Miners Stuck In Limbo As Beijing's Last Coal Mine Closes
By Poornima WEERASEKARA, Danni ZHU IBT 03/20/20 

Gutted factories, rusting pickaxes and crumbling homes that will soon be abandoned dot the scarred hills in Mentougou -- home to Beijing's last coal mine slated to close this year as the city battles choking smog.

One of China's oldest mining towns, it has powered the capital for nearly 300 years.

But more than 270 coal mines in the area have been shut down over the past two decades, as China has scrambled to cut carbon emissions and switch to renewables.

The last remaining mine -- which employed about 7,000 workers at its peak -- is scheduled to fully close later this year.

Gutted factories, rusting pickaxes and crumbling homes that will soon be abandoned dot the scarred hills in Mentougou -- home to Beijing's last coal mine slated to close this year as the city battles chocking smog Photo: AFP / GREG BAKER


"Once the Datai coal mine closes there won't be any coal mines in Beijing left," said Ma Shihui, a miner from the southwestern province of Sichuan.



TOP ARTICLES2/5Doctors, Nurses Without Protective GearMay Be Infecting Patients



The young workers have already collected their severance cheques and moved to cities to find work.

But hundreds of others like Ma have little hope of finding new jobs due to old age and have no rights to farmland in their villages.



Ma worked with explosives at the Datai mine since 2016 and earned about 10,000 yuan (US$ 1,400) a month.

One of China's oldest  mining towns it has powered the capital for nearly 300 years Photo: AFP / GREG BAKER

Now his family survives on a 1,540 yuan monthly hand out from the mining company.

"I'm already 50... If you're over 45 years old, they don't want you," he said.


"My family doesn't have farmland anymore... So I can't go back. Even if you go back it's no use, you couldn't survive."

According to Beijing Jinmei Group, the state-owned enterprise that owns the mines near the capital, the government-mandated closures will mean the loss of six million tons of coal production capacity and the "resettlement" of more than 11,000 workers, mostly migrants.

But more than 270 coal mines near Beijing have been shut down over the past two decades, as China scambles to cut carbon emissions and switch to renewables Photo: AFP / GREG BAKER

Those left behind like Ma go twice a day to sign an attendance sheet at the mine office. They also help sweep away shredded documents and recycle mining waste.

"I hope the company will be able to arrange some work for me at their other mines in Ningxia or Shandong," said Ma. "I don't mind even working as a cleaner."

Miners suffering from lung diseases after inhaling coal dust are also stuck in this dilapidated town southwest of Beijing, because their government health insurance only covers treatment from hospitals in the area.

China accounts for half of the world's demand for coal and almost half of its production but the country is switching to greener sources of energy to fight chocking smog and reverse the environmental damage from its coal addiction Photo: AFP / GREG BAKER

A miner from Guizhou surnamed Zhang said he was diagnosed with black lung disease in January last year. He had worked at the Datai mine for 30 years.

The government has promised 380,000 yuan in compensation for sick mine workers, Zhang said, but the money hasn't reached many.

Some 1,400 workers suffering from occupational illnesses have filed a lawsuit against the mine operator, accusing the company of syphoning their compensation for work-related injuries.

Calls and faxes to Beijing Jinmei Group on the issue went unanswered.

Liu Sheng, 51, had worked in coal mines since 1989. He was forced to retire in 2012 after being diagnosed with black lung disease.

"The main thing about this kind of illness is lung trouble. It takes a lot of effort to go outside... It can't be cured," Liu said.

"I'm usually hospitalised five or six times a year."

Liu now lives on a 4,000 yuan monthly government handout. He is unable to return to his village in Sichuan because the health insurance card given by the company is only accepted in hospitals in the Mentougou area.

"I came to Beijing when I was 20 and now I'm 50. Beijing is my second home," Liu said. "It's unfair for them to ask us to leave now."

China accounts for half of the world's demand for coal and almost half of its production. But the country is switching to greener sources of energy to fight chocking smog and reverse the environmental damage from its coal addiction.

A local government circular says they plan to turn Mentougou into an eco-park, with "green mountains, blue waters and red tourism," spotlighting the coal town's role in helping the communist party.

Beijing's subway line is being extended to reach this far corner in hopes it will bring curious tourists.

But so far, there are no hotels or even adequate public toilets to cater to visitors.

Earlier attempts to turn local farmsteads into bed and breakfast hotels have also failed.

"Mentougou's economy is in a shambles," said Dong Xiaoyuan from Peking University's Institute on Poverty Research.

"First officials tried to introduce sheep herding, but it ended up harming the already deteriorated environment," he said.

"Haphazard plans only push more people into poverty."
Copyright AFP. All rights reserved.

