Foreign News
Monster iceberg ‘A23a’ just shy of a trillion tonnes
Scientists now have good numbers to describe the true scale of the world’s biggest iceberg, A23a.
Satellite measurements show the frozen block has a total average thickness of just over 280m (920ft).
Combined with its known area of 3,900 sq km (1,500 sq miles), this gives a volume of roughly 1,100 cubic km and a mass just below a trillion tonnes.
The iceberg, which calved from the Antarctic coast in 1986, is about to drift beyond the White Continent. It has reached a critical point in its journey, researchers say, with the next few weeks likely to decide its future trajectory through the Southern Ocean.
To put the new thickness data in some context, London skyscraper 22 Bishopsgate is 278m tall – bettered, in the UK, by only the 310m Shard tower.
But A23a is also more than twice the area of Greater London, giving it an overall profile much like that of a credit card.
The measurements of A23a come from the European Space Agency’s CryoSat-2 mission. This veteran spacecraft carries a radar altimeter able to sense how much of a berg’s bulk is above the waterline.
Using information about the density of ice, it is then possible to determine how much must be submerged.
“Altimetry satellites like CryoSat-2, which measure the distance to the iceberg surface and to the sea surface, allow us to monitor iceberg thickness from space,” Dr Anne Braakmann-Folgmann, from the University of Tromsø – The Arctic University of Norway, told BBC News.
“They also enable us to watch the iceberg thinning as it gets exposed to warmer ocean waters. “And together with knowledge of the sea-floor topography, we know where an iceberg will ground or when it has thinned enough to be released again.”
When the berg started moving, after 2020, it became increasingly difficult to obtain broad thickness measurements. But assuming an area of 3,900 sq km and an average total thickness of 285m, then A23a has a volume of 1,113 cubic km and a mass of 950 billion tonnes.
Born in a mass breakout of bergs from the Filchner Ice Shelf, in the southern Weddell Sea, A23a was almost immediately stuck in shallow bottom muds to become an “ice island” for more than three decades. And the CryoSat data can now explain why.
The berg is not a uniform block – some parts are thicker than others.
CryoSat indicates one section in particular has a very deep keel, which in 2018, had a draft – the submerged portion of an iceberg – of almost 350m and it is this section that anchored A23a for so long.
Satellite images show crevasses directly above the keel.
“This is likely the surface expression of the damage that was caused when A23a hit the seabed,” Prof Andrew Shepherd, from Northumbria University and the Natural Environment Research Council Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling (CPOM), said.
And in the years that followed, A23a gradually lost mass to eventually free itself and start moving.
“Over the last decade, we have seen a steady 2.5m per year decrease in thickness, which is what you would expect given the water temperatures in the Weddell Sea,” Dr Andy Ridout, a CPOM senior research fellow from University College London, explained.
A23a has now reached the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, where there is a convergence of various streams of fast-moving water that turn clockwise around the continent.
How it interacts with these and the westerly winds that dominate in that part of the world will control where the behemoth goes next.
But it is expected take a track called “iceberg alley” that points in the direction of the British overseas territory of South Georgia.
Scientists will follow its progress with interest.
Bergs this big have a profound influence on their environment. “They’re responsible for very deep mixing of seawater,” Prof Mike Meredith, from the British Antarctic Survey, told BBC News. “They churn ocean waters, bringing nutrients up to the surface, and, of course, they also drop a lot of dust.
“All this will fertilise the ocean – you’ll often see phytoplankton blooms in their wake.”
(BBC)
The main rival to Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been formally arrested and charged with corruption.
Ekrem Imamoglu, the mayor of Istanbul, is expected to be selected as the opposition Republican People’s Party’s (CHP) 2028 presidential nominee in a ballot on Sunday.
He has denied the allegations and said they are politically motivated. “I will never bow,” he wrote on X before he was remanded in custody.
His detention sparked some of Turkey’s largest protests in more than a decade. Erdogan has condemned the demonstrations and accused the CHP of trying to “disturb the peace and polarise our people”.
