AFP UK

Dogs pass by a pelican suspected to be sick from H5N1 avian influenza on a beach in Lima

Peruvian authorities have culled at least 37,000 birds on a chicken farm due to bird flu, officials said Thursday.

After previously affecting wildlife in several areas nationwide, this outbreak took place at a farm in Huacho, north of Lima, the national agricultural health agency SENASA said Thursday. 

“They have all been slaughtered; this infectious focus has already ended on a small farm in Huacho (north of Lima), with a population of approximately 37,000 birds,” said Jorge Mantilla, head of SENASA’s disease control, quoted by state news agency Andina. 

Killing infected birds is part of the protocol to control avian flu outbreaks. 

“The aim is to prevent the disease, which is highly lethal in birds, from spreading to other locations,” said veterinarian Mantilla.

Some 14,000 seabirds, mostly pelicans, have died from bird flu in the country in recent weeks. 

In addition to the slaughter of the poultry in Huacho, another cull took place in the city of Lambayeque, in northern Peru, where some 700 birds were slaughtered to prevent the spread of the virus. 

The Peruvian Poultry Association ruled out that the outbreak puts “the consumption of birds and eggs” in the country at risk.   

Peru declared a 90-day national health emergency on Wednesday after confirming cases of H5N1 avian influenza in farm-raised poultry. 

According to SENASA, the disease is being transmitted from “wild birds that come from North America” and reach Patagonia. 

The first outbreak of avian influenza in the Americas occurred in Canada last year, and in January 2022 the virus was detected in the United States, affecting poultry production, according to Peruvian authorities. 

Avian flu is a disease that has no cure or treatment and causes high mortality in wild and domestic birds such as ducks, chickens and turkeys, among others.   

Adam Thompson, senior scientist, works at LanzaTech lab on November 28, 2022, in Skokie, Illinois

At LanzaTech’s lab in the Chicago suburbs, a beige liquid bubbles away in dozens of glass vats.

The concoction includes billions of hungry bacteria, specialized to feed on polluted air — the first step in a recycling system that converts greenhouse gases into usable products.

Thanks to licensing agreements, LanzaTech’s novel microorganisms are already being put to commercial use by three Chinese factories, converting waste emissions into ethanol.

That ethanol is then used as a chemical building block for consumer items such as plastic bottles, athletic wear and even dresses, via tie-ins with major brands such as Zara and L’Oreal.

“I wouldn’t have thought that 14 years later, we would have a cocktail dress on the market that’s made out of steel emissions,” said microbiologist Michael Kopke, who joined LanzaTech a year after its founding.

LanzaTech is the only American company among 15 finalists for the Earthshot Prize, an award for contributions to environmentalism launched by Britain’s Prince William and broadcaster David Attenborough. Five winners will be announced Friday.

To date, LanzaTech says it has kept 200,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, while producing 50 million gallons (190 million liters) of ethanol.

That’s a small drop in the bucket when it comes to the actual quantities needed to combat climate change, Kopke concedes.

But having spent 15 years developing the methodology and proving its large-scale feasibility, the company is now seeking to ramp up its ambition and multiply the number of participating factories.

“We really want to get to a point where we only use above ground carbon, and keep that in circulation,” says Kopke — in other words, avoid extracting new oil and gas.

– Industry partnerships –

LanzaTech, which employs about 200 people, compares its carbon recycling technology to a brewery — but instead of taking sugar and yeast to make beer, it uses carbon pollution and bacteria to make ethanol.

The bacteria used in their process was identified decades ago in rabbit droppings.

The company placed it in industrial conditions to optimize it in those settings, “almost like an athlete that we trained,” said Kopke.

Bacteria are sent out in the form of a freeze-dried powder to corporate clients in China, which have giant versions of the vats back in Chicago, several meters high.

The corporate clients that built these facilities will then reap the rewards of the sale of ethanol — as well as the positive PR from offsetting pollution from their main businesses.

The clients in China are a steel plant and two ferroalloy plants. Six other sites are under construction, including one in Belgium for an ArcelorMittal plant, and in India with the Indian Oil Company.

Because the bacteria can ingest CO2, carbon monoxide and hydrogen, the process is extremely flexible, explains Zara Summers, LanzaTech’s vice president of science.

“We can take garbage, we can take biomass, we can take off gas from an industrial plant,” said Summers, who spent ten years working for ExxonMobil.

