Month: April 2019

NASA has launched a satellite designed to precisely measure changes in Earth’s ice sheets, glaciers, sea ice and vegetation.

The agency’s Delta 2 rocket carrying ICESat-2 lifted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California early Saturday morning and headed over the Pacific Ocean.

The $1 billion (£765 million)  mission will monitor our planet’s ice sheets from space using a laser-scanning satellite to measure the planet’s ice sheet balance and sea level.

Scientists will then be able to determine how climate change is affecting global ice levels and serve as a reality check for computer models that predict the future impact of global warming.

NASA’s earth science division director, Michael Freilich, said that the mission is focused on understanding how the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica in particular contribute to sea level rise.

The melt from those ice sheets alone has raised global sea level by more than 1 millimeter (0.04 inch) a year recently, according to NASA.

The satellite will also measure the tops of trees, snow and river heights to aide research into the amount of carbon stored in forests, flood and drought planning and wildlife behaviour.

The mission is a successor to the original Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite that operated from 2003 to 2009. Since then the agency’s Operation IceBridge has continued to carry out measurements with airborne instruments.

Built by Northrop Grumman, ICESat-2 carries a single instrument, a laser altimeter that measures height by determining how long it takes photons to travel from the spacecraft to Earth and back.

According to NASA, it will collect more than 250 times as many measurements as the first ICESat. The laser-scanning instrument will be capable of measuring Earth’s elevation every 30 inches across a 30-foot-wide track as it circles the planet.

The laser is designed to fire 10,000 times per second, divided into six beams of hundreds of trillions of photos. The round trip is timed to a billionth of a second.

When climate change is the reality, our grandchildren will look back in horror at how we travel today

It was the final launch for a Delta 2 rocket, United Launch Alliance said.

The first Delta 2 lifted off on February 14, 1989, and since then it has been the launch vehicle for Global Positioning System orbiters, Earth observing and commercial satellites, and interplanetary missions including the twin Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity. 

A 600-year-old monastery in Florence that has been described as “the centre of the world” is to close as the number of resident friars dwindles to just four.

The Convent of San Marco, a jewel in the crown of the Dominican Order and a cradle of the Renaissance, boasts priceless paintings and a rich tapestry of history that reaches back to the Medicis.

But with so few monks now calling it home, the monastery is slated to be closed down, highlighting the Catholic Church’s problems in recruiting enough priests and monks in an age of rising secularism and resistance to its celibacy requirement.

The number of seminarians – young men training for the priesthood – fell by nearly 4,000 to 116,000 between 2012 and 2016, in what the Vatican calls a “crisis of vocations”.

The shortage of priests and friars is particularly acute in Europe and North America.

“The closure of a historic place like this is an act of cultural and societal suicide,” said Bash D’Abramo, the head of Beato Angelico for the Renaissance, a cultural association that is linked to the monastery.

“It’s shameful. The history of the convent goes back to the Medici family. It’s part of the identity of Florence. Closing it is unbelievable. There’s something strange going on behind the scenes.”

The historic monastery has been “suppressed” or closed by the local head of the Dominicans, with the remaining brothers due to be transferred to another Dominican establishment in Florence, the convent of Santa Maria Novella.

The cost of maintaining the monastery was no longer sustainable, said Aldo Tarquini, the provincial head of the Dominican Order.

“So it has been decided that there should be a single community of Dominicans in Florence, based at Santa Maria Novella,” he said.

Campaigners are still fighting to reverse the decision to close the monastery, pointing out that it was once home to the celebrated 15th century painter-monk Fra’ Angelico, known to Florentines as Beato (Blessed) Angelico, famous for his religious frescoes.

Among his works in the convent is a Last Judgment in which the damned are boiled in cauldrons and tormented by monsters.

One of the cells was lived in by Girolamo Savanarola, the fire-and-brimstone preacher who railed against the corruption of the Church, the tyranny of government and the influence of Humanism in the 15th century.

After the Medici family were overthrown, he became Florence’s sole ruler and ordered the Bonfire of the Vanities, when Florentines threw books, mirrors, cosmetics, playing cards and even musical instruments into the flames in the city’s Piazza della Signoria in 1497.

But the city eventually turned on the religious fundamentalist and he was burned at the stake, in the same spot, a year later.

The monastery was also home to a celebrated mayor of Florence, Giorgio La Pira, who lived there from 1934 until his death in 1977.

“Florence is the centre of the world. And San Marco is the centre of Florence,” he once said.

Campaigners have staged protests in Florence, to no avail.

They are particularly incensed by rumours – denied by the authorities – that the convent could be turned into a luxury hotel.

They now say the only hope of salvation lies with the very highest authority in the Catholic world – the Pope himself.

Last week they presented a petition bearing more than 18,000 signatures to Pope Francis during his weekly audience in St Peter’s Square in Rome.

The petitioners pointed out that the monastery was of unique importance. “Since the 15^thcentury, San Marco has been an integral part of the history and identity of Florence. San Marco is the most famous Dominican convent in the world and one of the richest in works of art,” the petition read.

“We haven’t had a response yet,” said Mr D’Abramo, who presented it to the pontiff. “But I’ve asked for a private audience with the Pope and I just received a call from the Vatican, so things might be moving.”

