World

Washington, Sep 24 (IANS) As NASA prepares to launch its much-anticipated Artemis 1 Moon mission next week, there is only a 20 per cent chance that the weather will be ideal for the launch.

The US space agency is monitoring the forecast associated with the formation of a tropical depression in the Caribbean Sea while in parallel continuing to prepare for a potential launch opportunity on September 27, during a 70-minute window.

"Managers are initiating activities on a non-interference basis to enable an accelerated timeline for rolling back to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) to protect the rocket, should it be necessary," NASA said in a statement.

Discussions about whether to remain at the launch pad or roll back to the VAB are also ongoing, it added.

NASA said it will make a decision on whether to remain at the launch pad or roll back using incremental protocols to take interim steps necessary to protect people and hardware "with a final decision anticipated no later than Saturday".

The US space agency has met all objectives for the launch, including the key hydrogen leak threat which has resulted in two failure attempts.

NASA will attempt to launch its Artemis I moon mission on September 27, with a potential backup opportunity of October 2 under review.

On September 3, NASA attempted to launch Artemis I but called it off after detecting a liquid hydrogen leak.

The US space agency on August 30 scrubbed the mission launch for the first time owing to technical glitch with one of the SLS rocket's engines.

Artemis I is NASA's uncrewed flight test which will provide a foundation for human exploration in deep space and demonstrate NASA's commitment and capability to extend human existence to the Moon and beyond.

--IANS
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Islamabad, Sep 24 (IANS) Education Cannot Wait (ECW), the UN global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises, has announced the release of an emergency grant worth $5 million in response to the deadly floods in Pakistan.

The 12-month investment will reach more than 80,000 girls and boys across Sindh, Balochistan, Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan, Xinhua news agency quoted the ECW as saying on Friday.

"The climate crisis is an education crisis. These devastating floods have taken lives, destroyed as many as 22,000 schools ... and ripped families apart," said ECW Director Yasmine Sherif.

"We need to act with speed. ECW and our strategic partners are sprinting to deliver a fast-acting response to bring children back to school without further delay and deepening suffering."

The extraordinary monsoon rains in Pakistan have caused massive flooding and landslides across the nation.

More than 1,400 people have lost their lives and the government estimates that 22,594 schools have been damaged or destroyed, said the ECW.

The new response builds on the ECW's ongoing Multi-Year Resilience Programme in Pakistan, and focuses on providing equitable access to inclusive and quality learning environments, establishing temporary learning spaces, and providing children with the psychosocial supports they need to avoid dropping out of school permanently, said the fund.

Teaching and learning materials will be provided to children in both formal and temporary learning spaces. Teachers will be supported to adapt their teaching methods to best suit the new context. The investment will also ensure that gender-based violence mitigation measures will be implemented, with a particular focus on protecting adolescent girls, said the ECW.

Worldwide, 222 million crisis-impacted children and adolescents are in need of urgent education support.

The ECW and its partners are calling on world leaders to provide at least $1.5 billion in urgent funding for the '222MillionDreams' campaign.

--IANS
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London, Sep 24 (IANS) The British pound fell to a fresh 37-year low against the US dollar as investors worried that large-scale tax cuts announced by the UK government would bring much fiscal uncertainty.

on Friday, the pound tumbled more than 3 per cent and traded below $1.10, reaching its lowest level since 1985, reports Xinhua news agency.

The big sell-off came after Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng had earlier in the day unveiled his ambitious plan to cut taxes and boost economic growth.

The new measures include cancelling the planned rise in corporation tax to 25 per cent, keeping it at 19 per cent, and reversing this April's 1.25 percentage point rise in National Insurance contributions.

Kwarteng also announced a one-percent cut to the basic rate of income tax to 19 per cent in April 2023, a year earlier than planned.

The 45 per cent additional rate of income tax on earnings above 150,000 pounds will be scrapped.

Meanwhile, the UK's consumer price index (CPI) rose by 9.9 per cent in the 12 months to August.

To tackle high inflation, the Bank of England (BoE) on Thursday increased interest rates by 0.5 percentage points to 2.25 per cent, the highest since 2008.

Elevated inflation, the ongoing energy crisis in Europe and the strengthening US dollar have continued to put pressure on the British pound.