SCIENTISTS DISCOVER HOW FEAR FORMS IN THE BRAIN

offering hope that PTSD sufferers could switch off traumatic memories

'Fear memory' formation involves neural connections between two brain regions

Activity between the two regions increased in mice faced with 'aversive stimuli'

Weakening these could erase fear memory for people who are living with PTSD

By JONATHAN CHADWICK FOR MAILONLINE 16 March 2020

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) patients could receive new treatments after scientists discovered how fear forms in the brain.

Biologists in the US say that ‘fear memory’ is formed as pathways between two small regions of the brain strengthen following a traumatic event.

Experiments on mice brains proved that aversive stimulus caused increased activity between these two regions – called the hippocampus and the amygdala.

Finding a way to weaken these connections could erase fear memory and help patients recover from PTSD, they say.






PTSD can cause problems in daily life for months or even years for people who have experienced trauma such as a car crash

‘Our study now demonstrates for the first time that the formation of fear memory associated with a context indeed involves the strengthening of the connections between the hippocampus and amygdala,’ said Professor Jun-Hyeong Cho at the University of California Riverside.

‘Our study, therefore, also provides insights into developing therapeutic strategies to suppress maladaptive fear memories in post-traumatic stress disorder patients.’

Human brains can form a fear memory associated with a dangerous situation, such as a terrorist situation or a car crash.

After horrific events, neural pathways strengthen between the hippocampus and the amygdala – two small but important parts of the brain.

The hippocampus responds to a particular context, such as a collision, and encodes it, and the amygdala then triggers defensive behaviour, including fear responses.

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The Hypothalamus and Amygdala are small regions of the brain that are involved in the formation of the so-called 'fear memory'

This association makes us highly adaptive because it lets us learn from past trauma and informs us how to avoid dangerous situations in the future.

WHAT IS PTSD?


Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder caused by very stressful, frightening or distressing events.

Someone with PTSD often relives the traumatic event through nightmares and flashbacks, and may experience feelings of isolation, irritability and guilt.

They may also have problems sleeping, such as insomnia, and find concentrating difficult.

These symptoms are often severe and persistent enough to have a significant impact on the person’s day-to-day life.

PTSD can develop immediately after someone experiences a disturbing event or it can occur weeks, months or even years later.

Source: NHS



During a car accident, for example, the brain processes a set of multisensory circumstances around the traumatic event, such as visuals and audio, or even smells such as burning materials from a damaged vehicle.

‘Suppose we had a car accident in a particular place and got severely injured. We would then feel afraid of that – or similar – place even long after we recover from the physical injury,’ said Professor Cho.

This is because our brains form a memory that associates the car accident with the situation where we experienced the trauma.

‘This associative memory makes us feel afraid of that, or similar, situation and we avoid such threatening situations.

‘The neural mechanism of learned fear has an enormous survival value for animals, who must predict danger from seemingly neutral contexts.'

However, this process can be dysregulated, leading to exaggerated fear responses that cause PTSD symptoms include nightmares, heightened reactions, anxiety, depression and avoidance of situations that trigger memories of the trauma.

PTSD can affect those who have experienced or witnessed a traumatic event for months, or even years.

A previous study found that one in 13 young people in England and Wales experience post-traumatic stress disorder by the age of 18.

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PTSD is much more common in certain groups including firefighters, rape victims and teenage car crash survivors

An estimated one in 11 people will be diagnosed PTSD in their lifetime, according to the American Psychiatric Association.

Is much more common in certain groups including firefighters, war veterans, rape victims and teenage car crash survivors.

The team hopes their insights will lead to improved PTSD treatments and now plans to develop strategies to suppress pathological fear memories in PTSD.

The study has been published in the journal Nature Communications.

Professor Cho and his team previously investigated in 2017 how the brain encodes a fear memory linked to a 'auditory stimulus'.

Coronavirus: Kind Canadians start 'caremongering' trend

"But I think this does highlight something about Canada - people look out for each other. It is unique."
By Tom Gerken BBC News, Washington 16 March 2020

GETTY IMAGES  Canada will close its borders

Just a few days ago the word "caremongering" did not exist. Now, what started as a way to help vulnerable people in Toronto has turned into a movement spreading fast across Canada.

More than 35 Facebook groups have been set up in 72 hours to serve communities in places including Ottawa, Halifax and Annapolis County in Nova Scotia, with more than 30,000 members between them.

People are joining the groups to offer help to others within their communities, particularly those who are more at risk of health complications related to coronavirus.

The pandemic has led to acts of kindness around the world, from delivering soup to the elderly in the UK to an exercise class held for quarantined residents on their balconies in Spain.

But in Canada, a country whose inhabitants are stereotyped in the media as kind to a fault, helping others has become an organised movement called "caremongering".

As it's all driven by social media, the altruism is arranged online and the hashtags provide a permanent record of all the good happening in different communities across Canada - an uplifting read in anxious times.
The acts of kindness sparked by coronavirus

The first "caremongering" group was set up by Mita Hans with the help of Valentina Harper and others. Valentina explained the meaning behind the name.

