AFP UK

Consumer goods giant Unilver made 'misleading' claims about the environmental benefits of its Persil detergent brand

Britain on Wednesday banned an advertisement from consumer goods group Unilever over “misleading” environmental claims for its laundry detergent brand Persil.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said the television advert, which claimed Persil was “kinder to our planet”, had failed to demonstrate environmental benefits.

The ad, featuring children picking up litter on rivers and beaches, stated that Persil bottles were made with 50-percent recycled plastic and that the liquid detergent cleaned at low temperatures.

“We concluded that the basis of the claim ‘kinder to our planet’ had not been made clear,” the ASA said in a statement.

“Additionally, in the absence of evidence demonstrating that the full life cycle of the product had a lesser environmental impact compared to a previous formulation, we concluded the ad was likely to mislead.”

The regulator ruled that the ad must not appear again in its current form.

Unilever said in response to the ruling: “We are disappointed with the ASA adjudication as this TV advertisement.

“We are committed to making on-going improvements to all our products to make them more sustainable and will continue to look at how we can share this with our shoppers.” 

Homes are still submerged in many parts of the flooded south of Pakistan, with nowhere for the waters to drain

Army helicopters flew sorties over cut-off areas in Pakistan’s mountainous north Wednesday and rescue parties fanned out across waterlogged plains in the south as misery mounted for millions trapped by the worst floods in the country’s history.

Monsoon rains have submerged a third of Pakistan, claiming at least 1,160 lives since June and unleashing powerful floods that have washed away swathes of vital crops and damaged or destroyed more than a million homes.

United Nations chief Antonio Guterres called it “a monsoon on steroids” as he launched an international appeal late Tuesday for $160 million in emergency funding.

Officials say more than 33 million people are affected — one in every seven Pakistanis — and it will cost more than $10 billion to rebuild.

The focus for now, however, is reaching tens of thousands still stranded on hills and in valleys in the north, as well as remote villages in the south and west.

“We appeal to the government to help end our miseries at the soonest,” said Mohammad Safar, 38, outside his submerged home Wednesday in Shikarpur in the southeastern province of Sindh.

“The water must be drained out from here immediately so we can go back to our homes.”

There is so much water however that there is nowhere for it to drain.

Climate Change Minister Sherry Rehman described the country as “like a fully soaked sponge”, incapable of absorbing any more rain.

– ‘Burning with pain’ –

Pakistan has received twice its usual monsoon rainfall, weather authorities say, but Balochistan and Sindh provinces have seen more than four times the average of the last three decades.

Padidan, a small town in Sindh, has been drenched with an astonishing 1.75 metres (70 inches) since June.

Pakistan receives heavy — often destructive — rains during its annual monsoon season, which are crucial for agriculture and water supplies, but such intense downpours have not been seen for three decades.

Officials have blamed climate change, which is increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme weather around the world.

Earlier this year much of the nation was in the grip of a drought and heatwave, with temperatures hitting 51 degrees Celsius (124 Fahrenheit) in Sindh province.

The latest disaster could not have come at a worse time for Pakistan, where the economy is in free fall.

Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif promised aid donors that any funding would be responsibly spent.

“I want to give my solemn pledge and solemn commitment… every penny will be spent in a very transparent fashion. Every penny will reach the needy,” he said.

Pakistan was already desperate for international support and the floods have compounded the challenge.

Prices of basic goods — particularly onions, tomatoes and chickpeas — are soaring as vendors bemoan a lack of supplies from the flooded breadbasket provinces of Sindh and Punjab.

Makeshift relief camps have sprung up all over Pakistan — in schools, on motorways and in military bases.

Displaced people are sweltering in the summer heat with sporadic food aid and little access to water.

In Sindh, doctors treated patients who made their way to a makeshift clinic after walking barefoot through dirty floodwater, mud and streets full of debris and manure.

