LONDON (AP) – The British government will allow Chelsea to sell some tickets again after easing the terms of its sanctioning licence, ensuring the Champions League quarterfinal against Real Madrid is not played at an empty Stamford Bridge while denying the club the ability to gain financially.
The reigning European and world champions had been banned from selling tickets after owner Roman Abramovich was sanctioned. The oligarch’s assets were frozen but the government has now allowed GBP30 million (USD40 million) to be released from Chelsea’s parent company, Fordstam, for the club to meet it costs.
It equates to about a month’s wages. Chelsea has been granted a licence to continue operating as a club but with strict limitations.
The updated licence allows the sale of tickets to all home fans for the visit of Madrid for the Champions League first leg. Chelsea cannot sell new tickets for home Premier League games to its fans – only existing season ticket holders can attend – but away fans can now buy tickets. Chelsea supporters will be able to purchase tickets for away games.
The Premier League said it would collect all ticket proceeds that, in agreement with Chelsea, “will be donated to charity to benefit victims of the war in Ukraine”.
NAGAON, INDIA (AP) – Plans to build a sprawling solar park on land cultivated for generations by indigenous farmers in India’s Himalayan foothills erupted in violent clashes with police last year after their crops were bulldozed for the development.
Most men from the farming village of a few hundred in Assam state were out looking for work on December 29. One of the few people who remained was Champa Timungpi, who said she was beaten by police and kicked in the stomach when she tried to protest.
Pregnant at the time, the 25-year-old was rushed to a hospital for her injuries. “I came back home at night, and I miscarried,” said Tumungpi, who lodged a complaint with police.
The lush green village in Nagaon district – still largely unconnected to the grid and home to families who earn less than USD2 a day – is now framed by blue solar panels, barbed wire and armed guards.
The solar developer Azure Power, listed on the New York Stock Exchange, said in an email that the company legally bought 91 acres in the village from “recorded landowners” and it’s “incorrect and erroneous” to say the land was forcibly taken.
The company’s position is strongly disputed by Timungpi and others in the Mikir Bamuni village who said their rights as tenants and established farmers were ignored. Local officials and police didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Farmers protesting near the solar power plant in Mikir Bamuni village in Nagaon District, India. PHOTOS: APABOVE & BELOW: An Adivasi Chaotali farmer shows his land document; and a farmer whose agriculture lands had been transferred to build a solar plant dries his clothes
Champa Timungpi at her houseAn employee working at the solar power plant
However it plays out in a district court, the dispute not only speaks to India’s often-tangled land ownership rules rooted in its colonial era. It also illustrates the complexity and immensity of the challenges facing the country of nearly 1.4 billion people in meeting its renewable power goals for the next decade.
Over the next 20 years, India’s demand for electricity will grow more than anywhere else in the world. Unlike most countries, India still has to develop and lift millions like Timungpi from poverty, and it will need to build a power system the size of the European Union’s (EU).
How India meets its energy and economic needs will have an outsized impact on the world’s climate goals. The country is a major contributor of greenhouse gases from the burning of coal and other fossil fuels.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at last year’s United Nation climate talks that India would increase its capacity of non-fossil fuels electricity to 500 gigawatts by 2030 – from the 104 gigawatts at the start of this year.
To meet its goals, India must add four times the amount of power the average nuclear plant produces – every month until 2030.
These short-term energy targets won’t do much to limit global warming to 1.5 Celsius – the level beyond which scientists warn of catastrophic climate impacts, scientists at last year’s United Nations (UN) climate conference had warned.
But for India, it’ll still be a “gargantuan task”, requiring investments between USD20 billion and USD26.8 billion, while only USD10 billion is available, a Parliamentary committee said last month.
Some obstacles to renewables – such as the need to build electricity storage for when the sun isn’t shining or wind isn’t blowing – are global challenges. Others are more specific to India – such as the question of who owns land in poor communities that bear least responsibility for the climate crisis and the need to realign power systems that have relied on coal for centuries.
