Bar Crobar

Russie : Vladimir Poutine accepte l’invitation de Kim Jong-un à se rendre en Corée du Nord

ALLIANCE Washington said on Wednesday it was "concerned" by the rapprochement between Moscow and Pyongyang

L’idylle se poursuit entre Moscou et Pyongyang. Le président russe Vladimir Poutine a accepté de se rendre en Corée du Nord sur invitation de son dirigeant Kim Jong-un, actuellement en déplacement en Russie afin notamment de renforcer leurs liens sur le plan militaire. Pour l’heure, rien n’a toutefois été communiqué officiellement concernant un éventuel accord pour des livraisons de matériel militaire à la Russie afin de soutenir son offensive en Ukraine, comme évoqué par Washington.

A l’issue d’une rencontre mercredi, « Kim Jong-un a invité avec courtoisie Poutine à visiter la RPDC (République populaire démocratique de Corée) quand cela lui conviendra », a rapporté ce jeudi l’agence officielle nord-coréenne KCNA, utilisant le nom officiel de la Corée du Nord. Ce même jour, le numéro un nord-coréen a assuré à Vladimir Poutine que Moscou remporterait une « grande victoire » sur ses ennemis.

Des « perspectives » de coopération militaire

Poutine a de son côté trinqué au « renforcement futur de la coopération » avec Pyongyang, parlant devant la presse de « perspectives » de coopération militaire avec la Corée du Nord malgré les sanctions internationales.

Après l’arrivée mardi du dirigeant nord-coréen en Russie à bord de son train blindé, Kim Jong-un et Vladimir Poutine ont visité des installations du cosmodrome de Vostotchny, en Extrême-Orient, achevé en 2016 et qui doit remplacer à terme la base spatiale historique de Baïkonour. Ils ont ensuite mené des discussions officielles d’environ deux heures avec leurs délégations et en tête-à-tête. Les ministres russes de la Défense Sergueï Choïgou, des Affaires étrangères Sergueï Lavrov, ainsi que celui de l’Industrie Denis Mantourov, participaient aux discussions.

Selon Vladimir Poutine, Kim Jong-un va par ailleurs assister à Vladivostok à une « démonstration » de la marine militaire russe dans le Pacifique. Le dirigeant nord-coréen visitera également en Extrême-Orient des usines d’équipements aéronautiques « civils et militaires », a indiqué le chef de l’Etat russe.

Washington menace de nouvelles sanctions

Les Etats-Unis ont exprimé leur « préoccupation », affirmant que la Russie était intéressée par l’achat de munitions nord-coréennes pour soutenir son invasion de l’Ukraine. « Nous sommes évidemment préoccupés par toute relation de défense naissante entre la Corée du Nord et la Russie », a déclaré le porte-parole du Conseil de sécurité nationale, John Kirby.

A Vostotchny, Vladimir Poutine a pour sa part évoqué la possibilité que la Russie aide Pyongyang à construire des satellites, après que la Corée du Nord a récemment échoué à deux reprises à mettre en orbite un satellite militaire espion. Matthew Miller, porte-parole du Département d’Etat américain, s’est inquiété de toute coopération dans le domaine des satellites, qui serait « en violation de plusieurs résolutions de l’ONU ». Les Etats-Unis « n’hésiteront pas » à imposer des sanctions le cas échéant contre Pyongyang et Moscou, a-t-il averti.

Text by 20 Minutes with AFP

ESPAGNE | LUIS RUBIALES ET LE BAISER FORCÉ À JENNIFER HERMOSO : « C’ÉTAIT UN ACTE RÉCIPROQUE »

Si Luis Rubiales a décidé de démissionner de son poste de président de la Fédération espagnole de football, il continue de se défendre à propos du baiser à la joueuse Jennifer Hermoso après le sacre mondial de la « Roja » féminine. Pour lui, c’était tout simplement un « acte réciproque », a-t-il assuré dans une interview accordée au journaliste Piers Morgan.

