A new analysis has revealed that Australia is releasing more emissions from deforestation than reported to the United Nations. The revelation came after an assessment of satellite images of more than 50 properties in Queensland.

A new analysis has revealed that Australia is releasing more emissions from deforestation than reported to the United Nations. The revelation came after an assessment of satellite images of more than 50 properties in Queensland. The images were clicked by Martin Taylor, who happens to be an adjunct senior lecturer at the University of Queensland. Taylor noticed disparities between what is termed as cleared land by Australia’s National Carbon Accounting System (NCAS) and the Statewide Landcover and Trees Study (Slats) used by the state government. Oh hell's bells - we should have all suspected this extra gloom thanks to our state and Federal governments Australia’s emissions from land clearing likely far higher than claimed, analysis indicateshttps://t.co/bbNDB8Zy3f pic.twitter.com/N0lh0ZtcnO — Sue_Jash (@SueAshford3) November 7, 2021 × How countries treat emissions coming from the land sector has always been a controversial point. This is because of the challenges that are faced in accurately measuring and monitoring a changing vegetation. Also read | COP26 climate summit: World leaders pledge to end deforestation by 2030 The government, for years, relied on its reporting of falls in land-clearing rates. This is how it concluded that the country’s emissions have fallen by about one-fifth since 2005. The government’s net zero plan report states, "Emissions from [LuluCF] have fallen by 114m tonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalent since 2005, and in 2019 the sector represented a 25 Mt CO₂-e sink for Australia." The revelation comes at a time when various countries are pledging to cut their emissions at the COP26 summit being help at Glasgow. Some countries have upgraded their existing pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Also, there have been separate deals on phasing out coal, ending foreign fossil fuel funding, and slashing methane.

Analysis reveals Australia’s emissions from land clearing way more higher than claimed

US&nbspDefence Secretary Jim Mattis said on Sunday North Korea will receive relief only after it takes clear and irreversible steps to end its nuclear programme, adding it would be a bumpy road to a summit between US&nbspand North Korean leaders.

The comments sought to address concern the United States may be rushing to strike a breakthrough in the unprecedented summit between the two leaders after US&nbspPresident Donald Trump put the meeting back on track for June 12 in Singapore.

"We can anticipate, at best, a bumpy road to the (negotiations)," Mattis said at the start of a meeting with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts on the sidelines of Shangri-la dialogue in Singapore.

"We will continue to implement all U.N Security Council resolutions on North Korea. North Korea will receive relief only when it demonstrates verifiable and irreversible steps to denuclearisation," Mattis added.

Trump said on Friday he would hold the meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on June 12 in a dramatic turn of course in the high stakes diplomacy aimed at ending Pyongyang's nuclear weapons programme.

Eight days after cancelling the summit citing Pyongyang's "hostility", Trump announced the decision to go ahead with the meeting after hosting Kim's envoy in the White House, saying he expected "very positive result" with North Korea.

North Korea's nuclear weapons programme has been a source of major security tensions that persisted despite a series of U.N. and U.S. sanctions and it has also demonstrated advances in ballistic missile technology that experts believe now threatens the US&nbspmainland.

Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera said that while the solution to the North Korean nuclear crisis must be diplomatic, the defence cooperation among the United States and its Asian allies was key to bringing it about.

"Japan, Korea and the US&nbspcontinue to agree that pressure is needed to be applied on North Korea," Onodera told reporters after his meeting with Mattis and South Korean Defense Minister Song Young-moo on the sidelines of the Shangri-la Dialogue.

Despite a long-standing security alliance between the United States and Japan, some people in Japan worry that the United States may cut a deal to protect its cities from nuclear attack by the North, while leaving Japan vulnerable.

North Korea has conducted six nuclear tests starting in 2006 but has declared it would no longer need such tests. In May, it invited foreign journalists to witness what it said was the demolition of its nuclear test site.

The Trump administration wants the North to "denuclearise", meaning to get rid of its nuclear arsenal, in return for relief from economic sanctions.

But North Korea's leadership is believed to regard nuclear weapons as crucial to its survival and has rejected unilaterally disarming.

Trump said one thing that could come out of the summit is an agreement formally ending the 1950-53 Korean War, which was concluded only with a truce, not a peace treaty.

