Six In The Morning Saturday 23 July 2022

 

World Health Organization declares monkeypox a global emergency

WHO declares the monkeypox outbreak in more than 50 countries a ‘public health emergency of international concern’.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the monkeypox outbreak in more than 50 countries an “emergency of international concern”. More than 16,500 cases of monkeypox have been reported globally.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus made the decision to issue the declaration despite a lack of consensus among experts serving on the UN health agency’s emergency committee. It was the first time the chief of the UN health agency has taken such an action.

DRC to auction oil and gas permits in endangered gorilla habitat

Sale calls into question protection deal signed at Cop26 as expert warns Congo auction could be a catastrophe for wildlife, health and climate

Patrick Greenfield

@pgreenfielduk

The Democratic Republic of the Congo has announced it will auction oil and gas permits in critically endangered gorilla habitat and the world’s largest tropical peatlands next week. The sale raises concerns about the credibility of a forest protection deal signed with the country by Boris Johnson at Cop26.

On Monday, hydrocarbons minister Didier Budimbu said the DRC was expanding an auction of oil exploration blocks to include two sites that overlap with Virunga national park, a Unesco world heritage site home to Earth’s last remaining mountain gorillas.

The planned sale already included permits in the Cuvette Centrale tropical peatlands in the north-west of the country, which store the equivalent to three years’ global emissions from fossil fuels.

Ticking 'socioeconomic bomb': North Africa's disappearing beaches

Southern shores of the Mediterranean Sea are losing sand faster than almost anywhere else. The good news is, there are ways to cope.

Over the past 15 years, the fishermen of Ghannouch, a town around 400 kilometers (ca. 250 miles) south of the Tunisian capital, Tunis, say they have seen "radical changes" on the coastline they sail around. 

"The sand is decreasing and the rocks are starting to appear," Sassi Alaya, a local seaman and the head of the fisheries guild in the southern port, told DW. "It is a double problem because the coasts of the state of Gabes are already suffering from environmental pollution due to the chemical factories in the region. It greatly affects the work of small fisheries businesses."

Russia speaks of expanding Ukraine mission despite realities on the ground

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said this week that Moscow is expanding its military aims in Ukraine beyond the eastern Donbas region. But the Russian military has been experiencing difficulties on the ground, prompting many to wonder whether it is realistic for the Kremlin to expand the scope of its Ukraine operations. 

President Vladimir Putin’s stated goal for the February 24 Russian invasion of Ukraine was the “demilitarisation and de-Nazification of Ukraine”, a prevarication that many took to mean a wholesale Russian takeover, including possible regime change. But Ukraine put up fierce resistance, prompting Russia in late March to say it was focusing its aims on the eastern Donbas region, parts of which pro-Moscow separatists had already seized in 2014. 

But, once again, it seems the Donbas is not enough for Moscow. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told state media on July 20 that Russia is no longer “only” trying to take control of the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts, or administrative departments, in Donbas.  

Suspect in Abe slaying ordered to undergo psychiatric tests

THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

July 23, 2022 at 13:54 JST

The suspect in the slaying of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was ordered to undergo a psychiatric examination expected to take several months to determine whether he is mentally fit to stand trial.

According to investigative sources, the Nara District Court on July 22 approved a request from the Nara District Public Prosecutors Office to conduct a psychiatric evaluation of Tetsuya Yamagami, 41. The evaluation is expected to take until late November.

Yamagami will be transferred to a hospital for the evaluation, which will also look into his developmental background. Prosecutors will use the results of the exam to determine if Yamagami is mentally competent to be indicted.

CNN Exclusive: FBI investigation determined Chinese-made Huawei equipment could disrupt US nuclear arsenal communications

By Katie Bo Lillis

Updated 0401 GMT (1201 HKT) July 23, 2022

On paper, it looked like a fantastic deal. In 2017, the Chinese government was offering to spend $100 million to build an ornate Chinese garden at the National Arboretum in Washington DC. Complete with temples, pavilions and a 70-foot white pagoda, the project thrilled local officials, who hoped it would attract thousands of tourists every year.      

But when US counterintelligence officials began digging into the details, they found numerous red flags. The pagoda, they noted, would have been strategically placed on one of the highest points in Washington DC, just two miles from the US Capitol, a perfect spot for signals intelligence collection, multiple sources familiar with the episode told CNN.