World

UN member states ended two weeks of negotiations Friday without a treaty to protect biodiversity in the high seas, an agreement that would have addressed growing environmental and economic challenges.

After 15 years, including four prior formal sessions, negotiators have yet to reach a legally binding text to address the multitude of issues facing international waters — a zone that encompasses almost half the planet.

“Although we did make excellent progress, we still do need a little bit more time to progress towards the finish line,” said conference chair Rena Lee.

It will now be up to the UN General Assembly to resume the fifth session at a date still to be determined.

Many had hoped the session, which began on August 15 at the United Nations headquarters in New York, would be the last and yield a final text on “the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction,” or BBNJ for short.

“While it’s disappointing that the treaty wasn’t finalized during the past two weeks of negotiations, we remain encouraged by the progress that was made,” said Liz Karan with the NGO Pew Charitable Trusts, calling for a new session by the end of the year.

One of the most sensitive issues in the text revolved around the sharing of possible profits from the development of genetic resources in international waters, where pharmaceutical, chemical and cosmetic companies hope to find miracle drugs, products or cures.

Such costly research at sea is largely the prerogative of rich nations, but developing countries do not want to be left out of potential windfall profits drawn from marine resources that belong to no one.

-‘Missed opportunity’-

Similar issues of equity arise in other international negotiations, such as on climate change, in which developing nations that feel outsized harm from global warming have tried in vain to get wealthier countries to help pay to offset those impacts.

The high seas begin at the border of a nation’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) — which by international law reaches no more than 200 nautical miles (370 kilometers) from its coast — and are under no state’s jurisdiction.

Sixty percent of the world’s oceans fall under this category.

And while healthy marine ecosystems are crucial to the future of humanity, particularly to limit global warming, only one percent of international waters are protected.

One of the key pillars of an eventual BBNJ treaty is to allow the creation of marine protected areas, which many nations hope will cover 30 percent of the Earth’s ocean by 2030.

“Without establishing protections in this vast area, we will not be able to meet our ambitious and necessary 30 by 30 goal,” US State Department official Maxine Burkett said at an earlier press conference.

But delegations still disagree on the process for creating these protected areas, as well as on how to implement a requirement for environmental impact assessments before new activity on the high seas.

“What a missed opportunity…”, tweeted Klaudija Cremers, a researcher at the IDDRI think tank, which, like multiple other NGOs, has a seat with observer status at the negotiations.

With restorative rituals, yoga retreats and psychedelic experiences, Mexico has become a magnet for spiritually minded tourists seeking an alternative vacation far from the troubles of the modern world.

While many visitors head straight to the beach, a different type of tourist chooses the village of Tepoztlan, a haven for artists and intellectuals an hour’s drive from the capital.

Some of its residents once came for a short stay and found it hard to leave.

“I love the vibes here,” said Ania Bitiutskaia, a 31-year-old Russian living at the foot of the Tepozteco Mountain, the legendary birthplace of the Aztec feathered serpent god Quetzalcoatl.

“People are more relaxed, more spiritual,” she added, browsing an organic market where the sound of a folk guitar and drum beats filled the air.

“I don’t see much news. I almost live in the mountains,” Bitiutskaia said, adding that she prefers to know as little as possible about the war in Ukraine.

The special vibes come at a price: costing upwards of $50-60 a night, Tepoztlan’s hotels are more expensive than those in many parts of Mexico, which welcomed nearly 32 million foreign tourists last year.

Visitors can also stay in holistic centers offering yoga and meditation.

“Since the pandemic, many people have come to live in Tepoztlan… foreigners as well as people from Mexico City who realized that their energy would be blocked,” said Alizbeth Camacho, of the Luz Azul (Blue Light) holistic center.

Camacho offers guests “aura pictures” to visualize their energy, karma and chakras.

Mexico’s new age tourism dates back to the 1970s, when the anthropologist Carlos Castaneda sold millions of books about the teachings of an Indigenous Yaqui shaman.

Pre-Hispanic traditions also inspired Miguel Ruiz’s 1997 self-help bestseller “The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom.”

– ‘Inner journey’ –

For some visitors, a vacation in Mexico would not be complete without a different kind of trip — hallucinogenics.

American author Robert Gordon Wasson paved the way in the 1950s by revealing the secrets of a traditional healer, Maria Sabina.

Sampling peyote is still possible with Indigenous communities such as the Wixarika, who use the mind-bending drug derived from a cactus in their religious rituals.