Luis Rubiales contre-attaque. Dans une interview accordée au journaliste Piers Morgan et diffusée mardi sur la chaîne britannique TalkTV, le désormais ex-président de la Fédération espagnole est revenu sur l’épisode du baiser à la joueuse Jennifer Hermoso après le sacre mondial de la « Roja » féminine.

" C’était un acte réciproque, elle est venue vers moi, très contente« , dit-il à propos d’un geste qui lui vaut depuis d’avoir démissionné et d’être convoqué vendredi par un juge d’instruction pour être entendu en tant qu’inculpé et répondre aux accusations d’agression sexuelle.

" Elle m’a soulevé, elle m’a soulevé dans les airs (…) Nous étions tous les deux émus. Lorsque nous avons touché le sol, j’ai eu un bref échange avec elle, nous nous sommes félicités. Je lui ai donné un rapide bisou. Je lui ai demandé, puis-je te donner un petit bisou ? Ce qui est normal dans notre pays (…) Je me souviens qu’elle m’a donné une ou deux tapes sur les flancs. Elle riait, et voilà c’est tout« , explique l’ex-dirigeant au cours de cette interview dans le cadre de l’émission « Piers Morgan sans filtre ».

MES INTENTIONS ÉTAIENT NOBLES

" Aucune intention (malveillante). Et bien sûr aucune connotation sexuelle ou quelque chose de ce genre. Rien d’autre qu’un moment de bonheur, une grande joie à ce moment là« , assure Rubiales dans cette interview. « Mes intentions étaient nobles, 100% non sexuelles, 100%, je répète 100%, » clame-t-il.

Une version démentie par Jenni Hermoso qui a dit s’être « sentie vulnérable et victime (…) d’un acte impulsif et sexiste, déplacé et sans aucun consentement de (ma) part« . Rubiales a ensuite même soutenu devant Piers Morgan qu’il aurait agi de la même façon s’il s’était agi d’un homme: « Ca ne fait aucun doute… Quand j’étais joueur, il y a eu des occasions, lorsque nous évitions une relégation ou obtenions une promotion notamment, où nous nous embrassions sur la bouche" .

Depuis une récente réforme du code pénal espagnol, un baiser non consenti peut être considéré comme une agression sexuelle, catégorie pénale regroupant tous les types de violence sexuelle.

Trump plaide non coupable de tentative de manipulation d’élection

L’ex-président américain Donald Trump a plaidé non coupable, selon un document judiciaire déposé jeudi. Il est inculpé de tentative d’inverser le résultat de la présidentielle de 2020 dans l’Etat de Géorgie.

Il s’agit du quatrième dossier pénal dans lequel est poursuivi le magnat, qui brigue de nouveau la Maison Blanche et reste le favori pour les primaires républicaines. La date de son procès dans cette affaire n’a pas encore été fixée.

Convoqué le 6 septembre pour sa mise en accusation publique en Géorgie, l’ex-président a indiqué dans le document judiciaire qu’il renonçait à son droit d’apparaître devant le juge et ne devrait donc pas se déplacer de nouveau à Atlanta.

M. Trump et 18 autres personnes, dont son ancien avocat Rudy Giuliani, ont été inculpés mi-août de tentatives illicites d’obtenir l’inversion du résultat de l’élection de 2020 dans cet Etat clé, remporté par l’actuel président démocrate Joe Biden.

La loi sur la délinquance en bande organisée, utilisée par la procureure dans ce dossier, prévoit des peines de cinq à vingt ans de prison.

Dans ce dossier, Donald Trump a dû se rendre la semaine dernière dans une prison d’Atlanta pour être fiché. Il y a été soumis à une prise de photo d’identité judiciaire, une première pour un ancien président américain, avant de rapidement repartir.

Marathon judiciaire

Le septuagénaire est en outre accusé à New York de paiements suspects à une ancienne actrice de films X, et par la justice fédérale de pressions électorales lors de la présidentielle de 2020 ainsi que de gestion négligente de documents confidentiels après son départ de la Maison Blanche.

