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The Philippines
US-China Tensions in Manila Bay
As of Thursday, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has ordered an indefinite suspension of 22 major land reclamation projects in Manila Bay. Both the Philippine government and the U.S. State Department have cited environmental compliance and legal concerns as rationale. Environmental groups have staged protests against the projects seeking to build islands for upscale, highly polluting, hotels and casinos in the bay. There are US concerns about this island-building project near its heavily secured embassy led by a Washington-blacklisted Chinese company, which constructed artificial islands for Chinese military bases in the South China Sea. The South China Sea is claimed by Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam, but China claims its entirety, an assertion of maritime claims that the United States finds unlawful.
This map depicts the suspended land reclamation projects within Manila Bay, The Philippines. Click on the map to learn more.
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Graphic Source: GMANewsOnline
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Myanmar
Rohingya Boat Capsizes
At least 17 people have been killed by a boat capsizing on Monday in the Bay of Bengal, near the Myanmar city of Sittwe. Eight people were rescued from the boat, while 30 remain missing. The passengers were Rohingya Muslim refugees attempting to reach Malaysia and Indonesia. They are coveted destinations for thousands of Muslim-majority Rohingya attempting to flee persecution and poverty in Myanmar and Bangladesh. More than 3,500 Rohingya people attempted to cross the Andaman Sea and Bay of Bengal in 2022, according to the United Nations refugee agency. Bangladesh and Myanmar have discussed efforts to return Rohingya refugees to their homelands. Following the mass exodus in recent years, Myanmar faces genocide accusations at the UN’s top court.
This map depicts Sittwe, Myanmar (Burma) where at least 17 bodies of Rohingya refugees were recovered after a boat capsized on Monday. Click on the map to learn more.
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Graphic Source: CNN
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Space
AI Spotting Killer Androids
A new artificial-intelligence (AI) algorithm has, for the first time, successfully identified a potentially Earth-threatening asteroid. The asteroid, identified as 2022 SF289, is roughly 600 feet long (183 m), and while it doesn’t appear to be a risk in the foreseeable future, its trajectory will eventually bring it within 140,000 miles (225,000 km) of Earth’s orbit, which is closer than the Moon. The AI algorithm, called HelioLinc3D, was able to identify 2022 SF289 after older asteroid-spotting methods missed it. It appeared on the University of Hawaii’s ATLAS survey of the night sky over four nights, but wasn’t acknowledged as it was too faint. HelioLinc3D independently combined fragments of data from all four nights to recognize the object. By successfully identifying objects previously too faint for recognition by aggregating data from several scans, researchers characterize HelioLinc3D’s contribution as effectively giving them a “bigger, better” telescope.
This map depicts the path of the newly discovered asteroid 2022 SF289 (in green) and how it will eventually pass close to Earth’s orbit (in blue). Click on the map to learn more.
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Q: Where does the meteorological phenomenon of the flying river originate?
A: Forests
Through evapotranspiration, forests act as pumps that “recycle” water and transport water across landscapes and continents. The phenomenon of air currents bringing water vapor generated by forests into different regions is known as “flying rivers”. Researchers have calculated the daily amount of water released by the Amazon rainforest into the atmosphere to be an estimated 20 billion tons of water daily – an amount that compares to the flow of the Amazon River. Forests contribute to water availability not just downstream, but also downwind through “flying rivers.” Droughts experienced in the South of Brazil in recent years have in fact been linked to the deforestation of the Amazon resulting in the reduction in rainfall brought by the “flying rivers”.
Source FAO
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Q: What are the two landlocked Latin American countries?
Stay tuned for the answer to today’s question in Monday’s DailyGeo.
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