"Scaremongering is a big problem," she tells the BBC. "We wanted to switch that around and get people to connect on a positive level, to connect with each other.

"It's spread the opposite of panic in people, brought out community and camaraderie, and allowed us to tackle the needs of those who are at-risk all the time - now more than ever."

Founder Valentina Harper says the idea is to create a contagion of kindness

Valentina said the rapid growth of the trend was far beyond her expectations, with the Toronto group itself now having more than 9,000 members.

"We thought we'd have a couple dozen people," she said with a laugh. "It's grown to thousands.

"But the most positive thing is the local groups that have started, geared to specific neighbourhoods. It's really shown us the need that people have to have some level of reassurance and hope.

"Anxiety, isolation and lack of hope affects you. In providing this virtual community which allows people to help each other, I think it is really showing people there is still hope for humanity. We haven't lost our hope."
'This will give me a fighting chance'

Typically, posts are divided between two main topics - #iso and #offer. #iso posts are for people "in search of" help, whereas #offer posts are (as the name implies) for people offering help.

There are other topics for things like discussions, news articles and which shops are open, but these two tags make up the bulk of the posts in the groups.

Paul Viennau, who joined the caremongering group in Halifax, said that the help he received through the trend felt "like a hug".

"There's a lot of negative things about social media," he tells the BBC. "It's a place that can make you feel isolated normally. This is an opportunity to people to reach out and help each other.

"I have had a disability for the last 29 years, plus a compromised immune system. I live on hand sanitiser in normal circumstances. I started to worry about running out three days ago."

A friend asked on Paul's behalf for hand sanitiser in the Halifax caremongering group, and someone soon came through. Shortly after, Paul joined up to leave a message thanking everyone for their help.

"I am completely and sincerely feeling some love over it," he said. "If I get the flu or coronavirus I will be in hospital.

"This will give me a fighting chance. Thank you."
'It has been life-changing'

There are countless examples of goodwill on the various Facebook groups.

These include a single mother in Ottawa receiving food for her baby, a group of people in Toronto offering to cook meals for those who are unable, and a community in Prince Edward Island who gave grocery store gift cards to a woman who was laid off because of closures related to Coronavirus.

One of the most popular acts is to go to the supermarket for those who are unable - though depending on luck this can prove to be an act of extreme patience as one Hamilton woman discovered when going to a Walmart at 5:30am on Saturday - the queue was a long one.
Skip Facebook post by Donna Mae
Report
End of Facebook post by Donna Mae

But the groups are not exclusively for people who are able to give help, or even those who need it.

They are also about providing a place for people to see acts of goodwill in their communities.

When asked what the group meant to her, Rhia Rave Fae said it was "a safe haven to restore my faith in humanity".

"It's easy to feel alone and powerless," she said, "especially if you're isolated. Being able to offer people emotional support, share information, and even just swap ideas of how to pass the time has been life-changing.

"This group shows the good in people, and proves we can do amazing things when we come together."

And Valentina told the BBC she thought the success of the groups said something about Canadians in general.

"I think there is an international belief that Canada is a very polite country," she said. "And Canadians are so nice. I think there is something Canadian about this because as our population is small as a country, there is a tendency to look out for each other, even if there are a few bad apples who buy all the toilet paper!

"But I think this does highlight something about Canada - people look out for each other. It is unique."

Coronavirus and how it's changed our world

When the coronavirus pandemic broke out it changed the way we interact with social distancing encouraged to prevent the spread of the virus.

From clearer water in Venice to emptier trains in London, how has coronavirus changed everyday life around the world?

Does pandemic offer US and Iran chance for partial reset?
By Jonathan Marcus BBC Defence and diplomatic correspondent 19 March 2020

The official death toll in Iran from the coronavirus disease has risen to 1,135

We are facing a public health crisis that, in global terms, may be the worst for just over a century.

No wonder then that the coronavirus pandemic has pushed many of the stories that make up our usual daily diet of international news to the sidelines.

Nonetheless, many commentators are already speculating about how global affairs may or may not change in the wake of this drama.

A more immediate question is whether the behaviour of antagonistic countries - Iran and the United States, in this case - as they both struggle to confront this emergency, might provide a glimmer of hope for a better relationship in the future?

The question is posed because Iran has been hit severely by the virus.

The number of reported cases is already more than 17,000 and the death toll stands at 1,192, although many in Iran believe the actual numbers are a lot higher.

Iran's economy is already weakened by US sanctions and, although Washington insists that humanitarian items - medical supplies, for example - remain outside the sanctions net, the web of restrictions on the Central Bank of Iran and the country's ability to trade with the outside world are only accentuating its problems.

Things have been made even more difficult by transport disruption, border closures and so on, prompted by the wider impact of the pandemic.

AFP The Iranian president has defended his government's response to the crisis

As a measure of Iran's desperate need, it has taken the almost unprecedented step of requesting a $5bn (£4.25bn) emergency loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

This is the first time for some 60 years that Iran has sought IMF funds. A spokesperson for the organisation told me on Tuesday that the IMF "had discussions with the Iranian authorities to better understand their request for emergency financing" and that "the discussions will continue in the days and weeks ahead".

