Israel’s Supreme Court has started hearing petitions against a new law making it harder to declare a prime minister unfit for office.

Eleven of the 15 Supreme Court judges were hearing Thursday’s arguments. Within two months, the court would have heard arguments on three cases that challenge laws passed by the Benjamin Netanyahu government this year.

Thursday’s petition, however, affects Netanyahu most personally.

The law states that only the prime minister himself or the cabinet, with a two-thirds majority, can declare the leader unfit, and only “due to physical or mental incapacity.” The cabinet vote would then need to be ratified by a two-thirds majority in the parliament, known as the Knesset. The amendment is a change to one of Israel’s Basic Laws, the closest thing the country has to a constitution.

The amendment was passed before legislation started on a judicial overhaul package, pushed by Netanyahu’s right-wing government, that has split the country and led to months of protests by those who argue that it chips away at Israel’s democracy and weakens its judiciary.

The petitioners in Thursday’s hearing argue the amendment was passed solely for Netanyahu’s benefit – he faces an ongoing corruption trial – making it a “misuse of constituent authority.” That’s one of the bases on which the Supreme Court can, in theory, strike down amendments to a Basic Law. However, the court has never struck down a Basic Law or an amendment to one.

Yiktzhak Burt, a lawyer arguing on behalf of the Knesset, conceded to the Supreme Court Thursday that the law in question did benefit the prime minister personally, but insisted that the legislature had the power to pass it because it has a democratic mandate and that the court should not strike it down. He acknowledged that the law had flaws, but that they did not rise to such a level that it should be struck down.

Supreme Court President Esther Hayut said on Thursday that the court was not discussing nullifying the law but postponing its application.

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court heard arguments about another law, passed in July, that took away its ability to stop government actions justices rule to be “unreasonable.” It was also an amendment to a Basic Law. (The third petition is against Justice Minister Yariv Levin, who has refused to convene the committee that chooses judges, amid a dispute over its composition.)

“(We’ve) never had so many hearings in the court so close together. This is a unique and unprecedented constitutional crisis,” Fuchs said.

What law was changed?

Until this law was changed, there was no written legislation that dictated how a prime minister could be removed from office for being “unfit” to serve, although Fuchs said there was some precedent with case law that indicated the attorney general could make that ruling.

“I do believe we did have a flawed arrangement before. It was too vague. It demanded an amendment,” Fuchs said. “But it’s very clear that the motive for this law was totally personal.”

That’s because there were petitions to declare Netanyahu unfit to serve because of his ongoing corruption trial. He is the first sitting Israeli prime minister to appear in court as a defendant, on trial for charges of fraud, breach of trust and bribery. He denies any wrongdoing.

As part of a deal with the court to continue serving as prime minister despite his ongoing trial, Netanyahu in 2020 agreed to a conflict-of-interest declaration.

The attorney general determined at the time that the declaration meant Netanyahu could not be involved in policy making that affects the judicial system – like the judicial overhaul. Certain aspects of the overhaul, Netanyahu’s opponents have argued, could make it much easier for him to get out of the corruption trial.

Earlier this year, when Justice Minister Levin announced the government’s plans for a judicial overhaul, Netanyahu said his hands were tied and he couldn’t get involved because of the conflict-of-interest declaration.

But in March, hours after the amendment making it more difficult to declare a prime minister unfit for office was passed, Netanyahu announced he was getting involved.

“Until today, my hands have been tied,” the prime minister said at the time. “We have reached an absurd situation in which if I’d intervened (in the judicial overhaul legislation) as my job required, I would have been declared unfit to serve … Tonight I inform you: Enough is enough. I will be involved.”

What happens in the hearing?

A preliminary hearing with three judges has already been held on this case. On Thursday, arguments were heard again, this time in front of 11 of the 15 Supreme Court justices.

Normally the attorney general would put forward the government’s case in a Supreme Court hearing, but AG Gali Bahrav-Miara did not. She agrees with petitioners that the amendment should not stand, as she did earlier this month during the hearing on the “reasonableness” law.

The justices could strike down the amendment, declaring that the parliament carried out a “misuse of constituent power,” Fuchs said. That would be for passing legislation not for general purposes but for political purposes, to benefit a specific individual: Netanyahu.

Fuchs noted that the timing of the bill – raised and passed within just a few weeks – and on the record comments made during the discussions of the bill in parliament made it clear the purpose of the law was to protect Netanyahu.

The Supreme Court could also declare that the law “is not active right now,” and would only be active once the next parliament takes over. That could be a way out of a thorny constitutional situation.

“It takes away most of the problem because once you decide it’s only active next Knesset, it means it won’t solve any personal problem for Netanyahu and it gives time for the Knesset to re-think the arrangement,” Fuchs said.

