Tag - oceans

 
 

OCEANS

Spanish Red Cross members hold children after a boat with 57 migrants onboard arrived at La Restinga port on the Canary island of El Hierro, on Sept. 14.
WORLD / Society
Dec 27, 2024
Record number of migrants lost at sea were bound for Spain in 2024: NGO
An average of 30 people died per day while trying to reach Spain by sea in 2024, up from around 18 in 2023.
The Finnish Border Guard's ship Turva and oil tanker Eagle S sail on the sea outside the Porkkalanniemi, Finland on Thursday
WORLD
Dec 27, 2024
Finland boards vessel possibly behind power cable and internet outages
"From our side, we are investigating grave sabotage," said the director of the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation.
Volunteers place eelgrass seeds on slabs of agar gel with tweezers during an event in Shiogama, Miyagi Prefecture, on Nov. 9.
JAPAN
Dec 25, 2024
Seagrass bed restoration work spreads in Miyagi Prefecture
Seagrass and seaweed beds are capturing global attention as they absorb carbon dioxide.
Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya (left) and his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, in Beijing on Wednesday
JAPAN / Politics
Dec 25, 2024
Japan's top diplomat visits China as a step toward mending ties
Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya's trip marks the first visit by a top Japanese diplomat to Beijing since April 2023.
Japanese imports of seafood are seen in a supermarket in Hong Kong in July 2023.
JAPAN / Politics
Dec 24, 2024
China and Japan expected to discuss seafood ban on Wednesday
Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya's one-day visit to Beijing, on China's invitation, is his first since assuming his role in October.
Greenpeace activists protest next to a fake whale's tail in front of the Japanese Embassy in Berlin in 2010. The real motivation behind Japan's whaling may lie in asserting its maritime sovereignty, as the country defends its exclusive economic zone amid territorial disputes.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Dec 19, 2024
For Japan, whaling is intertwined with maritime sovereignty
While Japan has an undeniable culture surrounding seafood, the current generation of people do not show much interest in whale meat.
Environmental activist Paul Watson waves after getting released from prison in Nuuk, Greenland, on Tuesday.
JAPAN
Dec 18, 2024
Japan 'regrets' release of anti-whaling activist Paul Watson
The 74-year-old Canadian-American activist was released after Copenhagen turned down Tokyo's request to bring him to Japan.
Passersby hold umbrellas as they walk under strong sunlight as the Japanese government issued heat stroke alerts in 39 of the country's 47 prefectures in Tokyo on July 22.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Dec 12, 2024
Climate change forged a new reality in 2024: 'This is life now'
As the year draws to a close, the environmental conclusion is both blatant and bleak: 2024 was the hottest year since records began.
A grapnel, used to retrieve cables, on the deck of the Leon Thevenin in Cape Town on April 30. In a wireless world, it is easy to forget the all-too-real cables that snake across the turbulent ocean floor — until they snap.
WORLD
Dec 4, 2024
When undersea cables break, a wireless world’s vulnerability is exposed
Landslides, a ship dragging its anchor, military skirmishes and sabotage can all damage cables.
Japan's bluefin tuna catch quotas will increase from 2025, with the first increase ever for smaller ones.
JAPAN
Dec 4, 2024
WCPFC decides to expand Japan's pacific bluefin tuna catch quotas
Japan's catch quota will increase to 8,421 metric tons from 5,614 metric tons for large bluefin tuna, rising for the first time in three years.
Trees in a forest in Nyanga, Gabon
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Dec 3, 2024
Scientists behind ‘net zero’ concept say nations are getting it wrong
Countries may be claiming carbon credits for work already being done by land and oceans — and the accounting mismatch has consequences.
Members of the German Navy operate a submarine drone onboard German mine hunter FGS Weilheim during a NATO exercise led by the Finnish Navy, in the Baltic Sea in Turku, Finland, on Nov. 20
WORLD / Politics
Dec 3, 2024
As sabotage allegations swirl, NATO struggles to secure the Baltic Sea
The defense alliance conducted one of northern Europe's largest naval exercises on Nov. 18 to step up its protection of critical infrastructure.
Debris from Hurricane Helene on a roadside as residents evacuate before the arrival of Hurricane Milton on Oct. 7 in St. Pete Beach, Florida.
ENVIRONMENT / Earth science
Nov 30, 2024
Atlantic hurricane season ends, leaving scientists to ponder the future
The Atlantic spawned 11 hurricanes this season, above the annual average of seven. Also above average was the number of major hurricanes.
Environmental activists demonstrate in front of the convention center in Busan, South Korea, where delegates from around the world are seeking to reach a binding treaty against plastic waste.
ENVIRONMENT
Nov 29, 2024
Showdown looms on plastic treaty days before deadline
With just two days of talks left, countries seeking an ambitious treaty urged delegations that "have not moved a centimeter" to make compromises or "get out of the way."
A research team that includes government-backed research institute Riken and the University of Tokyo has developed a plastic material that can be dissolved in seawater in just a few hours.
JAPAN
Nov 22, 2024
Riken and others develop plastic material that dissolves in seawater
Unlike earlier biodegradable plastics, the material is strong and easy to process and takes only hours to decompose.
Nylon is wrapped around fiber-optic cables at a SubCom factory in Newington, New Hampshire, in December 2018.
WORLD
Nov 21, 2024
Strategic subsea cables: the vulnerable links that enable our digital lives
Sweden and Finland have opened investigations into potential "sabotage" against cables damaged on Sunday and Monday in the Baltic Sea.
David Cooper (left), executive secretary of COP16, Colombian Environment Minister and COP16 President Susana Muhamad (center), and Astrid Schomaker, secretary of COP16, attend the closing session of the conference in Cali, Colombia, on Saturday.
ENVIRONMENT / Wildlife
Nov 3, 2024
U.N. talks on saving nature stumble on finance hurdle
COP16 was suspended after negotiations ran nearly 12 hours longer than planned and delegates started leaving.
The closing session of the United Nations' COP16 summit in Cali, Colombia, on Friday
ENVIRONMENT / Wildlife
Nov 2, 2024
Talks on halting nature loss run into extra time in Colombia
A closing plenary session started more than four hours late as groups of negotiators huddled behind closed doors seeking to iron out their differences.
A 15,000-pound undersea cable for transportation to Brazil, at Dulles International Airport in Virginia on June 8, 2009.
WORLD / Politics
Oct 31, 2024
U.S. agency to launch review of undersea cables and national security risks
More than 400 subsea cables form the backbone of the internet, carrying more than 99% of the world’s data traffic.
Soldiers stand in formation in front of Chinese flags at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Sept. 29. China's Ministry of State Security said on Tuesday it had uncovered devices that had been hidden on the ocean floor and were sending back information that could "pre-set the field for battle.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Oct 29, 2024
China reports finding spying devices at sea
Beijing said the devices — it did not specify where they were found — act as underwater "lighthouses" that guide submarines, among other functions.

Longform

Professional cleaner Hirofumi Sakurai takes a moment to appreciate some photographs in a Gotanda apartment whose occupant died alone.
The last cleanup: Life and death in a lonely Japan