“My child’s foot is burning with pain. My feet too,” said Azra Bhambro, a 23-year-old woman who had come to the clinic for help.

In the northwestern town of Nowshera, a technical college was turned into a shelter for up to 2,500 flood victims.

The army said its helicopters had flown over 140 sorties in the past 24 hours, plucking people from cut-off areas in the north, and dropping off food and fresh water elsewhere.

Aid flights have arrived in recent days from China, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, while other countries including Canada, Australia and Japan have also pledged assistance.

Local tourists disembark from a Pakistani army helicopter after they were rescued from flood-hit tourist areas in the north

It was midnight when Yasmin and her family were ordered to urgently evacuate their room at the Honeymoon Hotel, perched above the picturesque ice-blue waters of the Swat river. 

They had swapped the sticky Lahore summer for the cooler climes of the northeastern mountains last week when they became embroiled in one of Pakistan’s worst disasters — one that has left more than 1,100 dead and a third of the country submerged by heavy flooding.

In the darkness, they fled their hotel in the remote Kalam valley.

Hours later, from the safety of higher ground, they watched it collapse and crumble into the thundering waters. 

“There was chaos, everyone was rushing to save their life,” the 53-year-old Yasmin told AFP Tuesday after she was evacuated to Mingora.

“We heard very strong bangs and then I saw the hotel we were staying in submerged in water. The sound of the water was so strong. It was like something had exploded.”

In the panic, she witnessed the despair of a mother unable to hold onto her small child.

“The child was shouting but his voice was overwhelmed by the gush of the water. His mother was trying to save him but she couldn’t,” Yasmin recalled, choking on her words. 

The boy was one of at least 21 people in the area lost to the floods, mainly due to collapsed houses. 

Accounts of last Thursday night’s horror have started to emerge after tourists were airlifted to safety by helicopter rescue missions — the only way of accessing remote valleys cut off by the flooding.

– Thousands still stranded –

All along the Swat river are the remnants of destroyed bridges, upended roads and the remains of hotels clinging to the banks.  

The water has receded but it could be days before road links are re-established with nearby towns. 

Junaid Khan, deputy commissioner for Swat, told AFP that up to 200,000 people were cut off.

More than 600 stricken tourists have made up the majority of evacuations — with women, children and the sick prioritised in an effort led by the military and supported by the provincial government’s helicopter. 

About 3,500 food aid packages have already been delivered –- some dropped from the back of a helicopter when crowds of people reaching for the aircraft made it impossible to land.

The stunning Swat Valley, known locally as the “Pakistani Switzerland”, is a popular destination for its majestic mountains, lakes and rivers. 

For days after her initial night of terror, Yasmin’s family sheltered in guest houses farther away from the swollen river until she could be rescued with her husband, who has a kidney condition, and her 12-year-old daughter. 

Her two adult sons stayed behind. 

While generally expectant of seasonal monsoon rains, tourists were surprised by the scale of the flooding that swept through the area.

“It feels like I have got a second life after arriving here,” said Yasmin from the safety of the airfield.

The Artemis I unmanned lunar rocket sits on the launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on August 25, 2022

NASA will make a second attempt to launch its powerful new Moon rocket on Saturday, after scrubbing a test flight earlier in the week, an official said Tuesday.

The highly anticipated uncrewed mission — dubbed Artemis 1 — will bring the United States a step closer to returning astronauts to the Moon five decades after humans last walked on the lunar surface.

Mission manager Mike Sarafin, said the NASA team “agreed to move our launch date to Saturday, September the third.”

Blastoff had been planned for Monday morning but was canceled because a test to get one of the rocket’s four RS-25 engines to the proper temperature range for launch was not successful.

Sarafin announced the date for the new launch attempt during a media briefing on Tuesday, and NASA later tweeted that the two-hour launch window on Saturday would begin at 2:17 pm (1817 GMT).