L’ancien président a plaidé non coupable dans toutes ces affaires. Il attribue systématiquement ses déboires judiciaires à l’administration Biden, qu’il accuse d' »ingérence électorale » pour lui barrer la route à la Maison Blanche. Joe Biden est également candidat pour la prochaine présidentielle.

« Je n’ai rien fait de mal » en remettant en cause les résultats de la présidentielle de 2020, a martelé le tribun.

Le tempétueux républicain s’apprête en tout cas à vivre une année 2024 hors norme, entre campagne électorale et plusieurs procès, en mars et en mai – un calendrier qui pourrait encore évoluer. La présidentielle se tiendra elle en novembre.

Paradoxalement, chaque rebondissement judiciaire lui rapporte des millions de dollars en dons de campagne, versés par des trumpistes convaincus qu’il est victime d’une cabale politique.

Text by Keystone-ATS

Kylian Mbappé

Kylian Mbappé has reportedly given PSG bosses an ultimatum to decide between himself and Neymar, once again demanding the Brazilian's departure.

Twitter becomes "X", Elon Musk announces a change of name and logo for the social network

Gone is the little blue bird, 'X' replaces Twitter and the social network becomes accessible from the address 'x.com'.

MEDIA - "X". This is the incomplete message published by Elon Musk in the early hours of Monday 24 July to announce Twitter's new name and logo. The social network is thus living out its final hours in this form and is set to undergo a complete identity change: no more blue and no more bird. At 11am on Monday, the application's logo had already become an "X" on a black background.

Several months ago, the whimsical businessman and SpaceX boss announced that he wanted to turn Twitter into an "X", in homage to his favourite letter, as reported by the online media Numerama.

On Saturday evening, the project gathered pace when the billionaire tweeted: "we'll soon be saying goodbye to the Twitter brand and, gradually, to all the birds".before suggesting that the new logo could be a " X ".

The new logo projected onto the headquarters in San Francisco

On Sunday, playing with suspense, he pinned to his Twitter profile a video posted by a user of the platform showing the current Twitter logo, a blue bird, replaced by a flashing X. "If a good enough X logo is posted tonight, we'll put it online worldwide tomorrow".he added.

Linda Yaccarino, Twitter's new CEO since May, has confirmed this project. X will create "a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services and opportunities".she said on her account on Monday, adding: "Powered by AI, X will connect us all in ways we've only just begun to imagine".. She also posted an image of the new logo projected onto Twitter's headquarters in San Francisco.

After buying Twitter last year for 44 billion dollars, Elon Musk changed the name of the company to "X Corp in April 2023, and regularly mentions its nebulous plans to transform it into a multi-faceted application, with financial services, like WeChat in China.

Tweets become 'X's

In response to a question from an Internet user asking whether Twitter would be accessible from the x.com address, Elon Musk replied: "Of course. X.com was the name and website of the online bank founded by the businessman which later became the online payment service PayPal.

Asked by another user, Musk also said that tweets would be called Xs after the name change.

The name change comes at a time of difficulty for Twitter, where Elon Musk has laid off around half the staff and advertising revenues have halved, according to the billionaire. The social network faces a myriad of competing applications, including newcomer Threads, launched by Meta.

Text by Le HuffPost with AFP

Wimbledon. King Carlitos", "Sir Carlos": the Spanish press praise Alcaraz

Prophète en son pays et admiré à l’étranger, Carlos Alcaraz est adoubé par l’ensemble de la presse sportive européenne, après son sacre en finale de Wimbledon face à Novak Djokovic, ce dimanche 16 juillet.

Deuxième couronne pour Carlos Alcaraz. Ce dimanche, après un match dantesque contre l’homme le plus titré de l’histoire en Grands Chelems, Novak Djokovic, le jeune espagnol de 20 ans, a remporté le deuxième Majeur de sa carrière après l’US Open en 2022. Beaucoup de médias ont donc associé ce sacre à celui de Juan Carlos 1er, roi d’Espagne entre 1975 et 2014.