The US, as one of the IMF Executive Board's most important members, will have a significant say in whether Iran gets the money.

Already there are calls from US experts for Iran not just to be given what it needs, but also for the Trump administration to pursue a more compassionate approach to Iran's health crisis in general.

Mark Fitzpatrick, an expert on arms control and the Iranian nuclear programme, insisted that there was a moment now when an opportunity can be seized to break the log-jam.

"US policy toward Iran is stuck, failing to change Iran's behaviour except for the worse," he tweeted on Monday.
Image Copyright @MarkTFitz@MARKTFITZ
Report

Writing in the US journal The American Conservative on Tuesday, Iran specialist Barbara Slavin argued that the idea, espoused by some US Republicans, that the pandemic might serve to prompt the overthrow of the Iranian regime was absurd.

"The likelihood of massive protests… seems slim given government directives to stay home and rational fears that mass gatherings will only spread the virus," she wrote.

AFP The US says it exempts medicine and medical devices for Iranians from sanctions

The US treasury department, she noted, had taken some small steps to clarify that the humanitarian channel to Iran remained open. But there had been no indications that the Trump administration's "maximum pressure" policy was being reconsidered, she added.

"It appears that the crisis will only push Iran deeper into the arms of China and Russia and strengthen those in the regime who reject reconciliation with the West."

"The Revolutionary Guards, who are handling much of the response to the virus and building emergency medical facilities," she insisted, "will grow even more powerful as Iran comes to look less and less like a theocracy with a thin republican veneer and more like a military dictatorship."

So what then is the chance of even some modest rapprochement?

Not much if the public statements of some of the key players are to be taken at face value.

The Trump administration has sought to score diplomatic points in this crisis.

The US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, said earlier this week that Iran's leaders had "lied about the Wuhan virus for weeks", and that they were "trying to avoid responsibility for their... gross incompetence".

Note there the use of the term "Wuhan virus", which Mr Pompeo prefers to "coronavirus".

EPA US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo hopes Iran may release some detained Americans

Washington is seeking to have a jab at Beijing too, but equally some Chinese figures have been ready to brand the pandemic as some kind of conspiracy created by the US military.

But in regard to Iran, Mr Pompeo has gone further.

He bluntly stated that "the Wuhan virus is a killer and the Iranian regime is an accomplice".

Nonetheless, he said the US was "trying to offer help".

"We have an open humanitarian channel... even as our maximum pressure campaign denies terrorists money."

REUTERS

Iran's government has urged other countries to ignore the US sanctions

In terms of potential military confrontation - remember, just a few weeks ago the US and Iran seemed to be on the brink of war - there have been some indirect incidents.

They include rocket attacks on Iraqi military bases used by US-led coalition forces that the Americans believe were carried out by a pro-Iranian Shia militia. One attack killed three coalition service personnel - one of them a British medic - and the US responded with air strikes.

General Frank McKenzie of CentCom, the man in charge of US forces in the Middle East, told the Senate Armed Services Committee recently that the coronavirus outbreak might make a weakened Iran "more dangerous".

The US is certainly not taking any risks, unusually maintaining two aircraft carriers in the region.

Of course, the indirect culpability of Iran in such attacks is always contested - certainly by the Iranians themselves.

This is not necessarily a tap that Tehran can just turn on and off at will. Many of its proxies have local concerns and goals.

The Shia militias in Iraq are eager to force the Americans out. But Iran could probably do a lot to scale down the frequency or severity of incidents.

Indeed, in general the pandemic does seem to be reducing military confrontation in the wider region.

On the Iran-Israel front in Syria, things seem to be noticeably quieter. And Gen McKenzie also noted that the US might have to "ultimately live with a low-level of proxy attacks", a statement that reduces some of the drama from the situation.

REUTERS

Top Iranian General Qasem Soleimani and Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis were killed in a US drone strike in Baghdad on 3 January

The Iranian leadership too has been talking tough.

President Hassan Rouhani noted on Wednesday that Iran had responded to the US killing of the famed Revolutionary Guards General Qasem Soleimani in January, but also making clear that that this response would continue.

"The Americans assassinated our great commander," he said in a televised speech. "We have responded to that terrorist act and will respond to it."

So, on the face of it, there's not much chance of taking the sting out of the US-Iran relationship.

Washington's attitude to the IMF loan may be a pointer to how things might develop. And indeed rhetoric should not necessarily be taken at face value.

At the end of February, the US contacted Iran via the Swiss government to say that it was "prepared to assist the Iranian people in their response efforts".

Only on Tuesday, Mr Pompeo, along with his tough words to both Tehran and Beijing, spoke of his hope that Tehran might be considering releasing some Americans detained in the country.

