by tyler | Sep 28, 2023 | CNN, world
The formation of a new “supercontinent” could wipe out humans and all other mammals still alive in 250 million years, researchers have predicted.
Using the first-ever supercomputer climate models of the distant future, scientists from the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom predicted how climate extremes would intensify after the world’s continents merge to form one supercontinent, Pangea Ultima, in around 250 million years.
They found it would be extremely hot, dry and virtually uninhabitable for humans and mammals, who are not evolved to cope with prolonged exposure to excessive heat.
Researchers simulated temperature, wind, rain and humidity trends for the supercontinent and used models of tectonic plate movement, ocean chemistry and biology to calculate carbon dioxide levels.
They found that not only would the formation of Pangea Ultima lead to more regular volcanic eruptions, spewing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and warming the planet, but the sun would also become brighter, emitting more energy and warming the Earth further, experts noted in the paper, published Monday in the journal Nature Geoscience.
“The newly-emerged supercontinent would effectively create a triple whammy comprising the continentality effect, hotter sun and more CO2 in the atmosphere,” Alexander Farnsworth, senior research associate at the University of Bristol and lead author of the paper, said in a release Monday.
“Widespread temperatures of between 40 to 50 degrees Celsius (104 to 122 degrees Fahrenheit) and even greater daily extremes, compounded by high levels of humidity would ultimately seal our fate. Humans – along with many other species – would expire due to their inability to shed this heat through sweat, cooling their bodies,” Farnsworth added.
The increased heat, Farnsworth noted, would create an environment without food or water sources for mammals.
While there are large uncertainties when making predictions so far into the future, the scientists said that the picture appears “very bleak,” with only around 8% to 16% of land on the supercontinent habitable for mammals.
Carbon dioxide could be double current levels, according to the report, although that calculation was made on the assumption that humans stop burning fossil fuels now, “otherwise we will see those numbers much, much sooner,” Benjamin Mills, a professor of Earth system evolution at the University of Leeds and a report co-author, said in the release.
This grim outlook is no excuse for complacency when it comes to tackling today’s climate crisis, the report authors warned. Human-caused climate change is already resulting in millions of deaths around the world every year.
“It is vitally important not to lose sight of our current climate crisis, which is a result of human emissions of greenhouse gases,” co-author Eunice Lo, research fellow in climate change and health at the University of Bristol, said in the release.
“While we are predicting an uninhabitable planet in 250 million years, today we are already experiencing extreme heat that is detrimental to human health. This is why it is crucial to reach net-zero emissions as soon as possible,” Lo added.
Climate change is on course to transform life on Earth, with billions of people and other species due to reach points where they can no longer adapt unless global warming is dramatically slowed, according to a major UN-backed report published last year.
Scientists have warned for decades warming needs to stay below 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, with the window to cut our reliance on fossil fuels and avoid catastrophic changes that would transform life as we know it rapidly closing.
The last mass extinction occurred some 66 million years ago, when an asteroid slammed into Earth and killed off the dinosaurs and most life on the planet.
by tyler | Sep 27, 2023 | CNN, world
A fire tore through a wedding hall in Qaraqosh in northern Iraq on Tuesday, killing at least 100 people and injuring 150 others, prompting anger at the lack of safety measures at the venue.
Fireworks were set off at the venue in the Hamdaniya district of northeast Nineveh governorate, the Iraqi Civil Defense said, and an investigative committee was formed to identify the cause of the incident.
“The hall did not meet safety criteria. Because of the fireworks the ceiling collapsed on the people in the hall,” Interior Minister Abdul Amir al-Shammari told reporters on Wednesday.
“Justice will be served to those who were negligent,” Al-Shammari added.
Nine people were arrested following the fire, the Iraqi interior minister spokesperson Khalid al-Muhanna told CNN. Arrest warrants have been issued for another four, Al-Muhanna said.
There were 1,300 guests when the blaze broke out, the Iraqi Joint Operations Command Spokesperson Major General Pilot Tahseen Al Khafaji told CNN.
The groom, Rivan Esho and his bride Haneen, are both alive and in hospital receiving treatment, the father of the groom told CNN.
“I hold the owner of the hall responsible for what happened at the party because there are no extinguishers or safety measures in the hall,” the father said.
Survivors of the blaze were transferred to hospitals in Nineveh and the nearby Kurdistan region, Nineveh governor Najm Al-Jubouri told Iraqi state news agency INA. He said the final death and injury toll is yet to be determined.
Iraqis have been protesting across the country against corruption, unemployment and a lack of basic services – including electricity and clean water – as the country has failed to achieve stability following decades of sanctions and war. In 2019, hundreds of people died in violent protests demanding better living conditions across Iraq.
