The World BusinessMirror
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Tuesday, January 19, 2016
A9
Other life forms: First flowers bloom on International Space Station T
HE first flower grown in space has bloomed. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) astronaut Scott Kelly, International Space Station gardener, shared photos of the prized zinnias this weekend. “Yes, there are other life forms in space,” Kelly said on Twitter. The story of the delicate space flowers is fraught with ups and downs, similar to gardens on Earth. Just last month, the small crop wasn’t looking good. The leaves and buds were covered in mold because of a leak in the plant container. “I’m going to have to channel my inner Mark Watney,” Kelly posted then, referencing the potato-growing skills of the astronaut in The Martian. An unplanned spacewalk delayed fixing the problem in the space garden and by December 22 they were dying, Nasa’s Trent Smith said. Kelly had to act quickly to cut away the moldy leaves and dry the plant chamber. By January 12 the plants were on the rebound and some buds had sprouted, Kelly said. The bright zinnias are not the first crop of the Veggie experiment, but the lessons from their growing process could be applied to tomatoes, also a flowering planet, Smith said. Red romaine lettuce was the first crop from the Veggie plant growth facility, installed in May 2014. Kelly and Astronaut Kjell Lindgren snacked on the second crop of lettuce in July 2015; the first crop was sent back to Earth for analysis. The third round of the experiments will include Chinese cabbage and more lettuce. TNS ZINNIA flowers on the International Space Station seen on January 16 are the first flowers grown in space as part of the Veggie facility and experiment. SCOTT KELLY/NASA/TNS
POPE VISITS SYNAGOGUE, HITS RELIGIOUS VIOLENCE
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OME—Pope Francis denounced all religious-inspired violence during a visit to Rome’s main synagogue on Sunday, joining the oldest Jewish community in the diaspora in a sign of interfaith friendship at a time of Islamic extremist attacks around the globe. During a visit marked by tight security and historic continuity, Francis also rejected all forms of anti-Semitism and called for “maximum vigilance” and early intervention to prevent another Holocaust. Francis joined a standing ovation when Holocaust survivors, some wearing striped scarves reminiscent of their camp uniforms, were singled out for applause at the start of the ceremony. And he elicited an ovation of his own when he paused in his remarks to acknowledge the survivors in the synagogue’s front row. The visit comes amid a spate of Islamic extremist attacks in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere—violence which Francis has repeatedly condemned as anathema to religion, particularly given that Christians and religious minorities have often been the target. “Violence of man against man is in contradiction to every religion that merits the name, in particular the three monotheistic religions,” Francis said, referring to Christianity, Judaism and Islam. “Every human being, as a creature of God, is our brother regardless of his origins or religious belief.” His sentiments were shared by members of the Jewish community, who sought to hold up the visit as a sign of interfaith friendship in the face of Muslim extremism. “Today, the sad novelty is that after two centuries of disasters produced by nationalism and ideologies, violence has come back and it is fed and justified by fanatic visions inspired by religion,” Rome’s chief rabbi, Riccardo Di Segni, told the pope. “A meeting of peace between different religious communities, as the one that is taking place today here in Rome, is a very strong sign against the invasion and abuse of religious violence.” Francis’s visit is meant to continue the tradition of papal visits that began with Saint John Paul II in 1986 and continued with Benedict XVI in 2010. It also highlighted the 50th anniversary of the revolution in Christian-Jewish relations sparked by the Second Vatican Council, the 1962-1965 meetings that brought the
church into the modern era. Among other things, the council document “Nostra Aetate” repudiated the centuries-old charge that Jews as a whole were responsible for the death of Christ. Francis said the declaration amounted to a “’yes’ to the rediscovery of the of the Jewish roots of Christianity and a ‘no’ to every form of anti-Semitism and a condemnation of every insult, discrimination and persecution that is derived from it.” Francis said several times that Jews were the “elder brothers” of Christians, repeating the words first uttered by John Paul during his historic visit to the synagogue 30 years ago. But he added that Christians also had “elder sisters” in the Jewish faith. Francis began his visit by laying a wreath at a plaque outside the synagogue marking where Roman Jews were rounded up by the Nazis in 1943 and at another marking the slaying of a 2-yearold boy in an attack by Palestinians on the synagogue in 1982. He met with members of the boy’s family and survivors of the attack before entering the synagogue to rounds of warm applause, which continued during his speech, interrupting him several times. Francis, an Argentine Jesuit, has a longstanding friendship with the Jewish community in Argentina from his time as archbishop of Buenos Aires. At the same time, recent Vatican developments have displeased some in the Jewish community, including the Vatican’s recent treaty negotiated with the “state of Palestine.” Such issues were left unsaid on Sunday, though Jewish leaders made clear they would like for the pope and the Vatican as a whole to acknowledge the special link Jews have with the land of Israel. Francis recalled that during the Holocaust, 6 million Jews were “victims of the most inhuman barbarism, perpetrated in the name of an ideology that wanted to replace God with man.” “The Shoah teaches us that we must have maximum vigilance, to be able to intervene quickly in defense of human dignity and peace.” The comments were notable because Benedict’s 2010 visit was marked by his defense of Pope Pius XII, the World War II-era pope accused by many Jews of having failed to do enough to protect Jews from the Holocaust. The Vatican has long maintained that Pius used behind-the-scenes diplomacy in a bid to save Jewish lives. Francis made no mention of Pius. AP
