Negotiators gathered in Busan, South Korea, on Monday in a final push to create a treaty to address the global crisis of plastic pollution.
It’s the fifth time the world’s nations convene to craft a legally binding plastic pollution accord. In addition to the national delegations, representatives from the plastics industry, scientists and environmentalists have come to shape how the world tackles the surging problem.
The planet is ” choking on plastic, ” according to the United Nations. It’s polluting lakes, rivers, oceans and people’s bodies.
“Don’t kick the can, or the plastic bottle, down the road,” UN Environment Programme Executive Director Inger Andersen said in a message aimed at negotiators.
This “is an issue about the intergenerational justice of those generations that will come after us and be living with all this garbage. We can solve this and we must get it done in Busan,” she said in an interview.
The previous four global meetings have revealed sharp differences in goals and interests. This week’s talks go through Saturday.
Led by Norway and Rwanda, 66 countries plus the European Union say they want to address the total amount of plastic on Earth by controlling design, production, consumption and where plastic ends up. The delegation from the hard-hit island nation of Micronesia helped lead an effort to call more attention to “unsustainable” plastic production, called the Bridge to Busan. Island nations are grappling with vast amounts of other countries’ plastic waste washing up on their shores.
“We think it’s the heart of the treaty, to go upstream and to get to the problem at its source,” said Dennis Clare, legal adviser and plastics negotiator for Micronesia. “There’s a tagline, ‘You can’t recycle your way out of this problem.’”
Some plastic-producing and oil and gas countries, including Saudi Arabia, disagree. They vigorously oppose any limits on plastic manufacturing. Most plastic is made from fossil fuels. Saudi Arabia is the world’s largest exporter of primary polypropylene, a common type of plastic, accounting for an estimated 17 percent of exports last year, according to the Plastics Industry Association.
China, the United States and Germany led the global plastics trade by exports and imports in 2023, the association said.
The plastics industry has been advocating for a treaty focused on redesigning plastic products, recycling and reuse, sometimes referred to as “circularity.” Chris Jahn, International Council of Chemical Associations secretariat, said negotiators should focus on ending plastic waste in the environment, not plastic production, to get a deal. Many countries won’t join a treaty if it includes production caps, he said.
To continue to progress and grow as a global economy, there are going to be more plastics, Jahn added.
“So we should strive then to keep those plastics in the economy and out of the environment,” Jahn said.
The United States delegation at first said countries should develop their own plans to act, a position viewed as favoring industry. It changed its position this summer, saying the US is open to considering global targets for reductions in plastic production.
Environmental groups accused the US of backtracking as negotiations approached.
Center for Coalfield Justice executive director Sarah Martik said the United States is standing on the sidelines rather than leading, putting “their thumb on the scale throughout the entirety of the negotiations.” She hopes this does not derail other countries’ ambition.
The US Environmental Protection Agency released a national strategy to prevent plastic pollution Thursday, but Martik said she thinks too many of the measures are voluntary to make a difference.
Democratic US Sen. Jeff Merkley, of Oregon, said it’s a mistake for the United States to settle for the lowest common denominator proposals, just to get some kind of agreement.
Luis Vayas Valdivieso, the committee chair from Ecuador, recently proposed text for sections where he thinks the delegations could agree.
The production and use of plastics globally is set to reach 736 million tons by 2040, up 70 percent from 2020, without policy changes, according to the intergovernmental Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Research published in Science this month found it is still possible to nearly end plastic pollution. The policies that make the most difference are: mandating new products be made with 40 percent post-consumer recycled plastic; limiting new plastic production to 2020 levels; investing significantly in plastic waste management, such as landfills and waste collection services and implementing a small fee on plastic packaging.
The treaty is the only way to solve plastic pollution at this scale, said Douglas McCauley, professor at UC Santa Barbara and UC Berkeley. McCauley co-led the research.
Margaret Spring, chief conservation and science officer for Monterey Bay Aquarium, said plastic pollution used to be considered largely a waste problem. Now it is widely viewed as an existential crisis that must be addressed, said Spring, who represents the International Science Council at the negotiations.
“I’ve never seen people’s understanding of this issue move as fast, given how complex the topic is,” she said. “It gives me hope that we can actually start moving the dial.”
In South Korea, nations meet in final round to address global plastic crisis
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In South Korea, nations meet in final round to address global plastic crisis
Nagasaki atomic bomb survivor, who devoted his life for peace, dies
- Fukahori was only 14 when the US dropped the bomb on Nagasaki on Aug.9, 1945, killing tens of thousands of people, including his family
Shigemi Fukahori, a survivor of the 1945 Nagasaki atomic bombing, who devoted his life to advocating for peace and campaigning against nuclear weapons, has died. He was 93.
Fukahori died at a hospital in Nagasaki, southwestern Japan, on Jan.3, the Urakami Catholic Church, where he prayed almost daily until last year, said on Sunday. Local media reported he died of old age.
The church, located about 500 meters from ground zero and near the Nagasaki Peace Park, is widely seen as a symbol of hope and peace, as its bell tower and some statues and survived the nuclear bombing.