Negligence by authorities has led to a lack of safety measures amid reconstruction efforts following years of conflict.
The wedding hall where the fire broke out was covered with highly flammable Ecobond panels that violated safety instruction requirements, according to the Iraqi Civil Defense, INA reported.
“The fire led to the collapse of parts of the hall as a result of the use of highly flammable, low-cost building materials that collapse within minutes when fire breaks out,” the Iraqi Civil Defense said in a statement.
‘The bride and groom are fine’
Videos from the scene in Qaraqosh show thick smoke billowing out of the Al Haytham Wedding Hall while crowds and ambulances gather outside the venue.
A wedding guest told local media the bride and groom were devastated by the disaster.
“The bride and groom are fine. I was just with them now, but their condition is devastating due to what happened to people here,” the guest told private Iraqi channel Alawla TV.
Injured guests were also transferred to hospitals in the nearby cities of Mosul, Erbil and Duhok, Nader Salm, a 49-year-old translator from Qaraqosh, told CNN.
“There are hundreds of people injured, we are in need of blood,” Salm said. “This tragedy hurt us more than ISIS. At least when ISIS came we could escape, but now a wedding became a graveyard for us.”
Salm added that he has relatives who were injured and killed in the fire, while others are unaccounted for.
Prime Minister Mohammed Shiaa Al-Sudani has instructed his cabinet to assist those affected by the fire, according to a statement from his office.
The Iraqi leader has been in touch with the Nineveh governor by telephone about the incident and ordered a full mobilization to aid the victims, according to his office and INA.
The United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq expressed its condolences to family members of those killed and injured Tuesday, calling the incident “an immense tragedy.”
“Shocked and pained by the horrible loss of life and injuries in the fire,” the mission said on X, formerly known as Twitter.
The Iraqi government issued a three-day national mourning period following the blaze.
ISIS invaded Qaraqosh in August 2014 during its years-long grip on power in northern Iraq, triggering an exodus of refugees.
The group launched numerous assaults on the predominantly Christian town, destroying much of the infrastructure and leaving it in ruins.
Qaraqosh was liberated by US-backed Iraqi forces in October 2016.
by tyler | Sep 5, 2023 | CNN, world
Cuba says it has uncovered a human trafficking network operating from Russia that is recruiting Cubans to fight for their longstanding ally in Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
Cubans living in Russia and “even some in Cuba” had been trafficked and “incorporated into the military forces taking part in the war in Ukraine,” the Cuban foreign ministry said Monday in a statement.
The ministry gave few details about the alleged trafficking operations, but said that authorities were working to “neutralize and dismantle” the network.
There were no reports of any arrests of people allegedly involved in the trafficking operation. In September, reports surfaced on social media of Cubans who said they were serving in Russia’s armed forces but that they had been tricked into joining the war effort and mistreated when they refused to fight. CNN was not able to independently verify those allegations, and it is not clear how many Cubans may be fighting for Russia.
Cuba stressed in its statement that it “is not part of the war in Ukraine.” The Kremlin has not commented on the allegations.
The report comes amid efforts by Russia to boost its forces in Ukraine, which have suffered heavy losses on the battlefield, and with the future of the mercenary Wagner Group in doubt.
Moscow announced a plan earlier this year to increase the strength of the Russian armed forces by 30% to 1.5 million servicemen. In July, the Russian state Duma voted to extend the military draft age to include citizens from 18 to 30 years old, up from 27.
For much of the conflict, the official Russian army has been bolstered by mercenaries contracted to Wagner. But after the death of the group’s chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, who led his troops in an aborted mutiny against Moscow in June, it is unclear whether Russia will rely on Wagner forces to wage its war in Ukraine.
Cuba was a major ally of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and relations between Havana and Moscow have remained cozy since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Cuba has been a staunch defender of Russia’s war on the country, blaming the US and NATO for the conflict. As Cuba grapples with its worse economic crisis in decades, Russia has supplied the communist-run island with badly needed food and shipments of crude oil. Since the war began the two nations have signed a flurry of agreements promising increased Russian foreign investment in Cuba.
In a rare interview in May, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel told Russian state-controlled network RT that Cuba condemned “the expansion of NATO towards Russia’s borders,” echoing one of the Kremlin’s justifications for its brutal war.
Diaz-Canel visited Moscow in November last year to attend the unveiling of a statue of former Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu also traveled to Cuba on separate trips this year and hailed the relations between the two countries.
There are historical precedents of Cubans fighting alongside and on behalf of Russia.
In several conflicts in Africa during the Cold War, “the deal was the Cubans would supply the soldiers, the Soviets would supply the weapons,” Sergei Radchenko, a historian and professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, told CNN.