UN: $40B needed to aid people in war, disasters
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UBAI, United Arab Emirates—An estimated $40 billion is needed annually to help the rapidly growing number of people needing humanitarian aid as a result of conflicts and natural disasters—and one possibility to help fill the $15-billion funding gap is a small voluntary tax on tickets for soccer games and other sports, concerts and entertainment events, airline travel, and gasoline, a UN-appointed panel said. The panel’s report on humanitarian financing, launched on Sunday by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, says the world is spending around $25 billion to provide life-saving assistance to 125 million people devastated by wars and natural disasters—more than 12 times the $2 billion that was spent in 2000. The nine-member panel calculated that an additional $15 billion is needed annually to reduce suffering and save lives. It warned that if current trends continue, the cost of humanitarian assistance will rise to $50 billion by 2030. “This is an age of mega-crises,” Ban said at the launch event, which was held at a desert site in Dubai that serves as a logistical hub for UN emergency humanitarian supplies and international relief efforts. The 31-page report said that despite $25 billion being spent last year to provide life-saving assistance to people around the world, 1.6 million Syrian refugees had their food rations cut and 750,000 Syrian refu-
gees could not attend school. “While record sums are being given to the noble cause of humanitarian action, generosity has never been so insufficient. We cannot go on like this,” Ban said, adding that humanitarian assistance is now the UN’s costliest activity, surpassing peacekeeping missions. The report focuses on three solutions for how to reform humanitarian aid: mobilizing additional funds, particularly from the private sector; shrinking the need for aid through prevention and quicker resolution of problems, and improving the efficiency of assistance to reflect the needs of people rather than the needs of aid organizations. It calls for donors and aid organizations to come together in “a Grand Bargain” in which donors provide more cash, long term, with fewer strings, and aid organizations are more transparent so that everyone can “follow the money.” The report says that today’s mas-
sive instability and its capacity to cross borders, demonstrated by the flight of people from Syria and other conflict areas to Europe, makes humanitarian aid a global public good. “What we ought to do is morally right, but it is also in our own selfinterest because trouble in the world travels, and you never know when it will come and knock at your door,” panel cochairman Kristalina Georgieva, the European Commission vice president for budget and human resources, said in Dubai. The report recommends that at the first UN humanitarian summit, to be held in Istanbul in May, governments voluntarily sign on to the concept of a “solidarity levy” to create a steady flow of aid. The report gives the example of a small levy on airline tickets, initially proposed by France, which raised €1.6 billion between 2006 and 2011 from just 10 participating countries—Georgieva estimated this at $2.3 billion—to help fund diagnosis and treatment for HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis in low-income countries. Georgieva said in a video briefing from Brussels before the report’s release that the panel couldn’t agree on the specifics of a levy because some members are against taxation. But she said she is “more optimistic on a voluntary levy, especially combined with social responsibility.” She said the panel talked about a small tax on “high-volume transaction businesses” like Uber, concerts, entertainment, movies and sports and has been talking to some “potential players” including Fédération Internationale de Football Association, the governing body of world football. She said people probably wouldn’t feel a 5-cent or 10-cent addition to a ticket or a ride, but the money generated could have a major humanitarian impact. The report also calls for governments with greater wealth to provide more aid; for the humanitarian community to “harness the
$25B Being spent worldwide for 125 million people victims of wars and natural disasters
power of business to deliver its key skills and capabilities,” including by supporting the delivery of aid and creating jobs, and for Muslim countries to use “Islamic social finance” to help meet humanitarian needs. The report said that 31 out of 33 active conflicts today occur in Muslim-majority countries. The report noted that through zakat, the annual charitable donation that is religiously required as a basic tenet of the Islamic faith, Muslims worldwide raised between $232 billion and $560 billion in 2015. However, the report said there is no coordination mechanism or independent body to help channel these funds effectively at the global level. To improve aid delivery, the panel calls for an end to competition between aid organizations and between humanitarian and development agencies. To shrink the need for aid, the panel calls for world leaders to commit to preventing and resolving conflicts and to increasing investments in reducing the risk of natural disasters. “Unfortunately, it is easier to deliver humanitarian assistance than it is to invest in political solutions,” the report said. AP