Month: June 2024

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MADRID — Things are looking up for the Iberian lynx.

Just over two decades ago, the pointy-eared wild cat was on the brink of extinction, but as of Thursday the International Union for Conservation of Nature says it’s no longer an endangered species.

Successful conservation efforts mean that the animal, native to Spain and Portugal, is now barely a vulnerable species, according to the latest version of the IUCN Red List.

In 2001, there were only 62 mature Iberian lynx — medium-sized, mottled brown cats with characteristic pointed ears and a pair of beard-like tufts of facial hair — on the Iberian Peninsula. The species’ disappearance was closely linked to that of its main prey, the European rabbit, as well as habitat degradation and human activity.

Alarms went off and breeding, reintroduction and protection projects were started, as well as efforts to restore habitats like dense woodland, Mediterranean scrublands and pastures. More than two decades later, in 2022, nature reserves in southern Spain and Portugal contained 648 adult specimens. The latest census, from last year, shows that there are more than 2,000 adults and juveniles, the IUCN said.

“It’s really a huge success, an exponential increase in the population size,” Craig Hilton-Taylor, head of the IUCN Red list unit, told The Associated Press.

One of the keys to their recovery has been the attention given to the rabbit population, which had been affected by changes in agricultural production. Their recovery has led to a steady increase in the lynx population, Hilton-Taylor said.

“The greatest recovery of a cat species ever achieved through conservation (…) is the result of committed collaboration between public bodies, scientific institutions, NGOs, private companies, and community members including local landowners, farmers, gamekeepers and hunters,” Francisco Javier Salcedo Ortiz, who coordinates the EU-funded LIFE Lynx-Connect project, said in a statement.

IUCN has also worked with local communities to raise awareness of the importance of the Iberian lynx in the ecosystem, which helped reduce animal deaths due poaching and roadkill. In addition, farmers receive compensation if the cats kill any of their livestock, Hilton-Taylor said.

Since 2010, more than 400 Iberian lynx have been reintroduced to parts of Portugal and Spain, and now they occupy at least 3,320 square kilometers, an increase from 449 square kilometers in 2005.

“We have to consider every single thing before releasing a lynx, and every four years or so we revise the protocols,” said Ramón Pérez de Ayala, the World Wildlife Fund’s Spain species project manager. WWF is one of the NGOs involved in the project.

While the latest Red List update offers hope for other species in the same situation, the lynx isn’t out of danger just yet, says Hilton-Taylor.

The biggest uncertainty is what will happens to rabbits, an animal vulnerable to virus outbreaks, as well as other diseases that could be transmitted by domestic animals.

“We also worried about issues with climate change, how the habitat will respond to climate change, especially the increasing impact of fires, as we’ve seen in the Mediterranean in the last year or two,” said Hilton-Taylor. 
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Shanghai, China — The German vice-chancellor assured China on Saturday that the “doors” remained “open” to discuss EU surcharges on Chinese electric vehicles, without reassuring Beijing which promised to “firmly defend” its manufacturers.

Also, the Minister of Economy and Climate, Robert Habeck is making a visit that seems like a last chance to avoid a trade war between the Old Continent and the second world power, an important economic partner of Germany.

A task further complicated by the political context, the German leader reproached China on Saturday for its economic support for Russia against a backdrop of the invasion of Ukraine, stressing it was “harming” relations between Beijing and Brussels.

China regularly denounces these upcoming surcharges on electric vehicles as being “purely protectionist.”

“These are not punitive customs duties,” Habeck assured Zheng Shanjie, director of the Chinese Economic Planning Agency (NDRC) Saturday, according to a recording sent to AFP by the Chinese Embassy in Germany.

“This is not a punishment,” he insisted.

Up to 28% increase

Without compromise by July 4, the European Commission will impose up to 28% increase in customs duties on imports of Chinese electric vehicles, accusing Beijing of having, according to it, distorted competition by massively subsidizing this sector.

These surcharges would become definitive from November.

“For Europe, I can say that the doors are open and the invitation or offer for discussion has been made several times. Now it must be accepted,” Habeck said at a news conference in Shanghai.

