39.99 on May 22nd, with a version for the Switch arriving at an undisclosed later date.

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Hunt the high seas as a hyper-evolved super shark in 'Maneater' - Engadget

Seablip: Everything We Know About The Stardew Valley-Inspired RPG (So Far) – TheGamer

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After recently meeting its funding goal on Kickstarter, the future is looking bright forSeablip. Described as a real-time tactical RPG with a story-driven narrative, players will find themselves putting together a ragtag crew and hitting the high seas. Seablip's creator is heavily influenced by Stardew Valley and it shows in most aspects of the game's design. There's still a ways to go until its targeted late 2021 release date, but thanks to its Kickstarter campaign we already know a lot about what to expect when it eventually releases.

One of the most compelling features of Seablip is the unique campaign it's hoping to create. Players will become involved in the war between the Redcoats and Bluecoats, a conflict that has raged on for over 100 years. Seablip's creator says that the narrative will offer gamers plenty of choices related to this struggle will you pick one side to fight for, or will you go rogue and cause as much chaos as possible?

The second portion of the campaign revolves around a "mystic sound coming from the north." Melted icebergs from the northern portion of the map have been drifting further south than they have in the past, creating a hostile environment for sailors. Based on it's Kickstarter campaign, it seems that thereis a threat lurking below the ice, and it's up to the players to solve the problem.

Seablip is the named of the small island outpost used by the main character as a home base. Players' actions have a direct impact on how the island develops you can help restore the island to its former glory, or you can side with the hostile "Octopus Trading Company"and create a monopoly. This interaction draws heavily from Joja -Mart in Stardew Valley, a comparison that the creator doesn't shy away from.

None of the above content matters if the gameplay isn't entertaining. But with a massive world full of treasures, secrets, and upgrades, Seablip is hoping to offer a little bit of everything. Players can choose where to travel on a massive overworld map using a system similar toFTL engage in sea battles with pirates, and explore islands in retro 2D fashion.

RELATED: Seablip, The Stardew Valley-Inspired Pirate Adventure, Hits Its Kickstarter Goal

When not out on the high seas exploring, Seabliplets playersform a crew and level up their abilities. The type of crew members for hire is extensive, with over 11 different archetypes available.

As a game in early development, there is still a lot we don't know. The official Seablip website says the title is scheduled for an "estimated release" in the fourth quarter of 2021 meaning it's likely to change. PC users will see the game first, but if the launch goes well it could be ported to other systems such as PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, or mobile devices. The creator says they "believe the game will cost 17 dollars" in other words, a price has not yet been determined.

Seablip is hoping to combine the best aspectsof many successful indie games. Stardew Valley, FTL, and Terraria are titles that Seablip draws inspiration from. While the Kickstarter campaign might be coming to a close, the long journey ahead is only just beginning. Stay up to date with all things Seablip by signing up for the game's official newsletter.

Source: Seablip Kickstarter

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Jon Bitner is an Associate Editor for TheGamer. His passion for gaming started with his first console (Sega Genesis) and he hasn't stopped playing since. His favorite titles include The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Team Fortress 2, Rainbow Six Siege, Pokmon Sword & Shield, Old School Runescape, Skyrim, and Breath of the Wild. He can usually be found playing the latest RPG, FPS, or some obscure mobile game. Before working as Associate News Editor, Jon earned a Biology degree and worked in the Biotechnology sector experiences that taught him how to put words together and make sentences. When not playing or writing about the gaming industry, he enjoys sleeping, eating, and staring at birds.

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Kevin Lyman seeks fan input on possible Warped Rewind At Sea 2.0 – Alternative Press

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Back in 2017, the Vans Warped Tour reinvented their event on a cruise ship, calling itself Warped Rewind At Sea. Everything you loved about good ol landlubber Warpedfrom the awesome bands to the eternal camaraderie to the relentless sunshinewas in play in the middle of an ocean.

Now it looks like tour founder Kevin Lyman and his team may be planning a return to the high seas. And they want your input. The Warped brain trust recently put up a survey soliciting ideas on how to make a second voyage of Warped Rewind At Sea a reality.

Warped Tour stans taking the survey are asked a number of questions, both crucial and logistical. Warped is looking for suggestions on what other kind of entertainment and activities would make the trip sweeter. No idea seems far-fetched, from karaoke nights to tattoo parlors. (At least one AltPress editor suggested an oceanic record store.) There are logistical questions regarding potential sea-punks needs, from price points to the number of ride-or-dies they would bring. And naturally, what bands they want to see.

If the thought of being out in the ocean as part of the only tour that mattered piques your interest, head over here to take the survey. Tell your buds about it as well, because a life without loud guitars in the summer is a huge drag.

Warped Rewind At Seas maiden voyage commenced Oct 28, 2017 in New Orleans, Louisiana to Cozumel, Mexico. The four-day event featured the participation of 3OH!3, Bowling For Soup, Cartel, Good Charlotte, Less Than Jake, Reel Big Fish, Simple Plan and the Starting Line, as well as the Emo Nite cabal. For all intents and purposes (dude, the photos), a real cool time was positively inevitable.