Roi en son pays

En France, comme en Espagne, les références royales ont déferlé dans les médias sportifs. As, comme L’Équipe ont fait allusion au roi Juan Carlos avec « El Rey Carlitos » et « Le Roi Carlos » pour le journal français.

Toujours dans cette comparaison avec le roi, Marca a joué avec l’hymne anglais « God save the king » pour titrer, en espagnol « Dios salve al nuevo rey » (que dieu protège le nouveau roi).

Dans le même style, Mundo Deportivo a souhaité mettre en avant le nouveau titre obtenu par Carlos Alcaraz en lui ajoutant le préfixe de noblesse « Sir ».

En Italie aussi, le Corriere dello Sport s’amuse avec « AlcaRe », « Re » signifiant roi en italien.

Changement générationnel

D’autres médias ont davantage souhaité mettre en avant le changement de dynastie. El Pais titre ainsi « Alcaraz détrône Djokovic », quand El Mundo avance le début d’une nouvelle ère sportive « Wimbledon inaugure l’ère Alcaraz » à l’issue d’« une bataille inoubliable de changement générationnel ».

Lorsqu’on évoque Alcaraz, ouvrant une nouvelle ère dans le tennis espagnol, il est impossible de ne pas penser à Rafael Nadal. Supporter du Real Madrid depuis toujours, les liens qui unissent Nadal et la Casa Blanca sont bien connus. Ce dimanche le Real a tenu à saluer sur Tweeter la performance d’Alcaraz, également fan du club madrilène.

Text by Ouest-France / Marin BOBOT.

RIOTS AFTER NAHEL'S DEATH: FRANCE'S CATASTROPHIC IMAGE IN THE FOREIGN MEDIA

The foreign press is taking a very hard look at France, after a week of very high tensions.

France has been on the front pages of the foreign media for a week now. And the image of our country is catastrophic. Seen through the mirror of the foreign press, France is a country where nothing goes right any more. "The French model is broken", says the Sunday Telegraph which states that discrimination, racism and anti-Semitism are far more widespread in France than in the UK.

Another British newspaper, "La France a mal" (France is in pain), believes that "France has descended into chaos". Die Zeit in Germany. The Russian media, close to the Kremlin, spoke of "decadence and disorder". The Algerian press denounced France's racism and its stubborn refusal to acknowledge its violent colonial past. As for the images of the riots, they were broadcast around the world. They were on the front page as far away as China.

Foreign commentators denounce the failure of our integration model. All these articles have been compiled over the past week by "Courrier international". The New York Times sees the crisis as a specifically French problem, a crisis of identity and integration in France, illustrated not only by the riots but also by the ban on women footballers wearing the hijab. The English press is in the same vein.

The Observer explains that the French motto of "Liberté-Egalité-Fraternité" (Liberty-Equality-Fraternity) appears to be a delusion, even a lie, in the eyes of the inhabitants of the suburbs. Because France refuses to discuss racial issues. France does not recognise ethnic differences, since it is even forbidden to compile statistics on the issue. The French can't solve their problem of discrimination because they don't know how widespread it is.

Le Times in London says much the same thing, stating that the English model is superior to the French model. The English model can be summed up as 'laissez faire', in other words, encouraging the expression of diversity.

POLICING AT THE HEART OF THE INTERNATIONAL DEBATE

The issue of police management was raised, not to highlight the fact that some 800 police officers have been injured in the last week, but rather to denounce the scene that sparked off the riots, the shooting of the Nanterre police officer.

"When will the French police finally change? asks the German Süddeutsche Zeitung, which takes the view that in France the security forces primarily protect the state and not citizens.

And the newspaper believes that what happened in Nanterre is not exceptional. Last year, 13 people lost their lives during road checks. "It's a disgrace for France", concludes the German newspaper.

There is a general problem of police violence in France, also believes Die Zeit, who believes that the Nanterre affair is a blunder that could be the French George Floyd affair.