And in the mountains of Oaxaca, guides like Pedro Ramirez offer the chance to try magic mushrooms at more than 2,500 meters (8,200 feet) above sea level.

“It’s going to be an inner journey,” said Ramirez, leading a group of Mexicans and foreigners to a clearing in the village of San Jose del Pacifico.

“You might be scared at first, but after 10 to 15 minutes you’ll laugh, and maybe cry a little,” he added.

Araceli Perez said she decided to try the mushrooms following the deaths of her husband, a doctor, from Covid-19 in 2020.

“I’m looking for answers and acceptance,” she said.

“I want to live and no longer just survive as I think I was doing,” she added.

Another major attraction on Mexico’s new age tourism trail is the temazcal, a kind of Mesoamerican sweat lodge that guide Nicolas Lopez said can “awaken our spirit, our soul.”

Near the Mayan pyramids of Palenque in the southern state of Chiapas, visitors enter Lopez’s heated chamber filled with the aroma of incense and dance to the sound of a tambourine.

“It’s something sacred, pure,” 30-year-old Mexican tourist Valeria Landero said after experiencing the purification ceremony with her husband and teenage daughter.

“It’s about letting it all out, the illnesses, all the bad things, and bringing me pure positivity,” she said.

Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, occupied by Moscow’s troops, came back online Friday, the state operator said after Kyiv claimed it was cut from the national power grid by Russian shelling.

The plant — Europe’s largest nuclear facility — was severed Thursday from Ukraine’s power network for the first time in its four-decade history due to “actions of the invaders”, Energoatom said.

The operator said that as of 2:04 pm (1104 GMT) the plant “is connected to the grid and produces electricity for the needs of Ukraine” once again.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said his country’s nuclear experts had managed to protect the plant “from the worst case scenario which is constantly being provoked by Russian forces.”

But he added: “I want to underline that the situation remains very risky and dangerous.”

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant has been cause for mounting concern since Russian troops seized it in early March.

In recent weeks, Kyiv and Moscow have traded blame for rocket strikes around the facility in the southern Ukrainian city of Energodar.

Separately Friday, the EU presidency vowed to hold an emergency summit on the spiralling energy crisis caused by the war in Ukraine, which this week entered its seventh month.

The bloc has vowed to wean its 27 member states off Russian oil and gas in protest against the invasion, which has led to tough international sanctions against Moscow.

Friday saw Norway, a major natural gas producer, say it was joining the latest package of EU sanctions.

However, anxiety over supply has sent prices soaring, with Germany and France reporting Friday record electricity prices for 2023, more than 10 times higher than for this year.

Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala said his country, which holds the EU presidency, “will convene an urgent meeting of energy ministers to discuss specific emergency measures”.

– Anxiety over plant –

Zelensky said late Thursday the power cut-off was caused by Russian shelling of the last active power line linking the plant to the network.

“Russia has put Ukrainians as well as all Europeans one step away from radiation disaster,” he said.

Energoatom said the outage was caused by ash pit fires at an adjacent thermal power plant, which damaged a line connecting the only two of the plant’s six reactors in operation.

Blaming Russian attacks for damage to the three other power lines linking the complex to the national grid, Energoatom said Friday afternoon one reactor had been reconnected “and capacity is being added”.

International Atomic Energy Agency head Rafael Mariano Grossi said Thursday he wants to visit the site within days, warning of potential disaster.

Ukraine energy minister adviser Lana Zerkal said an IAEA inspection “is planned for the next week”.

Zelensky said Friday that the team needs to get there as soon as possible “and help maintain the station under Ukrainian control on a permanent basis.”

Zerkal told Ukraine’s Radio NV late Thursday she was sceptical the mission would go ahead, despite Moscow’s formal agreement, as “they are artificially creating all the conditions so that the mission will not reach the site”.

– US warning –

Kyiv suspects Moscow intends to divert power from the Zaporizhzhia plant to the Crimean peninsula, annexed by Russian troops in 2014.

On Thursday, Washington warned against any such move.

“The electricity that it produces rightly belongs to Ukraine,” State Department spokesman Vedant Patel told reporters, saying attempts to redirect power to occupied areas were “unacceptable”.

Britain’s defence ministry said satellite imagery showed an increased presence of Russian troops at the power plant with armoured personnel carriers deployed within 60 metres (200 feet) of one reactor.

In another development Friday, French energy firm TotalEnergies said it was divesting its stake in a Russian gas field following a media report that some of its fuel was ending up in Russian fighter jets.