Launch weather officer Mark Burger said there is a 60 percent chance of rain or thunderstorms on the day of the launch, but added that there is still a “pretty good opportunity weather-wise to launch on Saturday.”

The goal of Artemis 1, named after the twin sister of Apollo, is to test the 322-foot (98-meter) Space Launch System rocket and Orion crew capsule that sits on top.

Mannequins equipped with sensors are standing in for astronauts on the mission and will record acceleration, vibration and radiation levels.

Tens of thousands of people — including US Vice President Kamala Harris — had gathered to watch the launch, 50 years after Apollo 17 astronauts last set foot on the Moon.

Ahead of the planned Monday launch, operations to fill the orange-and-white rocket with ultra-cold liquid hydrogen and oxygen were briefly delayed by a risk of lightning.

A potential leak was detected during the filling of the main stage with hydrogen, causing a pause. After tests, the flow resumed.

NASA engineers later detected the engine temperature problem and decided to scrub the launch.

“The way the sensor is behaving… doesn’t line up with the physics of the situation,” said John Honeycutt, manager of the Space Launch System program, adding that such issues with sensors were “not terribly unusual.”

Sarafin said the team would reconvene on Thursday to assess the situation.

– Orbiting the Moon –

The Orion capsule is to orbit the Moon to see if the vessel is safe for people in the near future. At some point, Artemis aims to put a woman and a person of color on the Moon for the first time.

During the 42-day trip, Orion will follow an elliptical course around the Moon, coming within 60 miles (100 kilometers) at its closest approach and 40,000 miles at its farthest — the deepest into space by a craft designed to carry humans.

One of the main objectives is to test the capsule’s heat shield, which at 16 feet in diameter is the largest ever built.

On its return to Earth’s atmosphere, the heat shield will have to withstand speeds of 25,000 miles per hour and a temperature of 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,760 degrees Celsius) — roughly half as hot as the Sun.

NASA is expected to spend $93 billion between 2012 and 2025 on the Artemis program, which is already years behind schedule, at a cost of $4.1 billion per launch.

The next mission, Artemis 2, will take astronauts into orbit around the Moon without landing on its surface.

The crew of Artemis 3 is to land on the Moon in 2025 at the earliest.

And since humans have already visited the Moon, Artemis has its sights set on another lofty goal: a crewed mission to Mars.

The Artemis program aims to establish a lasting human presence on the Moon with an orbiting space station known as Gateway and a base on the surface.

Gateway would serve as a staging and refueling station for a voyage to the Red Planet that would take a minimum of several months.

An undated image courtesy of Arizona State Parks and Trails shows a 200-year-old Saguaro cactus at Catalina State Park after it was felled by heavy rains

A giant Saguaro cactus that had lived for some 200 years was toppled by heavy rain in the southwestern US state of Arizona.

“Powerful seasonal rains can quickly make an impact on the desert landscape. The loss of this huge, iconic ~200 year old Saguaro on the Romero Ruins trail overlooking the Sutherland wash at Catalina State Park in Tucson is one change regular park visitors can’t miss,” Arizona State Parks said on Facebook.

A photo accompanying the post showed the cactus’s giant arms splayed on the ground, its trunk shattered.

The Saguaro cactus can reach more than 10 meters (32 feet) in height and weight more than two tons when full of water. The plant, which grows in the United States and Mexico, has become a symbol of the American West and particularly of the desert landscape of Arizona.

“Thankfully this giant has fallen off the trail and will stay where it landed, providing habitat and food for many creatures as it decomposes,” Arizona State Parks said.

The Artemis I unmanned lunar rocket sits on the launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on August 25, 2022

NASA will make a second attempt to launch its powerful new Moon rocket on Saturday, after scrubbing a test flight earlier in the week, an official said.

The highly anticipated uncrewed mission — dubbed Artemis 1 — will bring the United States a step closer to returning astronauts to the Moon five decades after humans last walked on the lunar surface.