In the United States, a star presenter on CNN said he was stunned that a police union had referred to the rioters as "pests" or hordes of savages. "It would be impossible to use those words here," he said.

IS FRANCE CAPABLE OF ORGANISING THE OLYMPICS?

Le New York Times speaks of two France's, with on one side a France that favours order and on the other a camp that sees racism and the mistreatment of minorities. Two camps that seem irreconcilable.

All this paints a very negative picture of France. It's undoubtedly a harsh, even caricatured image, but the European newspapers are asking themselves one question: will France be able to organise the Olympic Games in a year's time with peace of mind? It's a cause for concern...

Text by Nicolas Poincaré (edited by J.A.) RMC BFMTV

Titan submarine: Why the waters around the Titanic are still dangerous

In the autumn of 1911, a huge piece of ice broke off from a glacier to the south-west of Greenland's vast ice cap. Over the following months, it slowly drifted southwards, melting little by little as the sea currents and the wind blew it away.

Then, on the cold, moonless night of 14 April 1912, a 125-metre-long (410-foot) iceberg - all that remained of the 500-metre chunk of ice that had left a Greenland fjord the previous year - collided with the ocean liner RMS Titanic, which was making its maiden voyage from Southampton in the United Kingdom to New York in the United States. In less than three hours, the ship sank, taking more than 1,500 passengers and crew with her. The wreck now lies almost 3.8 km beneath the waves, almost 400 miles (640 km) south-east of the coast of Newfoundland.

Icebergs are always a hazard to shipping: in 2019, 1,515 icebergs drifted far enough south to enter the transatlantic shipping lanes between March and August. But Titanic's final resting place has its own dangers, which means that visits to the world's most famous wreck are a major challenge.

What can we expect after the deaths of the Titan submarine crew?
"It's a disaster. Everything has been washed away".
What are these mysterious stones found in rock 2.8 billion years old?

After the disappearance of a five-person submersible that was carrying paying passengers on an excursion to the wreck of the Titanic, the BBC has turned its attention to this region of the ocean floor.

Navigating the depths

The depths of the ocean are dark. Sunlight is absorbed very quickly by the water and cannot penetrate more than 1,000 metres from the surface. Beyond that, the ocean is plunged into perpetual darkness. This is why the Titanic is in a region known as the "midnight zone".

Previous expeditions to the wreck site described a descent of more than two hours in total darkness before the ocean floor suddenly appeared under the lights of the submersible.

With line of sight limited beyond the few metres illuminated by the onboard lights of the truck-sized submersible, navigation at this depth is a real challenge, and it's easy to become disorientated on the seabed.

5 myths that persist about the Titanic more than a century after it sank

However, the detailed maps of the Titanic wreck site, produced by decades of high-resolution scanning, can provide landmarks when objects are visible. Sonar also allows the crew to detect features and objects beyond the small area of light illuminated by the submersible.

Submersible pilots also rely on a technique known as inertial navigation, which uses a system of accelerometers and gyroscopes to track their position and orientation relative to a known starting point and speed. OceanGate's Titan submersible is equipped with a state-of-the-art autonomous inertial navigation system, which it combines with an acoustic sensor called a Doppler Velocity Log to estimate the vehicle's depth and speed relative to the seabed.

Despite this, passengers on previous Titanic voyages with OceanGate have described how difficult it is to find your way around once you reach the bottom of the ocean. Mike Reiss, a TV comedy writer who worked on The Simpsons and took part in an OceanGate voyage on the Titanic last year, told the BBC: "When you hit the bottom, you don't know where you are. We had to wriggle blindly along the bottom of the ocean knowing the Titanic was somewhere, but it's so dark that the biggest thing under the ocean was only 500 metres away from us and we spent ninety minutes looking for it."

Crushing depths

The deeper an object sinks into the ocean, the greater the pressure of the water around it. On the seabed, at a depth of 3,800 m, the Titanic and everything around it was subjected to pressures of around 40 MPa, or 390 times higher than at the surface.