Thousands of Cuban fighters intervened in support of communist forces in Angola in 1975, as well as in Ethiopia in 1977, alongside Soviet troops and using Soviet equipment.
“Having Cuban mercenaries – you might call them mercenaries, or at that time it was revolutionary fighters – is a longstanding precedent as far as Cuba and the Cuban-Russian relationship is concerned,” said Radchenko. In Cuba, those military interventions – often fighting South African-trained mercenaries – are celebrated as having played a crucial role in ending apartheid in South Africa.
However, Radchenko said, the statement issued by Cuba’s foreign ministry “sounds like something very different,” due to the suggestion of coercion.
Christopher Sabatini, a senior fellow for Latin America at Chatham House, said he was not surprised that Russia is seeking Cuban mercenaries to wage its war.
“This is the typical Russian modus operandi of getting mercenaries to do their fighting for them – particularly in desperate states,” Sabatini told CNN, adding that Cuba “is on the brink of a humanitarian disaster.”
What was surprising, he said, was the reaction of the Cuban government, which suggests that Russia “touched a nerve.”
“The Cuban government is fiercely loyal to its allies,” Sabatini said. “That they would call this out is an indication that they truly feel humiliated and exploited by what is an ally taking advantage of their citizens – at a time of desperate need.”
Russia has offered foreign fighters more than $2000 a month to fight in Ukraine, a fortune in Cuba where doctors do not earn that much in an entire year. Russia has also reportedly offered citizenship to foreigners willing to take up arms.
“It’s particularly insulting, too, because the way you are rewarding these mercenaries is giving them a chance to flee their country,” said Sabatini. “That hurts.”
In May, the Russian regional newspaper Ryazan Vedomosti reported that Cuban immigrants living in Russia had joined the Russian army.
“Several citizens of the Republic of Cuba went to serve in the Russian army. According to them, the Cubans want to help our country carry out tasks in the zone of a special military operation, and some of them would like to become citizens of Russia in the future,” said the article.
by tyler | Aug 4, 2023 | CNN, world
Climate activist Greta Thunberg has canceled an appearance at the Edinburgh International Book Festival after accusing one of the festival’s main sponsors of greenwashing.
Thunberg announced her decision to pull out of the event in a statement shared by the festival on Friday, outlining her belief that as a climate activist she cannot attend an event sponsored by investment management firm, Ballie Gifford, due to its connections with the fossil fuel industry.
She was set to speak at the 3,000 seat Playhouse Theatre in Edinburgh on August 13 to discuss her appeal for climate action in an event titled: “Greta Thunberg: It’s Not Too Late to Change the World.”
“I am unfortunately unable to attend the Edinburgh Book Festival. As a climate activist I cannot attend an event which receives sponsorship from Baillie Gifford, who invests heavily in the fossil fuel industry,” Thunberg said.
“Greenwashing efforts by the fossil fuel industry, including sponsorship of cultural events, allow them to keep the social license to continue operating. I cannot and do not want to be associated with events that accept this kind of sponsorship,” her statement continued.
Greenwashing is a practice where marketing and PR language is intentionally misleading and used to convince consumers that something is better for the planet than it really is. The term can also be used to describe corporations or businesses using philanthropy or association with environmental issues to distract from their ecologically harmful business activities.
The festival’s director, Nick Barley responded in a separate statement, saying that although he is “disappointed” that Thunberg will no longer be appearing he fully respected her decision.
“I share Greta’s view that in all areas of society the rate of progress is not enough,” Barley continued.
Barley went on to highlight the crucial role played by organizations such as Baillie Gifford in keeping an event such as the Edinburgh International Book Festival alive.
“The Book Festival exists to give a platform for debate and discussion around key issues affecting humanity today – including the climate emergency. As a charitable organisation, we would not be in a position to provide that platform without the long-term support of organisations such as Baillie Gifford,” Barley said.
He defended Baillie Gifford’s record on climate, pointing towards the company’s investment in “progressive climate positive companies,” adding that the festival has seen Baillie Gifford make “rapid progress” on climate issues during its 19-year partnership with the company.
In a separate statement, Baillie Gifford denied the claims made by Thunberg, saying: “We are not a significant fossil fuel investor.”
The company said that only 2% of its clients’ money is invested in companies with some business related to fossil fuels, also pointing to its investment in clean energy solutions.
The festival, which is set to kick off in the Scottish capital on August 12, has pledged to offer a full refund to all those who had purchased tickets to see Thunberg.
by tyler | Aug 2, 2023 | CNN, world
Here is a look at the life of Aung San Suu Kyi, Burmese activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner.
Birth date: June 19, 1945
Birth place: Rangoon (Yangon), Burma (Myanmar)
Birth name: Aung San Suu Kyi
Father: Aung San, commander of the Burma Independence Army. Helped negotiate Burma’s independence from Britain. Assassinated on July 19, 1947.
