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The U.N. human rights office has expressed concern about the arrest of a Vietnamese green energy expert, who had collaborated with U.N. and U.S. agencies, just days after President Joe Biden signed business and human rights deals with Hanoi on a visit.

Hanoi police on Sept. 15 detained Ngo Thi To Nhien, Executive Director of the Vietnam Initiative for Energy Transition (VIET), an independent think tank focused on green energy policy, Reuters reported last week citing a charity and a source.

"We are aware of the arrest and are following the developments with concern," Ravina Shamdasani, a spokesperson for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) told Reuters in a statement.

Nhien had worked for the World Bank, with the United Nations Development Programme and the United States aid agency (USAID), according to her profile on LinkedIn.

She "has participated in international and national events, including consultations organized by UNDP on the topic of energy transition," the UNDP in Vietnam confirmed in an email message to Reuters.

The US embassy in Hanoi has not responded to repeated requests for comment.

Over the last two years Vietnam has arrested five environmental human rights defenders accusing them of tax evasion, a OHCHR spokesperson said in June, noting the arrests happened while the country was negotiating international funding for energy transition away from coal, of which it is a major user.

Nhien kept a very low public profile and was considered an expert, not an activist.

Vietnam's government has not issued any public statement about Nhien's arrest, and did not reply to requests for comment.

On Friday, Vietnam also executed a man, Le Van Manh, who had been sentenced to death in July 2005 after being found guilty of murder, child rape and robbery.

The European Union had called to halt the execution.

Phil Robertson, Deputy Asia Director at Human Rights Watch, said Manh had a strong alibi which was disregarded. (Reuters)

With two months left until the U.N.'s COP28 summit, countries are far from bridging the gap between those demanding a deal to phase out planet-warming fossil fuels and nations insisting on preserving a role for coal, oil and natural gas.

The COP28 conference in Dubai scheduled between Nov. 30 and Dec. 12 is seen as a crucial opportunity for governments to accelerate action to limit global warming, yet countries remain split over the future of fossil fuels - the burning of which is the main cause of climate change.

Meetings at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) last week reignited the long-rumbling debate, with climate-vulnerable nations like the Marshall Islands pleading for wealthier ones to quit polluting fuels and to invest in renewable alternatives.

"Humanity has opened the gates to hell" by heating the planet, U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres told a one-day climate summit held alongside the general assembly, where he lamented the "naked greed" of fossil fuel interests.

Other countries that produce or rely on fossil fuels emphasised the potential use of technologies to "abate" - meaning capture - their emissions, rather than ending the use of such fuels completely.

Saying that "the phase down of fossil fuels is inevitable," the United Arab Emirates' incoming COP28 President Sultan Al Jaber told the summit: "As we build an energy system free of all unabated fossil fuels, including coal, we must rapidly and comprehensively decarbonize the energies we use today."

China, the world's biggest fossil fuel consumer, is among those signalling that it intends to keep using them for decades.

The United States has said it supports a phase out of unabated fossil fuels - while acknowledging some developing countries' plans to invest in them in the near term - though U.S. climate envoy John Kerry has questioned whether emissions capturing technologies can be scaled up fast enough.

While a COP28 pact to reduce fossil fuel use would not prompt an immediate exit from oil and gas, the European Union and other supporters say it is vital for guiding national policies and investments away from polluting energy.

"It's not that this is going to happen tomorrow," Spain's Climate Minister Teresa Ribera told Reuters. "But we need to ensure that we are creating the conditions to make this possible."

WAR OF WORDS

Given the divisions over the future of fossil fuels since more than 80 countries unsuccessfully pushed for a deal on a phase-down at last year's COP27 summit, negotiators are turning to new terminologies in search of a compromise.

In what appeared in April to be a possible breakthrough, the Group of Seven industrialised nations agreed to speed up the "phase-out of unabated fossil fuels".

By inserting "unabated" before fossil fuels, the pledge targeted only fuels burned without emissions-capturing technology.

But by July, the pledge faltered as the larger G20 - which includes oil and gas producers like Saudi Arabia and Russia - failed to reach consensus on the issue.

Ireland's Climate Minister Eamon Ryan said the question of phasing out all fossil fuels or just the emissions would likely be the trickiest issue at COP28.

"Some people are rightly fearful that that could just be a carte blanche to continue the exploration of oil and gas and coal," Ryan told Reuters, of the debate around emissions capturing technology.

A group of 17 countries including France, Kenya, Chile, Colombia and the Pacific island nations of Tuvalu and Vanuatu last week called for a fossil fuel phase-out that limits the use of carbon-capture technology.

