AFP UK

Municipal workers clean the shores of the Mar Menor lagoon in Spain, which was granted personhood status to give its threatened ecosystem better protection

Spain granted personhood status Wednesday to a large saltwater lagoon to give its threatened ecosystem better protection, the first time such a measure has been taken in Europe.

The initiative to grant the status to the Mar Menor — one of Europe’s largest saltwater lagoons — was debated in parliament after campaigners collected over 500,000 signatures backing it.

It now becomes law after Spain’s Senate, the upper house of parliament, voted in favour of the proposal, with only far-right party Vox opposing it.

This will allow the rights of the lagoon located in southeastern Spain to be defended in court, as though it were a person or business.

“The Mar Menor becomes the first European ecosystem with its own rights after the Senate approved the bill to give it a legal identity,” the president of the Senate, Ander Gil, tweeted after the vote.

The lagoon will now be legally represented by a group of caretakers made up of local officials, scientists who work in the area and local residents.

Ecologists have for years warned that the Mar Menor is slowly dying due to the runoff of fertilisers from nearby farms.

In August 2021, millions of dead fish and crustaceans began washing up on the shores of the lagoon, which experts blamed on agricultural pollution.

They argue that sealife died due to a lack of oxygen caused by hundreds of tonnes of fertiliser nitrates leaking into the waters causing a phenomenon known as eutrophication which collapses aquatic ecosystems.

Two similar catastrophic pollution events occurred in 2016 and 2019.

Ecologists in October 2021 submitted a formal complaint to the EU over what they called Spain’s “continued failure” to protect the Mar Menor, which they warned was on the brink of “ecological collapse”.

The following month the Spanish government unveiled a 382-million-euro ($377 million) plan to regenerate the lagoon.

It outlines several environmental regeneration projects to support biodiversity in and around the lagoon, including the creation of a 1.5-kilometre (one mile) buffer zone along the Mar Menor’s shores.

Hopeful moonwalkers (from left): Germany's Alexander Gerst, France's Thomas Pesquet, Italy's Luca Parmitano and Germany's Matthias Maurer

The European Space Agency announced a team of seven astronauts on Wednesday to train for NASA’s Artemis mission to the moon — but only one will have the chance to become the first European to walk on the lunar surface.

The candidates — France’s Thomas Pesquet, Britain’s Tim Peake, Germany’s Alexander Gerst and Matthias Maurer, Italy’s Luca Parmitano and Samantha Cristoforetti, and Denmark’s Andreas Mogensen — have all completed at least one mission on board the International Space Station.

Between them, the team has the equivalent of 4.5 years in orbit and 98 hours of spacewalking, ESA communications head Philippe Willekens told journalists at the International Astronautical Congress in Paris.

Three of the astronauts will be selected to go to the Lunar Gateway, a planned station that will orbit the moon.

But only one will set foot on the moon by the end of the decade. At some point, the ESA will have to decide which of the seven candidates will get to go.

“We’re all candidates and what matters is to go there as a team,” Pesquet told reporters at the event in Paris.

“Look, we’re all wearing the same shirt,” he added. Pesquet, Gerst, Maurer and Parmitano all attended wearing a navy blue polo shirt with ESA and Artemis logos.

Cristoforetti had to video call in from space, where she is currently onboard the ISS after becoming the first European woman to embark on a spacewalk outside the station in July.

Mogensen also spoke over video as he prepares for his own tour onboard the ISS.

– ‘Something inspiring for Europe’ –

The launch of the first Artemis mission, which is uncrewed and aims to test out a new rocket system and Orion capsule, has been delayed several times due to technical glitches including a fuel leak. NASA is now targeting September 27 for launch.

The next mission, Artemis 2, will take astronauts to the Moon without landing on its surface, while the third — aiming to launch in 2025 — will see the first people set foot on the moon since 1972.

The ESA is providing the European Service Module on the Orion capsule.

“During this decade, three ESA astronauts will fly to the Lunar Gateway — our permanent station we’re building around the moon,” David Parker, ESA’s director of human and robotic exploration, told AFP.

“And if all that goes well, by the end of this decade we’ll be ready to send the first European astronaut to the moon,” he added.

