Day: March 3, 2022

Russia’s War on Ukraine Spills Into Space 

As Russia continues to wage war on neighboring Ukraine, a former commander of the International Space Station is in disbelief over Russian threats to destroy the decades-long partnership aboard the ISS.  Plus, Elon Musk sends a communications lifeline to Ukrainians, and a joint mission to Mars is now in doubt. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us a special edition of The Week in Space. 

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UNEP Marks 50 Years of Fighting for Safe Environment

The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) marked its 50-year anniversary Thursday at its headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya. Activists have criticized the organization as being slow to address global threats to the environment, such as pollution and climate change. But at the U.N.’s Environment Assembly this week over 100 nations pledged to negotiate a binding treaty to reduce plastic pollution.

UNEP’s chief, Inger Andersen, said Thursday the agency has contributed to saving the planet from harm and destruction.

“We saved millions of lives and protected nature,” she said. “We showed environmental multilateralism does deliver. That is a lesson that should inspire us today. Friends, there are other major achievements, the launch of the scientific body, the IPCC, the phase-out of lead and petrol and just yesterday, the resolution starting the pathway to a global plastic pollution deal to end plastic pollution for good.”

The resolution calls for two years of negotiations toward a comprehensive, international treaty on how to handle the growing problem of plastic waste.

The UNEP was formed in Stockholm in 1972 and has been a key player in safeguarding the world’s plant species, wildlife, and climate.

The organization says its mandate is to bring the world together in tackling environmental threats.

Addressing leaders, delegates and environmental activists at the UNEP headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya’s president, Uhuru Kenyatta, praised its work.

“Progressively, over the last 50 years, UNEP has led the world to understand the centrality of the environment in human existence to appreciate the increased threats to the environment and also the existential threat that exists to our planet. They have also helped us galvanize collective global action to protect our environment,” he said.

Wanjira Mathai, the vice-president and regional director at the World Resources Institute, said enforcing agreed-upon environment policies and laws has been a challenge.

“I think enforcement is usually our biggest challenge because we make commitments but we don’t always follow through with enforcement. That’s the biggest opportunity for us, is to see them through,” he said.

Botswana President Mokgweetsi Masisi says implementing environmental laws and the agreement requires greater funding.

“Botswana continues to walk in the path provided by multilateral environmental agreements that she is a party to. However, with limited resources fulfilling these commitments continues to remain a challenge but we stand committed as Botswana, do not doubt it,” he said.

Andersen said her organization needs the support of all countries to achieve and deliver a stable climate and rich nature that benefits all.

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UN Environment Summit Adopts Historic Agreement on Plastic Waste

The United Nations Environment Assembly, meeting in Nairobi, has adopted a resolution detailing what to do about plastic pollution. It calls for two years of negotiations toward a comprehensive, international treaty on the full life cycle of plastics.

Delegates from 175 countries endorsed an agreement Wednesday that addresses plastic waste.

The United Nations says 400 million tons of plastic is produced every year, and that figure is set to double by 2040.

Rwanda is one of the countries that banned plastic in its territory and is pushing for a plastic-free world.

Rwanda’s environment minister, Jeanne Mujawamariya, said her country would benefit a great deal from global regulation of the use of plastics.

“If adopted, the creation of a legally binding instrument would be greatly significant for countries like Rwanda, where we have made good progress,” she said. “Systematic global change is needed if we are to clean up the current mess, develop sustainable alternatives and make them affordable.”

The debate surrounding plastic pollution has been on the U.N. agenda since 2012.

Recycling has remained one of the effective ways of reducing plastics. The Environmental Investigation Agency, an environmental nonprofit organization, said the existing method of managing plastic is not sustainable.

Less than 10% of plastic that has been produced is being recycled, 76% is discarded into landfills, and experts warn its production will triple by 2050.

Amina Mohammed, the United Nations deputy secretary-general, told the meeting attendees not to fear a future without plastic.

“While we have learned to recycle plastic, we need a far more robust approach to tackle this enormous problem and ensure systemic change through strong action upstream and downstream,” Mohammed said. “We must be ambitious and move faster to win this battle. This is going to require genuine collaborations and partnerships with a shared vision.

The fight against plastic pollution aims to reduce plastic going into the oceans by 80% by the end of the year 2040 and create 700,000 jobs by that time.

Jane Patton, the plastic and petrochemicals campaign manager at the Center for International Environmental Law, told VOA the agreement will mandate that companies producing plastics manage the waste being emitted.

“The resolution specifically calls for a legally binding instrument, which is good, as we have seen the companies that are producing this plastic waste and putting it into the environment, they don’t follow through commitments unless they are legally bound to do that,” she said. “And so, we are excited to see that the treaty will have both a mandatory and voluntary commitments by government, and that will affect companies to address this problem.”

The head of the U.N. Environment Program, Inger Andersen, said adopting the plastic treaty is the most important international environmental agreement since the 2016 Paris climate accord took effect. 

