We need to elect politicians who will address the problem systematically, with massive infrastructure
1. A European Union satellite has confirmed that June, 2019, was the hottest month on earth since scientific record-keeping began around 1850. In fact, if you take the averages of 1850-1900, June was 5.4 degrees F.warmer (3 degrees C.) Some parts of Europe were actually 10 degrees C. (18 degrees F.) warmer than normal. Germany and Spain had wildfires. The Spanish fire appears to have resulted from it being so hot that a manure field spontaneously caught on fire.
2. The climate emergency produced by our burning of fossil fuels made the heat wave about 100 times more likely, according to a climate study, though scientists are being cautious in underlining that at the very least it made the heat wave 5 times more likely.
3. Antarctica has lost more ice in the past 4 years than the Arctic has lost in 34 years, according to EuroNews. The “rapid ice loss reduced Antarctic sea ice to its lowest levels in the 40-year satellite observation record,” the news service reports.
We are doing this to ourselves. Every time we fill up our gasoline automobiles and drive them and every time we burn coal to make electricity (in the US Midwest the coal mix is typically 35 to 60 percent) we are putting a dangerous heat-trapping gas, carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere. Americans are only 5% of the world’s population, but we are putting 5.5 billion metric tons of CO2 up there every year; the whole world puts out 37.1 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually. So the US does over 14% of the total, three times what we should be doing if we just went by our proportion of the global population.
Some 64% of Americans own their own homes. If a homeowner is going to be in the home for 10 years or more, they are actually losing money by not installing solar panels on the roof. If you are a homeowner and put up solar panels, plus you get an electric car, the pay off period is about 6 years, and after that you have almost free electricity plus free auto fuel if you charge during daylight hours. The panels last about 25 years, though their efficiency does decline a bit over time.
We can do our own part, but we also need to elect politicians who will address the problem systematically, with massive infrastructure. Life is going to get harder. Whether it gets a little harder or a lot harder is up to us.
Google agreed Friday to change how it publishes New Zealand news after top officials in Wellington lashed the US tech giant for breaching court suppression orders in a high-profile murder case.
Google had refused to tighten publication standards after sending out a news email to public subscribers in December that named an accused killer in violation of a court order.
Justice Minister Andrew Little this week accused Google of "giving the middle finger" to New Zealand's court system and the family of British murder victim, Grace Millane.
He described the online behemoth's one-paragraph response to Wellington's concerns, which indicated no action was pending, as "contemptible" and "extraordinarily disrespectful".
Google insisted Friday that it respected New Zealand law, saying there had been a "miscommunication" and it was taking the issue seriously.
"We understand the right to a fair trial and acknowledge that this is a fundamental part of the legal system," it said in a letter to Little's office.
As a result, it said the Google Trends feature that led to the accused's name being published had been suspended in New Zealand.
"This means that people will no longer receive emails on any trending searches for New Zealand and provides even further assurance against any recurrence," it said.
Little, who was furious after the initial rebuff, welcomed Google's "responsible" change of policy.
"Work on how suppression orders will be upheld in the digital age will continue," he said.
Millane, 22, was killed in December last year shortly after arriving in Auckland on holiday in a crime that shocked New Zealand.
A 27-year-old man has pleaded not guilty to her murder.
The row is the second time the New Zealand government has taken social media giants to task in recent months.
Ardern led global efforts to force them to curb hate speech in the wake of the Christchurch mosques massacre in March, when a gunman killed 51 Muslim worshippers as they gathered for Friday prayers.
"We would like to build on the constructive spirit that emerged from our work with the New Zealand government on the call for action on Christchurch," Google said.
A 3,000-year-old quartzite head of Egyptian "Boy King" Tutankhamun was auctioned off for $6 million Thursday in London despite a fierce outcry from Cairo.
Christie's auction house sold the 28.5-centimetre (11-inch) relic for £4,746,250 ($5,970,000, 5,290,000 euros) at one of its most controversial auctions in years.
No information about the buyer was disclosed.
The famous pharaoh's finely-chiselled face -- its calm eyes and puffed lips emoting a sense of eternal peace -- came from the private Resandro Collection of ancient art that Christie's last parcelled off for £3 million in 2016.
But angry Egyptian officials wanted Thursday's sale halted and the treasure returned.
About a dozen protesters waved Egyptian flags and held up signs reading "stop trading in smuggled antiquities" outside the British auction house's London sales room.
"This should not be kept at home. It should be in a museum," Egyptian national Magda Sakr told AFP.
"It is history. It is one of our most famous kings," the 50-year-old said.
Egypt's antiquities ministry said it would hold a special meeting at the start of next week to discuss its next steps in the standoff.
"The Egyptian government will take all the necessary measures to recover Egyptian antiquities that left Egypt illegally," it said in statement.
- 'Stolen from Karnak' -
Former Egyptian antiquities minister Zahi Hawass told AFP by telephone from Cairo that the piece appeared to have been "stolen" in the 1970s from the Karnak Temple complex just north of Luxor.
