Dr. Denise Hardesty, Senior Research Scientist with CSIRO, said this is the first estimate of how much plastic waste ends up on the ocean floor, where it accumulates before being broken down into smaller pieces and mixed into ocean sediment.
"We know that millions of tons of plastic waste enter our oceans every year but what we didn't know is how much of this pollution ends up on our ocean floor," Dr. Hardesty said.
"We discovered that the ocean floor has become a resting place, or reservoir, for most plastic pollution, with between 3 to 11 million tons of plastic estimated to be sinking to the ocean floor.
"While there has been a previous estimate of microplastics on the seafloor, this research looks at larger items, from nets and cups to plastic bags and everything in between."
Alice Zhu, a Ph.D. Candidate from the University of Toronto who led the study, said the estimate of plastic pollution on the ocean floor could be up to 100 times more than the amount of plastic floating on the ocean's surface based on recent estimates.
"The ocean surface is a temporary resting place of plastic so it is expected that if we can stop plastic entering our oceans, the amount would be reduced," Zhu said. "However, our research found that plastic will continue to end up in the deep ocean, which becomes a permanent resting place or sink for marine plastic pollution."...
The ROV results also reveal that plastic mass clusters around continents—approximately half (46%) of the predicted plastic mass on the global ocean floor resides above 200 m depth. The ocean depths, from 200 m to as deep as 11,000 m contains the remainder of predicted plastic mass (54%).
Although inland and coastal seas cover much less surface area than oceans (11% vs. 56% out of the entire Earth's area), these areas are predicted to hold as much plastic mass as does the rest of the ocean floor.
"These findings help to fill a longstanding knowledge gap on the behavior of plastic in the marine environment," Zhu said.
Known as the “man who repairs women”, Mukwege, 69, has treated more than 80,000 survivors of sexual violence by armed groups at Panzi hospital, which he founded in Bukavu, South Kivu, in 1999. In 2018, along with the Yazidi activist Nadia Murad, he was awarded the Nobel peace prize for his work, which he dedicated to sexual violence survivors across the world.
In his Nobel lecture, he talked about the first patients admitted to the hospital. One had been raped and shot in her genitals; another was an 18-month-old baby horrifically injured by rape.
“The macabre violence knew no limit,” he said at the time. That violence has never stopped. Every day, between five and seven new survivors of rape come through the doors of the hospital.
Médecins Sans Frontières said last year that it was treating 48 people a day after a surge in cases of sexual violence around Goma. Photograph: Marion Molinari/MSF
“Raping a woman, raping the children and hurting them, and showing it to the community, is a way of traumatising [everyone],” says Mukwege, who, with Murad, set up the Global Survivors Fund to provide reparations for victims...
DRC has experienced three decades of conflict, with militias >and groups of bandits emerging from two civil wars fought between 1996 and 2003. The east of the country has borne the brunt of the fighting. More than 100 armed groups now operate there.
Among them is a resurgent M23, which the UN says is backed by neighbouring Rwanda, a claim Kigali denies. Since 2021, about 1.7 million people have fled fighting linked to the group in North Kivu, and hundreds of thousands of people are living in overcrowded camps in Goma and the surrounding area.
Mukwege has been critical of the Congolese government’s response to the fighting, denouncing its impunity over war crimes and crimes against humanity, and the “plundering of [the country’s] natural resources”. His comments have brought him enemies and he narrowly survived an assassination attempt in 2012. For a time he was under UN protection, but that ended in 2020.
In December, he ran in the presidential election. “I wanted to take my responsibility before history,” he says. “And we tried to offer an alternative vision to say that there is no fatality, that there is the possibility of changing things.”
Mukwege took about 1% of the vote and the incumbent, Felix Tshisekedi, won a second term in office in a vote that nine opposition candidates condemned as a “sham”.
He wants the international community to ditch “double >standards” in prioritising the crises in Ukraine and Gaza over that of the DRC.
“We’re experiencing almost the same tragedy as those taking place in the Middle East and Ukraine, but nobody is talking about the DRC, or very little,” he says.