Imamoglu was one of more than 100 people, including other politicians, journalists and businessmen, detained as part of an investigation on Wednesday, triggering four consecutive nights of demonstrations.
On Sunday, he was formally arrested and charged with “establishing and managing a criminal organisation, taking bribes, extortion, unlawfully recording personal data and rigging a tender”. He was remanded in custody pending trial. AFP and local media reported he had been taken to a prison in Silivri.
In social media posts, Imamoglu criticised his arrest as a “black stain on our democracy”, and said judicial procedure was not being followed. He urged people across the country to join protests and to take part in Sunday’s vote.
Imamoglu is the only person running in the CHP’s presidential candidate selection.
The arrest does not prevent Imamoglu’s candidacy and election as president, but if he is convicted of any of the charges against him, he will not be able to run.
The party’s chairman said nearly 15 million people had cast a ballot in the vote, which was extended for three hours due to heavy turnout. The party said some 1.6m votes came from its members. The rest were cast by non-members at separate ballot boxes for those who wished to show solidarity with Imamoglu. [The BBC cannot independently verify these figures.]
Imamoglu’s arrest sparked a fifth night of protests. Crowds had gathered near Istanbul’s city hall by early evening, and could be seen waving Turkish flags and chanting in front of a row of riot police.
As night began to fall, officers were seen firing water cannons at some protesters.
The jailed politician is seen as one of the most formidable rivals of Erdogan, who has held office in Turkey for 22 years as both prime minister and president.
However, due to term limits, Erdogan cannot run for office again in 2028 unless he changes the constitution.
Opposition figures say the arrests are politically motivated.
But the Ministry of Justice has criticised those connecting Erdogan to the arrests, and insist on its judicial independence.
In a message shared on X through his lawyers late on Sunday, Imamoglu said he sent his greetings to those protesting and that voters had showed Turkey had had “enough” of Erdogan.
Also that evening, X’s Global Government Affairs department said it objected to “multiple court orders” from Turkey’s communications regulator to block over 700 accounts on the platform, including those of Turkish political figures and journalists.
It said the move was “not only lawful, it hinders millions of Turkish users from news and political discourse in their country”.
Imamoglu has meanwhile been suspended from his post as Instanbul’s mayor, Turkey’s interior ministry said in a statement.
Prosecutors also want to charge Imamoglu with “aiding an armed terrorist organisation”, but the Turkish court said it was not currently necessary.
The CHP had a de facto alliance with the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM) in connection with last year’s local elections.
DEM has been accused of being affiliated with the PKK – or Kurdistan Workers’ Party – which it denies.
The PKK declared a ceasefire early this month, after waging an insurgency against Turkey for more than 40 years. It is proscribed as a terrorist group in Turkey, the EU, UK and US.
Meanwhile, Istanbul University announced on Tuesday it was revoking Imamoglu’s degree due to alleged irregularities.
If upheld, this would put his ability to run as president into doubt, since the Turkish constitution says presidents must have completed higher education to hold office.
Imamoglu’s lawyers said they would appeal the decision to revoke his degree to the Constitutional Court and the European Court of Human Rights.
The Supreme Election Council will decide whether Imamoglu is qualified to be a candidate.
[BBC]
Orlando police have recovered two sets of earrings worth a combined $769,500 (£597,000) after an alleged thief swallowed them more than two weeks ago.
Jaythan Gilder, 32, swallowed the Tiffany & Co. diamond earrings around the time he was taken into custody on 26 February, police said.
Gilder was monitored by detectives at an Orlando hospital for “more than a dozen days” before the earrings were expelled from his system, according to the Orlando Police Department.
He faces charges of robbery with a mask and grand theft in the first degree.
Tiffany’s has since cleaned the earrings.
Police allege Gilder posed as an assistant to an NBA player so he could be shown “very high-end jewellery” in a VIP room at a Tiffany & Co. store in Orlando, Florida on 26 February.
