To restore reefs dying in warming seas, UAE turns to coral nurseries

To restore reefs dying in warming seas, UAE turns to coral nurseries
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In this frame from video, PADI Course Director Amr Anwar installs coral to a net fixed to the sea bed to replant it in Dubai on June 4, 2023. (AP Photo/Malak Harb)
To restore reefs dying in warming seas, UAE turns to coral nurseries
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PADI Course Director Amr Anwar works to install coral to a net to replant it in Dubai on June 4, 2023. (AP Photo/Malak Harb)
To restore reefs dying in warming seas, UAE turns to coral nurseries
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A young fragment of coral harvested from a nursery is shown off the coast of Abu Dhabi on May 25, 2023. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili)
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Updated 09 June 2023
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To restore reefs dying in warming seas, UAE turns to coral nurseries

To restore reefs dying in warming seas, UAE turns to coral nurseries

ABU DHABI: On a boat off the coast of an island near Abu Dhabi, marine scientist Hamad Al-Jailani feels the corals, picked from the reef nursery and packed in a box of seawater, and studies them carefully, making sure they haven’t lost their color.
The corals were once bleached. Now they’re big, healthy and ready to be moved back to their original reefs in the hope they’ll thrive once more.
“We try to grow them from very small fragments up to — now some of them have reached — the size of my fist,” Al-Jailani said, who’s part of the Environment Agency Abu Dhabi’s coral restoration program.
The nursery gives corals the ideal conditions to recover: clear waters with strong currents and the right amount of sunlight. Al-Jailani periodically checks the corals’ growth, removes any potentially harmful seaweed and seagrass, and even lets the fish feed off the corals to clean them, until they’re healthy enough to be relocated.




In this frame from video, Hamad al-Jailani, marine scientist at Environment Agency Abu Dhabi, shows a piece of restored coral underwater off the coast of Abu Dhabi on May 25, 2023. (AP Photo/Malak Harb)

The Environment Agency Abu Dhabi, or EAD, has been rehabilitating and restoring corals since 2021, when reefs off the United Arab Emirates’ coast faced their second bleaching event in just five years. EAD’s project is one of many initiatives — both public and private — across the country to protect the reefs and the marine life that depend on them in a nation that has come under fire for its large-scale developments and polluting industries that cause harm to underwater ecosystems. There’s been some progress, but experts remain concerned for the future of the reefs in a warming world.
Coral bleaching occurs when sea temperatures rise and sun glares flush out algae that give the corals their color, turning them white. Corals can survive bleaching events, but can’t effectively support marine life, threatening the populations that depend on them.
The UAE lost up to 70 percent of their corals, especially around Abu Dhabi, in 2017 when water temperatures reached 37 degrees Celsius (99 degrees Fahrenheit), according to EAD. But Al-Jailani said 40-50 percent of corals survived the second bleaching event in 2021.
Although the bleaching events “did wipe out a good portion of our corals,” he said, “it did also prove that the corals that we have are actually resilient ... these corals can actually withstand these kind of conditions.”
Bleaching events are happening more frequently around the world as waters warm due to human-made climate change, caused by the burning of oil, coal and gas that emits heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere. Other coral reef systems around the world have suffered mass bleaching events, most notably Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.
How to limit global warming and its effects will be discussed at length at the United Nations climate conference, which will be held in the UAE capital later this year.
The UAE is one of the world’s largest oil producers and has some of the highest per capita greenhouse gas emissions globally. The country has pledged to have net zero carbon emissions by 2050, which means all carbon dioxide emissions are either slashed or canceled out somehow, but the goal has been met with skepticism from analysts.




Zack Heikal, field technician of the Environmental Agency Abu Dhabi, dives into the water to visit a coral reef nursery off the coast of Abu Dhabi on May 25, 2023. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili)