Mother: Ma Khin Kyi, diplomat and later an ambassador to India.
Marriage: Michael Aris (January 1, 1972-March 27, 1999, his death)
Children: Kim (Burmese name: Htein Lin) and Alexander (Burmese name: Myint San Aung)
Education: St. Hughes College, Oxford University, B.A. in philosophy, politics and economics, 1967
Religion: Buddhist
Referred to as Daw Aung San Suu Kyi; “Daw” is an honorific title.
Grew up in Myanmar and India but moved to England in the 1960s.
1964 – Moves to England to study at Oxford University.
1969-1971 – Works at the United Nations in New York as assistant secretary for the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions.
1985-1986 – Is a visiting scholar at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University, Japan.
1987 – Is a fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies in Simla, India.
April 1988 – Returns to Myanmar when her mother suffers a severe stroke.
August 26, 1988 – In her first public address, outside the Shwedagon Pagoda, calls for a multiparty democratic government.
September 24, 1988 – Co-founds the National League for Democracy (NLD), a party dedicated to nonviolence and civil disobedience, and is appointed general secretary.
July 20, 1989 – Is placed under house arrest for charges of trying to divide the military, charges she denies.
May 27, 1990 – Her party, the NLD, wins more than 80% of the legislative seats, but the State Law and Order Restoration Council does not recognize the election results.
July 10, 1991 – Wins the Sakharov human rights prize from the European Parliament.
October 14, 1991 – Wins the Nobel Peace Prize “for her non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights.”
July 10, 1995 – Is released from house arrest, but her political activity is restricted.
September 23, 2000 – Is again placed under house arrest.
December 6, 2000 – US President Bill Clinton awards the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Suu Kyi in absentia.
May 6, 2002 – Is released from house arrest.
May 30, 2003 – While traveling in Myanmar, her motorcade is attacked by a pro-government mob and she is held by the military. Later, she is placed under house arrest.
November 29, 2004 – Learns her house arrest has been extended for another year.
May 2006 – House arrest is extended for another year.
June 9, 2006 – US Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs Sean McCormack tells reporters that Suu Kyi has been hospitalized for an undisclosed ailment.
May 25, 2007 – The government extends her house arrest for another year.
May 6, 2008 – US President George W. Bush signs legislation awarding a Congressional Gold Medal to Suu Kyi.
May 27, 2008 – The government extends her house arrest for another year.
May 14, 2009 – Suu Kyi is arrested and charged with violating the terms of her house arrest. This is in response to an incident earlier in the month, when American John Yettaw swam uninvited to Suu Kyi’s lakeside house. If convicted she faces up to five years in prison.
May 18, 2009 – Suu Kyi’s trial on charges of government subversion begins.
August 11, 2009 – Suu Kyi is found guilty of violating the terms of her house arrest and sentenced to three years in prison with hard labor. The sentence is reduced to 18 additional months of home confinement.
May 7, 2010 – The NLD refuses to register for the election, thereby disqualifying itself as a political party, and officially dissolves.
November 13, 2010 – Suu Kyi is released from house arrest. She has spent 15 of the last 21 years under house arrest.
November 15, 2010 – Speaking to reporters at the headquarters of the NLD, Suu Kyi pledges to keep working toward restoring democracy and improving human rights in Myanmar.
January 28, 2011 – Suu Kyi’s recorded message, in which she stresses the need for Myanmar to reestablish ties with the rest of the world, is played at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland.
November 18, 2011 – Nyan Win, the spokesman for Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, says that Suu Kyi will participate in the next elections. The NLD announced earlier in the day that it planned to re-register as a political party and participate in all future parliamentary elections.
December 13, 2011 – The NLD is granted permission to register for future elections in Myanmar.
January 18, 2012 – Suu Kyi registers to run for a parliamentary seat.
April 1, 2012 – Wins a seat in parliament in Myanmar’s first multiparty elections since 1990.
May 2, 2012 – Along with 33 other newly elected members of her party, Suu Kyi takes the oath of office for parliament, resolving an impasse over the oath’s wording that had been preventing her from taking her seat in the legislature.
May 29, 2012 – Makes history by stepping on foreign soil for the first time in more than two decades when she arrives in Bangkok, Thailand.
June 1, 2012 – Suu Kyi speaks at the World Economic Forum on East Asia.
June 16, 2012 – Delivers her acceptance speech for her 1991 Nobel Peace Prize, in Oslo, Norway.
June 21, 2012 – Addresses both houses of the British parliament.
September 19, 2012 – Suu Kyi accepts the Congressional Gold Medal in Washington, DC. She later meets with US President Barack Obama.