While there’s no clear roadmap yet for India’s renewable energy push, experts cite a federal report last year that said an optimal mix would be getting more than half the country’s power from the sun and wind by 2030.
But big solar and wind facilities are sparking conflicts with local communities. This is partly because land ownership is fuzzy at many project sites. For example, some communities have used land for centuries to farm or graze cattle without legal rights over it.
As governments and companies focussed on transitioning away from fossil fuels, such conflicts were “collaterals” that had to be managed, environmental researcher at the Indian think tank Centre for Policy Research Kanchi Kohli said.
Mandatory environmental impact assessments were waived for solar and wind projects to make them more viable. But environmental issues still have arisen.
For instance, India’s Supreme Court in April 2021 ordered that transmission lines for solar energy be put underground after environmentalists reported the lines were killing critically endangered great Indian bustards. Nine months later, the federal government said burying the lines to safeguard the birds would be too costly and would impede green energy development. The court is hearing the matter again.
India could reduce its dependence on large solar parks by building solar panels on roofs in cities.
The country’s initial rooftop goals were small, but in 2015 it set a target of 40 gigawatts of rooftop solar, enough to power 28 million homes. Customers were allowed to send electricity back to the grid – and the sector grew.
In December 2020, the federal government changed rules restricting large industries and businesses from sending electricity back to the grid. These commercial groups are among the highest paying customers for India’s perennially cash-strapped power distribution companies, which lost over USD5 billion in 2020.
With industries sending electricity back to the grid in the evening when demand and power tariffs are highest, distribution companies were losing their best customers said energy economist at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis Vibhuti Garg.
“They were losing money,” Garg said.
The installation cost makes rooftop solar too expensive for most homeowners. That was the case for New Delhi entrepreneur Siddhant Keshav, 30, who wanted to put solar panels on his home. “It just didn’t make sense,” he said.
Homes comprised less than 17 per cent of India’s rooftop solar in June 2021, according to a report by Bridge to India, a renewable energy consulting firm. And India has only managed to achieve four per cent of its 2022 rooftop solar target.
Wind could become another important element in India’s clean energy portfolio. But the most “attractive, juicy, windy sites” have small turbines using old technology, said Director of Energy Finance at think tank Council on Energy, Environment and Water Gagan Sidhu.
By retiring old wind turbines built before 2002, India could unlock a capacity of 1.5 gigawatts, according to a 2017 study by Indo-Germany Energy Forum, the consulting firm Idam Infra and India’s renewable energy ministry. But experts said it’s unclear who would do the retrofitting and pay the bill.
With a coastline of over 4,670 miles, India could potentially build enough offshore wind farms to provide roughly a third of the country’s 2021 electricity capacity by 2050, according to an assessment led by the Global Wind Energy Council.
But these are very expensive to build – and the first such project, a wind farm proposed for the Arabian Sea in 2018, has yet to get underway.
CNA – Myanmar’s junta chief created a special command a day after last year’s coup that was solely responsible for deployment and operations of troops in urban areas, and authorised lethal attacks on unarmed civilians, human rights investigators said.
The group Fortify Rights and Yale Law School’s Schell Center said after a joint investigation the junta leadership deployed snipers to kill protesters to instil fear, while soldiers were instructed to commit crimes and given a “fieldcraft” manual that contained no guidance on rules of war.
The investigators, in a 193-page report released yesterday, analysed leaked documents and 128 testimonies from various sources including survivors, medical workers, witnesses and former military and police personnel, about the turmoil in Myanmar in the six months after the coup on February 1 last year.
They said they had obtained and verified internal memos to police ordering them to arbitrarily arrest protesters, activists and members of the ousted ruling party, and cited testimony from victims of torture and other abuses.
“All individuals responsible for these crimes should be sanctioned and prosecuted,” said head of Fortify Rights and co-author of the report Matthew Smith, which recommends members of the United Nations (UN) push for a global arms embargo on Myanmar and international legal action against its generals.
Myanmar junta chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing in Naypyitaw, Myanmar. PHOTO: CNA
A spokesman for Myanmar’s military did not immediately respond to calls seeking comment on the report’s findings.