But bleaching due to warming weather is not the only threat to coral reefs around the gulf. High oil tanker traffic, fossil-fuel related activities, offshore installations, and the exploitation of marine resources are all putting marine life under intense stress, according to the UN Environment Programme, causing them to degrade.
Environmentalists have also long criticized the UAE, and Dubai in particular, for its large-scale buildings and huge coastal developments.
The building of the Palm Jebel Ali, which began more than a decade ago and has been on hold since 2008, caused an outcry among conservationists after it reportedly destroyed about 8 square kilometers (5 square miles) of reef.
“More than 90 million cubic meters (23.8 billion gallons) of sediments were dredged and dropped, more or less on top of one of the remaining reefs near Dubai,” said John Henrik Stahl, the dean of the College of Marine Sciences at Khorfakkan University in Sharjah, UAE.
The project was meant to be similar to the Palm Jumeirah — a collection of small, artificial islands off the coast of Dubai in the shape of a palm tree.
Still, environmental projects persist across the coastline and throughout the emirates.
Development company URB has announced it wants to grow 1 billion artificial corals over a 200-square-kilometer area (124 square miles) and 100 million mangrove trees on an 80-kilometer (50-mile) strip of beaches in Dubai by 2040.
Still in the research and development phase, the project hopes to create 3D technology to print materials that can host algae, much like corals.
Members of Dubai’s diving community are also encouraging coral protection efforts.
Diving program director Amr Anwar is in the process of creating a certified coral restoration course that teaches divers how to collect and re-plant corals that have fallen after being knocked off by divers’ fins or a boat’s anchor.




PADI Course Director Amr Anwar fist bumps divers after replanting coral in Dubai on June 4, 2023. (AP Photo/Malak Harb)


“I don’t want people to see broken corals and just leave them like that,” said Anwar. “Through the training we give people, they would be able to take these broken corals that they find and plant them elsewhere, and then see them grow and watch their progress.”
But experts say that unless the threat of overheating seas caused by climate change is addressed, coral bleaching events will continue to occur, damaging reefs worldwide.
Countries have pledged to limit the global average temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times, after which scientists say the effects of warming on the planet could be much worse, and some even potentially irreversible. But analysts say most nations — including the UAE — are still way off that target.
“You have to make sure that the cause for the degradation of the coral reefs in the first place is no longer a threat,” said Stahl, the Khorfakkan University scientist. “Otherwise the restoration effort may be for nothing.”
 


Arab family of five shot dead as crime rates in Israel soar

Arab family of five shot dead as crime rates in Israel soar
Updated 28 September 2023
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Arab family of five shot dead as crime rates in Israel soar

Arab family of five shot dead as crime rates in Israel soar
  • Arab mayors have accused the government and police of deliberately neglecting their communities and of enabling criminals to act with impunity

JERUSALEM: Five members of an Arab family were shot dead in their home in Israel, police said on Wednesday, in the latest in a wave of crime-related killings in Israel’s Arab communities that has reached a new peak this year.
The shooting of the five, including a woman and two teenagers, in the northern town of Basmat Tab’un followed a separate incident in which a 50-year-old man was killed earlier on Wednesday.
More than 180 Arab citizens in Israel have been killed in crime-related violence since January — a seven-year high — in a spate of killings that have continued unchecked, drawing accusations that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s religious-nationalist government was ignoring the bloodshed.
“Israel has the abilities, the Israeli government understands what needs to be done, everybody understands what needs to be done, there simply is no will and no leadership,” said Mansour Abbas, leader of one of the parties that represent Israel’s Arab minority.
Arab mayors have accused the government and police of deliberately neglecting their communities and of enabling criminals to act with impunity. They have refused to work with the far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who has past convictions of support for terrorism and anti-Arab incitement, and have demanded that Netanyahu intervene instead.
With Israel facing its worst political crisis in decades, over Netanyahu’s drive to push through divisive changes to the judiciary, Arab citizens say the collapse of personal safety in their communities must receive more government attention.
Ben-Gvir, who did not immediately comment on Wednesday’s incident, has rejected accusations of inaction. He has said fighting crime is high on his agenda and that police have stepped up crime-busting activity, including the seizure of weapons and funds from criminal groups.
“As police, we will do everything to get to the killers,” police spokesman Eli Levi told reporters at the scene of Wednesday’s crime.
Arab citizens, most of whom are descendants of Palestinians who remained in Israel during the mass exodus of refugees in the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation, make up about a fifth of the country’s population.
They have for decades faced high poverty rates, poorly funded schools and overcrowded towns lacking services and say they are treated as second-class citizens compared with Jewish Israelis.


Lebanese military court sentences Daesh official to 160 years in prison

Lebanese military court sentences Daesh official to 160 years in prison
Updated 27 September 2023
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Lebanese military court sentences Daesh official to 160 years in prison

Lebanese military court sentences Daesh official to 160 years in prison
  • Imad Yassin, a Palestinian in his 50s, confessed to all 11 charges against him

BEIRUT: Lebanese military court has sentenced an official with the extremist Daesh group to 160 years in prison for carrying out deadly attacks against security forces and planning others targeting government buildings and crowded civilian areas, judicial officials said Wednesday.