You can see a recap of 2017s run below.

Warped Rewind At Sea

WARPED REWIND AT SEA :: There are no words, but so many feels! Warped Rewind At Sea as an experience beyond our wildest dreams thanks to our incredible community of fans, bands, and sponsors.We know many of you are wondering Will there be another Warped Rewind at Sea? As you know, we are hard at work preparing for the final cross-country run of the Vans Warped Tour in 2018; this means there will not be a Warped Rewind cruise this year, but we are continuing to explore possibilities for the future! PS were sure there will be many Warped Rewind run-ins and reunions this summer #foreverwarped #vanswarpedtour #warpedrewind

Posted by Vans Warped Tour on Thursday, January 25, 2018

Would you board a Warped Rewind At Sea return? let us know in the comments below.

The Pop Disaster Tour 2002 (blink-182, Green Day)

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Kevin Lyman seeks fan input on possible Warped Rewind At Sea 2.0 - Alternative Press

Sea of Thieves Update Crews of Rage Out Now – TechRaptor

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TheSea of ThievesupdateCrews of Rage has arrived!

Check out the newly released Crews of Rage: Official Sea of Thieves Content Update trailer to get a feel for the new goodies on the way:

This brand-new update to Rare's adventure on the high seas adds a particularly fiery proposition for players to explore. A "hot-headed" Skeleton Lord has made his return, and it's quite literally setting the world on fire.

Now, this new batch of content gives players more cool stuff to unlock, new enemies to fight, and a brand new hotspot to wage war in!

Several new additions are making their way into the game. Here's a quick breakdown of what's been listed on the game's official website.

Duke has some new Bounty Voyages available! These will send you to The Devil's Roar to acquire brand-new Chests of Rage.

The Molten Sands Fortress has come to life with the return of Captain Flameheart. The other Forts have gone cold (literally!) as the skeletons all head to this brand new hotspot. Players can look forward to getting Chests of Rage and Commendations for fighting and winning here.

Bibliophiles get to enjoy a new series of infernal texts. Taking these books to Duke will let you unlock new cosmetics!

This new kind of Cursed Chest can be uncovered in Bounty Voyages and the Molten Sands Fortress. Players now have the option to take these chests to The Reaper's Hideout instead, doubling their payday while losing any reputation boost.

This new class of skeleton has a resistance to burn damage, which kind of makes sense on account of the whole "fire" thing this update has going on.

New items have been added to the Pirate's Emporium and the Black Market.

You can see pictures of the shiny new items on the official website for theSea of ThievesCrews of Rage update. If you don't yet already own the game, you can pick it up for PC and Xbox One at the price of$49.99 or your regional equivalent at the Microsoft Store. Alternatively, you can getSea of Thievesas part of Xbox Game Pass.

What do you think of theSea of ThievesCrews of Rage Update? Have you been happy with the pace of new content thus far? Let us know in the comments below!

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Sea of Thieves Update Crews of Rage Out Now - TechRaptor

Control of offshore gas and oil provokes conflicts in eastern Mediterranean – World Socialist Web Site

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Control of offshore gas and oil provokes conflicts in eastern Mediterranean By Jean Shaoul 24 February 2020

The dispatch of Turkish troops to Libya, the bitter dispute between France and Italy over military policy at Decembers NATO summit in London, and the formation of a French-Greek military alliance against Turkey indicate the extent to which oil and gas have become the source of ever widening conflicts.

While it was popularly understood that the US/UK-led invasion of Iraq was a war for oil, this is less well understood in the case of Libya, which contains the largest deposits of oil in Africa and in 2010 was one of the 10 largest oil producers in the world. The struggle for Libya and its oil has now, moreover, become embroiled in the escalating conflict over the newly discovered gas fields in the Levantine Basin.

A new scramble for Africa is being tied into a new scramble for the eastern Mediterranean, as Turkey, Greece, Israel, Egypt, Cyprus, Lebanon and the European powers compete over gas exploration, production licenses and pipelines.

According to a US Geological Survey report published in 2010, the Levantine Basin, which straddles the maritime borders of Cyprus, Egypt, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon and Syria, contains an estimated 1.7 billion barrels of oil and 122 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of gas. It estimates that eventually there will be enough gas to meet regional and European power demand for decades.

In 2009 and 2010, Israel discovered gas reserves of 11 trillion cubic feet in the Tamar field, and 22 tcf in the Leviathan field, ensuring sufficient capacity for both its domestic needs and exports, although some of these fields lie in waters claimed by Lebanon and Gaza.

In 2011, Cyprus discovered an estimated 8 tcf of gas reserves in the Aphrodite field. With Turkey claiming ownership of the natural resources around Cyprus, divided between Turkish and Greek zones since the 1974 war, this heightened tensions in the region, leading to violent ship collisions and even the suspension of drilling in 2016.

