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World Awaits Launch of Saudi Astronauts' Mission to ISS

Saudi astronauts Rayyanah Bernawi and Ali al-Qarni (SPA)
Saudi astronauts Rayyanah Bernawi and Ali al-Qarni (SPA)
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World Awaits Launch of Saudi Astronauts' Mission to ISS

Saudi astronauts Rayyanah Bernawi and Ali al-Qarni (SPA)
Saudi astronauts Rayyanah Bernawi and Ali al-Qarni (SPA)

Saudi astronauts, Rayyanah Bernawi and Ali al-Qarni, completed their final preparations as part of the AX-2 crew for the launch of their mission at the International Space Station (ISS), which will be launched atop the Falcon 9 rocket and the Dragon spacecraft.

The historic flight is a turning point in the Saudi space sector, being part of Saudi Arabia's Astronauts Program, launched on September 22, 2022.

The Saudi astronauts will conduct 14 scientific and research experiments during their mission to the ISS, contributing to scientific research.

The new mission affirms Saudi Arabia's ambition to benefit from space in all fields, as it is a giant future sector with global visions of sustainability, technology, and scientific research.

Saudi Arabia achieved several developments in this sector to be among the new space leadership, adopting its emerging activities while providing the infrastructure needed to ensure the sector's empowerment and prosperity.

NASA had announced that Bernawi and Qarni would take off in Spring 2023 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on a SpaceX rocket towards the ISS, accompanied by John Schofner and Peggy Whitson.

The Saudi astronauts will conduct various experiments and studies during the space mission.

They will investigate changes in vital indicators in the blood that reflect functional brain tissues during short-term space missions and determine the safety of such trips for the brain.

Additionally, they will measure the effect of short-term space flights on telomere length and conduct a mydriasis experiment to measure intracranial pressure. Other investigations will focus on enhancing knowledge of spaceflight-associated neuro-ocular syndrome (SANS) by measuring electrical activity in the brain using EEG and studying the diameter of the optic nerve envelope for astronauts.

The mission will also explore cerebral perfusion and postural adjustments of the brain in microgravity using near-infrared spectroscopy as a non-invasive technique.

The official logo of the Kingdom's scientific mission to the ISS is a circular shape featuring the Saudi flag and says "Saudi Arabia towards space" alongside the names of the two Saudi astronauts.

The logo embodies the noble goals of the Kingdom's scientific mission, centered around empowering people, protecting the planet, and opening new horizons through the research the astronauts will conduct in health and environmental sustainability.

The logo will be placed on the official uniform of the crew, as it is customary for all space flights to have an official logo for each mission before the team leaves the planet Earth into space.

Earlier this month, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman received Bernawi, al-Qarni, Mariam Fardous, and Ali al-Ghamdi, before the launch of the Kingdom's scientific mission to the International Space Station.

The Crown Prince welcomed the crew, reiterating the importance of the space sector as a significant pillar in enhancing the Kingdom's global competitiveness, emphasizing at the same time the significance of space exploration in serving science and humanity.

He also noted that the Saudi people are pinning great hopes on Bernawi and Qarni as ambassadors and representatives of the Kingdom at the ISS in a mission with noble objectives to empower humanity, protect the planet and open new horizons for research in health and a sustainable environment.

The space sector represents an economic force and includes developing and providing space products and services to end users. It also constitutes a long chain of added values from research and development through space equipment manufacturers to providers of space products and services.

According to the 2018 Stanley Morgan report, the size of the space industry in the world is valued at over $350 billion, while it is expected to generate $ 1.1 trillion in 2040 and about $2.7 trillion by 2050.

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Pakistan Farmers in Long Fight to Make German Firms Pay for Flood Damage

Dozens of Pakistani farmers are suing German firms RWE and Heidelberg Materials in a rare bid to make big polluters pay damages for climate impacts. Aamir QURESHI / AFP
Dozens of Pakistani farmers are suing German firms RWE and Heidelberg Materials in a rare bid to make big polluters pay damages for climate impacts. Aamir QURESHI / AFP
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Pakistan Farmers in Long Fight to Make German Firms Pay for Flood Damage

Dozens of Pakistani farmers are suing German firms RWE and Heidelberg Materials in a rare bid to make big polluters pay damages for climate impacts. Aamir QURESHI / AFP
Dozens of Pakistani farmers are suing German firms RWE and Heidelberg Materials in a rare bid to make big polluters pay damages for climate impacts. Aamir QURESHI / AFP

In a Pakistani village nestled in rice fields, Abdul Hafeez Khoso remembers the vast industrial zones he saw in Germany when he visited to file a pioneering climate legal case.