Fortify Rights is an independent non-profit organisation based in Southeast Asia and founded in 2013, funded by donations from Europe, Asia and the United States, including from private foundations. It has carried out extensive work on Myanmar.
The Schell Centre was set up at Yale Law School in 1989 for law students and graduates to specialise in international human rights and to assist human rights organisations.
The investigation will add to global pressure on the military to halt its crackdown on opponents and the use of air strikes and shelling in civilian areas.
It comes a week after a UN report concluded that the Myanmar army was responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The junta has yet to respond but has previously dismissed accusations of atrocities as foreign interference based on falsehoods.
The report, called Nowhere is Safe, also identified 61 military and police commanders who the researchers said should be investigated for crimes against humanity, helped by information from security sources about the chain of command.
Among those were six active-duty army personnel, including a colonel and two majors.
The researchers said they established locations of more than 1,000 military units at the time of the crackdown, which they said could help prosecutors geo-locate perpetrators of crimes.
Junta chief Min Aung Hlaing’s new “special command” in the capital Naypyitaw was run by four of his top generals, it said, with no others authorised to take decisions on operations by troops deployed in towns and cities.
“Without a concerted effort to stop ongoing atrocities and to hold the junta accountable for the crimes it has committed to date, the junta will undoubtedly continue to persecute its opponents, murder civilians, and devastate the social, health, and economic wellbeing of Myanmar,” said a visiting fellow at the Schell Centre and co-author of the report Roger Polack.
RADAUTI, ROMANIA (AP) – Simba the lion and a wolf named Akyla have been evacuated from a zoo in war-torn Ukraine and brought to safety in Romania in what an animal rights group involved in the operation said was a four-day mission “full of dangers” further hampered by border entry bureaucracy.
The adult male lion and the grey wolf, who were fully awake during the dangerous journey due to lack of tranquilisers in Ukraine, arrived on Monday at a zoo in Radauti, from a zoo in Zaporizhzhia in southeast Ukraine.
Now at a safe distance from the conflict and after spending four days in cages in the back of a van, the two animals were recovering from the journey in their new enclosure, regaining their strength as they lounged in the shade.
“If there is something this war brought on is incredible cooperation between organisations,” said Sebastian Taralunga of the animal rights group Animals International, one of several that was involved in planning the animals’ extraction.
“Everybody agreed that in extreme times we have to have extreme measures and we decided to do whatever possible to bring those animals out of war.”
Simba sits inside a cell at a zoo in Radauti, about 30 kilometres south of Romania’s northern Siret border. PHOTOS: APAkyla in a cage at a zoo in Radauti
The evacuation of the large animals was made possible due to the efforts and cooperation of several animal rights groups and private citizens, including two men from the United Kingdom (UK) who volunteered to enter Ukraine to rescue the animals and drive them to safety.
“I couldn’t find a driver from Romania to go and help, also not from Ukraine, so these guys were absolutely fabulous – they put their lives in danger,” said Roxana Ciornei, president of the Romania-based animal rights group Patrocle’s House. “But they arrived safely here.”
The long journey from conflict-hit Ukraine, a mission fraught with the dangers of entering a war zone, was far from simple.
The van carrying the animals could not secure permission by the authorities to cross through Romania’s Siret border point. This left the drivers no choice but to twice traverse the towering Carpathian Mountains – which arch across the countries’ common border – from west to east adding nearly 1,000 kilometres to their journey.
“It was a central-level decision that Romania and Ukraine will only have a single border crossing for large animals,” said Gabriel Paun, the EU director at Animals International.
“It was a team of people acting in good faith to do everything they could to rescue those animals,” he said.
“It’s difficult to get people out of Ukraine if they’re in very dangerous areas, but to bring out a lion and a wolf … was mission impossible. I was fifty-fifty on whether those animals and those people would make it out alive.”
Paun said that they couldn’t find a vet to help with their evacuation mission and that no tranquilisers were available, which meant that the animals were “fully aware and awake” through their journey to safety.