Fukahori was only 14 when the US dropped the bomb on Nagasaki on Aug.9, 1945, killing tens of thousands of people, including his family. That came three days after the nuclear attack on Hiroshima, which killed 140,000 people. Japan surrendered days later, ending World War II and the country’s nearly half-century of aggression across Asia.
Fukahori, who worked at a shipyard about 3 kilometers from where the bomb dropped, couldn’t talk about what happened for years, not only because of the painful memories but also how powerless he felt then.
About 15 years ago, he became more outspoken after encountering, during a visit to Spain, a man who experienced the bombing of Guernica in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War when he was also 14 years old. The shared experience helped Fukahori open up.
“On the day the bomb dropped, I heard a voice asking for help. When I walked over and held out my hand, the person’s skin melted. I still remember how that felt,” Fukahori told Japan’s national broadcaster NHK in 2019.
Blinken wades into South Korea political crisis
The visit comes after a weekend that saw thousands of South Koreans brave a snowstorm to stage dueling rallies in support of and opposition to President Yoon Suk Yeol, who was suspended over a failed martial law bid and resisting arrest.
Blinken will meet his counterpart Cho Tae-yul later on Monday, the same day a warrant to arrest Yoon expires.
Yoon had once been a darling of the Biden administration with his bold moves to turn the page on friction with Japan and his eye on a greater role for South Korea on global issues.
The South Korean leader joined Biden for a landmark three-way summit with Japan’s prime minister and — months before declaring martial law — was picked to lead a global democracy summit, a signature initiative for the outgoing US administration.
Blinken’s trip is meant to highlight US President Joe Biden’s efforts to build alliances. He will head afterwards to Tokyo.
It was crucial, in the eyes of his advisers, not to snub South Korea, which has a fraught and often competitive relationship with Japan, also home to thousands of US troops.
It will likely be his final trip as secretary of state before US President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.
An attempt to arrest Yoon by investigators on Friday failed when a tense six-hour standoff with his presidential security service ended over fears of violence, with his supporters also camped outside.
Thousands descended on his residence again Sunday despite bitterly cold and snowy conditions blanketing the capital — with one camp demanding Yoon’s arrest while the other called for his impeachment to be declared invalid.
“Snow is nothing for me. They can bring all the snow and we’ll still be here,” said anti-Yoon protester Lee Jin-ah, 28.
“I quit my job to come to protect our country and democracy,” she said.
Yoon has pledged to “fight” those questioning his short-lived martial law move, and supporter Park Young-chul, in his 70s, likened the current situation to “war.”
“I went through war and minus 20 degrees in the snow to fight the commies. This snow is nothing. Our war is happening again,” he told AFP.
Yoon faces criminal charges of insurrection, one of a few crimes not subject to presidential immunity, meaning he could be sentenced to prison or, at worst, the death penalty.
If the warrant is executed, Yoon would become the first sitting South Korean president to be arrested.
Blinken may face some criticism from the South Korean political left for the visit but should be able to navigate the political crisis, said Sydney Seiler, a former US intelligence officer focused on Korea who is now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Blinken would mainly seek to keep the focus on challenges such as China and North Korea, he said.
In a statement, the State Department did not directly mention the political crisis but said Blinken would seek to preserve trilateral cooperation with Japan, which has included enhanced intelligence sharing on North Korea.
Blinken’s visit comes at a time of change for both countries, with Trump returning to the White House on January 20.
Paradoxically, while Biden worked closely with the conservative Yoon, Trump in his first term enjoyed a warm relationship with progressive then-president Moon Jae-in, who encouraged the US president’s groundbreaking personal diplomacy with North Korea.
The Biden administration has stressed since the crisis that it is reaching out to South Korean politicians across the divide, amid the uncertainties on who will lead Asia’s fourth-largest economy.
Progressive opposition leader Lee Jae-myung — who himself faces election disqualification in a court case — supports diplomacy with North Korea.
But the former labor activist has also taken stances that differ from those of both Biden and Trump.
Lee has criticized deployment of US-made THAAD missile defenses, which Washington says are meant to protect against North Korea but which China sees as a provocation.
South Korea’s left has long championed a harder stance on Japan over its brutal 1910-1945 occupation of the Korean peninsula.
US officials said they had no warning of Yoon’s imposition of martial law, which brought masses of protesters to the streets.
Eight civilians killed in central Mali attack
- The Mali military seized power in back-to-back coups in 2020 and 2021 and has since broken off its anti-militant alliance with former colonial power France and European partners
DAKAR: At least eight civilians have been killed in central Mali, several sources said on Sunday, accusing the Malian army for the latest attack in the troubled West African country.
The country is embroiled in a political, security and economic crisis, and has since 2012 been ravaged by different groups affiliated to Al-Qaeda and Daesh.
It also faces a separatist insurgency in the volatile desert north.
“A Hilux four-by-four vehicle ... was heading toward a refugee camp in Mauritania when ... the Malian army fired. At least eight civilians were killed” on Thursday, a local official said.
HIGHLIGHT
The country is embroiled in a political, security and economic crisis, and has since 2012 been ravaged by militant groups.