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Western Australia Finally Opens Border After COVID-19 Closure

After almost two years, Western Australia has lifted the nation’s toughest COVID-19 border controls. Double-vaccinated international and domestic travelers are now allowed in, as the so-called hermit state reconnects with the rest of the world.

For almost 700 days Western Australia was cut off from the rest of the country and the world.

Most international visitors were banned, as Australia’s largest state, which is 10 times the size of the United Kingdom, tried to isolate itself from the pandemic.

The state premier, Mark McGowan, said the tough policy had “avoided needless deaths,” but he acknowledged the pain felt by separated families and businesses.

The tough measures did keep infections low, but they were unable to stop a recent surge in omicron cases.

A total of 1,770 cases were reported Wednesday — a new record for Western Australia — but the number of hospitalizations remains relatively low.

With almost 99% of the eligible population double-vaccinated, authorities have insisted that the time is right to end border restrictions.

Dr. Mark Duncan-Smith, president of the Australian Medical Association (Western Australia), told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. that the tough border strategy appears to have worked.

“What is happening here in WA [Western Australia] right now, with omicron at 1,000 cases a day, is a social experiment that has never been done in the world, and so what we are hoping for is that we will get a very, very soft landing and hopefully our hospitalization numbers will stay very low and that will be testimony to the effectiveness of those borders over the last two years, buying us that time,” he said.

Western Australia’s tough stance on border closures led to it being dubbed a “hermit kingdom.”

McGowan was compared to the North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un by Alan Joyce, the CEO of Australia’s national airline, Qantas, last month. Joyce later apologized for his comments.

Other Australian states and territories imposed internal border closures during the pandemic, but those restrictions ended last year. Australia reopened its international borders to all vaccinated international travelers on Feb. 21, but Western Australia maintained its restrictions.

Passengers on the first flights from Sydney and Melbourne into the Western Australian state capital, Perth, were welcomed with gifts of toy quokkas, a small marsupial said to be the “world’s happiest animal.”

Tourism officials in Western Australia have said the reopening of domestic and international travel into the state would bring “joy” to the industry.

Australia has recorded about 2.9 million coronavirus infections since the pandemic began. More than 5,200 people have died.

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Judge Blocks Texas Investigation of Trans Teen’s Parents

A Texas judge on Wednesday blocked the state from investigating the parents of a transgender teenager over gender-confirmation treatments but stopped short of preventing the state from looking into other reports about children receiving similar care.

District Judge Amy Clark Meachum issued a temporary order halting the investigation by the Department of Family and Protective Services into the parents of the 16-year-old girl. The parents sued over the investigation and Republican Governor Greg Abbott’s order last week that officials look into reports of such treatments as abuse.

Meachum wrote that the parents and the teen “face the imminent and ongoing deprivation of their constitutional rights, the potential loss of necessary medical care, and the stigma attached to being the subject of an unfounded child abuse investigation.”

Meachum set a March 11 hearing on whether to issue a broader temporary order blocking enforcement of Abbott’s directive.

‘Unfathomably cruel’

The lawsuit marked the first report of parents being investigated following Abbott’s directive and an earlier nonbinding legal opinion by Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton labeling certain gender-confirmation treatments as “child abuse.” The American Civil Liberties Union and Lambda Legal sued the state Tuesday on behalf of the teen.

“We appreciate the relief granted to our clients, but this should never have happened and is unfathomably cruel,” Brian Klosterboer, ACLU of Texas attorney, said in a statement. “Families should not have to fear being separated because they are providing the best possible health care for their children.”

Spokespersons for Abbott’s and Paxton’s offices did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday night. A spokesperson for DFPS said there would be “deliberate discussions” about next steps.

The ruling came as President Joe Biden’s administration announced new steps to protect transgender children and their families in response to Abbott’s order. Biden condemned state laws targeting transgender people in his State of the Union address Tuesday.

“Like so many anti-transgender attacks proliferating in states across the country, the governor’s actions callously threaten to harm children and their families just to score political points,” the president said in a statement Wednesday night. “These actions are terrifying many families in Texas and beyond. And they must stop.”

Meachum issued the order hours after attorneys for the state and for the parents appeared before her via Zoom in a brief hearing.

Paul Castillo, Lambda Legal’s senior counsel, told Meachum that allowing the order to be enforced would cause “irreparable” harm to the teen’s parents and other families.

“It is unconscionable for DFPS to still pursue any investigation or inflict more trauma and harm,” Castillo said in a statement after the judge’s ruling.

The groups also represent a clinical psychologist who has said the order will force her to choose between reporting her clients to the state or facing the loss of her license and other penalties.

Ryan Kercher, an attorney with Paxton’s office, told Meachum that the governor’s order and the earlier opinion don’t require the state to investigate every transgender child receiving gender-confirmation care.

Restrictions meet opposition

Abbott’s directive and the attorney general’s opinion go against the nation’s largest medical groups, including the American Medical Association, which have opposed Republican-backed restrictions filed in statehouses nationwide.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Wednesday encouraged anyone targeted by a child welfare investigation because of Abbott’s order to contact the agency’s civil rights office. The department also released guidance saying that despite the order in Texas, health care providers are not required to disclose private patient information regarding gender confirming care.