Blastoff had been planned for Monday morning but was canceled because a test to get one of the rocket’s four RS-25 engines to the proper temperature range for launch was not successful.

Mike Sarafin, mission manager of Artemis 1, announced the date for the new launch attempt during a media briefing on Tuesday, and NASA later tweeted that the two-hour launch window on Saturday would begin at 2:17 pm (1817 GMT).

The goal of Artemis 1, named after the twin sister of Apollo, is to test the 322-foot (98-meter) Space Launch System rocket and Orion crew capsule that sits on top.

Mannequins equipped with sensors are standing in for astronauts on the mission and will record acceleration, vibration and radiation levels.

Tens of thousands of people — including US Vice President Kamala Harris — had gathered to watch the launch, 50 years after Apollo 17 astronauts last set foot on the Moon.

Ahead of the planned Monday launch, operations to fill the orange-and-white rocket with ultra-cold liquid hydrogen and oxygen were briefly delayed by a risk of lightning.

A potential leak was detected during the filling of the main stage with hydrogen, causing a pause. After tests, the flow resumed.

NASA engineers later detected the engine temperature problem and decided to scrub the launch.

– Orbiting the Moon –

The Orion capsule is to orbit the Moon to see if the vessel is safe for people in the near future. At some point, Artemis aims to put a woman and a person of color on the Moon for the first time.

During the 42-day trip, Orion will follow an elliptical course around the Moon, coming within 60 miles (100 kilometers) at its closest approach and 40,000 miles at its farthest — the deepest into space by a craft designed to carry humans.

One of the main objectives is to test the capsule’s heat shield, which at 16 feet in diameter is the largest ever built.

On its return to Earth’s atmosphere, the heat shield will have to withstand speeds of 25,000 miles per hour and a temperature of 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,760 degrees Celsius) — roughly half as hot as the Sun.

NASA is expected to spend $93 billion between 2012 and 2025 on the Artemis program, which is already years behind schedule, at a cost of $4.1 billion per launch.

The next mission, Artemis 2, will take astronauts into orbit around the Moon without landing on its surface.

The crew of Artemis 3 is to land on the Moon in 2025 at the earliest.

And since humans have already visited the Moon, Artemis has its sights set on another lofty goal: a crewed mission to Mars.

The Artemis program aims to establish a lasting human presence on the Moon with an orbiting space station known as Gateway and a base on the surface.

Gateway would serve as a staging and refueling station for a voyage to the Red Planet that would take a minimum of several months.

At least five people died as shelling hit the centre of Ukraine's second city of Kharkiv

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday accused Russia of attacking the area near Europe’s biggest nuclear plant due to be visited by UN inspectors as intense battles raged in southern Ukraine.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Rafael Grossi arrived in Kyiv late Monday together with a 13-strong team and headed for the Zaporizhzhia plant which has been occupied by Russian troops since early March.

“Sadly, Russia is not stopping its provocations precisely in the directions the mission needs to travel to arrive at the plant,” Zelensky said in his daily address to the nation.

“I hope the IAEA team will be able to start its work,” he said, adding that the situation in the plant was “extremely menacing”.

“The occupiers have not abandoned the plant, they are continuing bombardments and are not withdrawing arms and ammunition from the site. They are intimidating our personnel. The risk of a nuclear catastrophe due to Russian actions is not diminishing for even an hour”, he added.

“An immediate and total demilitarisation in Zaporizhzhia is necessary”.

The plant was targeted over the weekend by fresh shelling, Ukraine’s nuclear agency Energoatom said, with Moscow and Kyiv trading blame for attacks around the complex of six nuclear reactors located on the banks of the Dnipro River.

Meanwhile, intensive fighting raged across the nearby southern region of Kherson and Donbas, Zelensky said.

Most of the region of Kherson bordering the Black Sea and its provincial capital of the same name were seized by Russian forces at the start of the invasion six months ago.