Products already on the shelves include a line of dresses at Zara. Sold at around $90, they are made of polyester, 20 percent of which comes from captured gas.

“In the future, I think the vision is there is no such thing as waste, because carbon can be reused again,” said Summers.

– Sustainable aviation fuel –

LanzaTech has also founded a separate company, LanzaJet, to use the ethanol to create “sustainable aviation fuel” or SAF.

Increasing global SAF production is a huge challenge for the fuel-heavy aviation sector, which is seeking to green itself.

LanzaJet is aiming to achieve one billion gallons of SAF production in the United States per year by 2030.

Unlike bioethanol produced from wheat, beets or corn, fuel created from greenhouse gas emissions doesn’t require the use of agricultural land.

For LanzaTech, the next challenge is to commercialize bacteria that will produce chemicals other than ethanol. 

In particular, they have their sights set on directly producing ethylene, “one of the most widely used chemicals in the world,” per Kopke — thus saving energy associated with having to first convert ethanol into ethylene.

Dogs pass by a pelican suspected to be sick from H5N1 avian influenza on a beach in Lima

Peruvian authorities have culled at least 37,000 birds on a chicken farm due to bird flu, officials said Thursday.

After previously affecting wildlife in several areas nationwide, this outbreak took place at a farm in Huacho, north of Lima, the national agricultural health agency SENASA said Thursday. 

“They have all been slaughtered; this infectious focus has already ended on a small farm in Huacho (north of Lima), with a population of approximately 37,000 birds,” said Jorge Mantilla, head of SENASA’s disease control, quoted by state news agency Andina. 

Killing infected birds is part of the protocol to control avian flu outbreaks. 

“The aim is to prevent the disease, which is highly lethal in birds, from spreading to other locations,” said veterinarian Mantilla.

Some 14,000 seabirds, mostly pelicans, have died from bird flu in the country in recent weeks. 

In addition to the slaughter of the poultry in Huacho, another cull took place in the city of Lambayeque, in northern Peru, where some 700 birds were slaughtered to prevent the spread of the virus. 

The Peruvian Poultry Association ruled out that the outbreak puts “the consumption of birds and eggs” in the country at risk.   

Peru declared a 90-day national health emergency on Wednesday after confirming cases of H5N1 avian influenza in farm-raised poultry. 

According to SENASA, the disease is being transmitted from “wild birds that come from North America” and reach Patagonia. 

The first outbreak of avian influenza in the Americas occurred in Canada last year, and in January 2022 the virus was detected in the United States, affecting poultry production, according to Peruvian authorities. 

Avian flu is a disease that has no cure or treatment and causes high mortality in wild and domestic birds such as ducks, chickens and turkeys, among others.   

Dogs pass by a pelican suspected to be sick from H5N1 avian influenza on a beach in Lima

Peruvian authorities have culled at least 37,000 birds on a chicken farm due to bird flu, officials said Thursday.

After previously affecting wildlife in several areas nationwide, this outbreak took place at a farm in Huacho, north of Lima, the national agricultural health agency SENASA said Thursday. 

“They have all been slaughtered; this infectious focus has already ended on a small farm in Huacho (north of Lima), with a population of approximately 37,000 birds,” said Jorge Mantilla, head of SENASA’s disease control, quoted by state news agency Andina. 

Killing infected birds is part of the protocol to control avian flu outbreaks. 

“The aim is to prevent the disease, which is highly lethal in birds, from spreading to other locations,” said veterinarian Mantilla.

Some 14,000 seabirds, mostly pelicans, have died from bird flu in the country in recent weeks. 

In addition to the slaughter of the poultry in Huacho, another cull took place in the city of Lambayeque, in northern Peru, where some 700 birds were slaughtered to prevent the spread of the virus. 

The Peruvian Poultry Association ruled out that the outbreak puts “the consumption of birds and eggs” in the country at risk.   

Peru declared a 90-day national health emergency on Wednesday after confirming cases of H5N1 avian influenza in farm-raised poultry. 

According to SENASA, the disease is being transmitted from “wild birds that come from North America” and reach Patagonia. 

The first outbreak of avian influenza in the Americas occurred in Canada last year, and in January 2022 the virus was detected in the United States, affecting poultry production, according to Peruvian authorities. 

Avian flu is a disease that has no cure or treatment and causes high mortality in wild and domestic birds such as ducks, chickens and turkeys, among others.   