"They're spreading pollution: up in the sky there are no borders, it can affect anywhere," the 43-year-old said, describing areas far larger than his village of 800 people.

"This is a problem for the whole world -- that is why it should be resolved at the global level."

Khoso and 38 other farmers from Pakistan's southern Sindh province who were devastated by "apocalyptic" flooding in 2022 are suing German energy firm RWE and cement maker Heidelberg Materials in a rare bid to make big polluters pay damages for climate impacts.

The companies are being targeted not over specific operations in Pakistan, but because of their climate-warming emissions. They are headquartered in Germany, where a recent legal case opened the door to such suits.

The litigation argues that the companies' emissions contributed to climate change and turbo-charged rain that wiped out their crops, livestock and homes.

"The year 2022 was an apocalyptic scene -- not even our elders had ever witnessed such weather," Khoso, who lives in the district of Jacobabad with his wife and toddler, told AFP.

"We had nothing left."

Both firms, which the plaintiffs estimate contributed 0.68 percent and 0.12 percent to global industrial emissions respectively, deny wrongdoing.

Khoso's case is backed by Pakistani and European organizations hoping to win compensation and build on nascent but vigorous international efforts to extract climate damages from corporations.

"We always blame natural disasters, and sometimes we blame God, but science tells us that climate change is increasing the risks and intensity of extreme weather events," said Mir Keerio, a development expert at Pakistan's HANDS Welfare Foundation, which mobilized communities for the lawsuit.

"Those who have contributed significantly to this crisis must be held accountable... we realized we must take our fight for climate justice to the major polluters."

- Debt and damages -

Climate litigation is a growing field globally, but action has so far largely targeted governments, with only a handful of firms such as Shell and cement maker Holcim facing suits for climate disaster compensations.

Lawyers say a ruling requiring a company to pay out compensation proportionate to its greenhouse gas emissions would mark a major breakthrough.

Germany's judiciary moved towards that principle last year in a case brought by a Peruvian farmer, also against RWE.

His compensation claim was rejected, but the courts left the door open to holding emitters liable.

Roda Verheyen, a German lawyer involved in both cases, told AFP the Pakistani farmers' lawsuit builds on that ruling and further accuses companies of "wrongful behavior".

"Large companies knew about the general impacts of climate change since the 1960s," said Verheyen.

"They should have exercised due diligence and actually at least tried to reduce emissions, which they didn't do enough."

The lawsuit also draws on research documenting farmers' losses in the floods, which hit a third of the country, killed 1,700 and affected 30 million Pakistanis.

Munawar Khatoon, a rare female landowner in a conservative area, said the floods struck just before the wheat harvest, submerging seeds and wiping out her family's main source of income.

"We worry about how the next generation will manage to live if this continues," the 43-year-old told AFP in her village Usman Samtio.

"Now when the rainy season comes, we feel fear."

In nearby Dadu district, litigant Abdul Khalique Laghari said the floods affected the region for years.

"To this day, we are unable to repay our debt," said the 55-year-old, who estimates he lost $14,000 in assets including his house, 40 acres (16 hectares) of crops and livestock.

"When we wake in the morning, we start getting calls from the people we owe money to," he said, pointing to crumbling walls and the remnants of flood-damaged houses.

"This has caused us serious mental harm."

- 'For justice' -

RWE and Heidelberg Materials both call the claims in the suit "unfounded".

Heidelberg Materials told AFP its operations were compliant with German laws and that firms could not be expected to retroactively face different standards.

RWE referred AFP to a statement describing the lawsuit as "yet another attempt to shift climate policy demands to German courtrooms".

"It would be a contradiction in terms if the state allowed CO2 emissions, regulated them by law and even demanded them in some cases, but at the same time allowed retroactive civil liability for them," it said.

Even if the case succeeds, an uphill battle remains for millions across Pakistan, ranked among the countries most affected by climate change despite contributing less than one percent of global emissions.

The case will be considered in a civil process likely to take years. But for the litigants, the attempt is worth it.

"This case is for justice," said Khatoon. "We hold these companies responsible for our destruction."

Varieties

This Year Set to Be One of Four Hottest on Record, UN Report Says

A tourist holds an umbrella to shelter from the sun while walking on a hot day in Tokyo on July 15, 2026. (AFP)
A tourist holds an umbrella to shelter from the sun while walking on a hot day in Tokyo on July 15, 2026. (AFP)
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This Year Set to Be One of Four Hottest on Record, UN Report Says

A tourist holds an umbrella to shelter from the sun while walking on a hot day in Tokyo on July 15, 2026. (AFP)
A tourist holds an umbrella to shelter from the sun while walking on a hot day in Tokyo on July 15, 2026. (AFP)

This year is ‌on track to be one of the four hottest on record, driven by a powerful El Niño and perpetuating a warming streak of more than a decade, a UN report showed on Monday.