Putting a European on the moon would be “something inspiring for Europe, a strong signal to say that ‘here we are, taking our place in the space world, in a cooperative way’,” Pesquet said.

“With a European on the moon, I hope that a united Europe will become more of a reality that it is today,” Maurer said.

Despite deep divisions between Russia and the West over Moscow’s war in Ukraine, on Wednesday a US astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts blasted off to the ISS on a Russian-operated flight.

The delicate, dusty rings have been revealed in fine detail in the latest image from the James Webb Space Telescope

The James Webb Space Telescope has turned its gaze away from the deep universe towards our home Solar System, capturing an image of a luminous Neptune and its delicate, dusty rings in detail not seen in decades, NASA said Wednesday.

The last time astronomers had such a clear view of the farthest planet from the Sun was when NASA’s Voyager 2 became the first and only space probe to fly past the ice giant for just a few hours in 1989.

Now Webb’s unprecedented infrared imaging capabilities has provided a new glimpse into Neptune’s atmosphere, said Mark McCaughrean, a senior advisor for science and exploration at the European Space Agency.

The telescope “takes all that glare and background away” so that “we can start to tease out the atmospheric composition” of the planet, McCaughrean, who has worked on the Webb project for more than 20 years, told AFP.

Neptune appears as deep blue in previous images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope due to methane in its atmosphere.

However the near-infrared wavelengths captured by Webb’s primary imager NIRCam shows the planet as a greyish white, with icy clouds streaking the surface.

“The rings are more reflective in the infrared,” McCaughrean said, “so they’re much easier to see”.

The image also shows an “intriguing brightness” near the top of Neptune, NASA said in a statement. Because the planet is tilted away from Earth and takes 164 years to orbit the Sun, astronomers have not yet had a good look at its north pole.

Webb also spotted seven of Neptune’s 14 known moons.

– Strange moon – 

Looming over Neptune in a zoomed-out image is what appears to be a very bright spiky star, but is in fact Triton, Neptune’s strange, huge moon haloed with Webb’s famed diffraction spikes.

Triton, which is larger than dwarf planet Pluto, appears brighter than Neptune because it is covered in ice, which reflects light. Neptune meanwhile “absorbs most of the light falling on it”, McCaughrean said.

Because Triton orbits the wrong way around Neptune, it is believed to have once been an object from the nearby Kuiper belt which was captured in the planet’s orbit.

“So it’s a pretty cool to go and have a look at,” said McCaughrean.

As astronomers sweep the universe searching for other planets like our own, they have found that ice giants such as Neptune and Uranus are the most common in the Milky Way.

“By being able to look at these ones in great detail, we can key into our observations of other” ice giants,” McCaughrean said.

Operational since July, Webb is the most powerful space telescope ever built, and has already unleashed a raft of unprecedented data. Scientists are hopeful it will herald a new era of discovery.

Research based on Webb’s observations of both Neptune and Triton is expected in the next year.

“The kind of astronomy we’re seeing now was unimaginable five years ago,” McCaughrean said.

“Of course, we knew that it would do this, we built it to do this, it is exactly the machine we designed.

“But to suddenly start seeing things in these longer wavelengths, which were impossible before… it’s just absolutely remarkable.”

This aerial picture shows a flooded area in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, after the passage of Hurricane Fiona

Hurricane Fiona churned toward Bermuda as a powerful Category 4 storm on Wednesday as Puerto Rico struggled to restore power and water after receving a crushing blow.

The US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said Fiona was expected to approach Bermuda, a British territory of some 64,000 people, late on Thursday.

In Washington, the State Department advised Americans to reconsider travel to Bermuda and authorized family members of US government personnel to leave.

“US citizens in Bermuda wishing to depart the island should depart now, ahead of Hurricane Fiona’s arrival,” it said in a travel advisory.

Fiona was upgraded overnight to a Category 4 hurricane, the second highest level on the Saffir-Simpson scale.

The NHC said the storm was packing maximum winds of 130 miles per hour (210 kilometers per hour) as it headed north toward Bermuda at around eight miles per hour.