By far the largest field in the region is Egypts Zohr field, discovered in 2015, with an estimated 30 tcf. Located north of the Suez Canal, it is owned jointly by Italys Eni (50 percent), Russias Rosneft (30 percent), the Anglo-American BP (10 percent) and Egypts Mubadala Petroleum (10 percent). Last week, Egypt signed a $43 million oil and gas exploration deal with the German company Wintershall DEA to explore oil and gas in the East Damanhour Bloc in the Nile Delta.

In 2019, Egypt produced a record 2.52 tcf of gasup by more than 30 percent since 2016making it one of the biggest producers in North Africa and the Middle East. It exported 172.8 billion cubic feet (bcf) of gas.

Egypt is seeking to become a vital link for energy trading between the Mideast, Africa and Europe. It has two large-scale gas export terminals at Iduku and Damietta, the only ones in the eastern Mediterranean, which cool gas into liquids for export by tankers. Owners Royal Dutch Shell intend to use them to re-export gas produced by neighboring countries that do not have such terminals, strengthening Egypts economic ties with Israel and Jordan as it becomes a crucial partner to Europe.

Last month, Israel, which has no liquefaction terminals, began exporting gas to Egypt. The smaller Karish field will go online next year with its own pipeline to Egypt. While some of the gas will be sent back to fuel Israels power and manufacturing plants, most will be exported.

Israel had previously imported up to 40 percent of its gas from Egypt. The new arrangements followed the signing in 2018 of a deal to pipe $19.5 billion of offshore gas to the Egyptian export terminals by Israeli oil company Delek Drilling and Noble Energy of Houston, which together own Israels Leviathan and Tamar gas fields.

The terms of the deal, beneficial to Israel and brokered by the US, enabled Egypt to reduce the cost by $1.3 billion of the $1.76 billion it was legally required to pay Israel in compensation following the disruption to its contracted gas delivery after multiple insurgent attacks on its pipelines in 2011-12 by militant Islamists in the Sinai Peninsula. The deal involves a raft of shadow companies, registered in tax havens and linked to Egypts military.

Last year, Egypt signed a deal with Jordan to provide half its gas needs via the 1,200-kilometre-long Arab Gas Pipeline. Built in 2003, the overland pipeline has been extended to Israel via a 100-kilometre-long subsea section connecting Arish in Egypt to Ashkelon in Israel.

There are also small gas reserves off Gazas territorial waters. But it became impossible to carry out any exploration after Israels blockade of Gaza following Hamas success in the 2006 elections and its standoff with the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Administration in the West Bank. In 2015, the license holders, which included BP and Shell, transferred their stakes to Palestinian state companies.

Lebanon is believed to hold gas reserves of 96 tcf and oil reserves of 865 million barrels, but has been slow to explore its offshore resources, in part because of the great depth of its waters, the high cost, unresolved maritime border disputes with Israel, Syria and Cyprus and the countrys political instability. However, a consortium made up of Frances Total, Italys Eni and Russias Novatek is expected to start drilling in the Block 9 concession by the middle of this year, with next January set as the closing date for five more offshore blocks.

Syria is thought to have substantial energy resources in the Levantine basin, but it suspended exploration after the outbreak of the US-orchestrated proxy war for regime change in 2011. Russia, in the absence of any other bidders, took all the oil and gas contracts as its quid pro quo for supporting the Syrian regime, signing long-term agreements in return for 25 percent of total production. With the upgrading of its air and naval bases at Khmeimim and Tartus on Syrias coast, Russias entry into the Levantine Basin adds another player into a region of competition and conflict.

Gas pipelines, owned by two competing geostrategic alliances, have caused tensions to rise markedly. Each seeks to secure a dominant position in European energy markets that are trying to eliminate their dependence on coal and oil by turning to gas.

The first is a new Russian-Turkish pipeline aimed at increasing Russias natural gas exports and raising Turkeys status as an energy transit hub to Europe. Last month saw the inauguration of the first leg of TurkStream, an undersea pipeline running 930 kilometres (578 miles) from the Russian Black Sea coast to Kiyikoy, northwest of Istanbul, that will carry 15.75 billion cubic metres of Russian gas a year to Turkey for domestic consumption.

Another proposed pipeline, announced last July, will carry a similar amount via Turkey, Bulgaria, Serbia and Hungary, not through Greece as originally planned, further cementing Europes dependence on Russian gas. Together with the nearly completed Nord Stream 2, which carries gas via the Baltic Sea to Germany, they enable Russias Gazprom to send gas to Europe, bypassing Ukraine.

The second pipeline is one linking Israel and Cyprus gas fields to Greece that would transport the eastern Mediterraneans rising liquefied natural gas (LNG) to the European Union (EU) and is backed by the US.

On January 3, Greece, Israel and Cyprus agreed to build a 1,900-kilometer (1,200 mile) EastMed pipeline through deep waters, at a cost of around 6-7 billion, to transport gas to Europe via Greece and Italy. The pipeline will run from Israels Leviathan gas field via Cyprus, Crete and the Greek mainland and is due for completion in the mid-2020s. Conceived in 2015, it is aimed at limiting Turkeys influence in the region.