Countries are preparing to meet in Türkiye from November 9 to 20 for the next round of climate talks and the World Meteorological Organization "State of the Climate" report provides the latest available data ‌to inform ‌their discussions.

Between January and September ‌this ⁠year, the global average ⁠temperature was 1.47 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average and could rise further due to a major El Niño, the report showed.

The WMO report, which encompasses nine data sets, showed that each of the past 12 years, including 2026, ⁠was ranked among the 12 warmest ever ‌recorded since records began ‌in around 1850.

“Every indicator here is telling the ‌same story. We're seeing the heat trapped by greenhouse ‌gasses is showing up in the ocean, in the atmosphere, in the melting of ice and the rising of sea levels,” WMO Head of Climate Information John Kennedy ‌told reporters in Geneva ahead of the conference.

The EU's Copernicus climate ⁠service ⁠already said 2026 was all but certain to become the second calendar year after 2024 to exceed the threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels set in the 2015 Paris Agreement.

The planet is increasingly accumulating heat, the UN report said, with ocean temperatures continuing to rise this year from 2025 all-time highs.

Global mean sea levels have also reached a record this year as glaciers and ice sheets melt and seawater expands as it heats, the report said.

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Reintroduction of White-Tailed Eagles Puts Seabird Colonies at Risk of Wipeout

A white-tailed eagle over the Isle of Mull in Scotland. (Natural Resources Wales)
A white-tailed eagle over the Isle of Mull in Scotland. (Natural Resources Wales)
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Reintroduction of White-Tailed Eagles Puts Seabird Colonies at Risk of Wipeout

A white-tailed eagle over the Isle of Mull in Scotland. (Natural Resources Wales)
A white-tailed eagle over the Isle of Mull in Scotland. (Natural Resources Wales)

White-tailed eagles reintroduced into England and Wales imperil endangered seabird populations and risk wiping out some colonies, The Guardian reported quoting ecologists and conservationists.

Puffins, guillemots, razorbills, fulmars and kittiwakes are among the birds for which breeding populations could collapse if large numbers of white-tailed eagles are released, according to some academics and conservationists.

“Amidst all the excitement and enthusiasm for reintroducing white-tailed eagles, the fact that these birds will probably destroy our seabird colonies seems to have been completely overlooked,” said Tim Birkhead, an emeritus professor of ecology and evolution at the University of Sheffield.

The return of white-tailed eagles to Britain after they were driven to extinction in 1918 has been a great conservation success story in recent decades.

But proposals to release up to 60 eagles in Gwent, south Wales, on top of 20 young birds already being released over the next three years on Exmoor, is dividing nature lovers.

Sarah Kessell, the chief executive of the Wildlife Trust of South & West Wales (WTSWW), said: “We’re increasingly alarmed about the reintroduction of white-tailed eagles across the UK as more evidence comes to light of their impact on cliff-nesting seabirds.”

She noted that the islands of Skomer and Skokholm are a sanctuary for globally important seabird populations, which are already under threat. “The extra pressure of disturbance and displacement from white-tailed eagles could have a significant impact on breeding seabirds. We have an overwhelming obligation to protect the seabirds on the islands that we manage,” Kessell said.

White-tailed eagle chicks brought over from Norway to reintroduce them into Scotland in 1975 has led to a wild population now of 200 breeding pairs, with 45 birds successfully reintroduced to the Isle of Wight since 2019.

Although there has been repeated illegal killing of the huge avian predator, the first English-born wild bird fledged from a nest in East Sussex in 2023.

Wales has not yet restored the species to its skies.

Prof Geoff Hilton, the head of wetland evidence at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT), which is leading the Gwent reintroduction, said: “Conservation action has and always will carry an element of risk. But what’s essential is that we carefully evaluate those risks early, use robust evidence to investigate the scale of those risks, and balance them against potential opportunities.”

Hilton stressed that white-tailed eagles were generalist feeders with a varied diet including carrion, fish and small mammals.

Research published in 2020 of eagles east of the Baltic Sea found that birds of particular conservation concern in the EU accounted for around 1% of identified prey in a long-term study of eagle diets.

He said: “With careful phasing, we aim to establish seven to nine breeding pairs of white-tailed eagles over the next 10 years.”

“We don’t expect this reintroduction to significantly reduce or impact any single species population. We do, however, expect to see healthier, more balanced ecosystems and landscapes, as apex predators like these eagles start to thrive once again,” he added.