A giant slab of ice bigger than the Spanish island of Majorca has sheared off from the frozen edge of Antarctica into the Weddell Sea, becoming the largest iceberg currently afloat in the world, the European Space Agency said on Wednesday.
The newly calved berg, designated A-76 by scientists, was spotted in recent satellite images captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission, the space agency said in a statement posted on its website with a photo of the enormous, oblong ice sheet.
Its surface area spans 4,320 square km (1,668 square miles) and measures 175 km (106 miles) long by 25 km (15 miles) wide.
By comparison, Spain’s popular tourist island of Majorca in the Mediterranean occupies 3,640 square km (1,405 square miles). The US state of Rhode Island is smaller still, with a land mass of just 2,678 square km (1,034 square miles).
The enormity of A-76, which broke away from Antarctica’s Ronne Ice Shelf, ranks as the largest existing iceberg on the planet, surpassing the now second-place A-23A, about 3,380 square km (1,305 square miles) in size and also floating in the Weddell Sea.
Another massive Antarctic iceberg that had threatened a penguin-populated island off the southern tip of South America has since lost much of its mass and broken into pieces, scientists said earlier this year.
A-76 was first detected by the British Antarctic Survey and confirmed by the US National Ice Center based in Maryland using imagery from Copernicus Sentinel-1, consisting of two polar-orbiting satellites.
The Ronne Ice Shelf on the flank of the Antarctic Peninsula is one of the largest of several enormous floating sheets of ice that connect to the continent’s landmass and extend out into the surrounding seas.
Periodic calving off of large chunks of those shelves is part of a natural cycle. But some ice shelves along the Antarctic Peninsula have undergone rapid disintegration in recent years, a phenomenon scientists believe may be related to climate change, according to the US National Snow & Ice Data Center.
Antarctica gives birth to world’s largest iceberg
https://arab.news/9b3ea
Antarctica gives birth to world’s largest iceberg
- Its surface area spans 4,320 square km (1,668 square miles) and measures 175 km long by 25 km wide
Brazil’s Supreme Court poised to decide if Bolsonaro will stand trial over coup attempt accusation
- Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet charged Jair Bolsonaro last month with plotting a coup after he lost the 2022 election to his opponent
- Bolsonaro and his alleged accomplices also stand accused of participating in an armed criminal organization
Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet charged Bolsonaro last month with plotting a coup after he lost the 2022 election to his opponent and current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Part of that plan allegedly included poisoning Lula and killing Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, a foe of Bolsonaro.
Five Supreme Court justices – including de Moraes, the rapporteur – will meet from 9:30 a.m. local time in Brasilia to rule on the charges leveled by Gonet. If a majority votes in favor, the accused will become defendants in a criminal case.
Bolsonaro and his alleged accomplices also stand accused of participating in an armed criminal organization, attempted violent abolition of the democratic rule of law, damage qualified by violence and a serious threat against the state’s assets, and deterioration of listed heritage.
Bolsonaro has repeatedly denied wrongdoing and says that he’s being politically persecuted.
Under Brazilian law, a coup conviction alone carries a sentence of up to 12 years, but combined with the other charges, he could be sentenced to decades behind bars.
Observers say that it’s likely that the charges will be accepted.
“There is no shadow of a doubt that there are very clear elements” that crimes were committed, said Thiago Bottino, a law professor at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, a think tank and university. “The current tendency is that there will be a criminal trial.”
Gonet filed charges against a total of 34 people in February. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court will analyze whether to accept charges against eight of them. As well as Bolsonaro, the court will vote on the accusations faced by former Defense Ministers Walter Braga Netto and Paulo Sérgio Nogueira and ex-Justice Minister Anderson Torres, among others. The court will decide on the others’ fates later on.
Bolsonaro has sought to shore up political support before the possible trial, including by holding a protest on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro on March 16.
Local media reported that around 18,000 people attended the rally, based on figures from a monitoring project linked to the University of Sao Paulo. Bolsonaro’s allies had hoped to draw a crowd of 1 million, which led some analysts to say that his ability to mobilize voters is diminishing.
Bolsonaro called on social media Sunday for a new demonstration on April 6, to be held on one of Sao Paulo’s main arteries, Avenida Paulista.
As with the protest earlier this month, the former president and his allies will push for Congress to grant amnesty to those in jail for their roles in the Jan. 8, 2023 riot, when Bolsonaro’s die-hard fans stormed and trashed the Supreme Court, Presidential Palace and Congress a week after Lula took office.
In his indictment of Bolsonaro and others linked to him, Gonet said that the rampage was a last-ditch attempt to hold onto power.