The court decision must be made no later than January 12, 2024, due to the retirements of judges hearing the case.

What other challenges to the Israeli government’s judicial overhaul is the Supreme Court hearing?

The court must also decide by then on the petition against the law that struck down the court’s ability to declare government actions “unreasonable.” That is considered a much bigger challenge, and one where, for the first time, all 15 of the current Supreme Court justices took the case. The ruling on that petition is expected to take longer than the one being heard on Thursday.

Additionally, the Supreme Court is due to hear a challenge to the justice minister delaying convening the committee to select new Supreme Court justices. Netanyahu’s government wishes to re-formulate how justices are selected in Israel to give politicians more sway.

The committee was supposed to meet last week, but Levin postponed the meeting.

“It’s very important even though it is [an] administrative issue, not a petition against a basic law,” Fuchs said of the challenge, since Levin could be ordered to follow a court ruling on an essential element of the judicial overhaul.

“This is in the hands of the government because they can accept the decision. Even though (Netanyahu is) avoiding the question on whether he will abide by the decision, doesn’t mean he won’t,” Fuchs said.

Glaciers in Switzerland are shrinking at a “mind-blowing” rate. A total of 10% of their ice volume has disappeared over a period of just two years as a combination of low snowfall and soaring temperatures cause unprecedented melting, according to figures released Thursday.

In 2023, the country’s glaciers lost 4% of their total volume, according to data from the Swiss Commission for Cryosphere Observation of the Swiss Academy of Sciences. This level melting is second only to the record set in 2022, when 6% of glaciers were destroyed.

To put this into perspective, Swiss glaciers have lost as much ice over this two–year period as was lost over the three decades between 1960 and 1990.

“The losses we’ve seen in 2022 and 2023 are simply mind-blowing and beyond everything we have experienced so far,” said Matthias Huss, head of the Swiss Glacier Monitoring Network (GLAMOS), an organization that collects and evaluates glacier data and works with the Swiss Academy of Sciences.

The two extreme years have led to glacier tongues collapsing and many small glaciers in the country disappearing altogether. The St. Annafirn glacier, for example, in the Uri canton in central Switzerland, has shrunk so much that GLAMOS has stopped monitoring it.

Ice loss was even recorded at high altitudes, which usually don’t see such declines. Several meters of ice disappeared in southern Valais and the Engadin valley at altitudes of more than 3,200 meters (10,500 feet), according to GLAMOS.

The losses, which affect glaciers across the country, have come after a winter with very low snow. Snow levels in the second half of February reached a record low, at around 30% of the long-term average.

This was followed by a summer of high temperatures. A very hot and dry June meant snow melted two to four weeks earlier than usual, according to GLAMOS.

In August, a weather balloon launched by the national meteorological service, MétéoSuisse, had to climb 5,298 meters (17,382 feet) before the temperature fell to 0 degrees Celsius (32 Fahrenheit) – marking the highest “zero degree” line since records began.

High temperatures, which continued into September, meant that summer snowfalls melted quickly.

The huge glacier melt of the last two years has stark implications. It “means a significant re-shaping of the high-alpine landscape,” Huss said.

It is creating dangerous conditions with unstable rock threatening dangerous rockslides.

Receding glaciers are also leading to grim discoveries. In July, the remains of a German mountain climber who went missing 37 years ago while hiking along a glacier near Switzerland’s famous Matterhorn were recovered.

There are temporary advantages as the water runoff from the glaciers has helped relieve the severity of the drought the country has experienced and fill hydropower reservoirs, said Huss.

“However, this benefit is transient and short-lived,” he added. As they shrink, glaciers are rapidly losing their important role to contribute water when people need it. “This will aggravate water scarcity during heat waves in the near future,” Huss said.

The long-term picture for Switzerland’s glaciers is alarming. “Glaciers in the Alps will continue to massively shrink and retreat to the highest mountain peaks,” said Huss.

In June, Swiss voters agreed a new law to significantly reduce levels of planet-heating pollution, the impetus for which came from climate groups demanding an end to fossil fuels in order to save the glaciers.

But time is running out as climate change accelerates. Recent research found that even if ambitious climate targets are met, up to half of the world’s glaciers could disappear by the end of the century.

Pangolins are among the world’s most heavily poached animals. The elusive creatures are under threat, but the discovery of a mysterious species that’s new to science could help conservationists fight against their extinction, researchers say.

There are eight previously known species of pangolin — four found in Asia and four in Africa. Resembling anteaters, the solitary mammals are illegally hunted and trafficked for their meat and distinctive armorlike scales, which some people believe have medicinal value. 

Scientists studying contraband scales — confiscated in Hong Kong and China’s Yunnan province between 2012 and 2019 — identified genetic markers not seen in any known pangolins. The genomic analysis revealed an unexpected ninth species, which the team has named Manis mysteria.