With the war in the eastern Donbas region largely stalled, analysts have said for weeks that combat is likely to shift south to break the stalemate before winter comes.

Also Tuesday, fresh Russian strikes on the centre of the northeastern city of Kharkiv killed at least five people and injured seven. 

– A ‘long and complicated’ fight –

But much of the attention remained on the counter-offensive in the south. 

In Bereznehuvate, a town near the frontline some 70 kilometres (43 miles) north of Kherson city, AFP reporters could hear artillery fire and saw soldiers resting by the roadside.

“We forced them well back,” said Victor, an infantryman in his 60s who declined to give a surname.

But his commander Oleksandr, a veteran of the Soviet war in Afghanistan, predicted the fight to retake Kherson will be “long and complicated”.

Russia’s defence ministry claimed Tuesday that Ukraine had met “defeat” in its southern counterattack, suffering “large-scale losses” of more than 1,200 soldiers and some 150 military vehicles. 

For its part, the Ukrainian presidency claimed its forces had destroyed “almost all large bridges” over the Dnipro and that “only pedestrian crossings remain” in Kherson region.

Overnight, the Ukrainian-held city of Mykolaiv, 80 kilometres (50 miles) northwest of Kherson, came under “massive bombardment” with Russian anti-aircraft missiles killing two civilians and injuring 24, the army’s southern command said. 

– ‘We are not afraid’ – 

The fresh fighting came as students across Ukraine prepared for the start of a new academic year after schools were shut by the Russian invasion, now in its seventh month.

Only those schools with air-raid bunkers will be permitted to reopen, with the rest reverting to online learning.

“We just want to live our life fully,” 16-year-old student Polina told AFP in Kyiv.

“We are not afraid, we have already lived enough. Our generation has decided to live in the present moment.”

European Union defence ministers meeting in Prague Tuesday began planning a training program for Ukrainian soldiers. 

“There are many training initiatives but the needs are enormous,” said EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, who says Ukrainian troops could be trained in nearby EU member states.

EU member states were meanwhile split over a proposal to ban Russian travellers from entering its territory with heavyweights Germany and France insisting on the need to differentiate between those who were responsible for the war and those who weren’t.

“We… have to retain our ties to the latter,” French foreign minister Catherine Colonna said, singling out Russian artists, students and journalists.

– Protection for Odessa –

Ukraine said it will ask the UN’s cultural watchdog to add the historic port city of Odessa to its World Heritage List of protected sites as Moscow’s forces approach the city, officials said Tuesday.

Russian forces are within several dozen kilometres (miles) of Odessa, which blossomed after empress Catherine the Great decreed in the late 18th century that it would be Russia’s modern gateway to the Black Sea.

“Odessa is in danger right now,” Ukraine’s Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko told AFP after meeting with UNESCO director Audrey Azoulay in Paris.

Last month the city was struck by missiles just hours after Russia agreed to allow a shipment of Ukrainian grain exports from the port.

It is not unusual for southern California to experience heat waves in September, but temperatures above 100 Fahrenheit are considered hot even for a place almost perpetually baked by sunshine

A “dangerous” heat wave was taking hold of the southwestern United States Tuesday, with punishing temperatures expected for the next week.

Forecasters said the mercury could reach as high as 112 Fahrenheit (44 Celsius) in the densely populated Los Angeles suburbs as a heat dome settles in over parts of California, Nevada and Arizona.

“Dangerously hot conditions expected through the week,” the National Weather Service warned.

“A prolonged period of excessive heat will significantly increase the potential for heat related illnesses, particularly for those working or participating in outdoor activities,” the NWS said.

“Those without access to adequate or reliable cooling or hydration will be at most risk, but much of the population could be susceptible to impacts as well.”

Nighttime temperatures are not expected to offer much relief, with lows struggling to get below 80 Fahrenheit in many places.

Things were heating up in and around Los Angeles on Tuesday, with inland areas already experiencing stifling temperatures.