The company said it had signed a deal Friday with its local Russian partner Novatek to sell its 49 percent in the Termokarstovoye gas field “on economic terms enabling TotalEnergies to recover the outstanding amounts invested in the field”.

It said the divestment had been agreed in July and Russian authorities gave the approval on August 25.

A day earlier, French daily Le Monde had reported the alleged refining of natural gas condensates from Termokarstovoye into jet fuel for fighter-bombers involved in Russia’s assault on Ukraine.

TotalEnergies is the only major Western energy group to continue its operations in Russia but chief executive Patrick Pouyanne said in March Russian gas fields exploited by the company’s joint ventures were vital for supplying energy to Europe.

Stocks slumped on Friday after Federal Reserve boss Jerome Powell pledged to act “forcefully” against soaring inflation in a battle that will be painful for American families and businesses.

The Fed has been on an aggressive campaign to raise interest rates — and Powell made it clear at the Jackson Hole gathering of global monetary policymakers that the fight against inflation is not over.

“Restoring price stability will take some time and requires using our tools forcefully to bring demand and supply into better balance,” he told the gathering, held against the backdrop of the majestic Grand Teton mountains.

Modest signs of slowing in the world’s largest economy and easing price pressures had spurred hope in financial markets that the central bank might ease up on its aggressive interest rate hikes, and perhaps even start to reverse course next year.

But Powell doused those hopes, making it clear that Fed policy and the benchmark borrowing rate would have to remain “sufficiently restrictive” to return inflation to its two percent target.

“While higher interest rates, slower growth, and softer labor market conditions will bring down inflation, they will also bring some pain to households and businesses,” Powell said.

“But a failure to restore price stability would mean far greater pain.”

Wall Street stocks tumbled, with all three main indices ending with losses of three percent or more.

Keith Buchanan at Globalt Investments said, “This wasn’t a shocking speech by any stretch of imagination.”

He said the negative reaction was due to “the last possibility of a pivot being kind of shoved off the table.”

The dollar lost ground against the euro, but rose against the yen and pound.

Sentiment had been boosted ahead of Powell’s speech by the latest readings of the US personal consumption expenditures price index, the Fed’s preferred yardstick for inflation, which dipped 0.1 percent from in July from June, and slowed to 6.3 percent from 6.8 percent on an annual basis.

But Powell warned that one month of improvement is not enough to declare victory.

– Electricity prices shock European stocks –

European equities also saw losses deepen after Powell’s speech, but stocks there had already been struggling after signs that energy prices are likely to keep fuelling inflation.

Sentiment in London had been dented by news that UK domestic energy bills will rocket even higher this year on surging wholesale gas prices as Britain’s cost-of-living crisis worsens.

Frankfurt and Paris stocks retreated amid fears of a eurozone energy crunch in the coming peak-demand winter as Russia curbs supplies.

Europe’s benchmark Dutch TTF gas contract rose Friday 341 euros per megawatt hour, not far from the record high struck in March after key gas producer Russia invaded Ukraine.

Meanwhile, German and French electricity futures prices soared to new records that are at least 10 times above last year.

Elsewhere, Asia was buoyed by signs of progress in talks between US and Chinese regulators that could see tech titans including Alibaba and JD.com avoid a delisting in New York.

More than 200 Chinese firms have for months had the threat of a New York delisting hanging over them as they are caught in a wide-ranging row between the world’s two biggest economies.

– Key figures at around 2100 GMT –

New York – Dow: DOWN 3.0 percent at 32,283.4 points (close)

New York – S&P 500: DOWN 3.4 percent at 4,057.66 (close)

New York – Nasdaq: DOWN 3.9 percent at 12,141.71 (close)

EURO STOXX 50: DOWN 2.0 percent at 3,603.68 (close)

London – FTSE 100: DOWN 0.7 percent at 7,427.31 (close) 

Frankfurt – DAX: DOWN 2.3 percent at 12,971.47 (close)

Paris – CAC 40: DOWN 1.7 percent at 6,274.26 (close)

Tokyo – Nikkei 225: UP 0.6 percent at 28,479.01 (close)

Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: UP 3.6 percent at 19,968.38 (close)

Shanghai – Composite: UP 1.0 percent at 3,246.25 (close)

Euro/dollar: UP at $0.9964 from $0.9974 on Thursday

Pound/dollar: DOWN at $1.1743 from $1.1832

Euro/pound: UP at 84.85 pence from 84.31 pence

Dollar/yen: UP at 137.38 yen from 136.49 yen

West Texas Intermediate: UP 0.5 percent at $93.00 per barrel

Brent North Sea crude: DOWN 0.1 percent at $98.88

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The stunning FBI raid on Donald Trump’s palatial Florida home was triggered by a review of 15 boxes of records previously surrendered by the former US president that contained top secret information — including about human intelligence sources.