The three countries, part of the East Mediterranean Gas Forum, established by Cairo last July that includes Egypt, Jordan, the Palestinian Authority and Italy, are seeking to establish a regional gas market and an exporting hub to Europe. This would cut across Egypts ambitions to establish itself as an export hub, with an agreement in 2018 to construct a pipeline to Cyprus Aphrodite field.

In addition, DEFSA, Greeces gas transmission system operator, having completed the expansion of its LNG terminal, the only one in southeast Europe, is now building compressors that will enable it to pump gas north into Bulgaria via the Trans-Balkan Pipeline and export US LNG to the Balkans. Exports are set to expand when the Gas Interconnector Greece-Bulgaria (IGB) project starts next year, in competition with TurkStream 2. It will avoid dependency on the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), which will start sending natural gas from Azerbaijan to Italy via Turkey and Greece.

These plans also clash with Turkeys plans to extend its control over energy resources in the region through its drilling for gas off the far west coast of Cyprus toward the southeast of the Greek island of Crete, Israel and Libyas offshore waters. Ankaras drilling operations are expected to be accompanied by a naval task force comprised of at least one frigate, two or three gunboats, and a submarine, as it seeks to acquire another drilling ship.

Russia, with its large oil and gas reserves, is Europes main energy provider, supplying 41 percent of its overall consumption. Hence its concern over gas exports from the eastern Mediterranean to Europe, because of the potential impact on its market share and energy prices. Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to oppose such a project unless Russia is involved.

The EU, for its part, lacking its own energy resources and anxious to avoid dependency on Russia, has fast tracked its approval process for the pipeline.

The agreement to build the EastMed pipeline came just weeks after Turkey signed two agreements in November with Fayez al-Sarrajs Government of National Accord (GNA), the internationally recognized government of Libya that is backed by Turkey, Qatar and Italy.

The GNA has little popular support and controls the capital Tripoli that has been surrounded by former CIA asset and warlord General Khalifa Hiftar, whose Libyan National Army (LNA), backed by France, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Sudan and Russia, controls eastern Libya and its oil fields.

Under the first Turkey/GNA agreement, Ankara pledged military support for Sarrajs beleaguered government. A second agreement in return delimited maritime zones between the two countries, vastly expanding Turkeys territorial waters, which Greece and Cyprus also claim, denying the claims of Crete, Rhodes and other islands, and blocking the route of the proposed pipeline.

Since then, Ankara has expanded its gas exploration efforts and sent forces to Tripoli, including Islamist militiamen from Idlib province in Syria, where they were deployed as part of the NATO proxy war but are now surrounded by Syrian and Russian troops.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters, Turkey and Libya will be working jointly at present, but we could take a third, a fourth and perhaps a fifth partner on board. We are in agreement with Sarraj on this.

He indicated that Somalia had offered Turkey joint oil exploration in its waters. Erdogan has also sought to enlist support from Tunisia and Algeria, as part of his declaration that 2020 is Africa year, offering help with offshore gas exploration as bait.

At the end of last month, Turkeys Defence Ministry reported that two of its frigates off Tripoli had rescued 30 migrants from a dinghy in high seas and handed them over to the Libyan coast guard during NATOs Operation Sea Guardian in the region. This was a message to European countries, particularly Germany, that the GNA and Turkeywith their supportwould be an effective means of curbing the flow of migrants from Libya to Europe. It may indicate Ankaras willingness to mend its relations with Europe in the wake of its rift with Moscow over Syrias defeat of Turkey-backed Islamists in Idlib province.

These developments have largely taken place outside the control of Washington. The US views with mounting concern Russias expanding influence in a region it once controlled, especially following its disastrous wars of aggression in Iraq, Libya and Syria, and with Turkeys closer relations with Russia and Iran, to the extent that it supported the 2016 coup against Erdogan. Embroiled in economic and trade disputes with the EU, it is trying to push the sale of its own LNG to Europe as an alternative to Russia.

The Trump administration is working through its local attack dogs and proxies, particularly Israel and latterly Greece. It is actively supporting its allies access to the regions gas and Israels key role in exporting gas to its local clients Jordan and Egyptacting as the chief broker in Israels gas agreements.

US corporations are engaged in some of the consortia directly involved in exploration, production and transportation and insuring the contracts. The Trump administration helped broker the original agreement to sell gas to Jordan and agreed to compensate Jordan through US aid money should popular opposition disrupt the deal.

In December, President Donald Trump approved the East Med Security and Energy Partnership Act that allows the US to support the Israel-Greece-Cyprus partnership through defence initiatives and lift the longstanding arms embargo on Cyprus, antagonizing Turkey, a key NATO-ally.

Energy minister Yuval Steinitz explained in welcoming Israels export of gas to Egypt, Egypt is just the beginning. The plan is that much of the gas will be exported via Egypt to Europe, too.

The EastMed pipeline serves to wean Europe off its dependency on Russia for its energy needs, as well as limiting Greece and Cyprus trade and investment deals with Moscow. In December, Trump signed into law a defence bill that includes sanctions, imposed by the US Congress, on the construction of both the Nord Stream 2 and TurkStream pipelines. These are part of a raft of measures aimed at choking Russias economy which is largely dependent upon the sale of arms and energy. As a result, construction on the nearly completed Nord Stream 2 has come to a halt, infuriating Germany and exacerbating tensions between Washington and Berlin visibly on show at the NATO Security Conference in Munich.

