Foreign News

India launches space mission to study black holes

Published

2 years ago

2024/01/1

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Isro successfully launched a satellite for the exploration of celestial objects like black holes (pic BBC)

India’s space agency has successfully launched a rocket that is carrying an observatory which will study astronomical objects like black holes.

It was launched from Sriharikota spaceport at 09:10 local time (03:40GMT) on Monday.

This is only the second mission in the world of this nature after Nasa launched one in 2021. The space agency said it wanted to help scientists improve their “knowledge of black holes”. “We will have an exciting time ahead,” Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) chairperson S Somanath said after the launch.

A black hole is a region of space where matter has collapsed in on itself. The gravitational pull is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape.

Black holes emerge from the explosive demise of certain large stars, and some are truly huge – their size billions of times the mass of our Sun.

Isro’s satellite – X-ray Polarimeter Satellite (XPoSat) – will aim to conduct in-depth research on black holes.

Built at an approximate cost of 250m rupees ($30m; £23.5m), the XPoSat satellite is estimated to have a lifespan of five years.

The launch comes after a hugely successful year for Isro. In August, its Moon mission Chandrayaan-3 touched down near the lunar South Pole region, an area that no-one had reached before. Days later, it launched Aditya-L1 – its first observation mission to the Sun.

Monday’s launch is just one among several projects Isro has planned to carry out this year.

“2024 is going to be the year for Gaganyaan readiness,” Mr Somnath said, referring to the project which aims to send three astronauts into low-Earth orbit and bring them back after three days.

Isro carried out the first in a series of tests flights for the mission in October 2023 and aims to be ready for the manned mission by 2025.

(BBC)

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Rescuers race to find dozens missing in deadly Philippines landfill collapse

Published

5 hours ago

2026/01/11

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More than 30 people are thought to be missing following the landslide in Cebu [BBC]

Rescue workers are racing to find dozens of people still missing following a landslide at a landfill site in the central Philippines that occurred earlier this week, an official has said.

Mayor Nestor Archival said on Saturday that signs of life had been detected at the site in Cebu City, two days after the incident.

Four people have been confirmed dead so far, Archival said, while 12 others have been taken to hospital.

Conditions for emergency services working at the site were challenging, the mayor added, with unstable debris posing a hazard and crew waiting for better equipment to arrive.

The privately-owned Binaliw landfill collapsed on Thursday while 110 workers were on site, officials said.

Archival said in a Facebook post on Saturday morning: “Authorities confirmed the presence of detected signs of life in specific areas, requiring continued careful excavation and the deployment of a more advanced 50-ton crane.”

Relatives of those missing have been waiting anxiously for any news of their whereabouts. More than 30 people, all workers at the landfill, are thought to be missing.

“We are just hoping that we can get someone alive… We are racing against time, that’s why our deployment is 24/7,” Cebu City councillor Dave Tumulak, chairman of the city’s disaster council, told news agency AFP.

AFP via Getty Images A close up shot of a woman wiping a tear away from her eye at the scene of the landfill site, while a small boy looks across at her. — *Relatives of the missing are waiting anxiously for any news of their loved ones [BBC]*

Jerahmey Espinoza, whose husband is missing, told news agency Reuters at the site on Saturday: “They haven’t seen him or located him ever since the disaster happened. We’re still hopeful that he’s alive.”

The cause of the collapse remains unclear, but Cebu City councillor Joel Garganera previously said it was likely the result of poor waste management practices.

Operators had been cutting into the mountain, digging the soil out and then piling garbage to form another mountain of waste, Garganera told local newspaper The Freeman on Friday.

The Binaliw landfill covers an area of about 15 hectares (37 acres).

Landfills are common in major Philippine cities like Cebu, which is the trading centre and transportation gateway of the Visayas, the archipelago nation’s central islands.

A map showing the Philippines and the location of Cebu City

[BBC]

Foreign News

Trump seeks $100bn for Venezuela oil, but Exxon boss says country ‘uninvestable’

Published

6 hours ago

2026/01/11

Priyan

[File pic]

US President Donald Trump has asked for at least $100bn (£75bn) in oil industry spending for Venezuela, but received a lukewarm response at the White House as one executive warned the South American country was currently “uninvestable”.

Bosses of the biggest US oil firms who attended the meeting acknowledged that Venezuela, sitting on vast energy reserves, represented an enticing opportunity.

But they said significant changes would be needed to make the region an attractive investment. No major financial commitments were immediately forthcoming.

Trump has said he will unleash the South American nation’s oil after US forces seized its leader Nicolas Maduro in a 3 January raid on its capital.

“One of the things the United States gets out of this will be even lower energy prices,” Trump said in Friday’s meeting at the White House.

But the oil bosses present expressed caution.

Exxon’s chief executive Darren Woods said: “We have had our assets seized there twice and so you can imagine to re-enter a third time would require some pretty significant changes from what we’ve historically seen and what is currently the state.”

“Today it’s uninvestable.”

Venezuela has had a complicated relationship with international oil firms since oil was discovered in its territory more than 100 years ago.

Chevron is the last remaining major American oil firm still operating in the country.

A handful of companies from other countries, including Spain’s Repsol and Italy’s Eni, both of which were represented at the White House meeting, are also active.

Trump said his administration would decide which firms would be allowed to operate.

“You’re dealing with us directly. You’re not dealing with Venezuela at all. We don’t want you to deal with Venezuela,” he said.

The White House has said it is working to “selectively” roll back US sanctions that have restricted sales of Venezuelan oil.

Officials say they have been coordinating with interim authorities in the country, which is currently led by Maduro’s former second-in-command, Vice-President Delcy Rodríguez.