“You can imagine what it means to drive with a lion and a wolf in the back of your van with cages that are not very stable and could have opened at any moment,” said Taralunga of Animals International.
He said Simba the lion suffered an injury during the transport after hitting himself against the cage but veterinarians said it was not serious and would heal on its own.
The animals will now spend time in quarantine at their new enclosure and children and other visitors can see them at the zoo, after which they’ll eventually be relocated to sanctuaries.
“My NGO here runs a shelter of 300 dogs, we have cows, we have horses, but I have never thought in my life that I’d come to rescue a lion and a wolf,” said Ciornei. “We gathered a lot of people and everybody did something together … and we succeeded to do this.”
“There is a good part in this war in Ukraine, that these animals will go to a better life.”
WASHINGTON (AFP) – A team of scientists said on Wednesday they had developed a male oral contraceptive that was 99 per cent effective in mice and didn’t cause observable side effects, with the drug expected to enter human trials by the end of this year.
The findings will be presented at the American Chemical Society’s spring meeting, and mark a key step towards expanding birth control options – as well as responsibilities – for men.
Ever since the female birth control pill was first approved in the 1960s, researchers have been interested in a male equivalent, Md Abdullah Al Noman, a graduate student at the University of Minnesota who will present the work, told AFP.
“Multiple studies showed that men are interested in sharing the responsibility of birth control with their partners,” he said – but until now, there have been only two effective options available: condoms or vasectomies.
Vasectomy reversal surgery is expensive and not always successful.
The female pill uses hormones to disrupt the menstrual cycle, and historic efforts to develop a male equivalent targetted the male sex hormone testosterone.
The problem with this approach, however, was that it caused side effects such as weight gain, depression and increased levels of a cholesterol known as low-density lipoprotein, which increases heart disease risks.
The female pill also carries side effects, including blood-clotting risks – but since women face becoming pregnant in the absence of contraception, the risk calculation differs.
To develop a non-hormonal drug, Noman, who works in the lab of Professor Gunda Georg, targetted a protein called “retinoic acid receptor (RAR) alpha”.
Inside the body, vitamin A is converted into different forms, including retinoic acid, which plays important roles in cell growth, sperm formation, and embryo development. Retinoic acid needs to interact with RAR-alpha to perform these functions, and lab experiments have shown mice without the gene that creates RAR-alpha are sterile.
For their work, Noman and Georg developed a compound that blocks the action of RAR-alpha. They identified the best molecular structure with the help of a computer model.
“If we know what the keyhole looks like, then we can make a better key – that’s where the computational model comes in,” said Noman.
Their chemical, known as YCT529, was also designed to interact specifically with RAR-alpha, and not two other related receptors RAR-beta and RAR-gamma, in order to minimise potential side effects.
When administered orally to male mice for four weeks, YCT529 drastically reduced sperm counts and was 99 per cent effective in preventing pregnancy in a mating trial. The researchers monitored weight, appetite and overall activity, finding no apparent adverse impacts, although mice of course can’t report side effects like headaches or mood changes.
Four to six weeks after they were taken off the drug, the mice could once more sire pups.
The team, which received funding from the National Institutes of Health and the Male Contraceptive Initiative, is working with a company called YourChoice Therapeutics to start human trials by the third or fourth quarter of 2022, said Georg.
“I’m optimistic this will move forward quickly,” she said, envisaging a possible timeline to market in five years or under. There is no guarantee that it will work… but I would really be surprised if we didn’t see an effect in humans as well,” she added.
CNA – Big-ticket luxury bags are supposed to be designed and made to last a lifetime. Yet some of them arrive prematurely at the finish line – and it could be because of what you’ve been doing to it.
The way you store your bag plays a critical role in their lifespan. So if you have plans to pass on that gorgeous Bleu Brume Hermes Kelly to your daughter, read on to learn how to sidestep some common mistakes many of us make when storing handbags.
It is never too late to cultivate good habits, your daughter will thank you for it.