AFP / HO Tutankhamun is thought to have become a pharaoh at the age of nine and to have died about 10 years later
"We think it left Egypt after 1970 because in that time other artefacts were stolen from Karnak Temple," Hawass said.
The Egyptian foreign ministry had asked the UK Foreign Office and the UN cultural body UNSECO to step in and halt the sale.
But such interventions are rare and made only when there is clear evidence of the item's legitimate acquisition by the seller being in dispute.
Christie's argued that Egypt had never before expressed the same level of concern about an item whose existence has been "well known and exhibited publicly" for many years.
"The object is not, and has not been, the subject of an investigation," Christie's said in a statement to AFP.
The auction house has published a chronology of how the relic changed hands between European art dealers over the past 50 years.
Its oldest attribution from 1973-74 places it in the collection of Prince Wilhelm of Thurn and Taxi in modern-day Germany.
This account's veracity was called into doubt by a report from the Live Science news site last month suggesting that Wilhelm never owned the piece.
Wilhelm was "not a very art-interested person," his niece Daria told the news site.
- 'Clear ownership' -
Tutankhamun is thought to have become a pharaoh at the age of nine and to have died about 10 years later.
His rule would have probably passed without notice were it not for the 1922 discovery by Britain's Howard Carter of his nearly intact tomb.
The lavish find revived interest in ancient Egypt and set the stage for subsequent battles over ownership of cultural masterpieces unearthed in colonial times.
Tutankhamun became commonly known as King Tut and made into the subject of popular songs and films.
International conventions and the British government's own guidance restrict the sale of works that were known to have been stolen or illegally dug up.
The British Museum has been wrangling for decades with Greece over its remarkable room full of marble Parthenon friezes and sculptures.
Egypt's own campaign to recover lost art gained momentum after numerous works went missing during the looting that accompanied former president Hosni Mubarak's fall from power in 2011.
Cairo has managed to regain hundreds of looted and stolen artefacts by working with both auction houses and international cultural groups.
But it was never able to provide evidence for the Tutankhamun bust being illegally obtained.
Christie's told AFP that it would "not sell any work where there isn't clear title of ownership".
Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Rome Thursday for a lightning visit including talks with the pope and Italy's populist government, which has called for an easing of sanctions despite Moscow's ongoing crisis with the West.
Rome's historic centre is on security lockdown for the visit with 50 streets blocked to traffic and Italian media reporting that mobile phone signals could be scrambled.
Putin landed around an hour late at Fiumicino airport and his convoy drove into Rome and the Vatican City where he met the pope for closed-door talks.
Putin has arrived late for all three of their encounters, the last of which was in 2015 when the pope urged all parties to the conflict in Ukraine to make a "sincere effort" for peace.
Thursday's meeting comes a day before the pope receives leaders of Ukraine's Greek Catholic Church.
Pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine are mostly Russian Orthdodox, while those they fight are Orthodox and Greek Catholic.
- Improved ties -
Francis first met Putin in 2013, as the Roman Catholic Church sought to improve ties with the Russian Orthodox Church.
Only in 2009 did the Vatican and Moscow re-establish full diplomatic ties which were severed during Soviet times.
Relations have improved since the coming to power in the same year of Patriarch Kirill, who headed up the Russian Orthodox Church's diplomatic arm for years.
The Russian Orthodox Church has frequently accused the Catholic Church of proselytising in Russia, an Orthodox Christian country of 144 million.
The pope in 2016 held a historic meeting with Kirill in Cuba, the first encounter between the heads of the two largest Christian churches since Christianity split into Western and Eastern branches in the 11th Century -- an event known as "The Great Schism."
Kremlin advisor Yuri Ushakov said on Wednesday that "for the time being a possible invitation for the pope to visit Russia is not on the agenda."
The pope and Putin were to discuss matters including "preserving Christian holy sites in Syria", the Kremlin said.
After meeting the pope, Putin will hold talks with Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and President Sergio Mattarella.
Putin is being driven around in his six-metre-long (20-foot) armoured limo by a chauffeur who has been practising negotiating his way around the Eternal City's narrow streets. His talks with Italian leaders should be easier.
Far-right Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini has often expressed admiration for Putin, and his coalition government advocates reviewing EU sanctions against Russia.
On the eve of the visit, Putin praised Salvini and his Lega party for having a "welcoming attitude" to Russia.
"They are pushing for a rapid abolition of the anti-Russian sanctions introduced by the US and the EU," Putin said in an interview with Corriere della Sera.
The US and EU have progressively imposed sanctions on Russia since its annexation of Crimea in 2014 and Moscow's involvement in the conflict in eastern Ukraine, including the shooting down of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17.
Salvini has previously visited Moscow and been pictured in pro-Putin T-shirts.
When his party won most Italian votes in May's European elections, Salvini posted a photo of himself with a picture of Putin in the background.