"We cannot use it to green-light fossil fuel expansion," the countries said in a joint statement.

Oil and gas industry groups like the American Petroleum Institute have said the world will need emissions abatement technologies in order to provide "more energy with fewer emissions."

Some developing countries are also resisting a phase-out, saying they need fossil fuels to expand their electricity capacity for economic development - in the same way nations like Japan and the United States have done.

Within the African Union, some governments have accused the West of hypocrisy for using climate arguments to refuse financing for gas projects in developing nations, while continuing to burn gas at home.

KEEPING 1.5 ALIVE

Without a rapid decrease in fossil fuel use, the Earth will heat up beyond the global target of 1.5 degrees Celsius - compared with pre-industrial levels - within 10-15 years, said climate scientist Peter Cox at the University of Exeter.

"You can't have it both ways. We can't say we want to avoid 1.5 C ... and not say anything about phasing out fossil fuels," Cox said.

The head of the International Energy Agency this month said that demand for coal, gas and oil would peak by 2030 as renewable energy capacity grows.

"Leave aside the climate risk. There is now a business risk," Fatih Birol told an event hosted by the Rockefeller Foundation. He urged countries to stop making new investments in coal, oil and gas.

The comments drew ire from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which disputed Birol's projections for not including emissions-capturing possibilities and described his call for an end to new investments "dangerous."

The Alliance of Small Island States, whose members face climate-fuelled storms and land loss to rising seas, wants a fossil fuel phase-out and an end to the $7 trillion governments spend annually on subsidising fossil fuels. (Reuters)

 The United States Space Force has had internal discussions about setting up a hotline with China to prevent crises in space, U.S. commander General Chance Saltzman told Reuters on Monday.

The chief of space operations said a direct line of communication between the Space Force and its Chinese counterpart would be valuable in de-escalating tensions but that the U.S. had not yet engaged with China to establish one.

"What we have talked about on the U.S. side at least is opening up a line of communication to make sure that if there is a crisis, we know who we can contact," Saltzman said, adding that it would be up to President Joe Biden and the State Department to take the lead on such discussions.

The comments come as the U.S. Space Force looks into establishing a branch in Japan, as China's military ambitions in the Indo-Pacific unnverve its neighbours and the war in Ukraine spotlights the importance of space capabilities in warfare.

Japan has been especially concerned about Taiwan and any lessons China may have drawn from Russia's invasion of Ukraine a year ago. China, which views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, has not renounced the use of force to bring the island under Beijing's control.

Saltzman, who held talks with top Japanese defence officials in Tokyo on Monday, confirmed that the space force was exploring the potential establishment of a local headquarters in Japan.

He did not elaborate on the location or the purpose it would serve, but did say it could look similar to a branch established in South Korea in November last year.

Saltzman added that deeper cooperation with like-minded countries including Japan would be crucial in being able to monitor and understand activity in the space domain to deter China and counter 'grey zone activities' such as jamming satellite signals.

"We have to be able to have those indications and warnings and see what they're doing and call them on the intent. Just being hypersensitive so we don't fall prey to grey zone activities," Saltzman said.

The U.S. Space Force, founded in 2019, also does not have a direct line of communication with its Russian counterpart. (Reuters)

North Korea on Monday slammed South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol for criticising its cooperation with Moscow following leader Kim Jong Un's Russia visit, saying it is "natural" and "normal" for neighbours to keep close relations.

Yoon, speaking at the U.N. General Assembly last week, said that if Russia helped North Korea enhance its weapons programmes in return for assistance for its war in Ukraine, it would be "a direct provocation."

In a piece carried by KCNA news agency, the North denounced Yoon for "malignantly" slandering its friendly cooperation with Russia, and said Yoon was serving as a "loudspeaker" for the United States.

"It is quite natural and normal for neighbouring countries to keep close relations with each other, and there is no reason to call such practice to account," it said.

Kim returned home last week from a week-long trip to Russia in which he and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to boost military and economic cooperation.

U.S. and South Korean officials have expressed concern that Russia could be trying to acquire ammunition from the North to supplement its dwindling stocks for the war in Ukraine while Pyongyang seeks technological help for its nuclear and missile programmes.

Any activities assisting North Korea's weapons programmes are banned under U.N. Security Council resolutions.

"The foreign policy of the DPRK ... will not be tied to anything, and its friendly and cooperative relations with the close neighbours will continue to grow stronger," the commentary said. DPRK is the initials of the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. (Reuters)