The comments were made by US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis who added that it would be a bumpy road to a summit between US and North Korean leaders

US&nbspDefence Secretary Jim Mattis said on Sunday North Korea will receive relief only after it takes clear and irreversible steps to end its nuclear programme, adding it would be a bumpy road to a summit between US&nbspand North Korean leaders. The comments sought to address concern the United States may be rushing to strike a breakthrough in the unprecedented summit between the two leaders after US&nbspPresident Donald Trump put the meeting back on track for June 12 in Singapore. "We can anticipate, at best, a bumpy road to the (negotiations)," Mattis said at the start of a meeting with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts on the sidelines of Shangri-la dialogue in Singapore. "We will continue to implement all U.N Security Council resolutions on North Korea. North Korea will receive relief only when it demonstrates verifiable and irreversible steps to denuclearisation," Mattis added. Trump said on Friday he would hold the meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on June 12 in a dramatic turn of course in the high stakes diplomacy aimed at ending Pyongyang's nuclear weapons programme. Eight days after cancelling the summit citing Pyongyang's "hostility", Trump announced the decision to go ahead with the meeting after hosting Kim's envoy in the White House, saying he expected "very positive result" with North Korea. North Korea's nuclear weapons programme has been a source of major security tensions that persisted despite a series of U.N. and U.S. sanctions and it has also demonstrated advances in ballistic missile technology that experts believe now threatens the US&nbspmainland. Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera said that while the solution to the North Korean nuclear crisis must be diplomatic, the defence cooperation among the United States and its Asian allies was key to bringing it about. "Japan, Korea and the US&nbspcontinue to agree that pressure is needed to be applied on North Korea," Onodera told reporters after his meeting with Mattis and South Korean Defense Minister Song Young-moo on the sidelines of the Shangri-la Dialogue. Despite a long-standing security alliance between the United States and Japan, some people in Japan worry that the United States may cut a deal to protect its cities from nuclear attack by the North, while leaving Japan vulnerable. North Korea has conducted six nuclear tests starting in 2006 but has declared it would no longer need such tests. In May, it invited foreign journalists to witness what it said was the demolition of its nuclear test site. The Trump administration wants the North to "denuclearise", meaning to get rid of its nuclear arsenal, in return for relief from economic sanctions. But North Korea's leadership is believed to regard nuclear weapons as crucial to its survival and has rejected unilaterally disarming. Trump said one thing that could come out of the summit is an agreement formally ending the 1950-53 Korean War, which was concluded only with a truce, not a peace treaty.

North Korea will get relief only after clear, irreversible steps to denuclearisation: US

Nearly 120,000 units of digital currency bitcoin worth about US$72 million was stolen from the exchange platform Bitfinex in Hong Kong, making it the second-biggest security breach ever of such an exchange. 
 
Bitfinex is one of the largest bitcoin exchanges, and is known in the digital currency community for having a platform that has deep liquidity in the US Dollar-bitcoin currency pair. 
 
Zane Tackett, Director of Community &amp; Product Development for Bitfinex, told Reuters on Wednesday that 119,756 bitcoin had been stolen from users&#39; accounts, and that the exchange had not yet decided how to address customer losses. 
 
&quot;The bitcoin was stolen from users&#39; segregated wallets,&quot; he said. 
 
Bitcoin plunged just over 23 per cent on Tuesday after the news broke. On Wednesday it was up 1 per cent at $545.20 on the BitStamp platform. 
 
Tackett added that the breach did not &quot;expose any weaknesses in the security of a blockchain&quot;, the technology that generates and processes bitcoin, a web-based &quot;cryptocurrency&quot; that can move across the globe anonymously without the need for a central authority. 
 
The volume stolen amounts to about 0.75 per cent of all bitcoin in circulation. 
 
&quot;It&#39;s the biggest USD exchange, so outside China it&#39;s the one that everyone has an account with,&quot; said Antony Lewis, a bitcoin expert in Singapore. &quot;It&#39;s very liquid, folk can trade on margin, lots of daily volume.&quot; 
 
It is not yet clear whether the theft was an inside job or whether hackers were able to gain access to the system externally.&nbsp;Bitfinex suspended trading on Tuesday after it discovered the breach. It said on its website that it was investigating and cooperating with the authorities. 
 
The attack on Bitfinex was reminiscent of a similar but larger breach at MtGox, a Tokyo-based bitcoin exchange that was forced to file for bankruptcy in early 2014 after hackers stole an estimated $650 million worth of customers&#39; bitcoins. 
 