Despite this, Mukwege retains his optimism and will continue to fight for those who suffer.
“I have hope,” he says, “because I am convinced that the victims who are suffering today will be able to take their destiny into their own hands and put an end to all the injustices we are experiencing here.”..
Sato already tops the list of Japanese surnames, accounting for 1.5% of the total population, according to a March 2023 survey, with Suzuki a close second.
Some social media users wrongly assumed the study, first reported on Monday but published in March, was an April fools’ day prank, but Yoshida said he wanted it to give people pause for thought.
A nation of Satos “will not only be inconvenient but also undermine individual dignity,” he said, according to the Asahi Shimbun, adding that the trend would also lead to the loss of family and regional heritage.
According to Yoshida’s calculations, the proportion of Japanese named Sato increased 1.0083 times from 2022 to 2023. Assuming the rate remains constant and there is no change to the law on surnames, around half of the Japanese population will have that name in 2446, rising to 100% in 2531.
Couples in Japan have to choose which surname to share when they marry, but in 95% of cases, it is the woman who changes her name.
However, the picture would be different if Japan’s government submitted to growing pressure to allow married couples to use separate surnames.
The study contained an alternative scenario extrapolated from a 2022 survey by the Japanese Trade Union Confederation, in which 39.3% of 1,000 employees aged 20 to 59 said they wanted to share a surname even if they had the option of using separate ones.
Under those circumstances, Yoshida, whose study was was commissioned by the Think Name Project and other organisations that want to legalise the opportunity to select your surname, projected that by 2531, only 7.96% of the Japanese population would be named Sato, the Mainichi Shimbun reported.
The reporters found 1,482 areas in the Apurinã Indigenous land registered as NFTs, which are digital certificates of ownership of unique (non-fungible) assets such as works of art, collectibles or properties. In this case, buyers make virtual purchases of plots in the territory, which they can sell to others anytime. It works like a stock exchange. NFT prices vary according to the prices of encrypted virtual money — cryptocurrencies — and the value of the environmental asset that is supposed to be contributing to preserve the forest. At least 665 clients purchased forest land plots and continue trading them as NFTs on specialized platforms.
According to Nemus, NFT holders can navigate the area they acquired and detect wildlife or environmental threats, monitoring and auditing the conservation of the area.
Nemus’ businesses are associated with European investors and ASF BRAZIL LTD, a London-based holding company founded by Italian businessman Maurizio Totta. In Brazil, Totta is a partner of Pedro Ruhs da Silva and Flávio Meira Penna, who appear as owners of Nemus and other companies in partnership with ASF. The group’s main investments in the Amazon are focused on timber extraction, with the recovery of bankrupt or indebted companies.
In an interview on American TV in the Break It Down Show, Nemus’ founder Meira Penna said the Indigenous people “are sort of like squatters” in the areas acquired by Nemus, but he stated that “they’ll live there forever” and “they will jump to the digital world very quickly.”
In the video, which can be seen in full on YouTube, the businessman details his NFT project in the area claimed by the Indigenous people. The deal is meant to raise up to $5 million, with NFTs selling for $150-$51,000. With that money, Nemus would buy more areas in the region to launch more NFTs, as explained in the video.
In addition to Manasa, Meira Penna also acquired a timber company, Laminados Triunfo, in Acre state and exported the product to the U.S. In April, the company was the target of a “timber laundering” investigation by the Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA).
ILO Convention 169 provides for the right to consultation on any project that interferes with Indigenous lands. Regardless of whether or not the territory has already been officially recognized, the entire recognized Indigenous community must be aware of what is being proposed and has the right to approve the project or not. The matter must be discussed internally by the Indigenous people, with the adoption of a consultation protocol that allows everyone in the territory to have access to information about the projects.
To the Prosecution Service, Nemus said the property was not on “actually demarcated Indigenous land,” and therefore the company’s understanding was that “no article of ILO 169 convention on consultation applies.”