Gilder allegedly distracted store employees, then ran from the store with two pairs of earrings. The suspect apparently also dropped a diamond ring valued at $587,000 as he fled the store.
When officers caught up with him later that day, they saw Gilder “swallowing several objects believed to be the stolen earrings,” police said.
Officials transporting Gilder to jail allegedly heard him say, “I should have thrown them out the window,” CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, reported.
At the jail, Gilder allegedly asked staff, “Am I going to be charged with what’s in my stomach?”
Police later released an x-ray that appeared to show an individual’s abdomen with a foreign object inside.[BBC]
Orlando police department said they took Gilder to an area hospital and monitored him for about two weeks until the earrings were recovered. Detective Aaron Goss said the case “quickly turned into a marathon, not a sprint”.
On 12 March, police said they recovered the fourth Tiffany & Co. earring.
When the earrings were brought back to the Tiffany’s, the store’s master jeweller confirmed that serial numbers on the jewellery matched the stolen pieces, Mr Goss said.
Gilder is currently in custody at the Orange County Jail.
Police allege his criminal history shows a 2022 robbery at a Tiffany & Co store in Texas.
There are 48 separate warrants out for his arrest in Colorado.
[BBC]
The foreign ministers of Japan, South Korea and China have agreed on the need to seek common ground on East Asian security and economic issues amid escalating global uncertainty.
Japanese Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya, his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi and South Korea’s Cho Tae-yul have agreed to tackle multigenerational concerns to gain broader support for cooperation, Iwaya said in a joint news conference in Tokyo on Saturday.
The first gathering of the countries’ foreign ministers since 2023 comes as United States President Donald Trump upends decades-old alliances, potentially opening the door for China to forge closer ties to countries traditionally aligned with Washington.
“The international situation has become increasingly severe, and it is no exaggeration to say that we are at a turning point in history,” Iwaya said at the start of the meeting.
“In this context, it has become more important than ever to make efforts to overcome division and confrontation through dialogue and cooperation,” he said.
The three-way meeting is an accomplishment for Japan, which has historical and territorial disputes with both China and South Korea. An earlier trilateral meeting was held in South Korea last year.
China’s Wang said that as this year marks the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, “only by sincerely reflecting on history can we better build the future”.
He said China supports strengthening cooperation, allowing the countries “to jointly resist risks” and promoting “mutual understanding” between their populations.
“Our three nations have a combined population of nearly 1.6 billion and an economic output exceeding $24 trillion. With our vast markets and great potential, we can exert significant influence,” Wang said.
China, he added, wants to resume free trade talks with its neighbours and expand membership of the 15-nation Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership.
Reporting from Tokyo, Al Jazeera’s Fadi Salameh said the meetings aim to “build confidence between these three countries”.
“But still, there are so many differences and issues that divide the three countries,” Salameh said.
“Mr Wang Yi, the Chinese foreign minister, mentioned that the three countries – maybe targeting Japan with this point – should be honest about the historical issues that divided [them],” Salameh explained, referring to Yi’s mention of World War II and Japan’s war of aggression.
Beijing is at odds with Tokyo and Seoul on several other key issues, including its support of North Korea, its intensifying military activity around Taiwan, and its backing of Russia in its war with Ukraine.
US allies Japan and South Korea, which each host thousands of US soldiers, share Washington’s view that China – the world’s second-largest economy – poses a growing threat to regional security.
Cho said he had asked China in the meeting to help persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons.
“I also stressed that illegal military cooperation between Russia and North Korea should stop immediately, and that North Korea should not be rewarded for its wrongdoings in the course of bringing about the end of the war in Ukraine,” he added.
Iwaya is to meet separately with his Chinese and South Korean counterparts, including for the first high-level economic dialogue with Beijing in six years.
That meeting will include a discussion of a ban on Japanese seafood imports imposed by China after the release of wastewater from the destroyed Fukushima nuclear plant from 2023, Iwaya said this week.
[Aljazeera]
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