The temporary release of the British-Iranian woman Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is another small pointer of a shift in Tehran.

FREE NAZANIN CAMPAIGN

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been released along with tens of thousands of other prisoners

At the end of the day, Iran may well need to tacitly restrain some of the groups who have the Americans and other Western forces in their sights.

They will need to release detained foreign nationals.

And the Trump administration will need to decide whether this is an opportunity to create a small opening with Tehran along sound humanitarian grounds or, whether the mounting pressure on the regime from both sanctions and now the coronavirus, is a moment to double-down.

It could be a fateful decision for what comes next when the pandemic has passed.

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Uganda's Kanungu cult massacre that killed 700 followers

Twenty years on, the whereabouts of (from L to R) Ursula Komuhangi, Credonia Mwerinde, Joseph Kibwetere and Dominic Kataribabo are unknown
By Patience Atuhaire BBC News, Kanungu 17 March 2020

Judith Ariho does not shed any tears as she recalls the church massacre in which her mother, two siblings and four other relatives were among at least 700 people who died.

Exactly 20 years ago, in south-western Uganda's Kanungu district, they were locked inside a church, with the doors and windows nailed shut from the outside. It was then set alight.

Two decades on, the horror of the event is still too much for Ms Ariho, who appears to only be able to cope with the trauma by closing herself off from the emotion.

This still from archive footage shows the ruins of the church in the wake of the fire

The dead were members of the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God - a doomsday cult that believed the world would come to an end at the turn of the millennium.

"The end of present times", as one of its books phrased it, came two-and-a-half months later, on 17 March 2000.

Twenty years later, no-one has been prosecuted in connection with the massacre and the cult leaders, if they are alive, have never been found.

BBC

Everything was covered in smoke, soot and the stench of burnt flesh. It seemed to go right to your lungs"Anna Kabeireho
Neighbour

Anna Kabeireho, who still lives on a hillside that overlooks the land that the cult owned, has not forgotten the smell that engulfed the valley that Friday morning.

"Everything was covered in smoke, soot and the stench of burnt flesh. It seemed to go right to your lungs," she recalls.

"Everybody was running into the valley. The fire was still going. There were dozens of bodies, burnt beyond recognition.

"We covered our noses with aromatic leaves to ward off the smell. For several months afterwards, we could not eat meat."

Kanungu is a fertile and peaceful region of green hills and deep valleys, covered in small farms broken up by homesteads.

BBC/PATIENCE ATUHAIRE

The journey down into the valley that was once the headquarters of the Movement has to be taken by foot.

From down there, it is easy to see how the religious community would have maintained their lives away from the eyes of neighbours.

Birdsong bounces off the hills and there is the sound of a waterfall in the near distance. It is the ideal setting for a contemplative existence.

But nothing remains of the building that was doused in petrol and set alight. At the edge of the spot where it stood is a long mound of soil, the only marker for the mass grave in which the remains from the inferno were buried.
Defrocked priests and nuns

The faithful had been drawn by the charismatic leaders Credonia Mwerinde, a former bartender and sex worker, and ex-government employee Joseph Kibwetere, who said that they had had visions of the Virgin Mary in the 1980s.

They registered the Movement as a group whose aim was to obey the Ten Commandments and preach the word of Jesus Christ.

Christian icons were prominent in the Movement's compound and the cult had tenuous links to Roman Catholicism with its leadership dominated by a number of defrocked priests and nuns, including Ursula Komuhangi and Dominic Kataribabo.I

Christian iconography was found in one of the compound's buildings after the fire

Believers lived mostly in silence, occasionally using signs to communicate.

Questions would be sent to Mwerinde in writing. Known as "the programmer", she is said to have been the mastermind behind how the establishment run, and would write back with answers.

Ms Ariho, 41, joined the Movement with her family when she was 10.

Her widowed mother was struggling to raise three children, one of whom suffered from persistent headaches. Kibwetere's group offered prayer and a sense of belonging, she says.

The self-sustaining community would take in whole families, providing for their every need. The members grew their own food, ran schools, and used their skills to contribute labour.

BBC

We did everything possible to avoid sin. Sometimes, if you sinned, they would command you to recite the rosary 1,000 times"Judith Ariho
Former cult member

Ms Ariho's family hosted a branch of the church with about 100 members in their compound, 2km (1.2 miles) outside the town of Rukungiri.

"Life rotated around prayer, although we also farmed," she says.

"We did everything possible to avoid sin. Sometimes, if you sinned, they would command you to recite the rosary [an entreaty to God] 1,000 times.

"You had to do it, and also ask friends and family to help, until you had served your punishment."

Devotion to the Movement regularly involved pilgrimage to a steep, rocky hill nearby. After a tough hike through a eucalyptus forest, hanging onto rocks and grabbing at tufts of grass, the faithful would reach a rock that they believed depicted the Virgin Mary.