In the same document from August 2022, Nemus said it was not yet developing economic activities in the area. However, at the time, the company had already launched its NFTs on the market, for which sales began in March 2022.
What a dumb way to spend money. Meanwhile there are a lot of nonprofits who desperately need money. Like food banks, homeless shelters or even doctors without borders.
We’re very lucky to exist on a planet where we’re intellectually superior to any other species, and it would be enough for an asteroid to send us into oblivion.
Humans aren’t intellectually superior to other species, and all life on earth is threatened because of this delusion.
The sole advantage humans have over other animal species is our ability to convey and stack generational information. Misinformation is also shared, such as the regrettable story we tell about our supremacy.
I don’t think I agree, we’ve survived because of the evolution of our intellects, and there are no other species on earth that can rationalize, think, imagine like us.
Just blatantly untrue. Of course, there are plenty of animals that are much more intelligent than they tend to get credit for, but none of them are even close to humans. It’s absurd to try and say otherwise, frankly; even accounting for individual humans that are really really stupid. Those people are still more intelligent than the smartest animal.
“Let’s continue to work together to ensure a safer and more secure future for Inuit women, girls and gender-diverse Inuit, wherever they live in Canada,” said former Iqaluit mayor and MLA Elisapee Sheutiapik, who represents Iqaluit on Pauktuutit’s board.
Sheutiapik said her family has been impacted by gender-based violence. She called for more resources such as better mental health supports and education, to address the root causes of violence.
Marked annually on Dec. 6, the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women commemorates women’s lives lost to violence on the anniversary of the 1989 mass shooting at École Polytechnique in Montreal.
Yes. And the US did and does use the exact same methods all across the world. Lots of this info is now public thanks to the leaks of the past couple decades post 911.
You are literally doing whataboutism. The article is about China. Nobody mentioned the US. Then you come in and go “what about the things that US does???”
Over the past decade China has forcibly repatriated more than 12,000 fugitives, as part of a state campaign to stamp out corruption, according to a new report by a human rights group.
Safeguard Defenders, the Spain-based group, says that Xi Jingping’s government has relied heavily on extrajudicial methods such as kidnappings, harassment and intimidation to “persuade” and coerce Chinese nationals living in more than 120 countries to return to China.
Though Beijing claims the fugitives are alleged criminal suspects, the group’s report says that China’s “deeply flawed and politicized” judicial system makes it difficult to know with certainty whether the accusations have merit.
“It is essential to point out that these extrajudicial operations are illegal under international law regardless of the type of target and all constitute instances of transnational repression,” Laura Harth, one of the authors of the report, told the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
The report, titled “Chasing Fox Hunt,” is based on accounts of 283 individuals who were repatriated or extradited from more than 50 countries, as well as data published by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the agency that coordinates anti-corruption activities under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party.
“Fox Hunt” is the official name of the international policing operation launched by the Chinese government in 2014. In 2015, it became part of a broader initiative called “Operation Sky Net,” which added dedicated task forces to crack down on money laundering, fake passports and illegal income, according to the report. Both “Fox Hunt” and “Sky Net” are still active today, and are only two of the state-sponsored operations targeting Chinese nationals overseas.
"If Beijing cannot secure their loyalty via persuasion, it will demand their loyalty via force."
One of my dad’s closest friends, who was from China, ran a small business in the United States. Around 2010 he began hearing from relatives still in China that they were being threatened by the government if he didn’t go back to “check in”.
He was terrified that, if he obliged, he’d never get out of China - but he couldn’t take the chance that family might be harmed if he refused. He arranged to close his business for a month and went back to China for a brief visit. Of course, nobody ever heard from him again.
Legal personhood endows rights and duties, a status enjoyed by humans but rarely extended to other entities. New Zealand is a frontrunner: in 2017 it passed a historic law that granted personhood status to the Whanganui River because of its importance to Maori, New Zealand’s indigenous people.
Three years earlier, in 2014, New Zealand declared the Te Urewera ranges in the east of the North Island to be the first ecosystem in the world with legal personhood. The law declared: “Te Urewera is a legal entity, and has all the rights, powers, duties and liabilities of a legal person.”