US President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron shake hands after a joint press conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on December 1, 2022

President Joe Biden said Thursday US support for green industry was not intended to be at Europe’s expense as he and French leader Emmanuel Macron pledged to surmount a serious transatlantic trade dispute.

Speaking after summit talks at the White House, both stressed cooperation amid European Union concern that Biden’s landmark Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) was anti-competitive and would cost European jobs, especially in the energy and auto sectors.

“We agreed to discuss practical steps to coordinate and align our approaches so that we can strengthen and secure the supply chains, manufacturing and innovation on both sides of the Atlantic,” Biden said in a joint news conference.

Biden said he would not apologize for the $430 billion IRA passed in August that largely focuses investments and investment support on climate and social spending. 

But he said the IRA was never intended to disadvantage any US allies.

Instead, it aimed at strengthening industrial supply chains together with partners like Europe to protect against the kind of economic vulnerabilities that surfaced during the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine.

“The essence of it is, we’re going to make sure that the United States continues — and just as I hope Europe will be able to continue — not to have to rely on anybody else’s supply chain,” Biden said.

“We are our own supply chain. And we share that with Europe and all of our allies, and they will in fact have the opportunity to do the same thing,” Biden said.

He admitted the legislation is so large and complicated that it unavoidably has “glitches” that need to be worked out.

“My point is, we’re back in business, Europe is back in business. And we’re going to continue to create manufacturing jobs in America, but not at the expense of Europe,” he pledged.

– ‘Resynchronize’ –

Macron acknowledged that the IRA goal of creating jobs and advancing the transition to green energy was “a common objective” shared by Europe.

He said that the IRA’s subsidies for US industry threatened to hurt European businesses, and that a central issue of his talks with Biden was how to “resynchronize” and work together with similar strategies.

After meetings with Biden and members of the US Congress, Macron said he felt that they had the same intent.

“We want to succeed together — not against each other,” Macron said.

“We Europeans need to move faster and stronger to have the same ambition.”

But the two gave no sign of whether they agreed on specific measures.

In early November, EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton threatened to appeal to the World Trade Organization and consider “retaliatory measures” if the United States did not reverse its subsidies.

The two sides will address specific issues in a meeting on December 5 of the  EU-US Trade and Technology Council.

New York Mayor Eric Adams, pictured unveiling a rat killing machine as Brooklyn borough president in 2019

If you are “somewhat bloodthirsty” and willing to consider “wholesale slaughter” of vermin then you might be the ideal candidate to become New York City’s new rat czar.

Mayor Eric Adams’s administration on Wednesday posted the job listing for Director of Rodent Mitigation, a position that pays between $120,000 and $170,000 a year.

“Do you have what it takes to do the impossible?” asks the ad, which seeks someone with a “virulent vehemence for vermin” and a “general aura of badassery.”

A bachelor’s degree is a must, as is experience in urban planning, project management or government, and proficiency in spreadsheets.

But above all the successful candidate must possess “the drive, determination and killer instinct needed to fight the real enemy — New York City’s relentless rat population.”

Rats are one of the more unappealing aspects of life in America’s largest metropolis, often seen scurrying between subway tracks and sniffing around garbage bags.

Legend has it that there are as many rats as humans — around nine million — although that figure has been debunked as a myth by a local statistician.

English novelist Charles Dickens complained about the rodents when he visited New York in 1842. 

And a rat shot to internet stardom in 2015 when it was filmed walking down the stairs of a subway station with a slice of pizza in its mouth.

City officials have spent millions of dollars trying to cull the rat population over the years, deploying everything from rodent birth control to vermin-proof trash cans.

During a stomach-turning presentation in 2019, Adams, then Brooklyn borough president, unveiled a machine that drowned the rats in a pool of alcohol-based liquid.

The city also runs a “Rat Academy,” where local residents can learn rodent prevention methods. 

The rats continue to run rampant, however.

Between January and September this year, more than 21,500 sightings were reported to the city’s hotline, up from around 18,000 for the same period last year, according to local reports.

“There’s NOTHING I hate more than rats,” Mayor Adams tweeted Thursday, adding that for someone “your dream job awaits.”

New York Mayor Eric Adams, pictured unveiling a rat killing machine as Brooklyn borough president in 2019

If you are “somewhat bloodthirsty” and willing to consider “wholesale slaughter” of vermin then you might be the ideal candidate to become New York City’s new rat czar.

Mayor Eric Adams’s administration on Wednesday posted the job listing for Director of Rodent Mitigation, a position that pays between $120,000 and $170,000 a year.