Greece violently objected to the Turkish-Libyan deal signed last year, expelling the Libyan ambassador to Greece in protest. Kathimerini wrote that the Greek and Greek Cypriot governments hurried to finalize the EastMed deal in order to counter any attempt by the Turkish neighbour to stop the project.

According to Greek reports, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of violations of its airspace by Turkish fighter jets. Turkish hackers paralysed the websites of the Greek Foreign Ministry and secret service, prompting Greek retaliation.

Such are the tensions between the two NATO members, which were on the verge of war in the 1990s, that the White House called on Greece and Turkey to resolve their differences. Despite this show of impartiality, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo signed deals last October to build major new US military bases in Greece, saying Washington needs them to help secure the eastern Mediterranean.

It was the fear that Russia and Turkey would gain influence in Libya that led Germany to assemble the European powers in a conference in Berlin last month, ostensibly aimed at bringing peace to the civil-war torn country. The Berlin conference agreed to extend the ceasefire, established earlier through the mediation of Russia and Turkey, permanently and to the demobilization and disarming of the militias and monitoring of an arms embargo violated by everyone.

This cynical gathering can only be the prelude to a military occupation of the country to assert the European powers predatory interests. EU foreign policy head Josep Borrell, declared a priori, If there is a cease-fire in Libya, then the EU must be prepared to help implement and monitor this cease-firepossibly also with soldiers, for example as part of an EU mission.

We Europeans, since we dont want to participate in a military solution, we barricade ourselves in the belief there is no military solution, he told the European Parliament. Nobody will be very happy if, on the Libyan coast, there is a ring of military bases from the Russian and Turkish navies in front of the Italian coast.

Days later, France stepped in to assert its interests, dispatching French warships to the Aegean Sea and announcing the formation of a French-Greek military alliance.

It too has supported Hiftar and his LNA in eastern Libya against the Tripoli-based GNA, where the French oil giant Total has important oil interests, bringing it into conflict with Italy, whose oil company Eni is the largest oil and gas producer in Libya. France, which is dependent upon Hiftars support for its colonial wars in the Sahel, denounced Turkish policy in Libya, threatening to support Greece in a war with Turkey.

President Emmanuel Macron accused the Turkish president of not respecting his promises in Berlin, saying that at this very moment Turkish ships are taking Syrian Islamist mercenaries to Libya in violation of explicit engagements taken by President Erdogan at the Berlin conference. He added, This threatens the security of all residents of Europe and the Sahel.

After discussion with Macron, Egypt, which supports Hiftar, denounced the Turkey-GNA accords as illegal foreign intervention in Libya. On Monday, just weeks after the Berlin conference, the EU agreed to launch a new naval and air mission in the eastern Mediterranean, in international not Libyan waters, to stop arms reaching both factions in the Libya, re-establishing the arms embargo first imposed in 2011.

Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg, whose government opposes any immigration from Libya to Europe, insisted that the mission would not support or help migrants seeking to enter Europe. He said, There is a basic consensus that we now want a military operation and not a humanitarian mission.

The eastern Mediterranean, including North Africa, has become the focus of ever widening conflicts, with all the imperialist and regional powers determined to pursue their own rapacious demands for control over the regions wealth and resources.

As US Defense Secretary Mark Esper warned at the Munich Security Conference, We are now in an era of Great Power Competition, meaning that we must move away from low intensity conflict and prepare once again for high-intensity warfare.

The stage is being set for explosive conflicts, potentially encompassing three continents, over the domination of North Africa and the Mediterranean Sea. But the eastern Mediterranean is only one of a number of potential flashpointsthe Horn of Africa, South China Sea or the Arctic to name but a fewwhere these competing strategic interests could lead to an all-out confrontation between major military powers, including nuclear-armed imperialist states. As far as the major powers are concerned, the entire world is in play, with devastating consequences for humanity.

2019 has been a year of mass social upheaval. We need you to help the WSWS and ICFI make 2020 the year of international socialist revival. We must expand our work and our influence in the international working class. If you agree, donate today. Thank you.

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Control of offshore gas and oil provokes conflicts in eastern Mediterranean - World Socialist Web Site

Mozambique, rich in gas, could be going towards a disaster | Mozambique – Up News Info

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When, in 2010, the US energy company Anadarko found significant gas reserves off the coast of the Cabo Delgado province of Mozambique, many hoped that the discovery would bring prosperity to the impoverished region. The following year, the ENI of Italy also found a massive gas field in the area.

Since then, Mozambique has seen an influx of foreign energy companies seeking lucrative contracts: Anadarko, Total, which in 2019 bought Anadarko's assets in Mozambique: ENI, ExxonMobil, BP, Shell, China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and others .

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Cabo Delgado now houses the three largest liquid natural gas (LNG) projects in Africa: the Mozambique LNG Project (Total, formerly Anadarko) worth $ 20 billion, the Coral FLNG Project (ENI and ExxonMobil) for worth $ 4.7 billion and the Rovuma LNG Project (ExxonMobil, ENI and CNPC) worth $ 30 billion.