The officials said Imad Yassin, a Palestinian in his 50s, confessed to all 11 charges against him, including joining a “terrorist organization,” committing crimes in Lebanon’s largest Palestinian refugee camp of Ein El-Hilweh, shooting at Lebanese soldiers, and transporting weapons and munitions for militant groups.

Yassin, also known as Imad Akl, said he was planning several other attacks, including blowing up two main power stations, the headquarters of a major local television station in Beirut, killing a leading politician, as well as planning attacks on hotels north of Beirut, the officials said on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

Before joining Daesh, Yassin was a member of other militant groups, including Al-Qaeda-linked Jund Al-Sham, which is still active in Ein El-Hilweh. In later years, he became Daesh’s top official in the camp.

Yassin was detained in Ein El-Hilweh, near the port city of Sidon, six years ago and has been held since. The total 11 sentences that he received count to up to 160 years in prison, the officials said.

The session during which he was sentenced started on Monday night and lasted until the early hours of Tuesday. 

At the height of its rise in Iraq and Syria in 2014, Daesh claimed responsibility for deadly attacks in different parts of Lebanon that left scores of people dead.


Morocco aims to become key player in green hydrogen

Morocco aims to become key player in green hydrogen
Updated 27 September 2023
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Morocco aims to become key player in green hydrogen

Morocco aims to become key player in green hydrogen

RABAT: Morocco has voiced ambitious plans to become North Africa’s top player in the emerging “green hydrogen” sector, with plans to export the clean-burning fuel to Europe.

Hydrogen is seen as a clean energy source that can help the world phase out fossil fuels and reduce atmospheric carbon emissions in the battle to slow global warming.

Morocco, which already runs large solar power plants, also hopes to harness green hydrogen — the kind made without burning fossil fuels — for its sizeable fertilizer sector.

Around 1.5 million acres of public land — nearly the size of Kuwait — have been set aside for green hydrogen and ammonia plants, the economy ministry says.

King Mohammed VI has hailed a national green hydrogen plan dubbed l’Offre Maroc (the Moroccan Offer) and called for its “rapid and qualitative implementation.”

Speaking in July, before the country’s earthquake disaster, he said Morocco must take advantage of “the projects supported by international investors in this promising sector.”

Local media have reported about investment plans by Australian, British, French, German and Indian companies.

Hydrogen can be extracted from water by passing a strong electrical current through it.

This separates the hydrogen from the oxygen, a process called electrolysis.

If the power used is clean — such as solar or wind — the fuel is called “green hydrogen,” which is itself emission-free when burnt.

But there are problems: Hydrogen is highly explosive and hard to store and transport. This has set back hydrogen fuel cell cars in the race against electric vehicles using lithium-ion batteries.

However, experts say green hydrogen also has a big role to play in decarbonizing energy-intensive industries that cannot easily be electrified such as steel, cement and chemicals.

Powering blast furnaces with hydrogen, for example, offers the promise of making “green steel.”

Hydrogen can also be converted into ammonia, to store the energy or as a major input in synthetic fertilizers. Morocco is already a major player in the global fertilizer market, thanks mainly to its immense phosphate reserves.

It profited after fertilizer shortages sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent prices up to 1,000 euros ($1,060) per ton.

Morocco’s state Phosphate Office has announced plans to quickly produce a million tons of “green ammonia” from green hydrogen and triple the amount by 2032.

Analysts caution that Morocco still has some way to go with its ambitious green fertilizer plans.

The sector is “embryonic and the large global projects will not see the light of day until three to five years from now,” said Samir Rachidi, director of the Moroccan research institute IRESEN.

Morocco’s advantage is that it has already bet heavily on clean energy over the past 15 years.

Solar, wind and other clean energy make up 38 percent of production, and the goal is to reach 52 percent by 2030.

For now green hydrogen is more expensive than the highly polluting “brown hydrogen” made using coal or “grey hydrogen” produced from natural gas.

The goal is to keep green hydrogen production below $1-$2 per kilogram, Ahmed Reda Chami, president of the Economic, Social and Environmental Counsel, told the weekly La Vie Eco.