The researchers described their findings in a study published Monday in the journal PNAS.

“We were quite surprised because we did not expect a new species could be discovered from seized scales,” said study coauthor Jing-Yan Hu, a research assistant at the State Key Laboratory for Conservation and Utilization of Bio-Resource at Yunnan University, in an email.

The study team did a structural analysis of 33 scale samples from several different confiscations. Five scales were attached to skin and three to claws. The remaining samples were from individual scales found to be from pangolin tails, backs, bellies or heads.

Genomics can help protect threatened species

The scales’ form initially suggested they belonged to one of four species of pangolin found in Asia. But DNA analysis showed that their “genomic data provide robust and compelling evidence that it is a new pangolin species distinct from those previously recognized,” Hu said.

Finding a new “large-bodied mammal” is not an everyday occurrence, said Dr. Aryn Wilder, a researcher specializing in conservation genetics at the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance. Wilder was not involved in the new research.

One of the most recent of such finds made through genomics was the 2017 identification of an unknown species of orangutan. “Although not unheard of, discoveries like these are pretty unusual,” Wilder said, adding that the pangolin study’s results were convincing.

“I thought the methods were solid and their findings were pretty conclusive,” she said.

Expanded understanding of ‘pangolin diversity and evolution’

Little is known of Manis mysteria, but now that its existence has been established, conservationists can work to protect it.

Uncovering a ninth species is significant, Hu said. The revelation “greatly expands current knowledge of pangolin diversity and evolution,” Hu said. “The discovery also urges more conservation concerns and joint efforts to help tackle the supply and demand of pangolin trade.”

The finding is very important, Wilder said in an email. “The identification of this new species will allow conservationists to focus management efforts to prevent its extinction.”

Extinction is defined on a species level. “Once a species is extinct, its unique biodiversity is lost,” Wilder said. “With the discovery of a new pangolin species, one that is likely endangered, and with more research to learn about its range, ecology, life-history and conservation status, conservation strategies can be tailored specifically to ensure that this species survives.”

Because Manis mysteria has just a slight genetic variation from other pangolins, the species is currently described as “cryptic.”

Cryptic species aren’t easy to tell apart from others by appearance alone, so the newfound ability to identify pangolin species by testing scales is a boon for conservation scientists. “Often a rare species will be mistaken for a more common one,” Wilder said. “With advancing DNA technologies, we are getting better at identifying cryptic species.”

That means the recent revelation could just be the start. “We also expect to find other pangolin species,” Hu said.

Known on social media as “Noor BM,” 23-year-old Noor Alsaffar had over 370,000 followers collectively on Instagram and TikTok. Alsaffar mostly posted short videos showing dresses, hair and makeup styles, often dancing to music. Following news of the shooting, many posted comments lamenting Alsaffar’s death. Some others cheered it, celebrating the man who fired the shot.

Khaled Almehna, spokesperson for the Iraqi police, described the attack as a “criminal incident” on Tuesday, adding that he will provide “important updates” at a later time.

The killing comes as Iraq cracks down on LGBTQ expression and moves to criminalize it in law. While being queer is not explicitly banned under current Iraqi legislation, LGBTQ people are often targeted under vague morality clauses in its penal code.

Before the shooting, Alsaffar faced online abuse, as well as questions about sexuality and gender. In a 2020 interview on Iraq’s Al Walaa channel, Alsaffar said: “I’m not transgender and I’m not gay. I don’t have other tendencies, I’m only a cross-dresser and a model.” Alsaffar identified as a male who worked as a model and makeup artist.

Alsaffar spoke in videos about facing threats on social media over choices of dressing.

In a 2021 YouTube interview with Iraqi blogger Samir Jermani, Alsaffar said: “I’m cautious but not afraid” in response to a question about the TikToker’s appearance.

The Iraqi LGBTQ rights group, IraQueer, posted about Alsaffar’s death, adding the hashtags #Transphobia and #MuderOfTransPeople on X, formerly known as Twitter.

A new law has been proposed in the Iraqi parliament that explicitly criminalizes gay sex, transgender expression and other forms of LGBTQ conduct. If adopted, it would punish same-sex relations with the death penalty or life in prison, punish “promoting homosexuality” with a minimum sentence of seven years, and criminalize “imitating women” with up to a three-year sentence.

Violence and discrimination against LGBTQ people in the country has increased noticeably in recent months, rights groups say. The country has seen protests, mostly by supporters of Shiite Muslim factions, burning the rainbow flag in response to recent Quran burnings in Sweden and Denmark. HRW says violence against LGBTQ people in Iraq “has routinely been met with impunity.”

Iraq’s media regulator in August banned the term “homosexuality” across all traditional and social media platforms, demanding that the term “sexual deviance” be used instead.

