Month: June 2023

Via The Canary,

Videos circulating social media on Wednesday show Taliban forces heavily reinforcing the Afghan border with Iran, after significant escalation regarding a water dispute between the two countries, which resulted in heavy border clashes between the two sides over the weekend.

The clashes broke out on Saturday between Taliban troops and Iranian border guards, resulting in the death of two Iranian border guards and a Taliban militant, despite unconfirmed reports of further Taliban casualties.

The outbreak of fighting came a week after Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi warned the Taliban to respect Iran’s rights to water from the Helmand River shared between the two countries, under the 1973 Afghan-Iranian Helmand River Treaty. Iran has long accused Afghanistan of restricting the flow of its water to Iran and causing droughts or dry spells.

Each side claimed that the other had initiated the clashes. On May 29, Iran’s Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi said that calm had prevailed on the border but that Tehran would respond with force if the Taliban resumed provocation.

The Taliban defense minister said on the day that the fighting broke out that the Afghan government views dialogue and negotiation as the best way to resolve issues. Other Afghan officials echoed the defense minister’s words and called for the prevention of escalation.

Other officials and Afghan figures were seen in videos on social media making inflammatory statements. The most notable of these figures is Taliban leader Abdul Hamid Khorosani, who was seen in a video on Twitter May 28 threatening that “if the [religious authorities] allow us, we will seize Tehran.”

“Do not test our strength. You are behind the scenes with the Westerners,” Khorosani added, addressing the Islamic Republic. Reports suggest that Khorosani had been dismissed earlier this month over differences with Taliban leadership.

The Iranian Interior Ministry claimed on Wednesday, following the release of the footage on the Afghan-Iranian border, that those who made statements against Iran were “low-ranking” members of the Taliban who have since been “dismissed” by the organization.

Taliban sends heavy equipment to the border with Iran as tensions escalate over water dispute pic.twitter.com/cGAModswE3

— The Cradle (@TheCradleMedia) May 31, 2023

Iranian media outlets have also claimed that border-crossings between the two countries are now open, despite having been closed following the outbreak of clashes. “Clashes happened based on a mistake made by the Afghan border guards. We have had several incidents like this so far. We advise Afghan authorities to justify the actions of their border guards,” the Iranian Interior Ministry added.

Despite videos showing reinforcements on the border, Iranian media reports suggested that some “elements are trying to provoke the parties involved with rumors and fake news.”

One Iranian report said that there is complete calm on the border. However, conflicting reports continue to emerge, with some suggesting that the reinforcements are ongoing.

The situation at the border with Iran is intensifying as the Taliban actively moves armored vehicles, including tanks.

Iranian border guards have requested additional support and tanks are being dispatched to assist them.

Unfortunately, the situation is unfolding in a… pic.twitter.com/wR8zuxwEkG

— 301 Military (@301military) May 31, 2023

In December 2021, brief clashes broke out on the Afghan-Iranian border between Iran’s border guards and Taliban fighters. In June of the following year, an Iranian border guard was killed by the Taliban. Iran urged the Afghan government at the time to “punish the perpetrators” and take action to prevent a repeat of such occurrences.

Footage from the weekend border clashes…

Clashes break out between Iran and Taliban on the border, casualties on both sides have been reported pic.twitter.com/rHVOWSKJ8n

— The Cradle (@TheCradleMedia) May 27, 2023

Following Washington’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, the US army left behind $7.12 billion in military equipment in the country, which immediately fell into the hands of the Taliban.

A new study from the University of California, Davis, has found that lab-grown, or “cultivated” meat’s environmental impact is likely to be “orders of magnitude” higher than retail beef based on current and near-term production methods.

The preprint study, which has yet to undergo peer review, concludes that the energy needed and greenhouse gasses emitted during all stages of production of lab-grown meat is far greater than traditionally raised beef.

Researchers conducted a life-cycle assessment of the energy needed and greenhouse gases emitted in all stages of production and compared that with beef. One of the current challenges with lab-grown meat is the use of highly refined or purified growth media, the ingredients needed to help animal cells multiply. Currently, this method is similar to the biotechnology used to make pharmaceuticals. This sets up a critical question for cultured meat production: Is it a pharmaceutical product or a food product? –UC Davis

“If companies are having to purify growth media to pharmaceutical levels, it uses more resources, which then increases global warming potential,” according to lead author and doctoral graduate Derrick Risner, of the US Davis Department of Food Science and Technology. “If this product continues to be produced using the “pharma” approach, it’s going to be worse for the environment and more expensive than conventional beef production.”

The scientists considered the ‘global warming potential’ to be the carbon dioxide equivalents emitted for each kilogram of meat produced – and found that the global warming potential of lab-based meat using these purified media is up to 25 times greater than the average for retail beef.

More from UC Davis on the eventual goals of lab-grown (cultured) meat;

One of the goals of the industry is to eventually create lab-grown meat using primarily food-grade ingredients or cultures without the use of expensive and energy-intensive pharmaceutical grade ingredients and processes.

Under that scenario, researchers found cultured meat is much more environmentally competitive, but with a wide range. Cultured meat’s global warming potential could be between 80% lower to 26% above that of conventional beef production, they calculate. While these results are more promising, the leap from “pharma to food” still represents a significant technical challenge for system scale-up.

“Our findings suggest that cultured meat is not inherently better for the environment than conventional beef. It’s not a panacea,” said corresponding author Edward Spang, an associate professor in the Department of Food Science and Technology. “It’s possible we could reduce its environmental impact in the future, but it will require significant technical advancement to simultaneously increase the performance and decrease the cost of the cell culture media.”

Even the most efficient beef production systems reviewed in the study outperform cultured meat across all scenarios (both food and pharma), suggesting that investments to advance more climate-friendly beef production may yield greater reductions in emissions more quickly than investments in cultured meat.

Developing the technology that would allow the leap from “pharma to food” is among the goals of the UC Davis Cultivated Meat Consortium, a cross-disciplinary group of scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs and educators researching cultivated meat. Other goals are to establish and evaluate cell lines that could be used to grow meat and find ways to create more structure in cultured meat.

Risner said even if lab-based meat doesn’t result in a more climate-friendly burger, there is still valuable science to be learned from the endeavor.

“It may not lead to environmentally friendly commodity meat, but it could lead to less expensive pharmaceuticals, for example,” said Risner. “My concern would just be scaling this up too quickly and doing something harmful for the environment.”

Other authors include Yoonbin Kim and Justin Siegel of UC Davis and Cuong Nguyen of the University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

The research was funded by the UC Davis Innovation Institute for Food and Health and the National Science Foundation Growing Convergence Research grant.