Followers of the Movement believed that this rock resembled the Virgin Mary

As we walk through her village, she points to the homesteads of the immediate neighbours. "Over there, they lost a mother and her 11 children, and in that home, a mother and her eight children died too," she says, shifting her gaze to the ground.

Ms Ariho had not travelled to Kanungu as by 2000 she had married into a family who were not part of the Movement.

But she remembers that the leaders had an omniscient grip on the faithful, saying that Mwerinde and Komuhangi seemed to be aware of every sin that had been committed in the far-flung outlets of the church.

When a follower broke the rules, the two women would shed tears of blood, she says.


But it appears that the cult leaders may have also engaged in murder and torture before the final massacre.

In Kanungu, there are numerous wide and deep pits where dozens of bodies, thought to have been dumped over several years, were retrieved days after the blaze.

At the back of what seems like a ruined office building are two more pits, said to have been torture chambers. Pits were also found near other branches of the church.

What turned ordinary members of society into murderous cult leaders is still not clear.

Before his apparitions, Kibwetere had been a successful man, and a regular member of the Roman Catholic community.

How the BBC reported on the massacre
The people behind the cult
Priest who 'murdered' his flock
Quiet cult's doomsday deaths
Picture gallery: Relatives mourn

Topher Shemereza, now a local government official, saw him as a father figure.

"He was an upright member of the community and a shrewd businessman. I did not have a job when I finished university, so he offered me a deal to transport local moonshine, which we sold in the neighbouring districts," he explains.

A few years on, Kibwetere informed his protégé that he would no longer sell alcohol. The older man and his fellow cult leaders spent a fortnight in Mr Shemereza's government-issued house right up until the night they set off for Kanungu, where they would establish the Movement's headquarters.

"That was the last time I ever saw him. The man I knew was not a murderer. Something must have changed in him," he says.

copyright BBC/PATIENCE ATUHAIRE

The remains of some of the Movement's buildings can still be seen

After the Movement's foundation, word of Kibwetere and his religion spread across south-west Uganda and beyond.

The community was not closed off from the rest of society, and several people in positions of authority - including policemen and local government officials - were aware of its activities. But little action was taken against the cult before the inferno.

Although Interpol issued notices for the arrest of six cult leaders in April 2000, it is still not known if any of them died in the fire or whether they are living in hiding.

A 2014 Uganda police report indicated that Kibwetere may have fled the country. But others doubt that he was well enough to do this.
No memorial

Spiritual movements that bear the hallmarks of the Kanungu cult, where devotees unquestioningly believe their pastors can resurrect the dead or that holy water will heal ailments, have continued to emerge across the continent.

BBC

The Kanungu cult pointed out the evils of the time… and preached a renewal or re-commitment to the faith"Dr Paddy Musana
Makerere University

Their appeal is clear, according to Dr Paddy Musana of Makerere University's Department of Religion and Peace Studies.

"When there is strain or a need which cannot be easily met by existing institutions like traditional faiths or government, and someone emerges claiming to have a solution, thousands will rally around them," he tells the BBC.

"The Kanungu cult pointed out the evils of the time… and preached a renewal or re-commitment to the faith."

Dr Musana adds that one need not look too far to find a similar thread in the messages of today's self-proclaimed prophets.

"The 'Jesus industry' has become an investment venture. Today's preachers talk about health and wellness, because of the numerous diseases, and a public health system that barely functions," says the academic.

He argues that the government needs to do more in overseeing these spiritual movements.

Two decades on, the 48-acre plot at Kanungu is now being used as a tea plantation, but local businessman Benon Byaruhanga says he has plans to turn parts of it into a memorial.

So far, the dead at Kanungu have never been officially remembered. Those who lost family members have never got any answers.

"We pray for our people on our own. We bear our pain in silence," Ms Ariho says, reflecting on the deaths of her mother and siblings.

The 'climate doomers' preparing for society to fall apart
By Jack Hunter BBC News 16 March 2020

An article by a British professor that predicts the imminent collapse of society, as a result of climate change, has been downloaded over half a million times. Many mainstream climate scientists totally reject his claims, but his followers are already preparing for the worst.

As the last light of the late-winter sunset illuminates her suburban back garden, Rachel Ingrams is looking at the sky and pondering how long we have left.

Her hands shielded from the gusts of February air by a well-worn pair of gardening gloves, Rachel carefully places tree spinach and scarlet pimpernel seeds into brown plastic pots.

Over the past year, Rachel, 45, has invested in a greenhouse and four bright blue water butts, and started building a raised vegetable patch out of planks of wood. It's all part of an effort to rewild her garden and become as close to self-sufficient as she can, while society continues to function.

Within the next five to 10 years, she says, climate change is going to cause it to fall apart. "I don't see things lasting any longer than that."

So every evening, after picking up her children from school and returning to their former council house, she spends about two hours working outside.

"I find the more I do it, the less anxious I am," she says. "It's better than just sitting in the living room looking at the news and thinking, 'Oh God, climate change is happening, what do we do?'"