From Brussels, Olof Gill, the EU spokesperson, assured that European Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis and Chinese Trade Minister Wang Wentao “had a frank and constructive call on Saturday regarding the anti-subsidy investigation of the EU on electric cars produced in China.”

“Both sides will continue to engage at all levels in the coming weeks,” he added.

China vows to defend ‘rights’

Earlier Saturday, the tone had been firm on the Chinese side.

“If the EU shows sincerity, China wants to start negotiations as soon as possible” on the surcharges, Trade Minister Wang told him, according to the English-speaking state television CGTN.

“But if the EU persists in this course, we will take all necessary measures to defend our interests. This will include lodging a complaint with the dispute settlement mechanism of the World Trade Organization (WTO). We will firmly defend the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese enterprises.”

Beijing had already announced Monday that it had launched an anti-dumping investigation into imports of pork and pork products from the European Union.

German and European manufacturers are strongly affected by cheaper Chinese competition. Imports of Chinese electric vehicles into Germany increased tenfold between 2020 and 2023.

China argues that the success of its electricity sector is due to innovation and efficient supply chains, not subsidies.

“(EU) protectionism will not protect (its manufacturers’) competitiveness and will only slow down the global fight against climate change and the promotion of a green transition,” Zheng told Habeck.

“We expect Germany to show leadership within the EU and take the right measures,” implying the cancellation of surcharges, he insisted, according to the New China agency.

Habeck blames Beijing

Such an epilogue seems improbable, with Habeck again blaming Beijing on Saturday for the surge in its trade with Moscow.

“The Russian war of aggression and Chinese support for the Russian government are already harming trade and economic relations between Europe and China,” he said he told his Chinese interlocutors.

China has pledged not to supply weapons to Russia and calls for respect for the territorial integrity of all countries — including Ukraine. But China has never condemned Moscow for its invasion.

Habeck assured Saturday that many “dual-use” goods (both civil and military) were used by Russia after passing through “third countries” — implying China.

“We therefore cannot accept” that the Russian invasion is supported with these products, insisted the German vice-chancellor, calling on Beijing to ban their export to its Russian neighbor.

German car manufacturers still fear a major trade conflict with Beijing, which would undermine their activity in this crucial market. For Mercedes, Volkswagen or BMW, China represents up to 36% of sales volumes.
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ATHENS — Hundreds of firefighters struggled Saturday to contain wildfires fanned by gale force winds on two Greek islands and in other parts of Greece, as authorities warned many regions face a high risk of new blazes. 

More than 30 firefighters backed by two aircraft and five helicopters were battling a wildfire burning on the island of Andros in the Aegean, away from tourist resorts, where four communities were evacuated as a precaution. 

“More firefighters [are] expected on the island later in the day,” a fire services official told Reuters, adding there were no reports of damage or injuries. 

Wildfires are common in Greece, but they have become more devastating in recent years amid hotter and drier summers that scientists link to climate change. A wildfire near Athens last week forced dozens to flee their homes; authorities said they believed arson and hot, dry conditions were to blame. 

Meteorologists say the latest fires are the first time that the country has experienced “hot-dry-windy” conditions so early in the summer. 

“I can’t remember another year facing such conditions so early, in early and mid-June,” meteorologist Thodoris Giannaros told state TV. 

On Friday, a 55-year-old man died after being injured in a blaze in the region of Ilia on Greece’s Peloponnese peninsula, as several fires burned on Greece’s southern tip. 

Several hundred firefighters have been deployed to battle more than 70 forest fires across the country since Friday. High winds and hot temperatures will extend the risk into Sunday, the fire service said. 

Earlier Saturday, firefighters tamed a forest fire on the island of Salamina, in the Saronic Gulf west of Athens, and another about 30 kilometers (19 miles) east of the capital. 

After forest fires last year forced 19,000 people to flee the island of Rhodes and killed 20 in the northern mainland, Greece has scaled up its preparations this year by hiring more staff and stepping up training.
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Xichang, China — A French-Chinese satellite blasted off Saturday on a hunt for the mightiest explosions in the universe, in a notable example of cooperation between a Western power and the Asian giant.