November 19, 2012 – Meets with Obama at the lakeside villa where she spent years under house arrest. Obama praises Suu Kyi for her courage and determination during his visit to Myanmar, the first visit by a sitting US president.
March 10, 2013 – Wins reelection as opposition leader.
October 22, 2013 – Suu Kyi accepts the 1990 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in Strasbourg, France, originally awarded to her in 1991.
June 10, 2015 – During her first visit to China, meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
November 13, 2015 – Myanmar’s election commission announces that Suu Kyi’s NLD party has won a historic majority in the nation’s first freely held parliamentary elections. Suu Kyi is not able to become president because of a constitutional amendment that prohibits anyone with foreign relatives from becoming the nation’s leader.
April 5, 2016 – Suu Kyi is named state counselor, a role created especially for her. The post allows her to be in contact with ministries, departments, organizations, associations and individuals, and makes her accountable to parliament, according to Myanmar’s state media. While Suu Kyi is barred from holding the office of president, the new position is widely expected to allow her to rule by proxy.
September 14, 2016 – Suu Kyi meets with Obama at the White House for the first time since becoming the de facto leader of her country. As Suu Kyi arrives, Obama issues a statement saying he will reinstate Myanmar to the Generalized System of Preferences, which will help Myanmar with economic development, exportation of goods and job creation.
April 5, 2017 – Speaking to the BBC, Suu Kyi denies that ethnic cleansing has taken place against Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslim ethnic minority, amid reports of human rights abuses in Rakhine.
March 7, 2018 – The US Holocaust Museum announces it is rescinding the Elie Wiesel Award granted to Suu Kyi in 2012 because of her failure to intervene in the humanitarian crisis occurring in Myanmar’s Rakhine State.
November 13, 2018 – Amnesty International announces their decision to revoke the Ambassador of Conscience Award from Suu Kyi, which she received from them in 2009. Suu Kyi has had a string of awards and accolades revoked amid the Rohingya crisis.
December 2019 – Suu Kyi leads a legal team to the International Court of Justice in the Netherlands after the nation of Gambia filed a lawsuit in the world court alleging that Myanmar committed “genocidal acts” that “were intended to destroy the [country’s persecuted] Rohingya as a group” through mass murder, rape and destruction of communities.
January 23, 2020 – The UN’s top court orders Myanmar to prevent acts of genocide against the Rohingya and to stop destroying evidence.
November 13, 2020 – Suu Kyi’s NLD wins enough parliamentary seats to form the next government, according to official results of a general election.
February 1, 2021 – Myanmar’s military seizes power in a coup and declares a state of emergency after detaining Suu Kyi and other senior government leaders in early morning raids.
March 1, 2021 – Suu Kyi appears in court via video conference where she is charged with two more counts. One under Myanmar’s colonial-era penal code prohibiting publishing information that may “cause fear or alarm,” and another under a telecommunications law stipulating licenses for equipment, her lawyer said according to Reuters. This brings the total charges against her to four. In February, she was charged in relation to a national disaster law and a count under the country’s import and export act.
April 12, 2021 – Suu Kyi’s attorney tells CNN that Suu Kyi is facing a sixth charge under the country’s National Disaster Management Law. Earlier in the month Suu Kyi was charged with violating the official secrets act.
April 16, 2021 – Opponents of the military junta announce the creation of an interim national unity government, and name Suu Kyi as the de facto leader.
May 24, 2021 – Suu Kyi attends a court hearing, her first appearance in person since the military seized power on February 1.
June 14, 2021 – Suu Kyi’s trial begins. The trial addresses three charges, including that Suu Kyi, violated a communications law by allegedly importing and using a number of walkie-talkie radios, and violated coronavirus restrictions during election campaigning last year.
November 16, 2021 – Suu Kyi is charged with election fraud by Myanmar’s Union Election Commission.
December 6, 2021 – Suu Kyi is sentenced to four years in prison on charges of incitement and breaking Covid-19 rules. Her sentence is later reduced to two years.
January 10, 2022 – Suu Kyi is sentenced to another four years in prison. She was found guilty of multiple charges that include possession of unlicensed walkie-talkies, a source with knowledge of the court proceedings told CNN.
April 27, 2022 – A court sentences Suu Kyi to five years in jail after finding her guilty in the first of 11 corruption cases against her, according to a source with knowledge of proceedings. The case centers on allegations that Suu Kyi accepted 11.4 kg (402 oz) of gold and cash payments totaling $600,000 from her protege-turned-accuser, former Yangon chief minister Phyo Min Thein. Suu Kyi has denied the charges and called the allegations “absurd.”
August 16, 2022 – State media reports that Suu Kyi has been sentenced to six more years in prison after being convicted on four extra counts of corruption.