A Vatican spokesman said the Pope was not minded to intervene in the matter. “It’s a question for the Dominican Order,” he said.

But campaigners are refusing to give up. “The monastery is the centre of Florence, the centre of the Renaissance – the centre of the world. The battle continues,” said Mr Abramo.

Every other building still bears bullet and shell marks, but 23 years since the guns fell silent on the wooded hills surrounding Sarajevo, Bosnia’s capital city is largely unrecognisable.

On “sniper alley,” the once deadly main road into town, the 21-floor skyscraper that for years loomed empty and fire-blackened over the city centre has a new facade and a new role – as the seat of the carefully balanced power-sharing government introduced by the 1995 Dayton peace agreement.

Nearby, glass-and-steel Saudi Arabian-owned shopping centres have sprung up to serve middle-class shoppers, tourists trawl the historic bazaar for souvenirs, and hipster eateries and drinking holes do a brisk business a stone’s…

Turkish police claimed on Saturday that a prominent Saudi Arabian journalist critical of Riyadh was murdered in its consulate in Istanbul.

Mystery has surrounded the fate of Jamal Khashoggi, who had spoken out against the ruling family and had a regular columnist for the Washington Post, since he disappeared four days ago during a visit to the Saudi diplomatic mission in Turkey.

His Turkish fiancée Hatice Cengiz, who was waiting outside for him on Tuesday, says he never re-emerged.

"The initial assessment of the Turkish police is that Mr Khashoggi has been killed at the consulate of Saudi Arabia in Istanbul. We believe that the murder was premeditated and the body was subsequently moved out of the consulate," Turkish officials told Reuters.

They said a "team" of 15 Saudi officials were sent to Turkey to kill the 59-year-old on the day he vanished. It is understood that Riyadh knew ahead of time that he would be visiting the consulate that day – having  visited last week and been asked to return on Tuesday.

Ms Cengiz tweeted after reading the allegations: "Jamal was not killed and I cannot believe he was killed!".

Turkish officials will reportedly share evidence on Sunday that backs up their claims.

"If the reports of Jamal’s murder are true, it is a monstrous and unfathomable act," Fred Hiatt, the Washington Post’s editorial page editor, said in a statement. "Jamal was – or, as we hope, is – a committed, courageous journalist. He writes out of a sense of love for his country and deep faith in human dignity and freedom."

Saudi Arabia has claimed that Mr Khashoggi entered the consulate but left shortly afterwards. However, no CCTV has been released to back up the claim.

"The burden of proof is on Saudi Arabia to produce evidence for its claim that Khashoggi left the consulate alone, and that Saudi agents have not detained him," Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director of Human Rights Watch, said earlier in the day.

Rights groups have said the incident "sends a petrifying signal" to the kingdom’s critics and dissidents.

In an interview with Bloomberg published on Friday, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman denied Riyadh was detaining Mr Khashoggi and invited Turkish authorities to search the consulate.

Prince Mohammed also suggested that Mr Khashoggi was still in Turkey. “If he’s in Saudi Arabia, I would know that,” he said.

At the same time as leading reforms in one of the world’s last-remaining absolute monarchies, the prince has led a crackdown on opponents and activists in recent months.

However, the latest would mark a serious escalation of the kingdom’s attempt to silence those opposed to it.

More than 200,000 motorists in Berlin could have their cars banned from major roads in the city, under plans leaked to German television.

Local authorities in the German capital are considering making it the latest in a series of cities to ban older diesel cars as they try to bring air pollution under control.

The proposals, which would see diesel cars that do not meet the latest EU emission standards prohibited from the major routes into Berlin, come despite a new exchange scheme announced by Angela Merkel’s government this week to prevent driving bans.

Under the scheme, motorists in the 14 most polluted cities in Germany will be offered premiums to trade in their old diesel cars for new cleaner models.

But despite being Germany’s biggest city Berlin is not among the most polluted and its drivers will not be eligible for the deal.

Instead the Berlin regional government is considering imposing bans on 21 major routes into the city, according to plans leaked to RBB local television.

The proposals follow a move by the regional government earlier this year to impose 30kmh (18mph) speed limits on key routes through the city in order to cut pollution.

“Whether and to what extent driving bans are introduced depends on extensive research, which is not limited to driving bans, but also covers other possible measures to comply with the emission limits,” a spokesman for the regional government said. 

If a ban is imposed Berlin will become the latest in a series of major German cities to resort to the measure. Hamburg prohibited older diesel cars from two major roads earlier this year, and Frankfurt and Stuttgart are set to impose bans next year.

Environmental Action Germany (DUH), a lobby group which has pushed for diesel bans in German cities, welcomed the news but called for a more comprehensive ban.

“We want a wider ban which includes the back streets. We don’t support a ban which only applies on individual road sections. This just leads to motorists shifting to residential streets,” Jürgen Resch, the group’s director, told German television. 

Mrs Merkel’s coalition this week agreed a scheme to encourage car makers to offer motorists premiums of up to €10,000 (£8,800) to trade in their old diesels for cleaner models, in order to avoid diesel bans.

Under the government scheme, car owners will also be able to have their old diesels retrofitted to meet new emissions standards for free — but car makers have balked at paying for this.