“Do you have what it takes to do the impossible?” asks the ad, which seeks someone with a “virulent vehemence for vermin” and a “general aura of badassery.”

A bachelor’s degree is a must, as is experience in urban planning, project management or government, and proficiency in spreadsheets.

But above all the successful candidate must possess “the drive, determination and killer instinct needed to fight the real enemy — New York City’s relentless rat population.”

Rats are one of the more unappealing aspects of life in America’s largest metropolis, often seen scurrying between subway tracks and sniffing around garbage bags.

Legend has it that there are as many rats as humans — around nine million — although that figure has been debunked as a myth by a local statistician.

English novelist Charles Dickens complained about the rodents when he visited New York in 1842. 

And a rat shot to internet stardom in 2015 when it was filmed walking down the stairs of a subway station with a slice of pizza in its mouth.

City officials have spent millions of dollars trying to cull the rat population over the years, deploying everything from rodent birth control to vermin-proof trash cans.

During a stomach-turning presentation in 2019, Adams, then Brooklyn borough president, unveiled a machine that drowned the rats in a pool of alcohol-based liquid.

The city also runs a “Rat Academy,” where local residents can learn rodent prevention methods. 

The rats continue to run rampant, however.

Between January and September this year, more than 21,500 sightings were reported to the city’s hotline, up from around 18,000 for the same period last year, according to local reports.

“There’s NOTHING I hate more than rats,” Mayor Adams tweeted Thursday, adding that for someone “your dream job awaits.”

The Silala water system is the subject of a dispute between Bolivia and Chile at the International Court of Justice

Chile and Bolivia have agreed on the status of a disputed cross-border river, the International Court of Justice said on Thursday, adding that judges were not required to rule on the climate-fuelled row.

The fractious South American neighbours had been battling at the UN’s top court since 2016 over the Silala River, which flows for five miles (eight kilometres) from Bolivia’s high-altitude wetlands into Chile’s Atacama desert.

Drought-stricken Chile and landlocked Bolivia both claimed victory after the court’s decision, but said it would help them move on and concentrate on preserving scarce water supplies.

The Hague-based ICJ said that there was “no doubt the Silala is an international watercourse” as Chile had argued when it first filed the case in 2016, and that “both parties now agree”.

Judges said they were “not called upon to give a decision” on the core issues that Chile and Bolivia had been arguing about for six years because their positions had largely converged.

The two countries have had no diplomatic relations since 1978, and have been rowing over access to the Pacific Ocean for nearly 150 years.

Santiago had asked the ICJ — which rules on disputes between UN member states — to formally declare the Silala an international waterway and give it equal rights to the river.

La Paz had insisted that the waters flow artificially into Chile due to a system of canals built to collect water from springs, and had demanded its neighbour pay compensation.

Back in 2018 in a separate case, the court sank Bolivia’s bid to gain access to the Pacific, which it lost to Chile in the 1879-1884 War of the Pacific.

Former Bolivian president Evo Morales had previously sought to use the river dispute as a bargaining chip in its fight for a route to the ocean, threatening to reduce the flow of the Silala into Chile and impose fees for its use.

– Troubled waters –

The two countries broke off ties 44 years ago when Bolivia’s last attempt to negotiate a passage to the Pacific broke down in acrimony.

Chilean President Gabriel Boric said his country could “rest easy” with the court’s decision and that the dispute was resolved “in accordance with Chile’s claims.

“Today, after this ruling, we can focus on what unites us and not on what separates us,” Boric said in a speech at the La Moneda presidential palace in Santiago.

Chile’s ICJ representative Ximena Fuentes said the feuding neighbours could now “turn the page” and deepen cooperation on water resources.

Bolivia said the river row was now “concluded”.

“Based on the ruling, Bolivia will exercise the rights it has over the Silala waters,” Bolivian Foreign Minister Rogelio Mayta said in a statement.

During the last hearings on the Silala case in April, Chile’s Fuentes said that faced with the consequences of climate change and freshwater becoming scarcer, “countries are called upon to cooperate.”

Chile is currently in a 13-year “Mega Drought” that is the longest in at least 1,000 years and threatens the country’s freshwater resources.

In Bolivia, the Pantanal — the world’s largest wetlands which also span Brazil and Paraguay — is experiencing its worst drought in 47 years.

The Silala water system is the subject of a dispute between Bolivia and Chile at the International Court of Justice

Chile and Bolivia have agreed on the status of a disputed cross-border river, the International Court of Justice said on Thursday, adding that judges were not required to rule on the climate-fuelled row.