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But, despite the billions in investments that these contracts have brought, the people of Cabo Delgado have not yet seen any benefit from them. In fact, some have already suffered greatly from the arrival of the gas industry.

Shortly after the discovery of gas in Cabo Delgado, it became clear that, although exploration and extraction will take place on the high seas, several communities will have to be evicted to make way for the ground support facilities that Anadarko / Total and ENI will use. projects According to a 2016 Anadarko report, more than 550 families would have to be physically relocated and 952 would lose access to their cultivated land to make way for the facilities of the Mozambique LNG Project. In addition, more than 3,000 people would lose access to their fishing grounds as a result of project operations.

Some of these families have already had to move. Although foreign companies promised to carry out the resettlement and provide compensation after a thorough consultation process with the affected communities, the villagers and my colleagues from the environmental NGO Justica Ambiental have told us that their concerns and objections have fallen on deaf ears. .

Many of them complained that the compensation has been inadequate. In some cases, the farmland assigned to them invades the farmland of another community, which causes conflicts; in others, the new plots they were given were too far from their homes.

Families that used to live only a few hundred meters from the sea and depended on fishing for their livelihoods will be resettled more than 10 km from the shore. Fishermen have already reported that initial gas development and drilling operations are affecting fishing populations.

At the same time, the promised jobs in the gas industry have not materialized, leaving communities facing displacements anxious for their ability to stay in the future.

Some of the villagers have told us that they are afraid to speak because they may not receive any compensation or because they have been threatened by local authorities. In the past two years, several journalists who have tried to report on the situation in Cabo Delgado have been arrested.

Meanwhile, apart from forced displacement and loss of livelihoods, local communities have faced increasing violence from a local armed insurgency.

Since 2017, men armed with guns and machetes have attacked communities throughout Cabo Delgado, killing some 700 people and injuring many. Decapitations, mass kidnappings and destruction of entire villages have sent some 100,000 people to flee the province, according to the UN.

Several groups, including ISIL (ISIS) and Al Shabab, which are not affiliated with the Somali group by the same name, have allegedly claimed responsibility for some attacks, but for many, there has been no clear author.

Some have blamed impoverishment and local crime networks as the driving forces of the insurgency and have dismissed theories about links with transnational terrorist organizations. But the anger over the way foreign companies have dealt with local communities and the lack of transparency about their operations have also fueled rumors that there is a link between the gas industry and the attacks.

The villagers with whom we have spoken have pointed out that while the facilities of the gas companies have rarely been attacked, the communities that have refused to move have been repeatedly assaulted by armed groups.

Regardless of who is behind these attacks, they have alarmed the Mozambican government and forced him to deploy the army in Cabo Delgado. Earlier this month, Total and ExxonMobil asked local authorities to send more troops to the region for protection.

Foreign mercenaries also headed to Cabo Delgado. Last year, Russian private military company Wagner won a contract in Mozambique to provide security in the province and help combat the uprising. About 200 of its fighters were deployed and some of them have already been killed.

None of these measures have made local communities safer. The locals tell us that they fear going to their fields. Those who have been displaced and are far from their assigned plots face the possibility of starving.

Residents are also concerned that the pressure to protect foreign investment in the gas industry will further militarize Cabo Delgado and will be the most affected by the fighting between the Mozambican army and the insurgents.

In addition to displacement and insurgency, Cabo Delgado residents face the danger of an environmental disaster due to gas drilling. According to Anadarko's 2014 environmental impact study, the project will produce a large amount of greenhouse gases and sulfur dioxide, introduce new species into the sea and cause soil erosion.

There is a growing fear that gas drilling will affect biodiversity in the area, especially the Quirimbas Archipelago, a UNESCO biosphere that is only 8 km from one of the gas fields on the coast of Cabo Delgado. The archipelago is home to 3,000 floral species, 447 species of birds, eight species of marine mammals, as well as lions, elephants, buffaloes and leopards.

Dredging, waste disposal and physical construction of facilities on land and offshore will significantly diminish much of this ecosystem. Many species will flee the area due to noise and habitat degradation, while the impact of a possible gas leak or spill will be disastrous.

After the first seismic survey conducted by Anadarko in 2008, reports of massive deaths of marine animals emerged.

Unfortunately, it seems that Cabo Delgado is heading down the disastrous road in the province of Tete, where the government handed over 60 percent of local land in concessions to the coal industry. Exploration and mining in the province have caused the forced displacement of more than 1,300 families and have caused a great loss of livelihoods for local communities and great pollution. The locals have reported deaths of people and animals due to contaminated water.

Mozambique already suffers the devastating effects of climate change and its coal and LNG projects, which are more carbon intensive than the extraction and regular processing of natural gas, will only contribute even more to global warming. Both industries are export oriented and there seems to be no comprehensive plan to use these energy resources in the development of the Mozambican economy. And both have left devastated communities behind.