"Men like him (Putin) who act in the interest of their own citizens, there should be dozens in this country", Salvini said last year.
POOL/AFP / Sergei CHIRIKOV Putin will also meet with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte
The Kremlin says Putin wants to discuss Russia-EU relations, the situation in Syria, Ukraine and Libya and Iran's nuclear programme.
- Sanctions revision -
An EU summit last month extended economic sanctions targeting whole sectors of the Russian economy, including its crucial oil and gas industry, until the end of 2019.
Italy has not vetoed the sanctions but the EU front appears less united thanks to Rome's pro-Russian overtures.
Salvini and fellow Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio will attend a dinner for Putin in the evening, after which the russian president will meet his old friend and former premier Silvio Berlusconi, known for his sex scandals and "bunga bunga" parties.
"We are bound by a friendship stretching back many years," Putin said in the Corriere interview, hailing "a politician of global stature".
Although the Soviet Union ceased to exist in 1991 and Russia has long since abandoned communism, some things haven’t changed. Russia, now a right-wing champion of crony capitalism led by President Vladimir Putin and his oligarch allies, still has imperialist goals — and according to a July 1 report by Rolling Stone’s Ryan Bort, the Pentagon fears that the U.S. is helping Putin achieve them.
Although the bad blood between Putin and President Barack Obama’s administration was obvious, President Donald Trump has been much more favorable to Putin than his predecessor. Trump had a downright sarcastic tone when, during the recent G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan, he told Putin, “Don’t meddle in the election, president. Don’t meddle in the election.” Putin was amused, as he knew Trump was being sarcastic and that the U.S. president believes former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation never should have happened.
But Pentagon officials, Bort notes, consider Putin a threat — and Politico obtained a copy of a 150-page Pentagon report describing, in detail, the Russian government’s plans for global economic domination. In that report, which the Pentagon gave to the Joint Chiefs of Staff in May, Navy Rear Admiral Jeffrey J. Czerewko is quoted as saying that in the future, “economic competition, influence campaigns, paramilitary actions, cyber intrusions and political warfare will likely become more prevalent.”
The report details the Russian Federation’s imperialist goals, which include a desire to “secure Russia’s influence over former Soviet nations,” achieve “worldwide recognition as a ‘great power’” and “gain economic, military and political influence over nations worldwide.”
One of the contributors to the Pentagon report was Anna Borshchevskaya, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy — and according to Borshchevskaya, the Russian government believes it cannot achieve its goals without the downfall of the United States. But the U.S., Borshchevskaya warns, lacks a “comprehensive strategy” for combating Russian government goals.
Armed groups often rely on violence and instilling fear to show strength and resilience. And yet, every so often, they are willing to apologize when things go wrong.
The New IRA recently apologized for killing Lyra McKee, an investigative journalist, during a riot in Derry. The group’s targets, which they described as “enemy forces,” were officers of the Police Service of Northern Ireland.
As scholars of conflict, we both study a variety of armed groups, from nationalist and separatist liberation movements to Islamist opposition groups. When we were graduate students at Syracuse University, we shared a cubicle and often compared stories of attacks that did not go as planned.
Over time, comparing anecdotes turned into a systematic investigation of armed attacks, in order to address an understudied question: Do rebel groups ever apologize for their mistakes?
If such groups were ever willing to apologize for their actions, we wanted to understand when and why they would do so. We hoped it would help us find ways to negotiate resolutions during conflicts.
Al-Qaida apologized for a terrorist attack gone wrong in 2013.
To answer the question, we identified incidents that had two things in common: known perpetrators and a clear mistake.
We defined attacks as a “clear mistake” only when details of the failed plan were provided by investigators, government agencies or others with some direct knowledge of it and reported in credible news outlets or government reports. That eliminated the thousands of plans that did not meet that criteria.
A poorly executed plan, for example, might include a bomb going off early or an error during the operation, such as targeting the wrong building or individual.
We excluded attacks that went awry because of something unpredictable – we wanted to differentiate happenstance from operational mistakes. We also excluded apologies issued because the attack, although it went according to the plan, was counterproductive.
Searching variousdatabases and newspapers, we found 109 attacks that qualified.
These incidents stretched across different time periods and regions ranging from a 1970 attack by the New Year’s Gang that blew up the University of Wisconsin, Madison’s physics department instead of the Army Math Research Center on the floor above, to a 2014 attack by Boko Haram in Nigeria in which a suicide bomber mistakenly detonated an explosive-laden vehicle next to a fuel depot in Lagos City.
In 61 out of 109 instances groups claimed the attack. In 22 cases, they apologized for it.
We found that public perception and reputation matter, even to terrorist groups.
The New Year’s Gang apologized for the 1970 attack in Madison, Wisconsin.
When mistakes are made, organizations will typically react in a way that protects their status, reputation and interests.