“On the forecast track, the center of Fiona will continue to move away from the Turks and Caicos today, approach Bermuda late on Thursday and approach Atlantic Canada late Friday,” the NHC said.

“A storm surge will cause elevated water levels along the coast of Bermuda,” it said. “Near the coast, the surge will be accompanied by large and destructive waves.”

Fiona has left a trail of destruction across the Caribbean and killed four people in Puerto Rico, according to a US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) official quoted by The Washington Post.

One death was reported in the French overseas department of Guadeloupe and another in the Dominican Republic.

FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell is in Puerto Rico and toured flood damaged areas with the governor of the US territory, Pedro Pierluisi.

– ‘Will not stop’ –

FEMA said it was sending hundreds of additional personnel to Puerto Rico to help with relief efforts on the island, which suffered widespread power outages.

Pierluisi said the storm had caused catastrophic damage on the island of three million people, with some areas receiving more than 30 inches (76 centimeters) of rain.

US President Joe Biden has declared a state of emergency in Puerto Rico, which is still struggling to recover from Hurricane Maria five years ago.

LUMA, the Puerto Rico power company, said more than 2,000 utility workers were assessing damage and working to restore electricity to hundreds of thousands of customers.

“LUMA and all our partners will not stop until every customer is restored and the entire grid is reenergized,” its public safety manager Abner Gomez said in a statement.

The storm also left around hundreds of thousands of people in Puerto Rico without drinking water as a result of power outages and flooded rivers, officials said.

In the Dominican Republic, President Luis Abinader declared three eastern provinces to be disaster zones: La Altagracia — home to the popular resort of Punta Cana — El Seibo and Hato Mayor.

After years of financial woes and recession, Puerto Rico in 2017 declared the largest bankruptcy ever by a local US administration. 

Later that year, the double hit from hurricanes Irma and Maria added to the misery, devastating the electrical grid on the island — which has suffered from major infrastructure problems for years.

The grid was privatized in June 2021 in an effort to resolve the problem of blackouts, but the issue has persisted, and the entire island lost power earlier this year.

Prince William has called for the 'fastest change the world has ever known' in transitioning to sustainable energy sources

Prince William on Wednesday hailed his late grandmother’s passion for the environment as he called for the “fastest change the world has ever known” in transitioning to sustainable energy sources. 

The prince, now heir to the throne after Queen Elizabeth II’s death, sent a pre-recorded video message to an innovation summit in New York for the annual Earthshot Prize, which he created in 2019 to reward efforts to combat climate change.

“Although it is the saddest of circumstances that means I cannot join you in person today, I am pleased to be able to join you in video,” he said, two days after the funeral for his grandmother Queen Elizabeth II, who died on September 8. 

“During this time of grief, I take great comfort in your continued enthusiasm, optimism and commitment to The Earthshot Prize and what we are trying to achieve,” he added in the video, which was released by his Kensington Palace office.

“Protecting the environment was a cause close to my grandmother’s heart, and I know she would have been delighted to hear about this event and the support you are all giving our Earthshot Finalists -– the next generation of environmental pioneers.”

William, 40, who took on the title of Prince of Wales following his grandmother’s death, presented the inaugural Earthshot prizes at a ceremony in London last October, with projects from Costa Rica, Italy, the Bahamas and India picking up prizes.

His environmentalism also follows the example of his late grandfather Prince Philip, a former president of the World Wildlife Fund, and his father, the new King Charles III, who has long warned of the dangers of climate change. 

The prince acknowledged that the world “is an uncertain place right now”, with conflict, soaring energy prices and food shortages hitting families around the world. 

“While addressing these in the short-term, we must also remain resolutely focused on tackling the greatest challenges that threaten our tomorrow,” he said.

“Together, we need to ensure the transition to sustainable solutions is the fastest and most endemic change the world has ever known.”

The Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft carrying the crew of Russian cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio blasts off to the International Space Station (ISS)

A US astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts blasted off to the International Space Station (ISS) Wednesday on a Russian-operated flight, in a rare instance of cooperation between Moscow and Washington.

The Russian space agency Roscosmos and NASA both distributed live footage of the launch from Kazakhstan and commentators speaking over the feed said it was stable and that “the crew is feeling well”.