Rights groups have decried growing crackdowns on LGBTQ communities in the Middle East, including what Human Rights Watch found to be digital targeting based on online activity.

Online targeting is often followed by extreme punitive measures, including arbitrary detention and torture, the rights watchdog said in February after examining LGBTQ rights violations in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Tunisia.

Costa Rica’s president has ordered a state of emergency, citing a surge of migrants crossing through the country toward the United States.

“The people that arrive are passing across Costa Rica trying to get to the United States, basically,” President Rodrigo Chaves told a press conference Tuesday.

According to Chavez, the people crossing through his country are from around the world, including Venezuela, Ecuador, China, Colombia, Haiti, Yemen, and Bangladesh.

According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), over 84,490 people entered Costa Rica through its southern border in the month of August – an increase of 55% compared to the previous month.

Regionally, the number of migrants crossing the treacherous Darien Gap – which connects Panama and Colombia and has recently served as a barometer for movement – broke a new record this year.

According to authorities, 248,901 people have crossed the jungle so far in 2023, and of those, approximately 20% are children and adolescents.

In a statement on Wednesday, IOM called for governments in Central America and Mexico to work together to address “the immediate humanitarian needs” of the travelers and longer term solutions, warning that existing aid resources were “stretched thin.”

“People transiting Central America and Mexico face numerous challenges. The trek through the Darien jungle leaves many injured, sometimes abandoned on muddy slopes, swept away by sudden river floodings, and vulnerable to robbery, violence and sexual abuse,” the statement read.

“In countries along the route, financially depleted families find themselves hungry, sleeping in the streets and forced to beg. Many experience health issues like diarrhea and dehydration,” it said.

In August, Chavez visited US President Joe Biden to discuss migration and other issues.

Costa Rica is among a host of countries set to open so-called safe mobility offices, a new initiative by the Biden administration to partner with international organizations to establish brick-and-mortar processing centers for migrants to apply to migrate legally to the US, among other countries, instead of continuing their journey to the border.

As of August 28, more than 38,000 individuals have registered in Colombia, Costa Rica and Guatemala for the Safe Mobility initiative, according to a White House official.

A building block of life may exist inside the global ocean on Europa, one of Jupiter’s icy moons.

Two independent teams of astronomers used the James Webb Space Telescope to observe the frozen surface of Europa, and each analysis of the space observatory’s detections revealed an abundance of carbon dioxide within a specific region of the frigid terrain. Both studies describing the findings were published September 21 in the journal Science.

“On Earth, life likes chemical diversity — the more diversity, the better. We’re carbon-based life. Understanding the chemistry of Europa’s ocean will help us determine whether it’s hostile to life as we know it, or if it might be a good place for life,” said Geronimo Villanueva, lead author of the first study and planetary scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, in a statement.

Europa is one of several ocean worlds in our solar system besides Earth where scientists believe life could exist. Beneath a thick ice shell, Europa harbors a subsurface global ocean that may contain twice as much water as our planet’s oceans.

But environments suitable for life need more than water — they also require a supply of organic molecules and an energy source, according to NASA.

Scientists have long questioned whether Europa’s ocean contained carbon and other chemicals necessary for life.

When Webb data revealed the presence of carbon on Europa’s surface, the researchers conducted an analysis to see whether it was delivered by meteorites, or if it originated within the internal ocean.

Carbon dioxide appears to be concentrated in a region of “chaos terrain” on Europa called Tara Regio. The geologically young area contains ice that has been disrupted and resurfaced, suggesting that material has been exchanged between the ocean and the surface.

Carbon dioxide isn’t stable on Europa’s surface, which also led the two teams to the same conclusion that it was supplied by the ocean.

“We now think that we have observational evidence that the carbon we see on Europa’s surface came from the ocean. That’s not a trivial thing. Carbon is a biologically essential element,” said Samantha Trumbo, lead author of the second study and a 51 Pegasi B Fellow at Cornell University, in a statement.

Previously, the Hubble Space Telescope detected ocean-derived salt in the same region.

“We think this implies that the carbon probably has its ultimate origin in the internal ocean,” Trumbo said.

Investigating Europa

Astronomers used data from Webb’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph to identify the signature of carbon dioxide on the moon’s surface.

“Scientists are debating how much Europa’s ocean connects to its surface. I think that question has been a big driver of Europa exploration,” Villanueva said. “This suggests that we may be able to learn some basic things about the ocean’s composition even before we drill through the ice to get the full picture.”

Previously, astronomers made tentative detections of plumes erupting from the surface of Europa using the Hubble Space Telescope. Webb did not detect any plumes during its observations of Europa, but that doesn’t mean they don’t occur, according to the researchers.