The fractious South American neighbours had been battling at the UN’s top court since 2016 over the River Silala, which flows from Bolivia’s high-altitude wetlands into Chile’s Atacama desert.

The Hague-based tribunal said that there was “no doubt the Silala is an international watercourse” as Chile had argued when it first filed the case in 2016, and that “both parties now agree”.

Judges said they were “not called upon to give a decision” on the core issues in the case since the positions of Bolivia and Chile had now largely converged over the past six years.

But both countries claimed victory after the case, the latest in a series of water-sharing disputes between drought-stricken Chile and landlocked Bolivia.

They have had no diplomatic relations since 1978 and have been rowing over access to the Pacific Ocean for nearly 150 years.

Santiago had asked the ICJ — which rules on disputes between UN member states — to formally declare the five-mile-long (eight-kilometre-long) Silala an international waterway and give it equal rights to the river.

La Paz had insisted that the waters flow artificially into Chile due to a system of canals built to collect water from springs, and has demanded its neighbour pay compensation.

– Troubled waters –

Back in 2018 the court sank Bolivia’s bid to gain access to the Pacific, which it lost to Chile in the 1879-1884 War of the Pacific.

Former Bolivian president Evo Morales had previously sought to use the river dispute as a bargaining chip in its fight for a route to the ocean. 

At the time, Morales threatened to reduce the flow of the Silala into Chile and impose fees for its use.

The two countries broke off ties 44 years ago when Bolivia’s last attempt to negotiate a passage to the Pacific broke down in acrimony.

During the last hearings on the Silala case in April, Chile’s representative Ximena Fuentes said La Paz’s demand for Santiago to pay for the use of the River Silala was “absurd”.

Faced with the consequences of global climate change and freshwater becoming scarcer, “countries are called upon to cooperate in the efficient management of shared water resources,” Fuentes added.

Bolivia hit back, saying Santiago’s case was “hypothetical” and that it had “never” done anything to block the Silala’s flow on Chilean territory.

Once handed down, ICJ judgements are binding and cannot be appealed, although the court has no real means of enforcement.

Chile is currently in a 13-year “Mega Drought” that is the longest in at least 1,000 years and threatens the country’s freshwater resources.

In Bolivia, the Pantanal — the world’s largest wetlands which also span Brazil and Paraguay — is experiencing its worst drought in 47 years.

SpaceX has postponed the launch of the world's first private lander to the Moon aboard a Falcon 9 rocket like the one seen here, for further safety checks

SpaceX on Wednesday postponed the launch of the world’s first private lander to the Moon, a mission undertaken by Japanese firm ispace.

A Falcon 9 rocket was scheduled to blast off at 3:37 am (0837 GMT) on Thursday from Cape Canaveral in the US state of Florida, but SpaceX said further checks on the vehicle had led to a delay. 

“After further inspections of the launch vehicle and data review, we’re standing down from tomorrow’s launch of @ispace_inc’s HAKUTO-R Mission 1; a new target launch date will be shared once confirmed,” the firm tweeted.

Until now, only the United States, Russia and China have managed to put a robot on the lunar surface.

The mission by ispace is the first of a program called Hakuto-R. 

The lander would touch down around April 2023 on the visible side of the Moon, in the Atlas crater, according to a company statement.

The delay came after the launch had already been postponed by a day due to the need for additional pre-flight checks, SpaceX and ispace said on Wednesday.

Measuring just over 2 by 2.5 meters, the lander carries on board a 10-kilogram rover named Rashid, built by the United Arab Emirates. 

The oil-rich country is a newcomer to the space race but counts recent successes including sending a probe into Mars’ orbit last year. If it succeeds, Rashid will be the Arab world’s first Moon mission.

“We have achieved so much in the six short years since we first began conceptualizing this project in 2016,” said ispace CEO Takeshi Hakamada.

Hakuto was one of five finalists in the international Google Lunar XPrize competition, a challenge to land a rover on the Moon before a 2018 deadline, which ended without a winner. But some of the projects are still ongoing.

Another finalist, from the Israeli organization SpaceIL, failed in April 2019 to become the first privately-funded mission to achieve the feat, after crashing into the surface while attempting to land.

ispace, which has just 200 employees, says it “aims to extend the sphere of human life into space and create a sustainable world by providing high-frequency, low-cost transportation services to the Moon.”

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