September 2, 2022 – Is sentenced to three years in prison with hard labor on charges of electoral fraud. The latest verdict in the series of trials against the Nobel laureate takes her total jail term to 20 years. However, this is the first time Suu Kyi has been sentenced to hard labor since the country’s most recent military coup in 2021. She was given hard labor in a separate trial under a previous administration in 2009 but that sentence was commuted.
September 29, 2022 – A military court sentences Suu Kyi and her former adviser, Australian Sean Turnell, to three years in prison for violating the country’s Official State Secrets Act.
October 12, 2022 – Is sentenced to three additional years in jail for corruption.
December 30, 2022 – Is sentenced to seven years in prison for corruption, bringing an end to a string of secretive and highly-politicized proceedings. Suu Kyi’s total jail term is 33 years, including three years of hard labor. She has denied all of the charges levied against her, and her lawyers have said they are politically motivated.
August 1, 2023 – It is announced that Myanmar’s ruling military junta has pardoned Suu Kyi on five charges for which she was previously convicted. The five charges pardoned include offenses against defamation, natural disaster laws, export and import laws and the country’s telecommunication law. Suu Kyi’s jail sentence will be reduced by six years.
by tyler | Aug 2, 2023 | CNN, world
Here’s a look at the International Space Station (ISS), a spacecraft built by a partnership of 16 nations: United States, Canada, Japan, Russia, Brazil, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
Information on ISS crews and expeditions can be found here.
The ISS includes three main modules connected by nodes: the US Laboratory Module Destiny, the European Research Laboratory Columbus, and the Japanese Experiment Module Kibo (Hope). Each was launched separately and connected in space by astronauts.
Mass: 925,335 pounds (419,725 kilograms)
Habitable Volume: 13,696 cubic feet (388 cubic meters)
Solar Array Length: 239 feet (75 meters)
The ISS orbits Earth 16 times a day.
As of June 22, 2023, 266 spacewalks have been conducted for station assembly and maintenance.
November 1998 – A Russian Proton rocket places the first piece, the Zarya module, in orbit.
December 1998 – The space shuttle Endeavour crew, on the STS-88 mission, attaches the Unity module to Zarya initiating the first ISS assembly sequence.
June 1999 – The space shuttle Discovery crew, on mission STS-96, supplies two modules with tools and cranes.
July 2000 – Zvezda, the fifth flight, docks with the ISS to become the third major component of the station.
November 2000 – The first permanent crew, Expedition One, arrives at the station.
November/December 2000 – The space shuttle Endeavour crew, on mission STS-97, installs the first set of US solar arrays on the station and visits Expedition One.
February 2001 – Mission STS-98 delivers the US Destiny Laboratory Module.
March 2001 – STS-102 delivers Expedition Two to the station and brings Expedition One home. The crew also brings Leonardo, the first Multi-Purpose Logistics Module, to the station.
September 16, 2001 – The Russian Docking Compartment, Pirs, arrives at the ISS.
June 2002 – STS-111 delivers the Expedition Five crew and brings the Expedition Four crew home. The crew also brings the Mobile Base System to the orbital outpost.
December 2002 – STS-113 delivers the Expedition Six crew and the P1 Truss.
May 3, 2003 – Expedition Six crew return to Earth on Soyuz TMA-1. Crew members Kenneth Bowersox and Don Pettit are the first American astronauts ever to land in a Soyuz spacecraft.
July 29, 2003 – Marks the 1,000th consecutive day of people living and working aboard the ISS (this is a record for the station, but not for space).
August 10, 2003 – Russian Cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko marries his fiancée Ekaterina Dmitriev from space. The bride and groom exchange vows over a hotline set up for the event. Dmitriev stands next to a life-sized picture of Malenchenko.
April 22, 2004 – The second of four gyroscopes that stabilize the orbiting outpost of the ISS fails. NASA officials say this does not pose an immediate threat to the crew. An extra spacewalk will have to be conducted to the fix the electrical component box thought to be at fault.
November 2, 2005 – Fifth anniversary of continuous human presence in space on the ISS.
February 3, 2006 – SuitSat-1, an unmanned space suit containing a radio transmitter is deployed as a part of an ISS spacewalk. The suit is supposed to transmit recorded messages in six languages to school children and amateur radio operators for several days before reentering Earth’s atmosphere and burning up, but it goes silent shortly after its deployment.
March 31, 2006 – Arriving with the crew of Expedition Thirteen is Marcos Pontes, the first Brazilian astronaut. Staying eight days, Pontes conducts scientific experiments before returning to Earth with the crew of Expedition Twelve.