Developed by engineers from both countries, the Space Variable Objects Monitor, or SVOM, will seek out gamma-ray bursts, the light from which has traveled billions of light years to reach Earth.

The 930-kilogram (2,050-pound) satellite carrying four instruments — two French, two Chinese — took off around 3 p.m. aboard a Chinese Long March 2-C rocket from a space base in Xichang, in the southwestern province of Sichuan, AFP journalists witnessed.

Gamma-ray bursts generally occur after the explosion of huge stars — those more than 20 times as big as the sun — or the fusion of compact stars.

The extremely bright cosmic beams can give off a blast of energy equivalent to over a billion billion suns.

Observing them is like “looking back in time, as the light from these objects takes a long time to reach us,” Ore Gottlieb, an astrophysicist at the Flatiron Institute’s Center for Astrophysics in New York, told AFP.

“Several mysteries”

The rays carry traces of the gas clouds and galaxies they pass through on their journey through space — valuable data for better understanding the history and evolution of the universe.

“SVOM has the potential to unravel several mysteries in the field of [gamma-ray bursts], including detecting the most distant GRBs in the universe, which correspond to the earliest GRBs,” Gottlieb said.

The most distant bursts identified to date were produced just 630 million years after the Big Bang — when the universe was in its infancy.

“We are … interested in gamma-ray bursts for their own sake, because they are very extreme cosmic explosions which allow us to better understand the death of certain stars,” said Frederic Daigne, an astrophysicist at the Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris.

“All of this data makes it possible to test the laws of physics with phenomena that are impossible to reproduce in the laboratory on Earth,” he said.

Once analyzed, the data could help to better understand the composition of space, the dynamics of gas clouds or other galaxies.

The project stems from a partnership between the French and Chinese space agencies, as well as other scientific and technical groups from both nations.

Space cooperation at this level between the West and China is uncommon, especially since the United States banned all collaboration between NASA and Beijing in 2011.

Race against time

“U.S. concerns on technology transfer have inhibited U.S. allies from collaborating with the Chinese very much, but it does happen occasionally,” said Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in the United States.

In 2018, China and France jointly launched CFOSAT, an oceanographic satellite mainly used in marine meteorology.

And several European countries have taken part in China’s Chang’e lunar exploration program.

So, while SVOM is “by no means unique,” it remains “significant” in the context of space collaboration between China and the West, said McDowell.

Once in orbit 625 kilometers (388 miles) above the Earth, the satellite will send its data back to observatories.

The main challenge is that gamma-ray bursts are extremely brief, leaving scientists in a race against time to gather information.

Once it detects a burst, SVOM will send an alert to a team on duty around the clock.

Within five minutes, they will have to rev up a network of telescopes on the ground that will align precisely with the axis of the burst’s source to make more detailed observations.
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KYIV, Ukraine — Russia launched a new barrage of missiles and drones in an overnight attack on Ukraine on Saturday, damaging energy facilities in the southeast and west of the country and injuring at least two energy workers, Ukrainian officials said.

Ukraine’s air defense shot down 12 of 16 missiles and all 13 drones launched by Russia in the second large strike this week, the air force said. The air alerts in Ukrainian regions lasted for several hours in the middle of the night.

National grid operator Ukrenergo said equipment at its facilities in Zaporizhzhia region in the southeast and Lviv region in the west were damaged by the strikes.

Two energy workers in the Zaporizhzhia region were wounded and taken to the hospital, it said.

Ivan Fedorov, Zaporizhzhia’s governor, said the fire broke out at an energy infrastructure facility in the region and further damage assessment was underway as repair brigades and emergency workers dealt with the attack.

“We can say for sure: the enemy will not stop. Ukraine needs air defense systems,” Fedorov said on the Telegram messaging app.

Moscow has said its air strikes against the Ukrainian energy infrastructure were in retaliation for Ukrainian drone attacks on the Russian territory.