Israel says it foiled Iranian plot to target, spy on senior Israeli politicians

Israel says it foiled Iranian plot to target, spy on senior Israeli politicians
Updated 27 September 2023
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Israel says it foiled Iranian plot to target, spy on senior Israeli politicians

Israel says it foiled Iranian plot to target, spy on senior Israeli politicians
  • The Shin Bet security service alleged that an Iranian security official living in neighboring Jordan had recruited three Palestinian men in the Israeli-occupied West Bank
  • The targets included National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Yehuda Glick, an American-born far-right Israeli activist

JERUSALEM: Israel arrested five Palestinians in a plot allegedly hatched in Iran to target and spy on senior Israeli politicians, including Israel’s far-right national security minister, the country’s internal security agency said Wednesday.
The Shin Bet security service alleged that an Iranian security official living in neighboring Jordan had recruited three Palestinian men in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and another two Palestinian citizens of Israel to gather intelligence about several high-profile Israeli politicians.
The targets included National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir — a firebrand Israeli settler leader who oversees the country’s police force in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ultranationalist government — as well as Yehuda Glick, an American-born far-right Israeli activist and former member of parliament.
The plan was foiled by Israeli intelligence officials, the Shin Bet said, without offering evidence.
Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the allegations.
Ben-Gvir, who draws inspiration from a racist rabbi, has provoked outrage across the wider Middle East for his particularly hard-line policies against the Palestinians, anti-Arab rhetoric and stunts and frequent public visits to the holiest and most contested site in the Holy Land. The hilltop compound in Jerusalem, revered by Jews as the Temple Mount and by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, is at the emotional center of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Glick is a leader in a campaign that pushes for increased Jewish access and prayer rights at the sacred Jerusalem compound, the holiest site in Judaism home to ancient biblical Temples. Today, the compound houses the Al Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam. Since Israel captured the site in 1967, Jews have been allowed to visit but not pray there. Glick survived a 2014 Palestinian assassination attempt.
The Shin Bet did not elaborate on the identity of the Iranian official in Jordan who allegedly orchestrated the plot. He is not in custody and apparently remains at large.
But the Shin Bet accused three Palestinian men in the West Bank — identified as 47-year old Murad Kamamaja, 34-year-old Hassan Mujarimah and 45-year-old Ziad Shanti — of gathering intelligence and smuggling weapons into Israel. The security service also said that it charged two Palestinian citizens of Israel over their involvement in the plot. It did not specify how the men planned to target Ben-Gvir and the other politicians.
Ben-Gvir claimed that the Palestinian suspects had conspired to “assassinate a minister in Israel,” without clarifying whether he meant himself or another minister. He thanked Israeli security forces for uncovering and capturing what he called the “terrorist squad.”
Ben-Gvir, who has pushed for harsher treatment for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, also vowed to double down on his hard-line policies in response to the revelations. “I will continue to act fearlessly and even more vigorously for a fundamental change in the conditions of the terrorists’ imprisonment,” he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Israel has considered Iran to be its greatest enemy since it became a Shiite theocracy during the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Iran is a main patron of Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group, which Israel considers the most potent military threat on its borders, and also backs Palestinian Islamist militant groups in the Gaza Strip.


US targets Iran drone procurement network, accuses it of aiding Russia

 The US has accused Tehran of supplying Russia with drones to support Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. (File/AFP)
The US has accused Tehran of supplying Russia with drones to support Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. (File/AFP)
Updated 27 September 2023
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US targets Iran drone procurement network, accuses it of aiding Russia

 The US has accused Tehran of supplying Russia with drones to support Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. (File/AFP)
  • “Iranian-made UAVs continue to be a key tool for Russia in its attacks in Ukraine, including those that terrorize Ukrainian citizens,” Treasury said

WASHINGTON: The United States on Wednesday imposed sanctions on a network it said was helping procure sensitive parts for Iran’s drone program, and accused Tehran of supplying Russia with drones to support Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
The network has facilitated shipments and financial transactions in support of the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ (IRGC) procurement of a critical component used in Iran’s Shahed-136 drones, the Treasury Department said in a statement.
The move is the latest in a series of recent sanctions on Iran. Wednesday’s action targets entities and individuals in Iran, China, and other countries.
“Iranian-made UAVs continue to be a key tool for Russia in its attacks in Ukraine, including those that terrorize Ukrainian citizens and attack its critical infrastructure,” Treasury official Brian Nelson said in a statement.