If the Mozambican government does not correct this exploitation relationship with foreign corporations and focuses its efforts on improving the lives of its own people and making local communities weather resistant, the country is heading for a disaster.

President Filipe Nyusi himself admitted that "poverty and unemployment,quot; are driving the insurgency in Cabo Delgado. In the midst of climate devastation, pollution and socioeconomic marginalization due to the operations of foreign energy corporations, it is difficult to see how public anger and violence will not intensify further.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.

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Mozambique, rich in gas, could be going towards a disaster | Mozambique - Up News Info

Adapting to Rising Seas, Schools Move to the Rafters and Cats Swim – The New York Times

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BATASAN, Philippines When the floods invade her home at night and they always do, a little higher each year Pelagia Villarmia curls up on her bed and waits.

Someday soon, she knows, the water will creep past the bamboo slats of her bed. It will keep rising, salty and dark and surprisingly cold.

The seawater has covered the walls of Ms. Villarmias home with murals of mildew. It has gnawed at the legs of furniture and frozen a DVD player with its tray ajar. A corroded picture of Ms. Villarmia and her husband, now dead, hangs on the wall, from back when they were young, hopeful and unaware of the seas hunger.

What is happening to Ms. Villarmia and her neighbors on Batasan, an island in the Philippines, is a harbinger of what residents of low-lying islands and coastal regions around the world will face as the seas rise higher.

In 2013, Batasan was convulsed by a 7.2-magnitude earthquake. Thousands of aftershocks followed, and the local topography was thrown off-kilter. Batasan and three neighboring islands collapsed downward, making them more vulnerable to the surrounding water.

Now climate change, with its rising sea levels, appears to be dooming a place that has no elevation to spare. The highest point on the islands is less than 6.5 feet above sea level.

When the floods are bad, Ms. Villarmia has learned to subsist on cold rice and coffee. She has grown skilled at tying up her valuables so they dont float away.

She is 80, and she knows the logic of actuarial tables.

I will be gone before Batasan is gone, she said. But Batasan will also disappear.

Around the time of every new and full moon, the sea rushes soundlessly past the trash-strewn shores, up over the single road running along the spine of Batasan, population 1,400, and into peoples homes. The island, part of the Tubigon chain in the central Philippines, is waterlogged at least one-third of the year.

The highest floods are taller than any man here, and they inundate the basketball court. They drown a painting of sea life at the primary school, adding verisimilitude to the cartoonish renderings of grinning sharks and manta rays.

When the tides come, Batasan, densely packed with houses and shacks, smells not of clean sea air but of a deeper rot sodden sofas, drowned documents and saturated sewers that expel human waste into the brine washing through houses.

Only a few of Batasans coconut palms have survived. The rest have been choked by seawater.

People say this is because of the Arctic melting, said Dennis Sucanto, a local resident whose job is to measure the water levels in Batasan each year. I dont understand but thats what they say.

A year after the 2013 earthquake, the local government proposed moving the islanders to new homes an hours boat ride away. Few took the offer.

They wanted us to go to a hilly farming place, said Rodrigo Cosicol, 66, shaking his head at the affront. We are fishermen. We need fish.

We dont fear the water anymore, Mr. Cosicol added. This is our way of living.

This unwillingness of people on Batasan to abandon their homes instead choosing to respond, inch by inch, to a new reality may hold valuable lessons for residents of other vulnerable island states. Rather than uprooting an entire population, with the enormous trauma and cost that entails, the more workable solution might be local adaptations.

The climate refugee message is more sensational but the more realistic narrative from the islanders themselves is adaptation rather than mass migration, said Laurice Jamero, who has researched the Tubigon islands for five years and runs the climate and disaster risk assessment efforts at the Manila Observatory, a research institute.

And Batasans residents have adjusted. They have rolled up their hems. They have placed their houses on blocks of coral stone. They have tethered their goats to sheds on stilts. They have moved most plant life from floodable patches of land to portable pots.

There are other concessions. The Roman Catholic priest at the local church declared that parishioners no longer have to kneel for prayer when the tides are high.

We will find a way to do things because this is our home, said Annie Casquejo, a local health committee member who once worked off the island but has, like many others, returned to Batasan.

Natures constant threat has imprinted resilience on the Philippine DNA.

The Philippines is one of the most disaster-prone countries on earth, victim to typhoons, earthquakes, floods, landslides and tsunamis, among other calamities. Early this year, Taal Volcano sent plumes of ash into the sky, threatening Manila.

Practically speaking, the entire Philippines is a hazardous landscape so people cannot just move somewhere else and be totally safe, said Dakila Kim P. Yee, a sociologist at the University of the Philippines Visayas Tacloban College. We have developed this culture of adaptation and recovery.

More than 23,000 people in the Philippines died from natural hazards from 1997 to 2016, according to the Asian Development Bank.

Its a way of life to deal with environmental challenges like typhoons or tsunamis, said Ms. Jamero, of the Manila Observatory, referring to Tubigon islanders in particular and Filipinos in general. Climate change has a severe impact but this is not totally alien to them so they have the capacity.