But they have also made clear they intend to exert control over the sales, as a way to maintain leverage over Rodríguez’s government.

The US this week has seized several oil tankers carrying sanctioned crude. American officials have said they are working to set up a sales process, which would deposit money raised into US-controlled accounts.

“We are open for business,” Trump said.

On Friday, Trump signed an executive order that seeks to prohibit US courts from seizing revenue that the US collects from Venezuelan oil and holds in American Treasury accounts.

Any court attempt to access those funds would interfere with US foreign relations and international goodwill, the executive order states.

“President Trump is preventing the seizure of Venezuelan oil revenue that could undermine critical US efforts to ensure economic and political stability in Venezuela,” the White House wrote in a fact sheet about the order.

Venezuela’s oil production has been hit in recent decades by disinvestment and mismanagement – as well as US sanctions. At roughly one million barrels per day, the country accounts for less than 1% of global supply.

Chevron, which accounts for about a fifth of the country’s output, said it expected to bolster its production, building on its current presence, while Exxon said it was working to send in a technical team to assess the situation in the coming weeks.

Repsol, which currently boasts output of about 45,000 barrels per day, said it saw a path to triple its production in Venezuela over the next few years under the right conditions.

Executives at other firms also said Trump’s promises of change would encourage investment and they were hoping to seize the moment.

“We are ready to go to Venezuela,” said Bill Armstrong, who leads an independent oil and gas driller. “In real estate terms, it is prime real estate.”

But analysts say meaningfully increasing production would take significant effort.

“They are being as polite as humanly possible, and being as supportive as they can, without committing actual dollars,” said David Goldwyn, president of the energy consultancy Goldwyn Global Strategies and former US state department special envoy for international energy affairs.

Exxon and Shell are “not going to invest single-digit billions of dollars, much less tens of billions of dollars”, without physical security, legal certainty and a competitive fiscal framework, Goldwyn said.

“It’s not really welcome from an industry point of view,” he said. “The conditions are just not right.”

While smaller companies might be more eager to jump in and help boost Venezuela’s oil production over the next year, he said those investments would likely hover in the $50m range – far from the “fantastical” $100bn figure that Trump has floated.

Rystad Energy estimates it would take $8bn to $9bn in new investments per year for production to triple by 2040.

Trump’s suggested $100bn of investment into Venezuela could have a major impact on production – if it were to materialise, said the firm’s chief economist, Claudio Galimberti.

He said companies would only be likely to invest on that scale with subsidies – and political stability. Americans should not expect the situation in Venezuela to lower oil prices anytime soon, he added.

“It’s going to be difficult to see big commitments before we have a fully stabilised political situation and that is anybody’s guess when that happens,” he said.

[BBC]

Foreign News

Iran leader says anti-government protesters are vandals trying to please Trump

Published

1 day ago

2026/01/10

Priyan

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (seen in a file photo) called protesters "troublemakers" (BBC)

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has called anti-government protesters “troublemakers” and “a bunch of vandals” just trying “to please the president of the US”.

He accused crowds of destroying buildings because Donald Trump said he “supports you”. Trump has warned Iran that if it kills protesters, the US would “hit” the country “very hard”.

The protests, in their 13th day, erupted over the economy and have grown into the largest in years – leading to calls for an end to the Islamic Republic and some urging the restoration of the monarchy.

At least 48 protesters and 14 security personnel, have been killed, according to human rights groups. An internet blackout is in place.

Khamenei remained defiant in a televised address on Friday.

“Let everyone know that the Islamic Republic came to power through the blood of several hundred thousand honourable people and it will not back down in the face of those who deny this,” the 86-year-old said.

Since protests began on 28 December, in addition to the 48 protesters killed, more than 2,277 individuals have also been arrested, the US-based Human Rights Activist News Agency (HRANA) said.

The Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO) said at least 51 protesters, including nine children, had been killed.

BBC Persian has spoken to the families of 22 of them and confirmed their identities. The BBC and most other international news organisations are barred from reporting inside Iran.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps issued a statement on Friday saying it would not tolerate the continuation of the current situation in the country.

Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran’s last shah who was overthrown by the 1979 Islamic revolution, called on Trump on Friday to “be prepared to intervene to help the people of Iran”.

Pahlavi, who lives close to Washington DC, had urged protesters to take to the streets on Thursday and Friday.

Protesters dressed in black stand around in the dark beside an overturned car on fire. — *A picture from Tehran on 8 January*

Protests have taken place across the country, with BBC Verify verifying videos from 67 locations.

On Friday, protesters amassed after weekly prayers in the south-eastern city of Zahedan, videos verified by BBC Persian and BBC Verify show. In one of the videos, people can be heard chanting “death to the dictator”, referencing Khamenei.

In another, protesters gather near a local mosque, when several loud bangs can be heard.

Another verified video from Thursday showed a fire at the office of the Young Journalists Club, a subsidiary of state broadcaster Irib, in the city of Isfahan. It is unclear what caused the fire and if anyone was injured.

Photos received by the BBC from Thursday night also show cars overturned and set alight at Tehran’s Kaaj roundabout.

The country has been under a near-total internet blackout since Thursday evening, with minor amounts of traffic returning on Friday, internet monitoring groups Cloudfare and Netblocks said. That means less information is emerging from Iran.

IHRNGO director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam said in a statement that “the extent of the government’s use of force against protesters has been increasing, and the risk of intensified violence and the widespread killing of protesters after the internet shutdown is very serious”.

Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi has warned of a possible “massacre” during the internet shutdown.

One person who was able to send a message to the BBC said he was in Shiraz, in southern Iran. He reported a run on supermarkets by residents trying to stock up on food and other essentials, expecting worse days to come.

(BBC)