“There is always a possibility that these plumes are variable and that you can only see them at certain times. All we can say with 100% confidence is that we did not detect a plume at Europa when we made these observations with Webb,” said Heidi Hammel, a Webb interdisciplinary scientist and vice president for science at the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, in a statement.

Two future missions will be able to take a closer look at Europa in the future, including the European Space Agency’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer launched in April and NASA’s Europa Clipper, expected to lift off in October 2024.

Both will investigate Europa’s potential habitability to see whether the icy ocean world could be hospitable to life.

Future observations of Europa with the Webb Telescope could help astronomers determine whether there are other concentrated regions of carbon dioxide on the surface, Trumbo said.

“I am also very interested in whether there is any evidence for organic molecules anywhere on the surface,” she said. “Our upcoming JWST data will help with that as well, but Europa Clipper will be able to get up close and personal and really peer at some of the finer-scale and most promising geologic regions.”

Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau formally apologized on behalf of Canada’s parliament Wednesday, referring to the “deeply embarrassing” incident last week that saw the chamber applaud a Ukrainian veteran who fought for a Nazi military unit during World War II.

“This was a mistake that has deeply embarrassed parliament and Canada. All of us who were in this House on Friday regret deeply having stood and clapped, even though we did so unaware of the context,” said Trudeau in a media briefing in Ottawa Wednesday.

Trudeau also recognized diplomatic damage done to the visiting Ukrainian delegation in attendance that day, which included Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

“I also want to reiterate how deeply sorry Canada is for the situation this put President Zelensky and the Ukrainian delegation in. It is extremely troubling to think that this egregious error is being politicized by Russia and its supporters to provide false propaganda about what Ukraine is fighting for,” he said.

On Friday, following an address by Zelensky, House of Commons speaker Anthony Rota lauded veteran Yaroslav Hunka as a Ukrainian-Canadian war hero who “fought for Ukrainian independence against the Russian aggressors then, and continues to support the troops today.”

Hunka, 98, received an extended standing ovation.

But in the days since, human rights and Jewish organizations have said that Hunka served in a Nazi military unit known as the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS.

The 14th Waffen Grenadier Division was part of the Nazi SS organization declared a criminal organization by the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg in 1946, which determined the Nazi group had committed war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Jewish human rights organization B’nai Brith Canada in a statement condemned the Ukrainian volunteers who served in the unit as “ultra-nationalist ideologues” who “dreamed of an ethnically homogenous Ukrainian state and endorsed the idea of ethnic cleansing.”

Rota has resigned his post amid the fallout, and Poland’s Minister of Education has published a letter saying that he is taking steps towards Hunka’s possible extradition.

The inauguration of two new electricity-generating units in Zimbabwe’s Hwange power station last month was not an unfamiliar scene when it comes to major infrastructure projects in Africa.

There, in a rural corner of the southern African nation, government officials and the Chinese ambassador gathered to ribbon-cut and laud the expansion of the coal-fired plant meant to reduce power cuts in the country – and Beijing’s role in funding it.

The project, backed by roughly $1 billion in Chinese loans years before Beijing stopped funding new coal-powered projects overseas, is one of the continent’s numerous big-ticket projects bankrolled by Chinese lenders under leader Xi Jinping’s hallmark Belt and Road Initiative.

The impact of those funds is felt across Africa, where residents in major cities like Lagos, Nairobi and Addis Ababa now transit daily via railways, highways and airports built in recent years with Chinese loans and often by Chinese construction firms.

Now, as the global infrastructure building spree enters its second decade there are questions about how Beijing will choose to direct the initiative in the years ahead – and whether it will downsize funding amid new challenges and signs of a recalibration.

Debt repayment issues amid global economic headwinds from the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, Beijing’s own bubbling financial woes and a need to better address environmental issues are among new pressures on how China lends and countries borrow.

Some data suggest a shift is already underway, with researchers from the Boston University Global Development Policy Center in the US tracking what they say is a steady decline in new loan commitments from Chinese entities to African government borrowers that deepened in the past two years.

Those new loans fell from a peak of $28.5 billion in 2016 down to just under $1 billion last year – the second consecutive year that lending fell below $2 billion and a drop the researchers say in a new report may not just be explained by the pandemic, but a broader shift toward lending that could see fewer large-scale loans.

And such a phenomenon may not just be limited to Chinese financing in Africa.

“Looking at decreasing loan averages globally, it is likely that this new phase (of Belt and Road lending) will be characterized by less financing overall,” said Moses, who is a data analyst at the center’s Global China Initiative.

But understanding how much money is flowing out of China into global development is notoriously tricky as Beijing doesn’t share this data openly and a wide range of financial entities play roles.

The data from the Global Development Policy Center, for example, focuses on African government borrowers or loans with a sovereign guarantee, excluding some Chinese lending that may be going to private borrowers for projects on the continent.