Bolsonaro, a former military officer who was known to express nostalgia for the country’s 1964-1985 dictatorship, openly defied Brazil’s judicial system during his 2019-2022 term in office.
He has already been banned by Brazil’s top electoral court from running in elections until 2030 over abuse of power while in office and casting unfounded doubts on the country’s electronic voting system.
Russia-US talks in Saudi end after 12 hours of discussions
- White House says aim was to reach maritime ceasefire in Black Sea, allow free flow of shipping
- Talks take place as US President Trump intensifies his drive to end the three-year-old conflict
RIYADH: Talks between Russia and the US on Ukraine in Saudi Arabia on Monday have ended after around a dozen hours of negotiations, with a joint statement expected Tuesday, Russian news agencies reported.
The TASS news agency reported its source saying that the meeting had ended after “more than 12 hours of consultations” and that a “joint statement” on results will be published Tuesday.
The talks, which followed US talks with Ukraine on Sunday, came as US President Donald Trump intensifies his drive to end the three-year-old conflict after he last week spoke to both Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
A source briefed on the planning for the talks said the US side was being led by Andrew Peek, a senior director at the White House National Security Council, and Michael Anton, a senior State Department official.
The White House said the aim of the talks was to reach a maritime ceasefire in the Black Sea, allowing the free flow of shipping.
Russia will be represented by Grigory Karasin, a former diplomat who is now chair of the Federation Council’s Foreign Affairs Committee, and Sergei Beseda, an adviser to the director of the Federal Security Service.
It has been a struggle to reach even a limited, 30-day ceasefire — which Moscow and Kyiv agreed to in principle last week — with both sides continuing to attack each other with drones and missiles.
One major sticking point is what targets would be off-limits to strike, even after US President Donald Trump spoke with the countries’ leaders, because the parties disagree.
While the White House said “energy and infrastructure” would be covered, the Kremlin declared that the agreement referred more narrowly to “energy infrastructure.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said he would also like to see infrastructure like railways and ports protected.
Talks Monday in the Saudi capital of Riyadh were expected to address some of those differences, as well as a potential pause in attacks in the Black Sea to ensure the safety of commercial shipping. Russian state media reported late Monday local time that the talks had ended.
In an exchange with reporters at the White House, Trump said territorial lines and the potential for US ownership of a key nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine have been part of the talks.
* With AFP, AP and Reuters
South Korea struggles to contain deadly wildfires
- More than a dozen different blazes broke out over the weekend
- The safety minister has reported thousands of hectares burned
UISEONG, South Korea: Deadly wildfires in South Korea worsened overnight, officials said Tuesday, as dry, windy weather hampers efforts to contain one of the country’s worst-ever fire outbreaks.
More than a dozen different blazes broke out over the weekend, with the safety minister reporting thousands of hectares burned and four people killed.
“The wildfires have so far affected approximately 14,694 hectares (36,310 acres), with damage continuing to grow,” acting Interior and Safety Minister Ko Ki-dong said.
The extent of damage would make the fires collectively the third-largest in South Korea’s history. The largest was an April 2000 blaze that scorched 23,913 hectares (59,090 acres) across the east coast.
More than 3,000 people have been evacuated to shelters, Ko said. At least 11 people have been seriously injured.
“Strong winds, dry weather, and haze are hampering firefighting efforts,” Ko told a disaster and safety meeting.
The government is “mobilizing all available resources,” he said, and today, “110 helicopters and more than 6,700 personnel will be deployed.”
In Uiseong, the sky was full of smoke and haze, AFP reporters saw. Workers at a local temple were attempting to move historical artefacts and cover up Buddhist statues to protect them from possible damage.
The Korea Forest Service said the containment rate for the fire in Uiseong decreased from 60 to 55 percent by Tuesday morning.
More than 6,700 firefighters have been deployed to battle the wildfires, according to the Ministry of Interior and Safety, with nearly two-fifths of the personnel dispatched to Uiseong.
The government declared a state of emergency in four regions, citing “the extensive damage caused by simultaneous wildfires across the country.”
Some types of extreme weather have a well-established link with climate change, such as heatwaves or heavy rainfall.
Other phenomena, such as forest fires, droughts, snowstorms and tropical storms can result from a combination of complex factors.
Vietnam death row tycoon begins appeal in $17.7 billion money-laundering case
- Property developer Truong My Lan was found guilty in April 2024 of stealing money from Saigon Commercial Bank
- She was sentenced to death for fraud amounting to $27 billion, but appealed against that verdict
HO CHI MINH CITY: The appeal of a Vietnamese property tycoon convicted of money laundering began on Tuesday, three months after she lost a challenge against the death penalty in a separate case.