"To put that into perspective, it's about 200 times the pressure of a car tyre," Robert Blasiak, an oceanography researcher at Stockholm University's Stockholm Resilience Centre, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme, "That's why you need a submersible with very thick walls." The Titan submersible's carbon fibre and titanium walls are designed to enable it to operate at a maximum depth of 4,000 metres.

Why is NASA exploring the depths of the Earth's oceans?

We are probably most familiar with the strong surface currents that can sweep boats and swimmers off their course, but there are also underwater currents deep in the ocean. Although they are generally not as powerful as those found at the surface, they can nonetheless move large quantities of water. They can be driven by surface winds that influence the water column below, by tides in deep waters or by differences in water density due to temperature and salinity, known as thermohaline currents. Rare events known as benthic storms - which are generally linked to eddies at the surface - can also cause powerful, sporadic currents that can carry material along the seabed.

The information we have on the underwater currents around the Titanic, which was divided into two main sections after the bow and stern separated during the sinking, comes from research into the shapes of the seabed and the movement of squid around the wreck.

Part of the wreck of the Titanic is known to lie close to a section of the seabed affected by a southward-flowing current of cold water known as the Western Boundary Undercurrent. The flow of this 'undercurrent' creates migratory dunes, ripples and ribbon-like patterns in the sediments and mud of the seafloor, which have enabled scientists to understand its force. Most of the formations observed on the seabed are associated with relatively weak or moderate currents.

The ripples of sand along the eastern edge of the Titanic's debris field - the scattering of personal effects, fittings, coal and parts of the ship itself that spilled out during the sinking - indicate the existence of an east-west undercurrent, while within the main wreck site, the scientists say, the currents tend from north-west to south-west, possibly due to the larger pieces of the wreck changing their direction.

To the south of the bow, the currents appear to be particularly changeable, flowing from north-east to north-west and south-west.

Many experts expect that the winnowing of these currents will eventually bury the wreck of the Titanic in the sediment.

Deep-sea marine archaeologist Gerhard Seiffert, who recently led an expedition to scan the wreck of the Titanic in high resolution, told the BBC that he did not think the currents in the area were strong enough to pose a risk to a submersible - provided it had electricity.

"I am not aware of any currents posing a threat to an operational deep-sea vehicle at the Titanic site," he said. "In the context of our mapping project, currents represented a challenge to the accuracy of the mapping, not a safety risk."

Sediment flows

After more than a hundred years at the bottom of the sea, the Titanic has gradually deteriorated. The initial impact of the two main sections of the ship colliding with the seabed twisted and deformed large parts of the wreck. Over time, microbes that feed on the ship's iron have formed icicle-shaped "hardnesses" and are accelerating the deterioration of the wreck. In fact, scientists estimate that the higher bacterial activity on the stern of the ship - largely due to the greater damage it has sustained - is causing it to deteriorate forty years faster than the bow.

The wreck is constantly collapsing, mainly due to corrosion," explains Mr Seiffert. Every year, a little bit. But as long as you stay at a safe distance - no direct contact, no penetration through openings - no damage is to be feared."

Although extremely unlikely, sudden flows of sediment at the bottom of the sea have already damaged and even washed away man-made objects on the ocean floor.

The most significant events - such as the one that severed the transatlantic cables off Newfoundland in 1929 - are triggered by seismic phenomena such as earthquakes. There is a growing awareness of the risk posed by these events, although there is no evidence that an event of this type was involved in the disappearance of the Titan submarine.

Over the years, researchers have identified signs that the seabed around the wreck of the Titanic was affected by huge submarine landslides in the distant past. Huge volumes of sediment appear to have slid down the continental slope from Newfoundland to create what scientists call an "instability corridor". They estimate that the last of these 'destructive' events occurred tens of thousands of years ago, creating layers of sediment up to 100 metres thick. But these events are extremely rare, explains David Piper, a marine geology researcher at the Geological Survey of Canada, who spent many years studying the seabed around the Titanic. He compares these events to the eruption of Vesuvius or Mount Fuji in terms of frequency - on the order of once every tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of years.