Some experts argue the key motivations that drove Beijing to become the world’s largest bilateral lender remain unchanged – suggesting it will continue to fund both large and smaller scale projects in the coming years, though it’s unclear at what scale.

How all this plays out could have a significant impact on developing countries’ access to much-needed infrastructure funding.

Policymakers will be looking to a major international forum focused on the initiative next month in Beijing for signs of what’s next.

Economic headwinds

Xi launched the initiative that would become a cornerstone of his foreign policy during a 2013 trip to Kazakhstan.

There, the Chinese leader called for a revamping of the ancient Silk Road to make countries’ “economic ties closer, mutual cooperation deeper and space of development broader.”

Since then, billions in loans not just from development finance institutions but China’s commercial banks have poured into railroads, power plants, highways, ports and telecoms across the developing world.

This gave the Chinese economy an outlet for its excess industrial capacity and funds, and allowed China to expand its global footprint and soft power – deepening relationships with what Beijing says are more than 150 countries that have signed on to cooperate in the initiative.

Many of its partners have reaped benefits from the new infrastructure.

But projects under the Belt and Road umbrella have generated accusations of lax environmental and labor standards, as well as risky lending, with critics saying China has saddled low- and middle-income governments with overly high levels of debt relative to their GDPs.

Beijing has pushed back on these assertions and instead hailed the initiative as a means for people around the world “to make the ‘cake’ bigger and share it more equally” and “foster new engines for economic development.”

Now, new economic realities – as countries still reeling from the pandemic are hit by rising interest rates and commodity prices driven by the war in Ukraine – are at play.

“The biggest change that we have to acknowledge is that the era of low interest rates (and) cheap money flowing out of China into these countries – that era is over. And now China is the biggest debt collector in the world,” said Ammar A. Malik, a senior research scientist at AidData research lab at William & Mary’s Global Research Institute in the US, which also tracks Chinese overseas development finance.

“So the challenge (for China) is now to basically make sure that these countries are sufficiently liquid and these projects are sufficiently functional that China would (be able to) collect their repayments with interest and on time,” he said.

In recent years, a number of recipient governments have asked for debt deferment or relief treatment from creditors including China, with Beijing issuing bailout loans and joining other lenders in joint negotiations on debt relief for troubled borrowers such as Zambia and Ghana.

Debt distress issues may mean that a number of low and middle income countries are not in a position to take on more debt currently, said Malik.

But many developing economies are likely “still very interested in receiving funds for large infrastructure projects that are so critical to grow their economies,” he said, and there are a range of factors that “incentivize both China and recipient countries to continue working together” that may not lead to a slowdown in financing ahead.

China is also navigating the second decade of the Belt and Road amid stark economic challenges at home.

An expected post-Covid economic rebound has never materialized and local governments are grappling with mounting debt linked to a property crisis.

It remains to be seen to what extent Beijing’s own domestic economic challenges will impact its overseas lending in the longer term, but there are signs of effects now, according to Moses from the Global Development Policy Center.

Beijing’s decisions on how to channel its foreign exchange reserves and calls for increased liquidity to address domestic challenges “show a current shift to lenders having a higher focus on domestic financing needs,” she said.

But while China’s economic troubles may cause financiers to be more circumspect, some of the economic priorities originally driving China’s global infrastructure spree – like an interest in generating new investment opportunities in a slowing economy – remain, according to Austin Strange, an assistant professor at the University of Hong Kong.

“This basic intuition is arguably still valid as the slowdown continues, particularly as geopolitical tensions are making it more difficult for Chinese firms in certain sectors to invest more in advanced economies,” he said.

A Beijing gathering

As representatives from more than 100 counties are expected to gather in Beijing for a Belt and Road forum next month, policymakers around the world will be watching closely for signals of how the initiative will evolve.

A decline in the scale of loans is not the only area being watched, as China may look to place more emphasis on environmental issues, better social protections and due diligence – especially as Beijing and its banks learn lessons from the project’s first decade, analysts say.

A 2021 AidData report found that some 35% of Belt and Road projects solely operated by Chinese entities from 2013-2017 had “implementation challenges,” including environmental incidents, corruption scandals and labor violations.

China in 2017 released guidance on promoting a “green” Belt and Road, which called for sustainable development and strengthening environmental protection. More recently, officials have begun calling for “small and beautiful” projects, which they suggest will appeal to local populations.

In 2021, Xi pledged that China would not build any new coal-fired power projects abroad.

But unlike Western lenders who look to apply their environmental and other standards onto projects they fund, China has traditionally allowed the recipient country to dictate the nature of the project, according to AidData’s Malik, who said this could limit how much Beijing can follow through on its green goals.