Rachel is unsure about how much to tell her three daughters. "I don't say to them that in five years we won't be here," she tells me. "But they do accept that food will be difficult to find."

Every six weeks, she takes her two youngest daughters on an 450-mile round trip from their home in Sheffield to an organic farm in South Wales, where they learn how to forage for food. It's vital for them to learn "skills we'll be able to use in the natural world when all our systems have broken down," she says.

"I don't think what they're learning in school is the right stuff any more, given what we're facing. They need to be learning permaculture [self-sufficient agriculture] and other stuff, ancient stuff that we've forgotten how to do. We just go to Tesco."

But she's not at all confident her efforts will make much difference, in the long run. "I don't think we can save the human race," she says, "but hopefully we can leave the planet with some organic life."

Around a year ago, a video of a talk by a British professor called Jem Bendell appeared on Rachel's Twitter feed.

"As soon as I saw it, everything seemed to make sense in a terrifying way," Rachel says.

"It felt like a bolt from the blue: 'We're all going to die.' I felt it in my bones that we are at the beginning of the end."  

Bendell, a professor in sustainable leadership at the University of Cumbria, is the author of an academic article, Deep Adaptation: A Map for Navigating Climate Tragedy, which has become the closest thing to a manifesto for a generation of self-described "climate doomers".

In it, he argues that it is too late for us to avoid "the inevitability of societal collapse" caused by climate change. Instead, we are facing a "near-term" breakdown of civilisation - near-term meaning within about a decade.

The paper was rejected for publication by a peer-reviewed journal, whose reviewers said its language was "not appropriate for an academic article".

It is certainly unconventional, with its disturbing descriptions of what's to come. "You won't know whether to stay or go. You will fear being violently killed before starving to death," Bendell writes.

After the journal's rejection, in July 2018 Bendell self-published the 34-page article online.

It soon went viral. It has now been downloaded over half a million times, translated into a dozen languages, and sparked a global movement with thousands of followers - called Deep Adaptation, because Bendell calls on people to adapt their lifestyle to cope with the harsh conditions in his vision of the future.

But Bendell's stark predictions have been dismissed by prominent climate scientists.

Prof Michael Mann, one of the world's most renowned, describes Bendell's paper as "pseudo-scientific nonsense".

Image copyrightALAMY

"To me, the Bendell paper is a perfect storm of misguidedness and wrongheadedness," Mann says. "It is wrong on the science and its impacts. There is no credible evidence that we face 'inevitable near-term collapse'."

What's more, Mann claims, Bendell's "doomist framing" is "disabling" and will "lead us down the very same path of inaction as outright climate change denial. Fossil fuel interests love this framing." Bendell is, he says, "a poster child for the dangerous new strain of crypto-denialism".

Myles Allen, professor of Geosystem Science at the University of Oxford, is just as critical.

"Predictions of societal collapse in the next few years as a result of climate change seem very far-fetched," he tells me.

"So far, the system's responded to greenhouse gas emissions almost exactly as predicted. So to say it's about to change and become much worse is speculation.

"Honestly this kind of material is at the level of science of the anti-vax campaign."

Allen agrees with Mann that the paper's pessimism is liable to make people feel powerless. "Lots of people are using this kind of catastrophism to argue that there's no point in reducing emissions," he says.

Bendell rejects the scientists' claims and says people have been inspired by his paper to demand radical government measures to tackle climate change.

"I hope Michael Mann gets to meet some more climate activists on the streets, so he can meet the new breed of fearless people taking peaceful direct action after being moved by uncompromising assessments of our situation," he says. "Many of the leaders of Extinction Rebellion read my paper and quit their jobs to go full time to try to reduce harm and save what we can." 

Other climate scientists say they have more time for Bendell.

"With global emissions continuing to rise, and no signs that the Paris targets will be respected, Jem Bendell has some justification in taking the strong position that it is already too late and we'd better prepare to deal with the collapse of the globalised economic system," says Prof Will Steffen, from Australia's Climate Change Council.

"Jem may, in fact, be 'ahead of the game' in warning us about what we might need to prepare for."

He adds that there is a "credible risk" that even a 2C rise in global average temperatures above pre-industrial levels could initiate a "a tipping cascade... taking our climate system out of our control and on to a Hothouse Earth state".

"I can't say for sure that Jem Bendell is right… but we certainly can't rule it out."

In its bleak forecasts and direct language, Bendell's paper has had an electrifying effect on many who have read it. Almost 10,000 people have joined a "Positive Deep Adaptation" Facebook group and about 3,000 are members of an online forum.

Here, the movement's followers exchange ideas about how they can adapt their lives, businesses and communities in accordance with Deep Adaptation doctrine.

In the paper, Bendell proposes a "Deep Adaptation Agenda" - a conceptual roadmap for how to cope with the economic, political and environmental shocks he believes are coming our way.