The decline in the pace of rate hikes by the BoE compared with the US Federal Reserve also contributed to the weakness of the British currency.

Also on Friday, the FTSE 100, the leading benchmark for blue-chip companies listed in the UK, ended the session down 1.97 per cent at 7,018.60.

--IANS
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New York, Sep 24 (IANS) The Pacific island nation of Vanuatu has called on other nations to join them in establishing a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, a proposed international mechanism that aims to explicitly address the source of 86 per cent of CO2 emissions that cause climate change: fossil fuels.

Vanuatu President Nikenike Vurobaravu on Friday made the historic call on the floor of the UN General Assembly, making Vanuatu the first nation-state to call for an international mechanism to stop the expansion of all new fossil fuel projects, and manage a global just transition away from coal, oil and gas.

The President will also launch their call for a treaty to phase out fossil fuels on stage at the 2022 Global Citizen Festival in Central Park.

In his speech, Vurobaravu said: "Every day we are experiencing more debilitating consequences of the climate crisis. Fundamental human rights are being violated, and we are measuring climate change not in degrees of Celsius or tons of carbon, but in human lives. This emergency is of our own making. Our youth are terrified of the future world we are handing to them through expanding fossil fuel dependency, compromising intergenerational trust and equity.

"We call for the development of a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty to phase down coal, oil and gas production in line with 1.5 degrees Celsius, and enable a global just transition for every worker, community and nation with fossil fuel dependence."

The call for a Fossil Fuel Treaty has already been endorsed by more than 65 cities and sub-national governments around the globe, including London, Lima, Los Angeles, Kolkata, Paris and the Hawaii State Legislature.

Recently the proposal has also been supported by the Vatican and the World Health Organization.

Significant momentum has built behind the proposal in recent months and Vanuatu's call for a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty is a pivotal step towards building formal diplomatic support for the proposal.

Similar moments were pivotal in the legal pathway towards treaties to manage the threats of nuclear weapons and landmines.

This historic call doubles down on Vanuatu's commitment to climate action, following their submission earlier this month of one of the world's most comprehensive climate targets under the UN.

Vanuatu has also been leading a campaign to have the International Court of Justice issue an opinion on climate justice and human rights, which paves the way for a new era of international climate policy focused on equity and justice and addressing the biggest drivers of the climate crisis -- coal, oil, and gas.

Vanuatu, an already carbon-negative country that absorbs more emissions than it produces, is rated the country most at risk of natural disasters, according to the UN.

Countries on the frontlines of this crisis have been calling for urgent, tangible action on climate as they face the impacts of climate change and sea level rise in real time.

--IANS
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Kampala, Sep 24 (IANS) Ugandan Health Ministry has said the number of confirmed Ebola cases in the East African country has risen to 11.

The Ministry in a statement issued here on Friday added that in the last 24 hours four more cases were registered, bringing the cumulative number of confirmed Ebola cases in the country to 11, Xinhua news agency reported.

The Ministry also said three more deaths were recorded, bringing the cumulative number of deaths to 11, including confirmed and suspected cases. Of these, eight deaths were from the community while three were health facility- based.

The experts say they are still investigating the source of the Ebola virus disease outbreak.

--IANS
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Jakarta, Sep 24 (IANS) A 6.4-magnitude earthquake struck off Indonesia's western province of Aceh on Saturday morning, the country's meteorology and geophysics agency said.

--IANS
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Damascus/Beirut, Sep 24 (IANS) At least 73 people died from a boat that sank off the Syrian coast, the Syrian Health Ministry said.

Twenty others have been rescued and sent for medical treatment at the al-Basel hospital in the Syrian coastal city of Tartous after the boat sank in the Syrian waters, Health Minister Hassan al-Ghabbash said in a statement on Friday.

The boat set off from Lebanon on Tuesday carrying illegal migrants of various nationalities to "unknown destinations," Syrian General Director of Sea Ports Samer Kobrosly earlier said on Friday, citing testimonies from the survivors.

The latest casualties included 31 bodies found on Friday during an ongoing search and rescue mission launched by Syrian authorities, Kobrosly added.

Head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdul-Rahman cited sources as saying on Friday that the boat carried between 100 to 150 people, noting that the original capacity of the boat was only enough for 30 people.