NASA’s Frank Rubio and Russia’s Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin make up the crew that launched from the Russia-leased Baikonur cosmodrome at 1354 GMT.

Rubio is the first US astronaut to travel to the ISS on a Russian Soyuz rocket since President Vladimir Putin sent troops into pro-Western Ukraine on February 24.

In response, Western capitals including Washington have hit Moscow with unprecedented sanctions and bilateral ties have sunk to new lows. 

Space remained an outlier of cooperation between the two countries.

Russia’s only active female cosmonaut Anna Kikina is expected to travel to the orbital station in early October aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon. 

She will become only the fifth professional woman cosmonaut from Russia or the Soviet Union to fly to space, and the first Russian to fly aboard a spacecraft of SpaceX, the company of billionaire Elon Musk.

Russian cosmonauts and Western astronauts have sought to steer clear of the conflict that is raging back on Earth, especially when in orbit together.

A collaboration among the United States, Canada, Japan, the European Space Agency and Russia, the ISS is split into two sections: the US Orbital Segment, and the Russian Orbital Segment.

– Russia leaving ISS –

At present, the ISS depends on a Russian propulsion system to maintain its orbit, about 250 miles (400 kilometres) above sea level, with the US segment responsible for electricity and life support systems.

Tensions in the space field have grown after Washington announced sanctions on Moscow’s aerospace industry — triggering warnings from Russia’s former space chief Dmitry Rogozin, an ardent supporter of the Ukraine war.

Rogozin’s recently appointed successor Yuri Borisov later confirmed Russia’s long-mooted move to leave the ISS after 2024 in favour of creating its own orbital station.

US space agency NASA called the decision an “unfortunate development” that would hinder scientific work on the ISS.

Space analysts say that the construction of a new orbital station could take more than a decade and Russia’s space industry — a point of national pride — would not be able to flourish under heavy sanctions. 

The ISS was launched in 1998 at a time of hope for US-Russia cooperation following their Space Race competition during the Cold War.

During that era, the Soviet space programme flourished. It boasted a number of accomplishments that included sending the first man into space in 1961 and launching the first satellite four years earlier.

Experts say Roscosmos is now a shadow of its former self and has in recent years suffered a series of setbacks, including corruption scandals and the loss of a number of satellites and other spacecraft.

Russia years-long monopoly on manned flights to the ISS is also gone, to SpaceX, along with millions of dollars in revenue. 

A photo taken on December 6, 2021 shows high-tide flooding hitting low sections of Majuro Atoll in the Marshall Islands

Pacific atoll nations on Wednesday launched a new global partnership to preserve their sovereignty and heritage as their countries disappear under rising seas triggered by climate change. 

The Rising Nations Initiative was announced at an event on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly by Tuvalu Prime Minister Kausea Natano and President David Kabua of the Marshall Islands, with countries including Germany, the United States and Canada as early supporters.

“The climate crisis is creating an increasingly uncertain future for people in most parts of the world,” Natano said.

“Paradoxically, in my region, the Pacific, it is making our future increasingly certain — but not in a way that gives any kind of comfort.” 

Pacific island nations account for just 0.03 percent of global emissions yet are set to lose considerable territory in this century, with some becoming uninhabitable even if the world meets the Paris accord goal of limiting long-term warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Accordingly, Tuvalu, Kiribati and the Marshall Islands are calling for a global settlement guaranteeing their states a “permanent existence” beyond the habitable lifetime of their atolls.

The initiative puts forward a four-point plan: reaffirming the international community’s commitment to preserving their sovereignty; launching an adaptation program to increase resilience and protect livelihoods; creating a repository for the islands’ cultural heritage; and supporting the nations to acquire UNESCO World Heritage Status.

“We know that even at 1.5C average global temperature rise, our lands will eventually be submerged,” said Kabua. 

“Now we seek the same deep partnership from the international community to preserve our right to nationhood long into the future, retaining full rights to our national identity, and sustaining our rich heritage.”

Rising sea levels are already threatening Pacific atolls — contaminating their aquifers with salt water, bringing higher tides, increasing storm intensity and flooding, and weakening natural defenses.