But, said David Sweet, a meteorologist at the NWS in Oxnard, California, it is going to get worse.

“We’re looking at a heat wave starting on Wednesday and continuing through at least Monday of next week,” he told AFP.

“During that time, we’ll be looking at conditions hot enough to warrant an excessive heat warning,” he added.

It is not unusual for southern California to experience heat waves in September, but temperatures above 100 Fahrenheit are considered hot even for a place almost perpetually baked by sunshine.

The heat wave comes after swathes of the southwest were lashed with torrential rains over recent weeks.

Some areas, including the notoriously dusty Death Valley, suffered flooding, and one person died after being swept away in Zion National Park in Utah.

Scientists say global warming, which is being driven chiefly by humanity’s unending appetite for the power that fossil fuel provides, is making natural weather variations more extreme.

Heat waves are getting hotter and more intense, while storms are getting wetter and, in many cases, more dangerous.

An undated image courtesy of Arizona State Parks and Trails shows a 200-year-old Saguaro cactus at Catalina State Park after it was felled by heavy rains

A giant Saguaro cactus that had lived for some 200 years was toppled by heavy rain in the southwestern US state of Arizona.

“Powerful seasonal rains can quickly make an impact on the desert landscape. The loss of this huge, iconic ~200 year old Saguaro on the Romero Ruins trail overlooking the Sutherland wash at Catalina State Park in Tucson is one change regular park visitors can’t miss,” Arizona State Parks said on Facebook.

A photo accompanying the post showed the cactus’s giant arms splayed on the ground, its trunk shattered.

The Saguaro cactus can reach more than 10 meters (32 feet) in height and weight more than two tons when full of water. The plant, which grows in the United States and Mexico, has become a symbol of the American West and particularly of the desert landscape of Arizona.

“Thankfully this giant has fallen off the trail and will stay where it landed, providing habitat and food for many creatures as it decomposes,” Arizona State Parks said.

The Phantom Galaxy is a "favorite target for astronomers studying the origin and structure of galactic spirals," NASA and the ESA said

The James Webb space telescope has revealed dazzling new detail of a previously known slice of the cosmos 32 million light-years away, in a new picture released by NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA).

The infrared technology of the telescope, launched in December 2021, has allowed for an even clearer view of the so-called Phantom Galaxy than astronomers had ever seen before.  

“Webb’s sharp vision has revealed delicate filaments of gas and dust in the grandiose spiral arms which wind outwards from the center of this image,” NASA and the ESA said Monday. 

“A lack of gas in the nuclear region also provides an unobscured view of the nuclear star cluster at the galaxy’s center,” the agencies said in a statement.

The whirling celestial form, officially called M74, is located in the Pisces constellation 32 million light-years away from Earth. 

The Webb image shows the galaxy’s brilliant white, red, pink and light blue appendages of dust and stars swirling around a bright blue center, all set against the dark backdrop of deep space. 

M74 was previously photographed by the Hubble telescope, which captured the galaxy’s spiraling blue and pink arms, but instead showed its glowing center as a soft yellow. 

The Phantom Galaxy is a “favorite target for astronomers studying the origin and structure of galactic spirals,” NASA and the ESA said. The picture taken by Webb will help them “learn more about the earliest phases of star formation in the local Universe,” and record more information about 19 star-forming galaxies close to our own Milky Way. 

Astronomers will also use the picture to “pinpoint star-forming regions in the galaxies, accurately measure the masses and ages of star clusters, and gain insights into the nature of the small grains of dust drifting in interstellar space,” the statement said. 

Webb’s new pictures have thrilled the space community as the telescope orbits the Sun at a distance of a million miles (1.6 million kilometers) from Earth, in a region of space called the second Lagrange point.

The telescope, which has a primary mirror more than 21 feet (6.5 meters) wide, is an international collaboration between NASA, the ESA and the Canadian Space Agency. It is expected to operate for approximately 20 years.