Scholars who have examined how businesses, government agencies or hospitals react to mistakes, for example, have found that these organizations generally try to hide their mistakes and deny responsibility.
Yet we found that even terrorist groups such as al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, an al-Qaida affiliate based in Yemen, or the Islamic State Group, a militant group that seeks to redraw the borders of Syria and Iraq and establish an Islamic caliphate, were willing to publicly acknowledge their mistakes – sometimes.
A month later, AQAP used a suicide car bomb and gunmen to storm the Yemeni Ministry of Defense. The militants were allegedly directed not to target the military hospital in the compound, but one of the fighters disobeyed the orders.
Four doctors and three nurses were among the 167 injured. Thirty-three civilians and 10 security officers were killed in the combined operations – consisting of the suicide bomb at the ministry of defense, the gunmen opening fire and the explosion in the hospital.
Later that month, the head of AQAP, in a public apology, said, “We confess to this mistake and fault. We offer our apologies and condolences to the families of the victims.”
Most of the clearly mistaken attacks claimed by groups, however, did not result in an apology. Of the 61 claimed instances we looked at, about 64% of the groups never issued a public apology.
In March 2014, for instance, fighters for the Afghani Taliban, another militant Islamist group, planned to attack a Christian-run day care in Kabul.
Instead, gunmen mistakenly stormed the compound next door, which happened to house heavily armed American government contractors. The firearms exchange resulted in the death of four of the five attackers and two Afghan civilians. The fifth attacker committed suicide. The Taliban never apologized.
In 1984, the Provisional Irish Republican Army, a paramilitary group that sought to abolish Britain’s control over Northern Ireland, unsuccessfully tried to kill British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher by blowing up her hotel room in Brighton during her party’s annual convention.
In the announcement after the attack, they famously said, “Today we were unlucky, but remember we only have to be lucky once – you will have to be lucky always.”
On June 7, 2019, the New IRA used nearly identical words when claiming responsibility for a failed car bomb attack in Belfast. The New IRA is a coalition of groups that splintered from the Provisional IRA in protest of the Good Friday Agreement that was signed in 1998 between all parties to the conflict in Northern Ireland.
When do rebel groups apologize?
We expected organizations with a political wing or nationalist ideology to be more likely to apologize, because their survival is arguably more dependent on public support.
Our study suggests that whether a group claims a mistake and apologizes for it has little to do with ideology or group characteristics. The response to a mistake seems, instead, to depend on the nature of the attack.
The more fatalities, the higher the chance that a group admits a mistake. The odds of claiming increase almost 27% for every additional fatality.
However, the odds of claiming a mistake decrease by over 80% if the attack results in the death of their own group members.
Apologies show a similar pattern. When a mistake results in more than five civilian casualties, the odds that a group apologizes increase almost fourfold.
Public opinion matters
This suggests that even groups that may purposefully target civilians are sensitive to how their attacks are perceived by the public. When mistakes result in the unintended death of civilians, especially women and children, public condemnation may drive rebel groups to apologize.
On Oct. 23, 1993, for instance, the Provisional IRA planted a bomb in a shop under the headquarters of the Ulster Defense Association, a competing paramilitary organization. The attackers supposedly planned to give the shoppers time to run. But the bomb exploded early, killing nine civilians, including two children and four women.
The public understood that the violence jeopardized the peace negotiations that were happening at the time, and made the Catholic community vulnerable to retaliatory attacks, according to an article headlined “The Shankill Road Bomb: Ulster Waits for Funerals and Loyalist Revenge,” published in The Independent on Oct. 25, 1993.
The Provisional IRA immediately apologized. Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams called the incident a great tragedy, offering “his complete and absolute sympathy,” according to an article headlined “Crisis in Ulster: IRA Bombing Puts Adams’ Authority in Doubt” in The Independent, Oct. 27, 1993.
Such sensitivity to public perception may explain why the New IRA offered its “full and sincere apologies” after public condemnation of the killing.
These examples show that armed groups may not necessarily seek to only instill fear and terror. They may also be sensitive to public opinion — and may even be open to learning and self-criticism if their reputation is at stake.
The bells will ring for the last time this week at Vaugirard elementary school in central Paris, the latest school in the city to close as spiralling property prices drive families out of the capital.
Just 51 students were enrolled this year at Vaugirard, a stark illustration of the steady decline in numbers at many schools in central Paris which some parents and teachers blame on the surge of home-renting giant Airbnb.
"The centre of Paris is basically becoming a vast Airbnb hotel, and there are fewer and fewer residents," Jean-Jacques Renard, vice president of the FCPE parents' association, told AFP.
Real estate prices in Paris and most Western capitals have soared in recent years, making it harder for middle-class couples to find family-sized apartments in a city already known for its cramped living conditions.
While record low interest rates and a shortage of housing have fuelled the boom, fingers are increasingly being pointed at Airbnb.
Its popularity has encouraged thousands of property owners to turn Paris flats or commercial spaces into short-term rentals that are far more profitable than traditional leases.