Other phenomena known as turbidity currents - where water becomes loaded with sediment and flows along the continental slope - are more frequent and can be triggered by storms. "We show a repetition interval of around five hundred years," explains Piper. But the topography of the seabed in the area should direct the sediment flows towards a feature known as the 'Titanic Valley', which would mean that they would not reach the wreck at all.

How will the next "supercontinent" be formed?

According to Seiffert and Piper, it is unlikely that such an event could have played a role in the disappearance of the Titan submersible.

Other geological features around the wreck site have yet to be explored. During a previous expedition to the Titanic with OceanGate, Paul-Henry Nargeolet, a former French Navy diver and submersible pilot, visited a mysterious anomaly that he had detected with sonar in 1996. It turned out to be a rocky reef, covered in marine animals. He was hoping to visit another landmark that he had detected near the wreck of the Titanic on previous expeditions.

As the search continues for the missing ship, there are few clues as to what may have happened to the Titan and her crew. But in such a harsh and inhospitable environment, the risks involved in visiting the wreck of the Titanic are as relevant today as they were in 1986, when the first people to set eyes on the ship since it sank embarked on the journey to the depths.

Text by Richard Gray / BBC Future

The infographic that sums up the highlights of this surprising 2022/23 football season.

Increase in killer whale attacks on sailing boats in the Strait of Gibraltar

Killer whale attacks on sailing boats off the coast of Spain have been on the increase for the past three years. Between 2020 and 2022, their number reached almost 500, according to the Atlantic Killer Whale Working Group. A phenomenon that is raising questions among scientists and the authorities.

"They went straight for the radar. They didn't circle the boat or try to play games... nothing! They came straight at the radar at full speed", Friedrich Sommer, the German owner of the "Muffet", a sailing boat damaged by an orca attack, told AFP.

He is not the only one waiting in Barbate, a small town on the Atlantic coast of Andalusia (southern Spain), for his boat to be repaired. "This one has completely lost its rudder" and the orcas have done "structural damage to the hull", explains Rafael Pecci, in charge of repairs, referring to a yacht belonging to another foreigner.

From the main beach, you can see the mast of a boat that sank at the beginning of May after an attack by these cetaceans, which can grow up to nine metres long for males and seven for females, weighing between 3.5 and 6 tonnes.

28 "interactions

These "interactions", the term used by specialists and the authorities to describe these attacks, began in 2020 off the Atlantic coast of the Iberian Peninsula, particularly between Cadiz and Tangiers (Morocco). This is due to the increased presence in this area near the Strait of Gibraltar of one of the killer whales' favourite prey species: bluefin tuna, which come from the Atlantic in spring to spawn in the Mediterranean.

According to the Spanish sea rescue organisation Salvamento Marítimo, 28 "interactions" have already taken place in 2023. Between 2020 and 2022, the number reached almost 500, according to the Atlantic Killer Whale Working Group (GTOA).

Several hypotheses

"We know very little about the causes of these interactions," José Luis García Varas, head of the World Wildlife Fund's (WWF) oceans programme in Spain, told AFP. There is no shortage of legends in the region, and one killer whale has quickly become the emblem of the phenomenon: Gladis Lamari, the matriarch of a clan to whom numerous attacks are attributed, is said to have taught her calves to attack sailing boats.

Orcas "form families, groups, they are very intelligent and there is a kind of oral transmission of knowledge between them", stresses José Luis García Varas.

Renaud de Stephanis, a doctor in marine sciences and president of the Circe organisation (Conservation, Information et Etude des Cétacés), believes that there are "several hypotheses" that could explain these attacks. While some explain this behaviour by a certain "animosity" felt by the orcas towards sailboats and other boats, others see it as simple "games". At the moment, "we don't have a definitive explanation", he stresses.

Text by RTS.ch ats/fgn