Coral reef bleaching is reducing fish stocks and imperiling tourism, pushing up costs and forcing people to leave their homes.

A man stands outside his house in the aftermath of Hurricane Fiona in El Seibo, Dominican Republic

Hurricane Fiona continued its slow and devastating march northward after slamming the Turks and Caicos Islands on Tuesday and leaving a trail of destruction in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.

The US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said Wednesday morning that the storm had grown stronger, registering maximum wind speeds of 130 miles per hour (210 kilometers per hour) as it barreled toward Bermuda.

The NHC said Fiona was 105 miles (170 kilometers) north of Turks and Caicos and had been upgraded to a Category 4 hurricane, the second highest level on the Saffir-Simpson scale.

“Swells from Fiona are expected to reach Bermuda by early Thursday. The swells could cause life-threatening surf and rip current conditions,” the NHC said in its latest advisory.

At least five people have died as the storm churned across the Caribbean — one in the French overseas department of Guadeloupe and two each in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.

“Hurricane Fiona has proven to be an unpredictable storm,” Anya Williams, the deputy governor of Turks and Caicos, said in a broadcast.

Williams said no casualties or serious injuries had been reported in Turks and Caicos, but she urged residents to continue to shelter in place.

Blackouts were reported on Grand Turk and several other islands in the archipelago and 165 people were admitted to shelters, she said, adding that Britain’s Royal Navy and the US Coast Guard are standing by to provide assistance.

Dominican Republic President Luis Abinader has declared three eastern provinces to be disaster zones: La Altagracia — home to the popular resort of Punta Cana — El Seibo and Hato Mayor.

Authorities said Tuesday that more than 10,000 people had been moved to “safe areas,” while about 400,000 are without electricity.

Footage from local media showed residents of the east coast town of Higuey waist-deep in water trying to salvage personal belongings.

“It came through at high speed,” Vicente Lopez told AFP in Punta Cana, bemoaning the destroyed businesses in the area.

– ‘I have food and water’ –

US President Joe Biden has declared a state of emergency in Puerto Rico and dispatched the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency to the island, which is still struggling to recover from Hurricane Maria five years ago.

“We’re sending hundreds of additional personnel to support all affected communities,” FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell said Tuesday after a tour with Pedro Pierluisi, the island’s governor. 

Pierluisi said the storm had caused catastrophic damage on the island of three million people since Sunday, with some areas receiving more than 30 inches (76 centimeters) of rain.

Michelle Carlo, medical advisor for Direct Relief in Puerto Rico, told CBS News that “a lot of people in Puerto Rico are suffering right now.”

“About 80 percent of Puerto Ricans are still without power and about 65 percent are without water service,” Carlo said.

Across Puerto Rico, Fiona caused landslides, blocked roads and toppled trees, power lines and bridges, Pierluisi said.

A man was killed as an indirect result of the power blackout — burned to death while trying to fill his generator, according to authorities.

On Monday afternoon, Nelly Marrero made her way back to her home in Toa Baja, in the north of Puerto Rico, to clear out the mud that surged inside after she evacuated.

“Thanks to God, I have food and water,” Marrero — who lost everything when Hurricane Maria hit — told AFP by telephone.

The latest storm has left around 800,000 people without drinking water as a result of power outages and flooded rivers, officials said.

After years of financial woes and recession, Puerto Rico in 2017 declared the largest bankruptcy ever by a local US administration. 

Later that year, the double hit from hurricanes Irma and Maria added to the misery, devastating the electrical grid on the island — which has suffered from major infrastructure problems for years.

The grid was privatized in June 2021 in an effort to resolve the problem of blackouts, but the issue has persisted, and the entire island lost power earlier this year.

The cause of mass strandings is still not fully understood

A pod of 230 pilot whales was found stranded on the rugged west coast of Tasmania Wednesday, with Australian officials saying only half appeared to be alive.

Aerial images showed a devastating scene of dozens of black glossy mammals strewn across a long beach, stuck on the waterline where the frigid southern ocean meets the sand.