The number of Paris lodgings that are not permanently occupied jumped by nearly 30,000 in the five years to 2017, "likely due to the development of short-term rentals," according to a report by the Paris Urbanism Institute last year.
This trend has exacerbated the spike in rental and property prices, prompting a growing number of parents to head for the cheaper suburbs or even farther afield.
Vaugirard, a short walk from the tourist hotspot of Luxembourg gardens, will be the fourth school in four years to close, according to city hall data.
Ten more have shut after being merged with other schools because of dwindling student numbers and a dozen more are at risk of closure or "merger".
And while three new schools are set to open in September, student levels have fallen every year since 2012 -- a decline of nine percent, or nearly 13,000 pupils overall -- after growing since the early 2000s.
"Instead of hearing the cries of children going to school in the morning, you have the clickety-clack of suitcase wheels," the principal of a primary school in the residential 16th arrondissement, which is close to the Champs-Elysees, told AFP.
He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not permitted to speak to the press without permission from the education ministry.
- 65,000 listings -
The fall in the number of children in Paris is inversely proportional to Airbnb's spectacular growth since 2013.
With 65,000 listings for a population of 2.2 million in the 20 districts that fall within the city's limits, compared with 50,000 for the 8.5 million people spread across New York's five boroughs, Paris is Airbnb's single biggest market.
By contrast with Berlin, where many Airbnb offerings are for a room in an apartment, nearly 90 percent of the Paris listings are for an entire home, according to the Paris Urbanism Institute.
City officials accuse Airbnb of effectively siphoning thousands of apartments off the market.
"We don't have a problem with vacation rentals, but we do when we lose an apartment that's turned into an Airbnb rental," said Maxime Cochard, an advisor to Ian Brossat, the deputy mayor in charge of housing.
Flats owned as second homes cannot be legally offered as vacation rentals in Paris, and the city has successfully sued several property owners for renting out almost entire buildings on Airbnb and also taken legal action against Airbnb itself.
Cochard said Airbnb was flouting a law requiring all listings to have a registration number proving that the apartment is a primary residence.
"We know perfectly well it is not always the case," Cochard said.
- 'Changes the neighbourhood' -
Experts caution that other factors are at play behind the fall in school enrolments in Paris.
These include a shortage of new housing projects and falling birth rates in one of the EU's most fecund countries, down from around two children per woman between 2006 and 2014 to 1.87 children per woman in 2018.
Laws that offer a high level of protection to renters have long put off many wealthy Parisians from renting out their homes in Paris out of fear of being stuck with a non-paying tenant.
Airbnb says it works to ensure its services don't distort local housing markets, for example by automatically limiting a listing to 120 nights per year -- the legal limit in many French cities.
"Official data show the Paris population has been declining since the 1950s, and the housing issues in Paris go back several decades before the creation of Airbnb," the company told AFP in a statement.
Real estate prices in the city have jumped nearly 25 percent since 2015, according to the INSEE national statistics office, making Paris the second-most expensive capital in the EU to buy an apartment after London according to EU figures.
With apartments fetching on average 9,700 euros per square metre, many families have decamped to the suburbs or the provinces.
"In general, as soon as a couple has two kids, they leave," said Jerome Lambert, the Paris delegate of the Snuipp-FSU teachers' union, France's largest.
"It's a shame, because children obviously bring another aspect of life, another type of neighbourhood, other types of shops as well," Lambert said.
The Kremlin on Wednesday refused to reveal the full story of a fire that killed 14 officers on what was reportedly a nuclear-powered mini-submarine, saying the details of the tragedy were a "state secret."
But apparently under pressure from critics, the defence ministry published the names and photographs of the victims who it said had saved "their comrades and the deep-sea submersible" at the cost of their lives.
Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said there were survivors of the accident, without specifying numbers.
The seamen died on Monday due to smoke inhalation, the defense ministry said, following the fire on a submersible in the Barents Sea in Russia's territorial waters, but the accident was only made public on Tuesday.
Two days after the tragedy the defense ministry described the victims as "true patriots" and top professionals, adding they repeatedly took part in expeditions to study the Arctic and plunged to "maximum depths."
Russia has been involved in the battle for the Arctic, staking a claim for the Arctic Ocean and its riches.
The tragedy has echoes of the sinking of the Kursk submarine in 2000, also in the Barents Sea, that claimed 118 lives and shook the first year of Vladimir Putin's presidency.
Officials have released little information, saying the crew was studying the sea floor in the interests of the navy. But Russian media reported the ship was a top-secret nuclear-powered mini-submarine.
Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov explained the secrecy surrounding the tragedy by saying the information was a "state secret."
Putin did not go to a military base in the northern city of Severomorsk where the vessel is now, dispatching Shoigu instead.
The Kremlin also did not declare a nationwide day of mourning.
- 'Complicated task' -
Igor Kurdin, a former commander of a nuclear submarine, said authorities have managed to extract only four bodies from the vessel which was full of water.