July 7, 2006 – The arrival of Thomas Reiter of Germany via the Space Shuttle Discovery returns the station’s long-duration crew to three for the first time since May 2003 and the Columbia shuttle disaster. Reiter is the first non-US and non-Russian long-duration station crewmember, and he remains onboard during the first part of Expedition Fourteen.
September 9, 2006 – Space Shuttle Atlantis docks with the ISS, delivering the P3/P4 truss and its solar wings before undocking September 21 and returning to Earth.
September 20, 2006 – Arriving with the crew of Expedition Fourteen is Anousheh Ansari, an American businesswoman. She spends about eight days conducting experiments and blogging about her experiences before returning to Earth with two of the three members of Expedition Thirteen.
December 2006 – Arrival of Flight Engineer Sunita Williams via space shuttle mission STS-116. Williams replaces Reiter, who returns to Earth with the crew of STS-116.
April 7, 2007 – Charles Simonyi becomes the fifth space tourist when he accompanies the Expedition Fifteen crew to the ISS. He spends 12 days aboard the space station before returning to Earth with the crew of Expedition Fourteen.
June 10, 2007 – Space Shuttle Atlantis docks with the the ISS to install a new segment and solar panel on the space station and retrieve astronaut Williams, who has been at the space station since December. Williams is replaced by Flight Engineer Clayton Anderson, who will return to earth aboard Discovery on Mission STS-120.
June 15, 2007 – Four days after ISS’s computers crash, two Russian cosmonauts bring them back online. The computers control the station’s orientation as well as oxygen production. The crew used Atlantis’ thrusters to help maintain the station’s position while its computers were down.
October 25, 2007 – Space Shuttle Discovery docks with the ISS. In the days while docked with the ISS, the Discovery crew delivers and connects Harmony to the ISS, a living and working compartment that will also serve as the docking port for Japanese and European Union laboratories. Discovery and ISS crew also move an ISS solar array to prepare for future ISS expansion, planning a special spacewalk to repair damage to the solar array that occurred during its unfurling.
November 14, 2007 – ISS crew move the Harmony node from its temporary location on the Unity node to its permanent location attached to Destiny.
February 9, 2008 – Space Shuttle Atlantis arrives. Its crew delivers the European-made Columbus laboratory, a 23-foot long module that will be home to a variety of science experiments. Atlantis remains docked with the ISS for just under nine days.
March 9, 2008 – “Jules Verne,” the first of a series of European space vessels designed to deliver supplies to the ISS, launches from the Ariane Launch Complex in Kourou, French Guiana. The vessels, called Automated Transfer Vehicles (ATV), are propelled into space atop an Ariane 5 rocket, and are designed to dock with the ISS with no human assistance. The Jules Verne will wait to dock with the ISS until after Space Shuttle Endeavour’s March mission is completed.
March 12, 2008 – Space Shuttle Endeavour docks with the ISS.
March 24, 2008 – Endeavour detaches from the ISS. While docked, crew members make five spacewalks to deliver and assemble the Dextre Robotics System, deliver and attach the Kibo logistics module, attach science experiments to the exterior of the ISS, and perform other inspection and maintenance tasks.
April 3, 2008 – The unmanned European cargo ship Jules Verne successfully docks with the ISS. Able to carry more than three times the volume of the Russian-built Progress resupply vehicles, the Jules Verne contains fuel, water, oxygen and other supplies.
April 10, 2008 – Two members of Expedition 17 crew arrive at the ISS via a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Travelling with them is Yi So-yeon, a space flight participant and South Korea’s first astronaut. Yi later returns to Earth aboard an older Soyuz spacecraft along with members of the Expedition 16 crew.
June 2, 2008 – Space Shuttle Discovery docks with the ISS. Discovery is carrying Japan’s Kibo lab, a replacement pump for the station’s toilet, and astronaut Gregory Chamitoff, who is replacing Garrett Reisman as part of the station’s crew.
June 11, 2008 – Discovery undocks with the ISS after its crew successfully delivers and installs the Japanese-built Kibo lab, delivers parts to repair the ISS’s malfunctioning toilet, collects debris samples from the station’s faulty solar power wing, and retrieves an inspection boom left behind during a previous shuttle mission. Station crewmember Reisman departs with Discovery.
October 12, 2008 – The Soyuz TMA-13 capsule carrying two Americans – flight commander Michael Fincke and computer game millionaire Richard Garriott, and Russian flight engineer Yuri Lonchakov – lifts off from Kazakhstan. It docks with the ISS on October 14.
March 12, 2009 – Orbital debris from a prior space shuttle mission forces the crew of Expedition 18 to temporarily retreat to its Soyuz capsule.
August 24, 2011 – Russian emergency officials report that an unmanned Russian cargo craft, the Progress-M12M that was to deliver 3.85 tons of food and supplies to the ISS, crashed in a remote area of Siberia.