Lebanese, Syrians and other unidentified nationalities were on the boat, the Britain-based war monitor revealed on Thursday, adding that the migrants' initial destination was Cyprus, Xinhua news agency reported.

According to Lebanese Public Works and Transport Minister Ali Hamieh, the 20 rescued migrants are five Lebanese, 12 Syrians and three Palestinians.

Hamieh said in a statement that the Lebanese Red Cross is coordinating with the Syrian Red Crescent on bringing some of the victims' bodies home.

--IANS
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Los Angeles, Sep 23 (IANS) Animated series 'The Simpsons' did not in fact predict the date of the death of Queen Elizabeth II, according to fact-checkers.

The false claim that the show, legendary for its eerily prescient prognostications, foretold the Queen's death has been the subject of dozens of doctored videos and memes by hoaxsters that have gone viral on TikTok and other platforms, reports 'Variety'.

In one altered TikTok video, which currently has more than 26 million views, a cartoon version of Queen Elizabeth II is shown lying in a casket below a plaque that reads 'Elizabeth II: 1926-2022'.

The clip also shows a sticker, superimposed in the background of actual footage from 'The Simpsons', that displays the date September 8, 2022, the day of the Queen's death.

Since the Queen's death, videos with the fake image of her lying in a coffin have circulated on TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and elsewhere, typically with captions falsely stating that 'The Simpsons' predicted the death of Queen Elizabeth II.

"The Simpsons have done it again," says one TikTok video with more than 16 million views.

But no episode of 'The Simpsons' ever included the dates of the Queen's death, according to fact-checking organisations including PolitiFact and Lead Stories.

A previous hoax used a similar image of Donald Trump lying in a coffin to falsely claim the series had predicted his death due to COVID.

The Queen appeared as a character on 'The Simpsons' six times, according to the fan-curated Wikisimpsons site, including in a 2003 episode titled 'The Regina Monologues' from Season 15 in which the monarch's carriage was rear-ended by Homer.

'The Simpsons' famously has predicted other major events.

In a 2000 episode, the series included a joke that Donald Trump would become president of the United States.

And in 1998, 'The Simpsons' foreshadowed Disney's acquisition of 20th Century Fox, almost two decades before the Mouse House snapped up 21st Century Fox.

Meanwhile, other debunked claims about 'The Simpsons' predicting the future include that the show foretold the COVID pandemic and the deadly tragedy at Travis Scott's Astroworld Festival last year in Houston, according to fact-checking site Snopes.

--IANS
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London, Sep 23 (IANS) The UK government has formally lifted a ban on fracking for shale gas in England and confirmed support for new oil and gas licensing round.

According to a statement published on Thursday, to "bolster the country's energy security", the government has lifted the moratorium on shale gas production in England, reports Xinhua news agency.

The government has also confirmed plans for a new oil and gas licensing round, launching by the North Sea Transition Authority in early October, paving the way for more than 100 new licences for exploration, which could involve fracking.

These licences will enable developers to search for commercially viable oil and gas sources.

Business Secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg said strengthening Britain's energy security is "an absolute priority".

In 2019, the government had said that fracking would resume only if "the science shows categorically that it can be done safely".

However, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy argued on Thursday that lifting the ban would enable further data to be collected.

The moratorium on shale-gas production has been in place in England since 2019 following concerns over earth tremors.

According to an Oil and Gas Authority report, it is not possible with current technology to accurately predict the probability of tremors associated with fracking.

--IANS
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Islamabad, Sep 23 (IANS) The overall death toll in Pakistan from the devastating floods has increased to 1,596, with 12,863 others injured, the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) said.

In the last 24 hours, 20 new fatalities were reported, reports Xinhua news agency citing the NDMA as saying.

The victims included 17 children and most of the deaths were reported in the worst-hit Sindh province.

The heavy monsoon rain-triggered flash floods since mid-June have also destroyed a total of 2,016,008 houses, while an estimated 1,040,735 livestock has perished in the rains across the country, according to the latest NDMA figures.

It further added that 12,716 km of roads and 374 bridges were damaged.

Rescue and relief operations by the NDMA, other government organisations, volunteers and NGOs were underway in the affected areas.

--IANS
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