(Reuters)

?The volume stolen amounts to about 0.75 per cent of all bitcoin in circulation. Bitcoin plunged by just over 23% after the news broke

Nearly 120,000 units of digital currency bitcoin worth about US$72 million was stolen from the exchange platform Bitfinex in Hong Kong, making it the second-biggest security breach ever of such an exchange. Bitfinex is one of the largest bitcoin exchanges, and is known in the digital currency community for having a platform that has deep liquidity in the US Dollar-bitcoin currency pair. Zane Tackett, Director of Community & Product Development for Bitfinex, told Reuters on Wednesday that 119,756 bitcoin had been stolen from users' accounts, and that the exchange had not yet decided how to address customer losses. "The bitcoin was stolen from users' segregated wallets," he said. Bitcoin plunged just over 23 per cent on Tuesday after the news broke. On Wednesday it was up 1 per cent at $545.20 on the BitStamp platform. Tackett added that the breach did not "expose any weaknesses in the security of a blockchain", the technology that generates and processes bitcoin, a web-based "cryptocurrency" that can move across the globe anonymously without the need for a central authority. The volume stolen amounts to about 0.75 per cent of all bitcoin in circulation. "It's the biggest USD exchange, so outside China it's the one that everyone has an account with," said Antony Lewis, a bitcoin expert in Singapore. "It's very liquid, folk can trade on margin, lots of daily volume." It is not yet clear whether the theft was an inside job or whether hackers were able to gain access to the system externally. Bitfinex suspended trading on Tuesday after it discovered the breach. It said on its website that it was investigating and cooperating with the authorities. The attack on Bitfinex was reminiscent of a similar but larger breach at MtGox, a Tokyo-based bitcoin exchange that was forced to file for bankruptcy in early 2014 after hackers stole an estimated $650 million worth of customers' bitcoins. (Reuters)

Bitcoin worth $72 million stolen from Hong Kong's Bitfinex exchange

Forest fires that blanketed Southeast Asia in thick haze last year released the greatest amount of climate-changing carbon since record blazes in 1997, producing emissions higher than in the whole of the European Union, scientists said on Tuesday. 
 
Singapore, Malaysia and northern Indonesia choked under a layer of toxic smog in September and October last year, caused by thousands of fires started in Indonesia to cheaply clear land for palm oil crops and for pulp and paper plantations. 
 
The fires and resulting haze, an annual occurrence, pushed up pollution levels, caused schools to close, flights to be disrupted and people to fall sick across the region. 
 
Last years blazes were the worst for years with El Nino, a warming of sea-surface temperatures in the Pacific, causing tinder-dry conditions. 
 
The study by scientists from the Netherlands, Britain and Indonesia, published in the online journal Scientific Reports recently, was the first scientific report calculating greenhouse gas emissions from the fires using measurements on the ground combined with satellite observations. 
 
&quot;There have been some isolated studies before where people artificially set fires in the lab to try to understand the chemical characteristics of peatland fire smoke in Indonesia,&quot; said Martin Wooster, one of the scientists and a professor of earth observation science at Kings College London. 
 
&quot;But no one had done this on natural fires, and especially not on the kind of extreme fires seen in 2015,&quot; he added. 
 
The researchers first measured the ground-level smoke composition from peatland burning in the region, including in Indonesias Central Kalimantan province, one of the worst-hit areas. 
 
They combined the data with satellite information to work out greenhouse gas emission estimates from the fires. They concluded that 884 million tonnes of carbon dioxide was emitted in the region last year, with 97 per cent originating from forest fires in Indonesia. 
 
The results showed that regional carbon dioxide emissions from the fires were 11.3 million tonnes per day in September and October 2015, more than the 28-nation EUs daily emissions of 8.9 million tonnes during the same period. 
 
The researchers also said the emissions were worse than during the 1997 fires, considered the worst on record.&nbsp;At that time, there was an even longer drought and widespread burning due to a stronger El Ni?o. 
 
The researchers said they hoped the findings would contribute to a better understanding on the need for fire prevention and improved ways of managing the land. 
 
&quot;What is important is the applicability of a study like this in helping policy makers to use more accurate fire emission factors to design policy and act to prevent further fires and greenhouse gas emissions,&quot; said scientist Daniel Murdiyarso from the Indonesia-based Center for International Forestry Research. 
 
The Indonesian fires have prompted criticism from green groups and other Southeast Asian nations, accusing Jakarta of not doing enough to crack down on the slash-and-burn forest clearing techniques. 
 