"It's a complicated task," Kurdin told Echo of Moscow radio. "When and most importantly in what state the rest of the bodies will be taken out is unclear so far."
Independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta said the accident took place on an AS-12 nuclear mini-submarine.
Little is known about it and no official photographs of the vessel are available.
Conceived in the Soviet era and launched in 2003, the AS-12 is apparently carried by a "mother" submarine and is designated for research and special military operations.
Its hull is reportedly built of titanium orbs, earning it the nickname "Losharik" --- a winsome toy horse made of juggling balls in a Soviet-era cartoon.
The acting governor of Saint Petersburg said the crew was based in the city.
The presence of many senior ranking officers on board could suggest the submarine was not on an ordinary assignment, experts said.
They described the crew as an elite unit of highly-skilled hydronauts. Putin has described the tragedy as a "big loss" for the army.
Nearly all of the victims were highly decorated officers and included seven Captain First Rank officers -- the most senior staff officers in the Russian navy.
Two have been awarded Hero of Russia, a top title given out by the president.
Shoigu -- who was on Wednesday in Severomorsk, the restricted-access Arctic port -- said that after evacuating a civilian, the crew closed the hatch to halt the spreading of flames.
"They fought for the ship to survive until the end," he said, adding that the seamen would be posthumously given state awards.
- Echoes of Kursk disaster -
Churches in the Arctic city of Murmansk and in Kronstadt, a naval base in the Gulf of Finland, will hold services in their memory.
The navy was considering burying the victims in Saint Petersburg's historic Serafimovskoye cemetery, near the graves of those who died in the Kursk submarine.
In August 2000, the Kursk submarine sank in the Barents Sea with the loss of all 118 aboard.
Putin was severely criticised for his response.
A military expert, who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity, rubbished claims Monday's fire happened during scientific research.
"Usually it's a cover for different type of work conducted on the seabed" like laying or tapping cables, he said.
London summoned Beijing's ambassador for a dressing down Wednesday in a rapidly escalating diplomatic feud over protests in Hong Kong as China told Britain to keep its "hands off" the city and "show respect".
The demonstrations sweeping the former British colony have also revived tensions inherent in the two sides' historic agreement on the global financial hub's handover to Chinese rule 22 years ago.
Hong Kong enjoys broad freedoms and rights not seen in mainland China under a doctrine known as "one country, two systems".
But fears and frustrations over Beijing's gradual tightening of those liberties has spilled over into mass demonstrations against a now-stalled draft law on extradition from Hong Kong to China.
On Monday, groups of mostly young, hardline protesters stormed and ransacked Hong Kong's legislature, daubing it with graffiti such as "HK is not China".
British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt -- one of two candidates to become Britain's next prime minister -- on Wednesday took the global lead in condemning China's handling of its "special administrative region".
Hunt called on Beijing not to use the protests as a "pretext for repressions" and warned of "serious consequences" if China breaches the commitments it made to London decades ago under the terms of the handover.
His comments provoked a cascade of condemnations from China that began with its foreign ministry in Beijing and continued with its embassy in London.
"He seems to be fantasising in the faded glory of British colonialism and in the bad habit of gesticulating while looking down on other countries' affairs," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a regular briefing in Beijing.
"I need to re-emphasise that Hong Kong has now returned to its motherland."
- 'Colonial mindset' -
The diplomatic offensive raged on in London, where Chinese ambassador Liu Xiaoming hastily convened a press conference.
"I tell them: hands off Hong Kong and show respect," Liu said, according to the state-owned CGTN news site.
"This colonial mindset is still haunting the minds of some officials or politicians."
He spoke moments before being summoned by the Foreign Office for a private meeting with UK diplomatic service chief Simon McDonald.
Liu was informed "that the comments made on UK policy towards Hong Kong by the Chinese ministry of foreign affairs spokesperson were unacceptable and inaccurate," a UK Foreign Office spokesman told AFP.
The sides' relations are turning into a hot-button issue in London because of Britain's impending exit from the European Union and the imminent adoption of 5G technology.
Brexit is forcing Britain to seek closer trade relations with the United States and the booming economies of Asia.
And China's controversy-hit Huawei telecoms giant has assumed the global lead in rolling out the next-generation mobile network that should serve as a gateway to the "internet of things".
Britain has been under pressure from the United States to drop Huawei from its plans over national security concerns -- and from China about the consequences to trade if it does.
- 'Best possible understanding' -
Hunt appeared to try to both soften his earlier comments and reassert his leadership credentials in a television interview broadcast late on Wednesday.
"I've been very reasonable with the Chinese. I'm someone who believes we should be the best of friends with China, I want us to trade with China," Hunt told Channel 4 News.
"I want us to have the best possible understanding between two of the great countries in the world."
Hunt has been playing up his diplomatic and business credentials in the two-man race with former London mayor Boris Johnson to succeed Prime Minister Theresa May at the end of the month.