Locals covered survivors with blankets and doused them with buckets of water to keep them alive, as other whales nearby tried in vain to twitch free and yet more lay dead. 

The whales were “stranded near Macquarie Harbour” said the state’s Department of Natural Resources and Environment. 

“It appears about half of the animals are alive.”

Officials said marine conservation experts and staff with whale rescue gear were en route to the scene.

They will try to refloat animals that are strong enough to survive and likely tow the carcasses out to sea, to avoid attracting sharks to the area.

It is almost two years to the day since Macquarie Harbour was the scene of the country’s largest-ever mass stranding, involving almost 500 pilot whales. 

More than 300 pilot whales died during that stranding, despite the efforts of dozens of volunteers who toiled for days in Tasmania’s freezing waters to free them.

– Distress signals –

The cause of mass strandings is still not fully understood.

Scientists have suggested they could be caused by pods going off track after feeding too close to shore.

Pilot whales  — which can grow to more than six metres (20 feet) long — are highly sociable and can follow podmates who stray into danger.

That sometimes occurs when old, sick or injured animals swim ashore and other pod members follow, trying to respond to the trapped whale’s distress signals.

Others believe gently sloping beaches like those found in Tasmania confuse the whales’ sonar making them think they are in open waters.

The news came just hours after a dozen young male sperm whales were reported dead in a separate mass stranding on King Island — between Tasmania and the Australian mainland.

The young whales’ deaths may be a case of “misadventure”, wildlife biologist Kris Carlyon from the state government conservation agency told the local Mercury newspaper.

“The most common reason for stranding events is misadventure, they might have been foraging close to shore, there might have been food and possibly they were caught on a low tide,” Carlyon said.

“That’s the theory at the moment.”

In nearby New Zealand strandings are also common.

There, around 300 animals beach themselves annually, according to official figures and it is not unusual for groups of between 20 and 50 pilot whales to run aground. 

But numbers can run into the hundreds when a “super pod” is involved — in 2017, there was a mass stranding of almost 700 pilot whales.

Vienna's water system was set up almost a century and a half ago under the Austro-Hungarian Empire to provide the city with fresh water and to overcome diseases such as cholera

As Europe suffered its worst drought in centuries, residents in Austria’s capital were feeling fortunate for their plentiful water supply that courses from streams in the green forests of the Alps.

A rarety in the EU, the two million inhabitants of Vienna get their tap water from dozens of springs — the main one some 655 metres (2,150 feet) above sea level.

It’s a serious subject in Vienna, where access to clean drinking water has since 2001 even been guaranteed in the constitution — a world first, according to the city’s website.

“Vienna is in the fortunate position that, as a city of millions, firstly, we have enough water and secondly, that it’s water of the best quality,” Juergen Czernohorszky, Vienna councillor in charge of the environment, told AFP.

The summer of 2022 was the hottest in Europe’s recorded history, as climate change drives ever longer heat spells and the drought parching the continent was the worst in at least 500 years.

Yet at the main Klaeffer spring feeding Vienna, some 150 kilometres (90 miles) outside the capital, the underground source bears water that is less than six degrees Celsius (43 degrees Fahrenheit) in temperature.

Some 10,000 litres (2,600 gallons) per second flow out from the Klaeffer spring alone, feeding a river named Salza that coils down a steep uninhabited valley.

The water system was set up about a century and a half ago under the Austro-Hungarian Empire to provide the city with fresh water to overcome diseases such as cholera.

Today, the city’s sanctuary still encompasses 70 sources in untouched mountains south-west of the capital with a system of 130 aqueducts.

Thirty-one reservoirs in and around the city store the water, drawing officials from as far away as China to marvel at them, municipal water company Wiener Wasser spokeswoman Astrid Rompolt told AFP.

Each Viennese consumes around 130 litres of running water per day for some 30 euro cents ($0.30) — 15 cents cheaper than the same amount in Paris.

In Vienna, there is also enough to feed fountains, swimming pools, 1,300 drinking water fountains and even 175 mist showers that allow passers-by to cool off in the light spray.

The growing city plans to renovate 30 kilometres of pipeline per year to prepare for increasingly hot summers expected as the impacts of climate change intensify.