Lviv regional Governor Maksym Kozytskyi said 67 firefighters and 12 special vehicles were involved in putting out the fire in his region on Ukraine’s Polish border. He said there were no casualties in the Lviv region.

Since March, Russian forces have intensified their bombardments of the Ukrainian power system, knocking out about half of the country’s available generating capacity and causing a severe energy crunch.

Despite warm summer weather, Ukrainian cities face scheduled energy cutoffs and the country’s electricity imports from its European neighbors are at record levels.
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MADRID — A cruise ship rescued 68 migrants and found five bodies in a traditional fishing boat that was drifting off the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean, Spain’s maritime rescue agency said Thursday.

It said an oil tanker traveling from northwestern Spain to Brazil spotted the drifting boat on Wednesday afternoon about 815 kilometers south of Tenerife, one of the seven islands in the Canaries archipelago.

Spanish authorities diverted the Insignia, a cruise ship, to rescue the migrants. The Insignia crew also recovered three of the five bodies on the fishing boat. The remains of two people were left at sea because of bad weather hampering their recovery.

The canoe-shaped boats, known as pirogues, are used by fishermen in Mauritania and Senegal.

It is unusual for cruise ships to make rescues of migrants on the Atlantic route, but the pirogue “was a long way out and they could be in danger,” said a maritime rescue’s spokesperson, speaking on condition of anonymity under departmental rules.

One of the passengers on the cruise ship, Steve Dilbeck from Huntington Beach, California, said they were not told about the dead.

“They did say the boat had been at sea for 20 days,” Dilbeck told The Associated Press in a text message. “We were diverted in the evening and took us two hours to reach them. They were brought on board and placed in the Insignia Lounge, which is where they have all their shows.”

“The area has been closed off to passengers. Told they had them remove their clothes and put on jumpsuits. Then they asked passengers if they had shoes and clothes they could donate, particularly for men. Their announcement said 62 were men, with the rest women and children,” he added.

The Marshall Islands-flagged Insignia had left Mindelo, a port city in Cape Verde, on Tuesday. Its operator, Miami-based Oceania Cruises, did not immediately comment on the rescue.

The Spanish rescue agency emailed a statement saying the Insignia is expected to arrive on Friday at the port of Santa Cruz, Tenerife.

The Canary Islands is a destination for boats packed with migrants departing from northwestern Africa on a perilous Atlantic route in search of a better life in Europe.

Spain’s Interior Ministry says a record 55,618 migrants arrived by boat — most of them in the Canary Islands — last year, almost double the number of the previous year. More than 23,000 have landed so far this year, the ministry said.

The Spanish nonprofit organization Caminando Fronteras (Walking Borders) says more than 5,000 migrants have died so far this year through May while trying to reach Spanish coasts, most of them on the Atlantic route. The figure for all 2023 was 6,600, more than double the number for 2022.
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washington — A new defense pact signed between Russia and North Korea this week publicly laid out Moscow’s willingness to engage in full-fledged military cooperation with Pyongyang, in contrast to their denials prior to the summit, analysts said.

Before Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Pyongyang for a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Wednesday, it was already widely believed that Moscow was transferring military technology to Pyongyang for weapons upgrades.

In 2023, North Korea launched the solid-fuel Hwasong-18 missile for the first time. After analyzing the shape and color of the smoke at the tail of the missile, experts said these technologies appeared to have come from Russia.

At the same time, U.S. and other officials have accused North Korea of providing Russia with large quantities of conventional munitions for its war in Ukraine.

In September, Kim showed an interest in various military assets during his tour of Russia’s satellite launch site, fighter jet factory, and Pacific Fleet equipped with nuclear-capable bombers and hypersonic missiles.

Both Russia and North Korea denied any arms dealings between them prior to Putin’s visit to Pyongyang.

It is still uncertain exactly what types of military technology Moscow could provide Pyongyang.

But at the summit, Moscow made explicit its willingness to prop up Pyongyang’s military in return for continued flow of munitions to use against Ukraine, according to Bruce Bechtol Jr., a former intelligence officer at the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency and now a professor at Angelo State University in Texas.