He has portrayed himself as an experienced one-time entrepreneur who knows how to reach agreements on prickly issues while securing Britain's interests abroad.
Johnson told a campaign event on Wednesday that he backs the Hong Kong protesters "every inch of the way".
Police in Hong Kong said they have arrested 12 people who were involved in a pro-democracy protest that took place Monday morning ahead of the storming of the city's legislative building later in the day.
They face various charges including possession of offensive weapons, unlawful assembly, assaulting a police officer, obstructing a police officer and failing to carry an identity document, police said late Wednesday night.
Eleven men and one woman were arrested. The brief statement did not describe the offensive weapons or provide further details.
Pro-democracy protesters rushed police barricades around the time of a morning flag-raising ceremony marking the 22nd anniversary of the return of Hong Kong, a former British colony, to China on July 1, 1997. Police used shields, batons and pepper spray to drive them back.
That afternoon, protesters began what became an hours-long effort to break into the locked legislature building by smashing thick glass walls and prying open metal security curtains. A few hundred poured in around 9pm and spray-painted slogans on the walls and caused extensive damage.
On Wednesday, workers boarded up shattered windows and police carted away evidence during the start of what will be a massive cleanup and criminal investigation.
'Hong Kong is not China'
The government showed journalists the extent of the damage on a tour of the first two floors of the building.
At almost every turn, slogans had been spray-painted on the walls in Chinese and English. "Destroy the Chinese Communist Party," read one. "Hong Kong is not China" said another.
Papers, rubbish and umbrellas a protest symbol in Hong Kong used to ward off sun, rain and pepper spray were strewn in lobbies and rooms. Parts of wooden picture frames were all that remained of portraits of legislative leaders that hung on the wall.
In scenes that shocked people in Hong Kong and around the world, the protesters vented their anger and frustration in the legislature Monday at a government that hasn't responded to their demands. Once inside, they stood on the desks in the main chamber and climbed high to cover the city's official emblem with black spray paint.
Demonstrators also raised the colonial flag of British Hong Kong in the chamber.
The actions overshadowed a peaceful march by hundreds of thousands of pro-democracy protesters elsewhere in the city.
No arrests have been announced for the storming of the legislature. Steve Vickers, a former head of criminal intelligence for the Royal Hong Kong Police, predicted a severe government crackdown that will result in long jail terms.
"I am personally sympathetic to the great majority of the Hong Kong demonstrators and their motivation, but the hardcore elements and agitators involved are becoming increasingly desperate," said Vickers, who heads Steve Vickers and Associates, a political and corporate risk consultancy. "Their actions are counterproductive to many Hong Kong peoples' genuine democratic aspirations."
Police also announced two other sets of arrests Wednesday.
They said five men and one woman were arrested for various incidents during a public meeting on Sunday, when supporters of police staged a large rally. Some clashed with anti-government protesters and members of the news media.
They were charged with possession of offensive weapons, assault causing bodily harm, common assault and fighting in a public place.
Also Wednesday, police said eight people had been arrested for posting personal data about police officers on the internet as massive protests against the government and police were held in recent weeks.
Officers and their family members have been threatened since their addresses and official ID card numbers were published, Superintendent Mohammed Swalikh of the Cyber Security bureau said.
He did not say whether police believe the disclosures were related to the protests. Six men and two women were arrested.
Protests against a legislative proposal expanded to target the police as well after officers used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse crowds blocking major city streets on June 12. Dozens were injured in the clashes, both protesters and police.
Protesters are demanding an independent investigation into the crackdown, which was harsher than usual for Hong Kong. Police have said it was justified after some protesters turned violent.
The legislative proposal would have allowed criminal suspects to be extradited to mainland China to face trial. Opponents saw it as an erosion of the rights guaranteed to Hong Kong for 50 years after the return of the former British colony to China in 1997, and part of a broader attempt by China to clamp down on dissent in the semi-autonomous territory.
Hundreds of thousands marched in the largest protests in recent memory. Smaller protests blocked the legislature and major streets. The government eventually gave in, suspending debate on the bill, but protesters still want the legislation formally withdrawn and the resignation of Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam.
Vandalism a 'pretext for repression' of Hong Kong?
In Beijing, the Chinese government lashed back at remarks by British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt on the causes of the anti-government protests in Hong Kong.
Foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said Hunt appeared to be "basking in the faded glory of British colonialism and obsessed with lecturing others".
Hunt had said that Hong Kong authorities should not use an outbreak of vandalism in the legislative chambers by protesters Monday night as a "pretext for repression". He said the authorities need to "understand the root causes of what happened, which is a deep-seated concern by people in Hong Kong that their basic freedoms are under attack".
Under a 1984 agreement between Britain and China, Hong Kong is to retain its Western-style economic, legal and political system for 50 years. But Geng said Britain has no authority to discuss matters in the territory. China considers such criticism to be interference in its internal affairs.