“All of the vehicle’s passengers died. They were buried in a mass grave,” a parent of one of the victims said.
A local humanitarian source confirmed the incident, saying the eight civilians were “killed by bullets ... between the localities of Niono and Nampala.”
In a statement, the Azawad Liberation Front, which groups several separatist outfits in Mali’s north made up of the Tuareg ethnic minority, blamed the Malian army for the “deliberate criminal act,” which it said left nine people dead.
The Mali military seized power in back-to-back coups in 2020 and 2021 and has since broken off its anti-militant alliance with former colonial power France and European partners.
On Saturday, Mali’s army said its forces had arrested two men, one of them a leading figure in the Sahel branch of Daesh.
The army announced they had also killed several of the group’s fighters during an operation in the north of the country.
A statement from the army said they had arrested “Ould Erkehile alias Abu Rakia,” as well as “Abu Hash,” who they said was a leading figure in the group.
They blamed them for coordinating atrocities against people in the Menaka and Gao regions in the northeast of the country, as well as attacks against the army.
Elsewhere, in neighboring Burkina Faso, security officials said five civilian volunteers with the country’s army were killed in an attack this week in the west of the country.
“A forward security forces position, composed mainly of auxiliaries from the Volunteers for the Defense of the Fatherland, was targeted by armed terrorist groups,” said one official.
“Unfortunately five people, all volunteers, were killed,” he said of Thursday’s incident in the Gnangdin area, near the border with Togo and Ghana.
The volunteers, who work with the army, are recruited locally, given weapons and three months’ training. They may operate with professional soldiers or on their own.
The incident triggered a protest among locals who blocked the main highway linking the region to the Togolese border, a local inhabitant said.
The blockade continued for several hours before the authorities broke it up, he said.
“There is a (military) unit in the area but it took them a while to react, which shouldn’t have happened. If groups can still carry out attacks despite the presence of this unit, then there’s still work to do,” he said.
Since the unrest spread to Burkina Faso in 2015, it has killed around 26,000 people and forced some 2 million people to flee their homes, according to monitoring group ACLED.
India press watchdog demands journalist murder probe
- Freelance journalist Mukesh Chandrakar, 28, had reported widely on corruption and a decades-old Maoist insurgency in Chhattisgarh
- Chandrakar’s body was found on January 3 after police tracked his mobile phone records following his family reporting him missing
NEW DELHI: India’s media watchdog has demanded a thorough investigation after a journalist’s battered body was found stuffed in a septic tank covered with concrete.
Freelance journalist Mukesh Chandrakar, 28, had reported widely on corruption and a decades-old Maoist insurgency in India’s central Chhattisgarh state, and ran a popular YouTube channel “Bastar Junction.”
The Press Council of India expressed “concern” over the suspected murder of Chandrakar, calling for a report on the “facts of the case” in a statement late Saturday.
Chandrakar’s body was found on January 3 after police tracked his mobile phone records following his family reporting him missing.
Three people have been arrested.
More than 10,000 people have died in the decades-long insurgency waged by Naxalite rebels, who say they are fighting for the rights of marginalized indigenous people in India’s resource-rich central regions.
Vishnu Deo Sai, chief minister of Chhattisgarh from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), called Chandrakar’s death “heartbreaking” and promised the “harshest punishment” for those found responsible.
India was ranked 159 last year on the World Press Freedom Index, run by Reporters Without Borders.
Indian forces clash with Maoist rebels, five dead
- Over 10,000 people have died in the insurgency by Naxalite rebels who say they are fighting for rights of marginalized people
- Government forces stepped up efforts last year to crush the long-running armed conflict, with some 287 rebels killed in 2024
NEW DELHI: Indian security forces on Sunday battled with Maoist rebels in their forested heartland, police said, with at least four guerillas and one policeman killed.
More than 10,000 people have died in the decades-long insurgency waged by Naxalite rebels, who say they are fighting for the rights of marginalized indigenous people in India’s resource-rich central regions.
Government forces stepped up efforts last year to crush the long-running armed conflict, with some 287 rebels killed in 2024, according to government figures.
Clashes broke out late Saturday in Abujhmarh district of Chhattisgarh state, a key battleground in the insurgency.
“Four bodies of Maoists, who were in their battle uniform, have been recovered after an encounter with police forces,” police inspector general P. Sunderraj told AFP, adding one police constable had also been killed.
“Action is still on,” he said.
Around 1,000 suspected Naxalites were arrested and 837 surrendered during 2024.
Amit Shah, India’s interior minister, warned the Maoist rebels in September to surrender or face an “all-out” assault, saying the government expected to quash the insurgency by early 2026.
The insurgency has been drastically restricted in area in recent years.
The Naxalites, named after the district where their armed campaign began in 1967, were inspired by the Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong.
They demanded land, jobs and a share of the region’s immense natural resources for local residents, and made inroads in a number of remote communities across India’s east and south.
The movement gained in strength and numbers until the early 2000s when New Delhi deployed tens of thousands of security personnel against the rebels in a stretch of territory known as the “Red Corridor.”
Authorities have since invested millions of dollars in local infrastructure and social projects to combat the Naxalite appeal.