In a bid to tackle the issue, President Joko Widodo announced in April plans for a moratorium on new palm oil concessions and asked firms to raise yields on existing plantations instead of clearing forests. 
 
(Reuters)

Thousands of fires started to cheaply clear land for palm oil crops and for pulp and paper plantations disrupted flights and caused sickness

Forest fires that blanketed Southeast Asia in thick haze last year released the greatest amount of climate-changing carbon since record blazes in 1997, producing emissions higher than in the whole of the European Union, scientists said on Tuesday. Singapore, Malaysia and northern Indonesia choked under a layer of toxic smog in September and October last year, caused by thousands of fires started in Indonesia to cheaply clear land for palm oil crops and for pulp and paper plantations. The fires and resulting haze, an annual occurrence, pushed up pollution levels, caused schools to close, flights to be disrupted and people to fall sick across the region. Last years blazes were the worst for years with El Nino, a warming of sea-surface temperatures in the Pacific, causing tinder-dry conditions. The study by scientists from the Netherlands, Britain and Indonesia, published in the online journal Scientific Reports recently, was the first scientific report calculating greenhouse gas emissions from the fires using measurements on the ground combined with satellite observations. "There have been some isolated studies before where people artificially set fires in the lab to try to understand the chemical characteristics of peatland fire smoke in Indonesia," said Martin Wooster, one of the scientists and a professor of earth observation science at Kings College London. "But no one had done this on natural fires, and especially not on the kind of extreme fires seen in 2015," he added. The researchers first measured the ground-level smoke composition from peatland burning in the region, including in Indonesias Central Kalimantan province, one of the worst-hit areas. They combined the data with satellite information to work out greenhouse gas emission estimates from the fires. They concluded that 884 million tonnes of carbon dioxide was emitted in the region last year, with 97 per cent originating from forest fires in Indonesia. The results showed that regional carbon dioxide emissions from the fires were 11.3 million tonnes per day in September and October 2015, more than the 28-nation EUs daily emissions of 8.9 million tonnes during the same period. The researchers also said the emissions were worse than during the 1997 fires, considered the worst on record. At that time, there was an even longer drought and widespread burning due to a stronger El Ni?o. The researchers said they hoped the findings would contribute to a better understanding on the need for fire prevention and improved ways of managing the land. "What is important is the applicability of a study like this in helping policy makers to use more accurate fire emission factors to design policy and act to prevent further fires and greenhouse gas emissions," said scientist Daniel Murdiyarso from the Indonesia-based Center for International Forestry Research. The Indonesian fires have prompted criticism from green groups and other Southeast Asian nations, accusing Jakarta of not doing enough to crack down on the slash-and-burn forest clearing techniques. In a bid to tackle the issue, President Joko Widodo announced in April plans for a moratorium on new palm oil concessions and asked firms to raise yields on existing plantations instead of clearing forests. (Reuters)

Land-clearing forest fires choking Southeast Asia in 2015 release record carbon

Indian oil refiners will clear around $6.7 billion (USD) of outstanding debt to Iran through Turkey`s Halkbank within a short period, a senior Iranian economy official said on Wednesday. 
 
India is one of the biggest buyers of Iranian crude and built up a payments backlog when Iran was under Western sanctions, with its refiners owing about $6.5 billion to Iran. They cleared around $770 million in euros through Halkbank to the National Iranian Oil Co (NIOC) earlier in May. 
 
&quot;As per the instructions of the Central Bank of Iran, the local banks in India will transfer the money to Halkbank,&quot; Sadegh Akbari, Iran`s general director for foreign economic relations, told reporters at a conference in Istanbul. 
($1 = 0.8970 euros)

India will pay back the $6.7 billion oil dues to Iran.

Indian oil refiners will clear around $6.7 billion (USD) of outstanding debt to Iran through Turkey`s Halkbank within a short period, a senior Iranian economy official said on Wednesday. India is one of the biggest buyers of Iranian crude and built up a payments backlog when Iran was under Western sanctions, with its refiners owing about $6.5 billion to Iran. They cleared around $770 million in euros through Halkbank to the National Iranian Oil Co (NIOC) earlier in May. "As per the instructions of the Central Bank of Iran, the local banks in India will transfer the money to Halkbank," Sadegh Akbari, Iran`s general director for foreign economic relations, told reporters at a conference in Istanbul. ($1 = 0.8970 euros)

India will soon pay the $6.7 billion oil payment backlog to Iran, Iranian official says.

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