Geng noted that Britain restricted Hong Kong's democracy during the colonial era. Hong Kong was under British rule for 155 years, during which it was run by a series of governors appointed by the British crown.
The protesters in Hong Kong are demanding direct election of the city's leader.
"The UK considers itself as a guardian which is nothing but a delusion," Geng said. "It is just shameless to say that Hong Kong's freedoms are negotiated for them by the British side."
China's central government has voiced strong support for Lam and the city's police in dealing with the recent protests.
French fashion designer Jean Paul Gaultier said Wednesday he could go back to using fur if he could be sure it was entirely traceable.
The flamboyant creator announced in November he was renouncing fur, a move hailed as a major victory by animal rights groups like PETA who have previously tried to disrupt one of his shows and occupied his Paris boutique.
But at his first fur-free Paris haute couture show, Gaultier told AFP that this "wasn't a funeral for fur".
He said that he did not rule out one day recycling his old furs, or using new pelts again "if everything is done right, and obviously not with endangered species.
"But for now we need to calm things down," he added.
Gaultier told French television last year that the methods used to kill animals for fur were often "absolutely deplorable".
He produced his entirely fur-free autumn winter collection Wednesday with US singer Christina Aguilera in the front row alongside French movie legend Catherine Deneuve and "RuPaul's Drag Race" stars Violet Chachki and Miss Fame.
Gaultier replaced fur with feathers in typically flamboyant fashion, with huge fluffy collars and plume-decked chapka hats, quipping, "No feathers have been killed for this show."
Pelts gave way to animal prints.
"It's fake fake fur," Gaultier told AFP, "a trick of the eye."
"I really like the feel of fur, it's absolutely magificent and so warm. But now we have that in other ways," he admitted.
"We are in an age when there is too much of everything, so we shouldn't be killing animals.
"I have a charming little pussy, and I love animals, though I draw the line at crocodiles," said the 67-year-old enfant terrible.
Gaultier said that it had been well established that animals used for fur were often not well-treated. "So I prefer not to use it any more, or maybe just recycle my old furs from 15 years ago that weren't sold so I can do something with them.
"We have to recycle clothes. It is something I have done from the beginning of my career with old jeans, cutting them up in every which way. We could do the same thing with fur. We should not be burning clothes."
Gaultier conceded that fur had a huge image problem.
"I didn't like the image of women who wore fur -- of women kept by old rich men. Thankfully women have gone beyond that a long time ago, and fur is no longer a synonyn for that."
Egypt on Wednesday condemned a planned London auction by Christie's of a head from a statue of Pharoah Tutankhamun, which is set to proceed despite Cairo's concerns over paperwork.
Egypt's ambassador to the UK "regrets that the auction house intends to conduct a new sale involving Egyptian artefacts tomorrow (Thursday), including the head of Tutankhamun, without the backing of papers", said a joint statement by its foreign and antiquities ministries late Wednesday.
"The auction house still has not furnished the papers with Egyptian authorities", the statement added.
Christie's expects the 28.5-centimetre (11-inch) brown quartzite relic from the Valley of the Kings to fetch more than £4 million ($5.1 million, 4.5 million euros).
The Egyptian statement said auctions of other ancient Egyptian items had taken place earlier on Wednesday, despite "legitimate Egyptian requests in recent weeks" centring on sales certificates.
The sales are "in contradiction with international agreements and conventions", the statement said.
The pharoah's finely-chiselled head -- its serene eyes and puffed lips emoting a sense of eternal peace -- comes from the private Resandro Collection of ancient art that Christie's last sold in 2016 for £3 million.
"We would not offer for sale any object where there was concern over ownership or export," Christie's said in a recent statement released to AFP, noting that the Egyptian embassy had been notified in advance of the planned sale.
The French-owned British auction house explained that the current lot was acquired by Resandro from a Munich-based dealer in 1985.
It traces its prior origins to the 1973-74 acquisition by another dealer in Austria from the Princely House of Thurn and Taxis in modern-day Germany.
But little is known to the public about how the statue found its way to Europe.
President Donald Trump once admired the "strength" China showed by brutally cracking down on pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square.
Students led demonstrations for weeks in spring of 1989, before the Chinese government sent in tanks and troops to end the protests -- killing hundreds, if not thousands -- but Trump expressed admiration of the crackdown a year later, while conceding their brutality, reported Business Insider.
"When the students poured into Tiananmen Square, the Chinese government almost blew it," Trump told Playboy in a 1990 interview. "Then they were vicious, they were horrible, but they put it down with strength."
"That shows you the power of strength," the future U.S. president continued. "Our country is right now perceived as weak ... as being spit on by the rest of the world."
His comments surfaced again after 30th anniversary of the June 4 massacre passed, and they were revived again as tanks rolled into Washington, D.C., to take part in Trump's planned military parade on the Fourth of July.
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POOL/AFP / Sergei CHIRIKOV 