NOT CLEANING YOUR BAG AFTER USE
Not putting your bag on the floor doesn’t make your purse pristine clean. The first and possibly most important step to proper bag storage is cleaning it.
After each use, it is necessary to clean the bag both inside and out. If your purse is made of leather, wipe the exterior with a slightly damp cloth or an alcohol-free baby wipe, followed by a dry cloth. For untreated leather or suede bags, dust with a dry cloth. On the inside, use a lint roller or a handheld vacuum cleaner to get into hard-to-reach places.
OVERSTUFFING YOUR PURSE
You’ve heard that filling up an empty bag helps it retain its shape. But how much is enough? All you need is to stuff your bag enough for its structure to be supported. Under-stuffing can cause the bag to crease permanently while overstuffing can stretch out the material.
It is recommended to use purse pillows or acid-free paper as stuffing. But never use newspaper as the ink can transfer and stain the lining inside the bag.
LEAVING HARDWARE EXPOSED
Exposed hardware can leave marks on your bag. Chains, zippers, rivets and buckles that are left to sit against the bag can leave indentation marks.
Wrap chain link straps in soft tissue or cloth and place them inside the bag so they never get a chance to leave marks on the leather. Also avoid placing your purses too closely together as exposed hardware can scratch or leave marks on the other bag that is pressed up against it.
NOT PROTECTING YOUR BAG
Ideally, store your bag in its original box. But if space is an issue, place your bag in a dust bag to protect it from unnecessary light exposure. Bags may discolour over time, especially if exposed to prolonged light. If you don’t have a dust bag, a cotton pillowcase or a cotton tee will also work.
HANGING YOUR BAGS
Bag handles are not designed to endure sitting on hooks or hangers for extended periods of time. By so doing, you’re, in fact, hastening the wear and tear of bag handles. Over time, the bag will eventually lose its shape. You’ll be doing your bag a favour by placing them upright on a flat surface – either on a shelf or inside drawers.
TOSSING OUT THE SILICA GEL
The tiny sachets of silica gel that come with most bags are meant to absorb excess moisture in the air so don’t be quick to toss them out. They are your saving grace for keeping leather bags free of mould.
If your purse does become mouldy, wipe it down with a soft dry cloth and let it air out for a day. If that doesn’t do the trick, take it to a professional for deep cleaning.
NOT AIRING THEM OUT
Your bags need to get out from time to time. Make it a point to take them out of their boxes or dust bags once a month for some air and while they are out, give them a once-over to ensure that they are free of mould.
BERLIN (AP) – The Germany government is announcing a package of measures to help cushion the blow of high energy prices to consumers, with fuel subsidies, discounted public transport, tax benefits and additional support for the poorest.
Senior lawmakers unveiled the measures yesterday after lengthy haggling between the three parties that make up the governing coalition. Rising energy costs due to the war in Ukraine and sanctions imposed on Russia have caused significant price pain for companies and consumers across Europe in recent months.
The measures announced include temporary tax cuts on gasoline, a EUR300 (USD330) refund for taxpayers, EUR100 per child and a further EUR100 for people on benefits.
A special 90-day ticket to use public transport in Germany will be made available for EUR9 (USD9.90), lawmakers said.
AP – The Batman is still going strong three weeks into its theatrical run, with a tight grip on the top spot at the box office.
Robert Pattinson’s debut as the Dark Knight earned an additional USD36.8 million over the weekend, according to studio estimates last Sunday. It also slid past the USD300 million mark ahead of projections.
The Warner Bros film is the highest grossing movie of 2022 and the second highest since the beginning of the pandemic (first place goes to Spider-Man: No Way Home).
The Batman, directed by Matt Reeves, also picked up USD49.1 million internationally last weekend, bringing its global total to USD598.1 million. The only place The Batman seems to be stumbling is in China where it earned USD12.1 million in its first weekend. But about 43 per cent of cinemas in China are closed due to the pandemic and The Batman still did slightly better than Unchartered which also opened there this weekend to USD10.3 million.
The Batman cost an estimated USD200 million to make, not counting the many millions spent on marketing. But it is already a win for Warner Bros, which took a hit at the box office in 2021 because all of its films were released simultaneously in theatres and on HBO Max.