While animal rights have been enshrined in the German constitution since 2002, past attempts to confer legal personhood on them have foundered. A New York appeals court ruled in 2014 that apes cannot give back to society in a way that merits human rights.
Conservationists intend to use the whales declaration, signed on Rarotonga in the Cook Islands last week, as a basis to lobby the governments of New Zealand, the Cook Islands, Tahiti and Tonga...
Danuphorn Punnakanta, a spokesperson of the governing Pheu Thai party and president of a committee overseeing the marriage equality bill, said in Parliament that the amendment is for “everyone in Thailand” regardless of their gender, and would not deprive heterosexual couples of any rights.
“For this law, we would like to return rights to the (LGBTQ+ group). We are not giving them rights. These are the fundamental rights that this group of people … has lost,” he said.
Lawmakers, however, did not approve inclusion of the word “parent” in addition to “father and mother” in the law, which activists said would limit the rights of some LGBTQ+ couples to form a family and raise children.
Thailand has a reputation for acceptance and inclusivity but has struggled for decades to pass a marriage equality law.The new government led by Pheu Thai, which took office last year, has made marriage equality one of its main goals.
PNG in this case refers to ‘Papua New Guinea’ and not the graphics format. This is not a story about NFTs, which is what I thought at first and questioned what the hell I was reading.
Eswatini, formerly known as Swaziland, is among only 13 countries that officially recognise Taiwan over China, which claims the self-ruled island as its own territory.
It is also Taiwan's last diplomatic ally in Africa, after Burkina Faso ditched Taipei in favour of Beijing in 2018.
China has poached nine of Taiwan's diplomatic allies since Tsai came to power in 2016 as relations have worsened.
It has also ramped up military pressure.
In April, it conducted military exercises to simulate the encirclement of the island after Tsai met US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in California.
As Tsai's African visit was announced on Friday, Taiwan's defence ministry said it had detected 22 Chinese warplanes around the island since 7 am (2300 GMT Thursday).
The ministry said 13 of them either crossed the median line of the strait that separates Taiwan from mainland China, or entered the island's air defence identification zone (ADIZ).
The aircraft conducted "joint combat patrol" with five warships around Taiwan, it said.
Beijing also staged military drills earlier this month after Taiwan's Vice President Lai Ching-te returned from a visit to Paraguay with two US stopovers, and banned mango imports from the island.
With drastic action now needed to limit global warming to the Paris Agreement target of 1.5°C, the scientists warn that recent extremes in Antarctica may be the tip of the iceberg.
The study reviews evidence of extreme events in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean, including weather, sea ice, ocean temperatures, glacier and ice shelf systems, and biodiversity on land and sea.
It concludes that Antarctica's fragile environments "may well be subject to considerable stress and damage in future years and decades"—and calls for urgent policy action to protect it.
"Antarctic change has global implications," said lead author Professor Martin Siegert, from the University of Exeter. "Reducing greenhouse gas emissions to net zero is our best hope of preserving Antarctica, and this must matter to every country—and individual—on the planet." ...
The researchers considered the vulnerability of Antarctica to a range of extreme events, to understand the causes and likely future changes—following a series of recent extremes.
For example, the world's largest recorded heat wave (38.5°C above the mean) occurred in East Antarctica in 2022 and, at present, winter sea ice formation is the lowest on record.
Extreme events can also affect biodiversity. For example, high temperatures have been linked to years with lower krill numbers, leading to breeding failures of krill-reliant predators—evidenced by many dead fur seal pups on beaches.
Co-author Professor Anna Hogg, from the University of Leeds, said, "Our results show that while extreme events are known to impact the globe through heavy rainfall and flooding, heat waves and wildfires, such as those seen in Europe this summer, they also impact the remote polar regions."
"Antarctic glaciers, sea ice and natural ecosystems are all impacted by extreme events. Therefore, it is essential that international treaties and policy are implemented in order to protect these beautiful but delicate regions."
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