Property developer Truong My Lan was found guilty in April 2024 of stealing money from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) and sentenced to death for fraud amounting to $27 billion.
Lan appealed against that verdict and the court said there was no basis to reduce her sentence, but ruled that she could still escape the death penalty if she returned three quarters of the stolen assets.
Now she is appealing against the verdict from a second trial in October, in which she was sentenced to life in prison for three crimes.
On Tuesday Lan, now accustomed to high-profile hearings, chatted with police officers and looked relatively relaxed as she waited for the court to start in Ho Chi Minh City.
Her niece, who was handed a five-year prison term in October for fraudulent appropriation of property, sat behind her, flanked by officers.
It is the first time Lan is in the dock without her husband, Chu Nap Kee, who is not challenging a two-year sentence he was handed for money laundering in October.
The appeal will last until April 21 and Lan will be defended by eight lawyers, according to state media.
The 68-year-old was found guilty of laundering $17.7 billion and illegal cross-border trafficking of $4.5 billion.
She was also found guilty of bond fraud to the tune of $1.2 billion.
The court determined that Lan was “the mastermind, committed the crime with sophisticated methods, many times, causing especially serious consequences.”
Thirty-three other defendants were also sentenced at the court in Ho Chi Minh City and given terms ranging from two to 23 years in prison.
Twenty-seven of them are appealing against their sentences, state media said.
During her first trial in April, Lan was found guilty of embezzling $12.5 billion but prosecutors said the total damages caused by the scam totaled $27 billion – equivalent to around six percent of the country’s 2023 GDP.
Lan owned just five percent of shares in SCB on paper but at her trial the court concluded that she effectively controlled more than 90 percent through family, friends and staff.
Tens of thousands of people who had invested their savings in the bank lost money, shocking the communist nation and prompting rare protests from the victims.
Humanitarian aid cuts could cause more children to die: UN
- A separate report by the same organizations found a stubbornly high number of stillbirths — babies who die after 28 weeks of pregnancy, before or during childbirth — with a total of around 1.9 million such deaths in 2023
UNITED NATIONS, United States: Cuts in international aid could bring an end to decades of progress in fighting child mortality, and even reverse the trend, the United Nations warned Monday.
Although the annual report from UNICEF, the World Health Organization and the World Bank does not single out the United States, it comes as President Donald Trump’s administration has axed the vast majority of the programs carried out by USAID, America’s main overseas aid agency with a former annual budget of $42.8 billion.
“The global health community cannot be worried enough at the situation that we are seeing,” Fouzia Shafique, UNICEF’s Associate Director of Health, told AFP.
The report warns the consequences of aid money cuts will be the worst in countries where infant mortality rates are already the highest, such as in sub-Saharan Africa and southern Asia.
“Simply put, if support for life-saving services is not sustained, many countries can expect a resurgence of newborn and child deaths,” the report said.
In 2023, mortality of children under age five continued to drop, with 4.8 million deaths recorded, including 2.3 million newborn babies under a month old, according to the report.
The number of such deaths fell below five million for the first time in 2022, and the new record low marks a 52 percent decline since 2000.
But Shafique insisted that “4.8 million is 4.8 million too many.”
Since 2015, progress in fighting child mortality has slowed as aid money was redirected toward fighting Covid — and this could be just the start of a dangerous pattern.
“Bringing preventable child deaths to a record low is a remarkable achievement. But without the right policy choices and adequate investment, we risk reversing these hard-earned gains,” UNICEF executive director Catherine Russell said in a statement.
“We cannot allow that to happen,” she added.
Some negative impacts of the funding cuts are being felt already, such as health care worker shortages, clinic closures, vaccination program disruptions, and a lack of essential supplies, such as malaria treatments.
Ethiopia, for instance, is enduring a big increase in malaria cases, said Shafique.
But the country is facing an acute shortage of diagnostic tests, insecticide-treated nets for beds and funding for spraying campaigns against disease-carrying mosquitos.
A separate report by the same organizations found a stubbornly high number of stillbirths — babies who die after 28 weeks of pregnancy, before or during childbirth — with a total of around 1.9 million such deaths in 2023.
“Every day, more than 5,000 women around the world endure the heartbreaking experience of stillbirth,” the second report states.
With proper care during pregnancy and childbirth, many of these deaths could be averted, as could the premature births of fragile babies.
And deaths of small children could also be largely avoided by fighting preventable diseases such as pneumonia and diarrhea.
“From tackling malaria to preventing stillbirths and ensuring evidence-based care for the tiniest babies, we can make a difference for millions of families,” said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization.