In the Treaty of Comprehensive Strategic Partnership signed between Putin and Kim at their summit, the two agreed to set up “mechanisms” for undertaking “measures” for “strengthening the defense capabilities.”

They also agreed to develop and cooperate in the areas of science and technology, including space.

At a joint press conference following their summit, Putin said Moscow “does not rule out developing military and technical cooperation” with Pyongyang as agreed on in the pact in response to the U.S. and other NATO countries’ allowing weapons that they supplied to Ukraine being used against targets inside Russia.

Kim and Putin also agreed in the treaty to intervene militarily if either North Korea or Russia is invaded. But Bechtol said the most significant part of the treaty “is military cooperation.”

“We’re not going to invade North Korea. We’re not going to invade Russia. It’s all about the military cooperation, the arms deals” that have “no limits” and will be made in a “barter” form rather than in a “cash and carry” arrangement, he said.

Any arms exports or imports by North Korea would violate U.N. Security Council resolutions.

Putin trade proposal

In an article by Putin published by North Korea’s state-run newspaper Rodong Sinmun on Tuesday ahead of his arrival in Pyongyang, Putin said Russia and North Korea would develop a trade and payment system not controlled by the West. This would make it easier to circumvent international sanctions on both countries.

Joshua Stanton, a Washington-based attorney who helped draft the North Korea Sanctions and Policy Enforcement Act of 2016, said, “Russia and North Korea have been talking about setting up ruble-based and renminbi-based payment systems for at least a decade.”

He continued: “It never worked before. It would probably violate U.N. sanctions, and if our Treasury Department is willing to impose secondary sanctions on the banks that facilitate it, it will fail again.”

Moscow and Pyongyang are likely to exchange military hardware using railways rather than sea routes to avoid “any kind of interdiction,” said David Maxwell, vice president of the Center for Asia Pacific Strategy. He said the idea of interdiction could be discussed when Washington, Seoul and Tokyo meet on the sidelines of a NATO summit in July.

Putin said at a press conference in Pyongyang this week that Russian Railways will participate in the upgrade of the Khasan-Rajin railway crossing between the two countries.

‘High intensity of commitment’

Even without the treaty, military cooperation — including arms transfers from Russia to North Korea — was likely to have gone forward, according to Bechtol and other analysts.

“I frankly don’t think that the treaty makes a huge difference,” said Michael Kimmage, who from 2014 to 2016 served on the Secretary’s Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. State Department, where he held the Russia-Ukraine portfolio.

“It’s signaling a high intensity of commitment” and “a longevity of commitment,” which “in and of itself is quite significant,” but “I don’t think the treaty itself is that dramatic of a turning point,” he said.

Bruce Bennett, a senior defense analyst at the RAND Corporation, said, “It is hard to imagine this new agreement makes it easier for Russia to transfer military technologies to North Korea, given the transfers in recent years of Iskander missile technology, liquid oxygen and petroleum fuel for satellite launchers, repair of satellite launcher problems, GPS jammers, and 24 mm MRL precision guidance.”

He continued: “I think the bottom line is not the greater feasibility of weapons technology transfers but the Russian government’s greater political willingness to make the transfers.”

Putin’s outspoken willingness to cooperate militarily with Pyongyang has prompted deep concerns in both Seoul and Washington.

A senior South Korean presidential official said on Thursday that Seoul will now consider sending arms directly to Ukraine. Seoul has withheld providing lethal weapons to Ukraine since Russia invaded the country in February 2022.

A spokesperson for the South Korean foreign ministry told VOA’s Korean Service on Thursday that Seoul is “gravely concerned” about the treaty and the declaration of military technology cooperation “that outrightly violates U.N. Security Council resolutions.”

A State Department spokesperson told VOA Korean on Wednesday that “deepening cooperation between Russia and the DPRK is a trend that should be of great concern.” The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) is North Korea’s official name.

In contrast, Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, told VOA on Thursday that Moscow and Pyongyang have “a normal need for exchanges, cooperation and a closer relationship.”
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