The FBI, in the affidavit used to justify the August 8 raid of Mar-a-Lago, said it was conducting a criminal investigation into “improper removal and storage of classified information” and “unlawful concealment of government records.”

The heavily-redacted FBI affidavit released on Friday laid out the grounds for the authorization by a Florida judge of an unprecedented raid on the home of a former president, a move which ignited a political firestorm in a bitterly divided nation.

The Republican Trump, who is weighing another White House run in 2024, accused the Justice Department under Democratic President Joe Biden of conducting a “witch hunt” and said the judge “should never have allowed the Break-in of my home.”

According to the affidavit, the FBI opened the investigation after the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) received 15 boxes of records in January 2022 that had been improperly removed from the White House and taken to Mar-a-Lago.

It said sensitive National Defense Information was among the records recovered including 67 documents marked as confidential, 92 as secret and 25 as top secret.

Among the documents was intelligence information received from “clandestine human sources” a classification which can include spies and informants and is among the most tightly-held of government secrets.

“Highly classified records were unfoldered, intermixed with other records and otherwise unproperly identified,” according to the affidavit. “Several of the documents also contained what appears to be (Trump’s) handwritten notes.”

In June, according to the affidavit, the Justice Department informed a Trump lawyer that Mar-a-Lago was “not authorized to store classified information.”

When they raided Trump’s estate in Palm Beach two months later, FBI agents seized a further stash of documents marked “Top Secret,” “Secret” and “Confidential.”

– ‘The movers’ –

In a May 25, 2022 letter to the Justice Department released along with the affidavit, a lawyer for Trump said classified information may have been “unknowingly included among the boxes brought to Mar-a-Lago by the movers.”

The lawyer, Evan Corcoran, said Trump had “readily and voluntarily” cooperated with NARA’s request that records be returned and that said any investigation should not “involve politics.”

Corcoran asserted that a president has the “absolute authority to declassify documents” and the “criminal statute that governs the unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material does not apply to the president.”

Government lawyers had opposed the release of the affidavit but the judge ordered it unsealed with redactions the Justice Department said were necessary to protect an ongoing investigation involving national security.

The redactions in the 38-page affidavit included, for example, the removal of the names of what the Justice Department said were a “significant number of civilian witnesses.”

“If witnesses’ identities are exposed, they could be subjected to harms including retaliation, intimidation, or harassment, and even threats to their physical safety,” the Justice Department said.

The search warrant, which was personally approved by Attorney General Merrick Garland, authorized the FBI to search the “45 office” — a reference to the 45th US president’s private office at Mar-a-Lago — and storage rooms

It said the probe was related to “willful retention of national defense information,” an offense that falls under the Espionage Act, and potential “obstruction of a federal investigation.”

In addition to investigations in New York into his business practices, Trump faces legal scrutiny for his efforts to overturn the results of the November 2020 election, and for the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol by his supporters.

Trump was impeached for a historic second time by the House of Representatives after the Capitol riot — he was charged with inciting an insurrection — but was acquitted by the Senate.

Cuba has asked the United States for help in restoring a major fuel storage plant devastated by a massive fire that left 16 people dead, the island nation’s foreign ministry said on Friday.

The request was made during an online meeting Wednesday between experts from the two countries exploring “possible ways of cooperation to rehabilitate the worst-affected areas,” the ministry said.

The massive fire earlier this month started after lightning struck a tank at the depot outside the western city of Matanzas, some 100 kilometers (60 miles) from Havana.

Four of the eight tanks at the depot — each with the capacity to hold 52 million liters of fuel — collapsed during the blaze, which injured 132 people.

All 16 people killed were firefighters tackling the inferno.

The damage to Cuba’s largest such storage facility has badly affected Cuba’s ability to store crude.

The Cuban delegation asked about “the most innovative techniques and procedures” used by the US Environmental Protection Agency as well as by companies linked to the oil sector and other agencies, the foreign ministry said.

The United States had previously offered technical advice over the telephone.

But Cuban experts admitted to having “limited experience” in these types of fires, the ministry said.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has already pledged to help rebuild the facility.

Built in the 1980s, the Matanzas depot is considered fundamental to Cuba’s fuel logistics.