This image released by Warner Bros Pictures shows Zoe Kravitz (L) and Robert Pattinson in a scene from ‘The Batman’. PHOTO: AP
It also helps that marketplace competition has been slim. The biggest competitor last weekend was the anime Jujutsu Kaisen 0, which was released by Crunchyroll and Funimation, and took in an estimated USD17.7 million in its first weekend in North America, where it was playing on 2,748 screens. The Japanese film is based on a best-selling manga and available to watch dubbed or with subtitles.
“Fans made this movie a big hit this weekend,” said Paul Dergarabedian, the senior media analyst for Comscore. “It shows how passionate fans of anime are and how beautiful these films are when presented on the big screen.”
The horror film X also debuted last weekend on 2,865 screens and is projected to gross around USD4.4 million. Directed by Ti West and distributed by A24, X is about a group of people who are terrorised while shooting a film.
Focus Features launched the crime drama The Outfit, starring Mark Rylance in 1,324 locations. It made an estimated USD1.5 million. And outside of the top 10, Vertical Entertainment and Roadside Attractions had Alice, the Sundance breakout about an enslaved woman who gets transported to 1973, which made USD176,120 from 170 locations.
AP – At first glance, Ash Barty’s retirement from tennis might be hard to fathom.
She is still only 25, after all. And she’s been thriving with a racket in her hands lately: number in the WTA rankings for 114 consecutive weeks, the champion at two of the past three Grand Slam tournaments, an 11-0 record this season.
So, to some, it seems natural to ask: Why stop now?
But Barty made clear, both in her announcement via social media on Wednesday and in other things she’s said and done over time, that she learned to measure success and fulfillment in ways that are uncommon – and certainly have little to do with the number beside her name or how many trophies reside in her home.
Listen, for example, to what the Australian said during an interview with the Associated Press in March 2019, back before she had won any of her trio of major singles championships, before she had ranked inside the Top 10, and three years before telling the world she was ready to stop for good.
“I know if I keep doing things the right way and keep going about things the right way, enjoying the process and the journey, those results will come. If they don’t, it’s not the end of the world,” she said. “And if they do, I can sit back, celebrate and just enjoy them.”
It was believable then. Her latest news is believable now, even if there surely are folks wondering whether this will stick. Barty already did take a break years ago before returning, but she said the feeling is different this time. What’s key to remember is Barty does things her way, on her timetable, and for her own reasons, and there is nothing wrong with that, as much as fans of tennis would like to see her continue competing.
Barty’s style of play was unique and varied, reliant on a mix of backhand slices and big serves and forehands. In an era when many players will speak quite plainly about not worrying about what is happening on the other side of the net, Barty was as adept at analysing, dissecting and dismantling an opponent’s game as anyone.
Yet Barty is so self-aware, so focussed on what’s best for her, that it makes perfect sense that she would head for the exit at the height of her powers rather than in any state of decline.
Barty was a prodigy who won a Wimbledon junior title at 15 in 2011, left the tour for nearly two years in 2014 because of burnout and the burden of expectations, played pro cricket, and later discussed how that hiatus made her a better player and person.
She always wanted to win Wimbledon, and did last year. She always wanted to win the Australian Open, and did in January.
There were other on-court triumphs, millions of dollars in prize money and endorsements, and icon status at home.
“I know that people may not understand it, and I’m OK with that,” she said. “Because I know that for me, Ash Barty the person has so many dreams that she wants to chase after that don’t necessarily involve travelling the world, being away from my family, being away from my home.”
The Royal Brunei Police Force (RBPF) will conduct the Mara Lasak exercise tomorrow from 6am to 11.30am.
The exercise will start from Simpang 189 of Jalan Dang Kumala, Rimba, through Agro Tungku area, The Empire Brunei, Bukit Shahbandar Recreational Park, before returning to Simpang 189 of Jalan Dang Kumala, Rimba.
The public is advised to be cautious when around the area and to not be alarmed.