May 19, 2012 – SpaceX’s launch of the Falcon 9 rocket, the first private spacecraft bound for the ISS, is aborted a half a second before liftoff. SpaceX engineers trace the problem to a faulty rocket engine valve.
May 22, 2012 – The unmanned SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The rocket carries the Dragon spacecraft, which is filled with food, supplies and science experiments and bound for the ISS.
May 25, 2012 – The unmanned SpaceX Dragon spacecraft connects to the International Space Station, the first private spacecraft to successfully reach an orbiting space station.
October 7, 2012 – SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, with its Dragon capsule carrying 1,000 pounds of supplies bound for the ISS, launches from Florida’s Cape Canaveral. It is the first of a dozen NASA-contracted flights to resupply the International Space Station, at a total cost of $1.6 billion.
May 9, 2013 – The crew discovers that the ISS is leaking ammonia. The crew performs a spacewalk and corrects the leak two days later.
November 9, 2013 – Russian cosmonauts perform the first ever spacewalk of the Olympic Torch ahead of the 2014 Sochi Winter Games.
December 11, 2013 – A pump on one of the station’s two external cooling loops shuts down after hitting a temperature limit, according to NASA. The malfunctioning loop had been producing too much ammonia, possibly the result of a malfunctioning valve.
December 24, 2013 – Astronauts complete a repair job to replace the problematic pump. Their spacewalk lasts seven and a half hours, and is the second ever spacewalk on Christmas Eve. The first was in 1999 for a Hubble Repair Mission.
March 10, 2014 – After five and a half months aboard the ISS, Expedition 38 astronauts return to earth aboard the Soyuz TMA-10M spacecraft.
September 16, 2014 – NASA announces that Boeing and Space X have been awarded contracts to build vehicles that will shuttle astronauts to and from the space station.
December 15, 2015 – Astronaut Tim Peake is the first British European Space Agency astronaut to arrive at the ISS.
March 2, 2016 – NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko land in the Kazakhstan desert after a nearly yearlong mission on the ISS.
August 3, 2018 – NASA selects nine astronauts, seven men and two women, for missions in spacecraft developed by Boeing and SpaceX. The flights, scheduled for 2019, will be the first launches to space from US soil since the Space Shuttle program was retired in 2011, and the first in capsules developed and built by the private sector.
June 2019 – NASA announces the ISS is opening for commercial use. The newest NASA directive is intended to allow “commercial manufacturing and production and allow both NASA and private astronauts to conduct new commercial activities aboard the orbiting laboratory.”
October 18, 2019 – NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Christina Koch conduct the first all-female spacewalk outside of the ISS. The spacewalk last seven hours and 17 minutes.
May 30, 2020 – SpaceX and NASA’s Falcon 9, bound for the ISS, launches. This is the first crewed spaceflight to launch from US soil since 2011. The astronauts spend two months working on the ISS, then return to Earth on August 2.
November 16, 2020 – The SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft with four astronauts on board safely docks with the ISS. The spacecraft launched from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center on November 15 and marks the first fully operational crewed mission for SpaceX.
April 21, 2021 – Russia announces that it is ready to start building its own space station with the aim of launching it into orbit by 2030, according to Interfax news agency. The project will mark a new chapter for Russian space exploration. Russia, which signed a memorandum of understanding in March to explore establishing a joint lunar base with China, will notify its ISS partners regarding its departure from ISS at a future date.
June 16, 2021 – NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough and European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet conduct a spacewalk to install solar arrays on the space station. After technical delays, the work is completed four days later. The arrays are rolled up like carpet and are 750 pounds (340 kilograms) and 10 feet (three meters) wide. They will provide a power boost to the space station.
January 31, 2022 – NASA reveals it intends to keep operating the ISS until the end of 2030, after which the ISS will be crashed into a remote part of the Pacific Ocean known as Point Nemo.
April 9, 2022 – The first crew entirely comprised of private citizens reaches the ISS.
July 26, 2022 – Russia announces it is planning to pull out of the ISS after 2024, ending its decades-long partnership with NASA at the orbiting outpost.
October 6, 2022 – A SpaceX capsule carrying a multinational crew of astronauts docks with the ISS after a 29-hour trek. The mission launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 12 p.m. ET on October 5. The four crew members included astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada of NASA, astronaut Koichi Wakata of Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and cosmonaut Anna Kikina of Roscosmos, the first Russian to travel on a SpaceX spaceflight.
October 24, 2022 – According to NASA, the ISS fires its thrusters to maneuver out of the way of a piece of oncoming Russian space junk.
December 22, 2022 – Two NASA astronauts carry out a spacewalk to install a new solar panel on the ISS. The spacewalk lasts about seven hours.