Arkansas last year became the first state to pass a law prohibiting gender confirming treatments for minors, and Tennessee approved a similar measure. A judge blocked Arkansas’ law, and the state is appealing.

The Texas lawsuit does not identify the family by name. The suit said the mother works for DFPS on the review of reports of abuse and neglect. The day of Abbott’s order, she asked her supervisor how it would affect the agency’s policy, according to the lawsuit.

The mother was placed on leave because she has a transgender daughter, and the following day, she was informed her family would be investigated in accordance with the governor’s directive, the suit said. The teen has received puberty-delaying medication and hormone therapy.

DFPS said Tuesday that it had received three reports since Abbott’s order and Paxton’s opinion but would not say whether any resulted in investigations.

At Wednesday’s hearing, Castillo said he was aware of at least two other families being investigated. He also said some medical providers have stopped providing prescriptions for gender confirming care because of the governor’s order.

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Giant Piece of Space Junk on Collision Course With Moon 

The moon is about to get walloped by nearly 3 metric tons of space junk, a punch that will carve out a crater that could fit several semitrailer trucks.

The leftover chunk of a rocket will smash into the far side of the moon at 9,300 kph (5,800 mph) on Friday, away from telescopes’ prying eyes. It may take weeks, even months, to confirm the impact through satellite images.

It’s been tumbling haphazardly through space, experts believe, since China launched it nearly a decade ago. But Chinese officials are dubious it’s theirs.

No matter whose it is, scientists expect the object to carve out a hole 10 to 20 meters (33 to 66 feet) across and send moon dust flying hundreds of kilometers across the barren, pockmarked surface.

Not hard to follow

Low-orbiting space junk is relatively easy to track. Objects launching deeper into space are unlikely to hit anything, and these far-flung pieces are usually soon forgotten by everyone except a handful of observers who enjoy playing celestial detective on the side.

SpaceX originally took the rap for the upcoming lunar litter after asteroid tracker Bill Gray identified the collision course in January. He corrected himself a month later, saying the “mystery” object was not a SpaceX Falcon rocket upper stage from the 2015 launch of a deep space climate observatory for NASA.

Gray said it was likely the third stage of a Chinese rocket that sent a test sample capsule to the moon and back in 2014. But Chinese ministry officials said the upper stage had reentered Earth’s atmosphere and burned up

But there were two Chinese missions with similar designations — the test flight and 2020’s lunar sample return mission — and U.S. observers believe the two are getting mixed up.

The U.S. Space Command, which tracks lower space junk, confirmed Tuesday that the Chinese upper stage from the 2014 lunar mission never deorbited, as previously indicated in its database. But it could not confirm the country of origin for the object about to strike the moon.

“We focus on objects closer to the Earth,” a spokesperson said in a statement.

Gray, a mathematician and physicist, said he’s confident now that it’s China’s rocket.

“I’ve become a little bit more cautious of such matters,” he said. “But I really just don’t see any way it could be anything else.”

Another crater

Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard and Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics supported Gray’s revised assessment, but noted: “The effect will be the same. It’ll leave yet another small crater on the moon.”

The moon already bears countless craters, ranging up to 2,500 kilometers (1,600 miles). With little to no real atmosphere, the moon is defenseless against the constant barrage of meteors and asteroids, and the occasional incoming spacecraft, including a few intentionally crashed for science’s sake. With no weather, there’s no erosion, so impact craters last forever.

China has a lunar lander on the moon’s far side, but it will be too far away to detect Friday’s impact just north of the equator. NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will also be out of range. It’s unlikely India’s moon-orbiting Chandrayaan-2 will be passing by then, either.

“I had been hoping for something [significant] to hit the moon for a long time. Ideally, it would have hit on the near side of the moon at some point where we could actually see it,” Gray said.

Reexamining the origins

After initially pinning the upcoming strike on Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Gray took another look after an engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory questioned his claim. Now, he’s “pretty thoroughly persuaded” it’s a Chinese rocket part, based not only on orbital tracking back to its 2014 liftoff, but also data received from its short-lived ham radio experiment.

JPL’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies endorses Gray’s reassessment. A University of Arizona team also recently identified the Chinese Long March rocket segment from the light reflected off its paint during telescope observations of the careening cylinder.

It’s about 12 meters (40 feet) long and 3 meters (10 feet) in diameter. It does a somersault every two to three minutes.

Gray said SpaceX never contacted him to challenge his original claim. Neither have the Chinese.

“It’s not a SpaceX problem, nor is it a China problem. Nobody is particularly careful about what they do with junk at this sort of orbit,” Gray said.

Tracking deep space mission leftovers like this is hard, according to McDowell. The moon’s gravity can alter an object’s path during flybys, creating uncertainty. And there’s no readily available database, McDowell noted, aside from the ones he, Gray and a couple of others have “cobbled together.”

“We are now in an era where many countries and private companies are putting stuff in deep space, so it’s time to start to keep track of it,” McDowell said. “Right now there’s no one, just a few fans in their spare time.”

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