As the final deadline of the temporary suspension is on 3 August 2024, the Commission is now proposing to permanently reintroduce the visa requirement for Vanuatu nationals.
It is now for the European Parliament and the Council to examine this proposal and decide whether to permanently reintroduce the visa requirement for Vanuatu nationals.
Background
The EU currently has a visa-free regime with 64 non-EU countries and entities. Nationals of these countries can enter the Schengen area for short stays of up to 90 days in any 180-day period without a visa.
The past years have shown that significant challenges related to irregular migration and security can derive from visa-free travel. One such challenges derives from investor citizenship schemes operated by visa-free countries.
In October 2023, the Commission proposed to revise the Visa Suspension Mechanism to better address situations of abuse of visa-free travel; including those derived by the operation of investors citizenship schemes in visa-free countries. The proposal is currently under examination by the European Parliament and the Council.
This milestone marks the beginning of an investment offensive aimed at adding 1,000 MW to the Cuban energy matrix, while seeking to reduce fuel consumption in electricity generation.
Among the attendees were the vice prime minister of the Republic, Commander of the Revolution Ramiro Valdés Menéndez, and the Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China, Ma Hui, along with other leaders of the country, the province of Villa Clara and the Santo Domingo municipality. .
The Polar Knowledge Canada project started in 2019. Hass has been part of its work for the past six months. In southern Canada, wind turbines can be up to 64 metres tall because turbines need to reach that height to catch the faster wind speeds.
But in Cambridge Bay, the turbine can be shorter because winds blow stronger even at that lower level, Hass said. “The physical conditions of the Arctic are really conducive to using wind turbines as an alternative energy source,” she said.
According to Environment and Climate Change Canada, the average wind speed in Cambridge Bay between 1991 and 2020 was 19.3 km/h compared to 11.5 km/h in Ottawa and 12.2 km/h in Edmonton.
To brace for the impact of the strong winds, the Arctic turbine’s blades flex and become shorter to better absorb the pressure.
The turbine model being installed at the research station can generate between 400 and 900 kilowatt hours per month. That type of generation would be enough to provide electricity and heating for one Arctic home, Hass said.
However, she added the goal would not be to provide one 15-metre wind turbine for a home, but to have a couple of them to power a building such as a school or community centre.
Testing the turbine in Cambridge Bay will help determine how well the technology works for when communities decide they want wind energy.
She said she couldn’t offer a start date “but we’re hoping to have it turning very quickly.”
In other communities, challenges involved in running a wind turbine like this include capital costs, such as for the turbine structure itself, as well as for a foundation and whatever electrical equipment is needed, Hass said.
Hass could not say how much the turbine would cost, saying it’s tough to predict because the cost will vary from community to community.
Once the turbine is installed, the operating costs will be small. “It’s almost free energy,” she said.
This project is part of Polar Knowledge’s larger goal of providing consistent renewable energy for northern communities while moving them away from their dependence on diesel, Hass said.
This is the first phase of Polar Knowledge’s renewable energy hub, which plans to also test biofuels, solar energy and hydrogen energy.
The body was discovered on rocky terrain close to a fence about 50 metres from a small resort which is accessible only by boat or by foot, on the opposite side of the bay where he had left his wife and friends earlier in the day. It is understood that the baseball cap he was wearing, and an umbrella he had been carrying to protect himself from the sun were found with him.
“It is clear from his watch and clothes that it is Dr Mosley,” a police spokesperson, Konstantina Dimoglou, said. It was unclear how long he had been dead. “We don’t know that yet but what we do know is that he had walked a very long way, he was very close to his destination.”
A news camera crew said they had spotted the body lying on rocky terrain from a boat in the bay of Ayia Marina, having zoomed in on an image they had captured.
“We located him [from a boat] when we went into the bay of Ayia Marina,” said the ERT journalist Aristides Miaoulis, who described how when the team’s camera operator looked back at his footage he noticed “something strange”.
“Looking back at the material he had got, he saw something strange near a fence, about 50 metres from the sea, and then we could see, once we zoomed in, that it was this man because his watch was glinting [in the sun].”
The island’s mayor, who was with the media team, said previously 200 people had searched the site and, yet, he had not been found. The Hellenic coastguard was immediately called to the area, and it was taped off.
Also, BRICS is rumored to be starting its own currency and we have already seen stuff like Sri Lanka using rupees to deal with its economic crisis. That's going to be very attractive to some countries hence the clamour to join.
Studies have shown that saltwater consumption has negative, long-lasting effects on nearly every stage of a woman’s reproductive cycle, from menstruation to birth.
Salinity in drinking water isn't just a Bangladesh problem, either. E.g. this is also happening in Uruguay, in Gaza, and probably about to happen in the Gulf of Mexico.