When it comes to Africa, researchers at the Global Development Policy Center say future lending to the continent could mean fewer large-scale loans over $500 million, more with smaller values under $50 million and loans with more beneficial social and environmental impacts.

It’s likely, however, that China will still continue to direct funding in alignment with its geopolitical aims, especially in areas where it is vying for influence against the United States, which has recently launched its own initiatives to rival Chinese overseas development funding.

And while China’s funding of large infrastructure projects may have peaked in global volume, there are “likely still considerable pockets of (Belt and Road Initiative) enthusiasm on the part of China and counterpart governments, for instance, in China’s regional neighborhood,” said HKU’s Strange.

If Chinese policymakers and project leaders have made serious investments to improve on how they manage these projects over the past decade, new ones “should in theory benefit from past lessons learned,” he said. “Hindsight is a potential benefit here.”

Activists in Australia are trying to stop oil and gas company Woodside Energy from conducting seismic blasting off the country’s western coast, which they say could deafen and ultimately kill endangered migratory whales.

The court challenge is part of a long-running campaign by Indigenous and environmental activists to frustrate Woodside’s plans for “Scarborough,” a massive fossil fuel project set to pump out carbon emissions for decades even as Australia attempts to meet tougher climate targets.

Earlier this month, Marthudunera woman Raelene Cooper sought an injunction to delay the blasting, but that order is due to expire on Thursday, allowing Woodside to resume work it says is required to indicate the location of large gas reserves.

On Tuesday, Cooper argued her case in the Federal Court, saying she was not properly consulted by Woodside Energy before it announced the blasting, a precursor to exploratory drilling.

During the process, airguns fire compressed air toward the ocean floor and the soundwaves penetrate the seabed before bouncing back to receivers towed by a boat. The pattern of the soundwaves gives geologists an indication of oil and gas reserves trapped under the ocean bedrock.

According to the Australian Marine Conservation Society, the noise can reach 250 decibels, around a million times “more intense” than the loudest whale sounds.

“Now, that’s really problematic if you’re a whale because whales depend on their hearing for everything – to navigate, to find their mates and their food,” said Richard George, Greenpeace Australia Pacific senior campaigner.

“So, a deaf whale is a dead whale.”

Huge gas project

Woodside Energy plans to extract millions of tons of gas from the Scarborough field, about 375 kilometers (233 miles) off the coast of Western Australia, mostly for export to Asia.

The project was signed off by the previous Australian government led by Scott Morrison, however it retains the support of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s administration, despite its pledge of achieving net zero emissions by 2050.

Gas is generally less carbon-intensive than coal, but it’s still a planet-warming fossil fuel, and there is a growing understanding that its infrastructure leaks huge amounts of methane – a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide in the shorter term.

Australia’s offshore oil and gas regulator, NOPSEMA, approved the blasting in July, despite acknowledging that Woodside may not have identified all Indigenous people in need of consultation on the seismic blasting plans, or given them adequate time to be consulted.

The document lists dozens of threatened and migratory species of sharks, mammals, reptiles and birds that can be found in the vicinity of the blast zone, including loggerhead and leatherback turtles, great white sharks and pygmy blue whales.

Greenpeace said Woodside’s plans “skirt close” to a major migration route for pygmy blue whales, a smaller subspecies of blue whale that travels north each year from the Antarctic into waters off Australia’s northwest.

The population size of pygmy blue whales is unclear, but the Australian government considers the mammal to be endangered.

The government’s species profile warns about the dangers of “man-made noise” to the whales, saying it can “potentially result in injury or death, masking of vocalisations, displacement from essential resources (e.g. prey, breeding habitat), and behavioural responses.”

“Potential sources of man-made underwater noise interference in Australian waters include seismic surveys for oil, gas and geophysical exploration,” the profile adds.

However in its environmental report, Woodside said any impact on whales would be short term.

“There will be no lasting effect on whales, however there could be short term hearing impacts,” Woodside wrote in its report.

The company also said it “will have dedicated marine fauna observers and systems which can listen for whale song on some vessels” and that the “presence of whales can postpone activities.”

Fight for cultural heritage

For local Indigenous people, whales are not only treasured for their role in the ecosystem – they carry cultural significance for those whose ancestors have lived on the land for more than 60,000 years.

“It’s what our ancestors left behind, they left us a story,” Cooper said. “Those animals represent a song, a dance that we as Indigenous people all over this continent hold.”

In its environmental plan, Woodside acknowledged the importance of marine habitats to the traditional customs and culture of Indigenous Australians.

“Woodside recognises the potential for marine ecosystems to include cultural features as well as environmental values,” the report said. “An impact to marine ecosystems has the potential to impact cultural values,” Woodside acknowledges, vowing to “adequately manage” that impact.