On Ubay, an island of 160 residents that is 20 minutes by boat from Batasan, raised walkways connect a warren of shacks. At the primary school, the floor has been lifted higher than many adults, leaving the classrooms jammed in the rafters with less than five feet of space.

Our teachers have to be very short, said John Alipoyo, a local councilor in Ubay. The students already are.

Before the renovation, children would sit in class and slosh their feet in the tides as they studied. Their attention drifted, parents said.

Even as such adaptations help people deal with the effects of the flooding, life on these tiny and hot islands, spread across the Cebu Strait, remains challenging.

Most days, the tropical sun bounces off the coral and sand, refracting into a hard light that gives many islanders a permanent squint. In 2016, it didnt rain for four months. Dynamite fishing and coral bleaching from climate change have robbed the sea of some of its life.

There is no source of fresh water, so residents depend on rainwater or drinking water brought in from elsewhere. People can grow a few herbs and vegetables, but theres no proper farming. Protein comes from the sea sleek anchovies, juicy mussels, fat shrimp and cheap cans of fatty corned beef.

Children on Batasan who are lucky enough to own bikes have one option up and down the main road, the only road.

The concrete strip runs for less than two-thirds of a mile, then peters out in a mangrove swamp near the home of Alma Rebucas, where thigh-high waters regularly infiltrate. She secures the familys utensils lest they float away. Her dog and goats are swimmers. So is the cat.

Ms. Rebucas said she has no plans to move away. The local government is constructing new buildings nearby, a vote of confidence even if its one that rests on raised cinder blocks.

She oversees a fishing business, plucking sea cucumbers, crabs and grouper from the shimmering sea. Life here is like a magic trick, Ms. Rebucas said, making something from nothing.

We dont need much land, she said. We have the whole sea.

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Adapting to Rising Seas, Schools Move to the Rafters and Cats Swim - The New York Times

Efforts ongoing to prevent pollution from MV Alta wreck – The Irish Times

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Preparations are continuing over the weekend to use a helicopter to airlift off barrels of oil from a ghost ship stranded on rocks near Ballycotton in east Cork, according to Cork County Council.

According to Cork County Council which is co-ordinating efforts to prevent any pollution from the MV Alta, a marine contractor is continuing with preparations to airlift off barrels of machine oil.

The MV Alta was washed on to rocks at Ballyandreen some 4km west of Ballycotton by Storm Dennis which battered the south and west coasts of Ireland with high seas and strong winds.

Cork County Council hired a marine surveyor to examine the vessel and over the past week, the ship has been inspected to see if there was any risk of fuel or bunker oil spilling and polluting the sea.

The marine surveyor found there was very little diesel left in the fuel tanks but they did find barrels of machine oil and diesel stored in various parts of the 77m long cargo freighter.

Over the past few days, the marine contractor has been bringing those barrels on to the deck of the freighter as well as bringing other barrels aboard to safely store other materials for removal.

According to Cork County Council County Engineer, Kevin Morey, it is hoped to airlift all the barrels from the ship starting on Tuesday providing the weather remains favourable.

Cork County Councils marine contractor is progressing well with preparations for the removal of the oil and other materials identified which could pose a pollution risk in the event of their spillage.

This work will continue throughout the weekend in order to ensure all these materials are ready for their safe removal by helicopter on Tuesday, should weather conditions be suitable, he said.

Mr Morey said the council is again asking members of the public to stay away from the wreck as it is located on a dangerous and inaccessible stretch of coastline and is in an unstable condition.

And he said that as part of the operation, Cork County Council is restricting access to a local cul-de-sac road with access only being permitted for local residents living near Ballyandreen.

The Council also wishes to advise that the lands along this stretch of shoreline are in private ownership and are not open to the public, said Cork County Council in a statement.

Meanwhile, the Revenue Commissioners, who are acting as Receiver of Wreck for the MV Alta, are continuing with efforts to try and trace ownership of the 44 year old abandoned freighter.

The freighter was abandoned in October 2018 when it ran into difficulty while sailing from Greece to Haiti after its main engine broke down over 1,600km off Bermuda and the crew asked for help.

According to Insurance Marine News, the US Coast Guard rescued the crew of ten from Panama, Honduras and Greece when the ship was some 2,000km south east of Bermuda.

The MV Alta at that stage was registered in Tanzania and was owned by Alta Shipping of Miami, Florida and salvage attempts by the owners were made, according to Insurance Marine News.

However the MV Alta began drifting eastwards and the Royal Navy ice patrol ship, HMS Protector came across the abandoned MV Alta off Africa on August 30th, 2019.

The HMS Protector, which was on its way to the Bahamas to assist with hurricane relief, attempted to make contact with the MV Alta but received no response and it continued drifting eastwards.

According to the Marine Traffic website, the MV Alta was by then registered in Norway where having been registered there on May 26th, 2019, having been first registered in Panama on April 1st, 2019.

It appears that both these most recent registration of ownership took place while the ship was abandoned at sea adding to the mystery surrounding the ownership of the ghost ship.

Originally posted here:

Efforts ongoing to prevent pollution from MV Alta wreck - The Irish Times