But the activists’ concerns extend beyond the sea – to ancient petroglyphs or rock art on Murujuga, also known as Burrup Peninsula, that Cooper and her group, Save our Songlines, fear will be damaged by emissions from the Scarborough project.

The art, believed to be 40,000 years old, contains some of the earliest depictions of human civilization and represent irreplaceable cultural links to the past.

“It’s our sacred significant areas that are continually getting hammered,” she said. “Our people are being attacked. Our ancient history, our wildlife, our ecosystems, our water.”

Woodside Energy has calculated a total emissions cost of 878.02 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent over its 50-year lifespan.

Campaigners say the projected emissions made a mockery of Australia’s stated commitment to reducing its reliance on fossil fuels.

“Scarborough is a part of the Burrup Hub, and that is Australia’s largest fossil fuel project. If it goes ahead we’re looking at emissions equivalent to 12 years of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions,” said Greenpeace’s Richard George.

“So it is a disaster for our climate and it’s a disaster for our oceans as well.”

Two Ukrainian soldiers huddle around a drone controller in darkness, their faces illuminated only by its screen.

“Oh, something is burning,” one says. They’ve just dropped a bomb on a Russian target.

“We will be hitting their first line and our guys will be advancing on the enemy,” says one of the drone pilots, who goes by his call sign “Groove.”

Ukrainian ground troops are equipped with Western night-vision equipment and have an advantage in night-time operations, but Kyiv’s ground attack aircraft are not suited for the dark, so this drone unit nicknamed “Code 9.2” is stepping up.

“The drones see in the night like in daylight,” ‘Groove explains. “We see the infantry, we hit the vehicles, cannons, everything we need to destroy.”

They are using Ukrainian-made ‘Vampire’ unmanned aerial vehicles, a hexacopter procured by the government in Kyiv, part of an initiative led by the Ministry for Digital Transformation to supply Ukrainian forces with technology on the battlefield.

“Each drone is equipped with a thermal imager, so it can operate effectively at night. They can carry up to 15 kilograms [33 pounds] of payload,” Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov said in a Telegram video last August, as he announced 270 of these machines would be sent to the front lines.

“The military will use them to destroy both armored cars and tanks, as well as enemy defense structures, fortifications, or ammunition depots.”

That’s what Groove and his unit have been doing.

“Sometimes there are a lot of them,” Groove says, searching the area with his drone, trying to scope out Russian forces. They chase a few Russian vehicles, dropping bombs on them as they go.

“At the moment we don’t see many. There was some vehicle there but we didn’t hit it,” he adds.

As the drone attack picks up pace, other units join the battlefield: powerful artillery makes itself heard, showering the moonlit Russian positions with US-donated cluster munitions at a fast pace.

Grad multiple launch rocket systems fill the sky with their rapid hissing projectiles, mortar units join in, zeroing in on Moscow’s armies with the help of flares, and infantry fighting vehicles race to the front to storm Russian lines.

It’s a comprehensive assault and, at their headquarters, Code 9.2 commander call sign ‘Flint’ says this operation has been weeks in the making.

“We’ve been setting it up for more than a month” he says, as his men prepare the ammunition they will be dropping on Russian positions.

“It’s a combined assault,” he adds, explaining the push south of Bakhmut is designed to build up on recent gains in the area, where Ukraine was able to regain important territory from Russian control.

An offensive in the South, gains in the East

Kyiv has concentrated a large portion of the Western equipment it received in the South where Ukrainian forces have been advancing along two axes: from Orikhiv towards Melitopol and from Velyka Novosilka towards Berdiansk.

German-made Leopard 2 tanks, American Bradley infantry fighting vehicles among others were sent to the area to support Ukrainian forces as they stormed Russian positions. The ultimate goal is to reach the Black Sea and cut off Russia’s supply route to Crimea. Gains so far have been slow and modest, with Ukraine retaking only a few small villages in the South.

Much less talked about have been operations in the Eastern part of the country, where Kyiv’s forces have slowly but surely retaken dozens of square kilometers, since Russia’s brutal assault on Bakhmut last winter.

“We are breaking through their line of defense here and we are hitting them well,” Groove says. He says the Russian mercenary group Wagner, responsible for much of Russia’s gains during the winter, has returned to the area.

“Yes, Wagner is here too,” he says. “They came back, they swiftly changed their commanders and returned here.”

Groove believes that the group’s presence is in part intended to compensate for personnel shortages on the Russian side. “[Russia] gathered troops from surrounding areas and brought them here,” he says. “They don’t have much personnel left here.”

Nevertheless, it is a slow grind – a war of attrition – and with less of the advanced Western equipment than their countrymen on the Southern frontline, Ukrainian forces here are forced to rely more on brains than brawn.

“We change tactics constantly,” commander ‘Flint’ explains. “It’s like boxing. We go for the body and then switch for the head.”