He urges people to think about the aspects of our current way of life we will be able to hold on to and those we will have to let go of, referring to these two ideas as Resilience and Relinquishment.

He also talks about a third R, Restoration, which refers to old skills and habits that we will have to bring back. For some, such as Rachel, "restoration" means rewilding their gardens and local neighbourhoods, learning foraging skills and imagining how to survive in a world without electricity.

For others it's about leaving the city or heavily populated areas of the country and heading for the hills.

Lionel Kirbyshire, a 60-year-old former chemicals engineer, says he began getting deeply worried about the climate a few years ago. He read, among other things, some of the writings of Guy MacPherson, a controversial American scientist unaffiliated to Deep Adaptation, who predicts humans will be extinct by 2030.

His head was soon "boiling with all this information that no-one wants to know".

"There was a moment about a year ago when it hit me and I thought, 'We're in big trouble,'" he says. "When you look at the whole picture it's terrifying. I think we've got 10 years, but we'll be lucky to make it."

 

LIONEL KIRBYSHIRE and Jill Kirbyshire, enjoying the wide open spaces of Fife

A few months after reading the Deep Adaptation paper, Lionel and his wife, Jill, decided to move north. They sold their house in densely populated Bedfordshire and relocated to a three-bedroom terraced house in the small town of Cupar, Fife.

"In the back of my mind, [I think] when the crunch comes, there'll be a lot of people in a small area and it's going to be mayhem - and we'll be safer if we move further north because it's colder."

They expect their grown-up children will join them in the coming years. In the meantime Lionel is investing in some growing boxes, in order to create raised vegetable beds in his garden, a foraging manual and water purification tablets.

"We're not stockpiling food but as the years go on I can't see us having much left."

Some of Rachel Ingrams' books about foraging and self-sufficiency

Another Deep Adaptation follower, who didn't want his name to be published, told me he was planning to relocate from the South-East to the Welsh countryside.

"The basic things we'll need will be food, water and shelter," he says.

He plans to live off-grid, either joining an existing eco-community or "going it alone" with like-minded friends in a house clad with straw bales for insulation.

"Deep Adaptation isn't a bunker mentality of doing it yourself. You want a mix of people with different skills," he says.

But he also says he has been taking crossbow lessons, "because you never know".

"It seems like a pretty useful weapon to have around to protect ourselves. I'd hate the thought I'd ever have to use it but the thought of standing by and not being able to protect the ones I love is pretty horrifying."

Jem Bendell says Deep Adaptation advocates non-violence. Its online platforms ban members from discussing "fascistic or violent approaches to the situation".

Though it didn't appear in Bendell's first paper he later added a fourth R, Reconciliation, which is all about living in peace. And when I finally get through to him, after two months of unreturned emails and conversations with his colleagues in the Deep Adaptation "core team", he puts a big emphasis on love.

"People are rising up in love in response to their despair and fear," he tells me. "[Deep Adaptation] seems to have reached people in all walks of life, at least in the West - heads of banks, UN agencies, European Commission divisions, political parties, religious leaders..."

His message, he says, is one of "putting love and truth first".

At present, the professor's followers often feel that their truth they believe in is ignored and dismissed by the rest of society.

Lionel says that among people he meets "no-one wants to talk about it".

He's joined several online groups - with names like Near-Term Human Extinction Support Group and Collapse Chronicles - where he can share his despair.

"Sometimes I say that I'm feeling quite low and someone will say they're feeling the same," he tells me. "So you know you're not in it alone."

Rachel tells me that she also sometimes feels isolated. Her attempts to get her neighbours to collaborate in a community compost heap have mostly fallen on deaf ears, so she turns to Deep Adaptation's online forums to find support.

"It's much easier when you have a group to face the tragedy unfolding before us. If I am feeling anxious, hopeless or full of grief I can go on there and tell them how I'm feeling.

"There are 9,000 people all over the world, so you can post on there in the middle of the night and get support. I post ideas about my compost bin and get lots of messages back with people being encouraging."

However, she thinks there will be a day when the electricity is cut off, so she is learning to recite poems by heart, in case she finds herself alone, with no internet or possessions.

"At least I'll have something to carry with me."

All photographs by Jack Hunter, unless otherwise indicated


Professor Jem Bendell – Strategist & educator on social ...
https://jembendell.com
Strategist & educator on social & organisational change, now focused on Deep Adaptation

About – Professor Jem Bendell
https://jembendell.com › about
Dr Jem Bendell is a Professor of Sustainability Leadership and Founder of the Institute for Leadership and Sustainability (IFLAS) at the University of Cumbria ...


Responding to Green Positivity Critiques of Deep Adaptation
By Jem Bendell, originally published by Jem Bendell blog
April 15, 2019
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2019-04-15/responding-to-green-positivity-critiques-of-deep-adaptation/


Our Actions Create the Future: A Response to Jem Bendell
By Jeremy Lent, originally published by Patterns Of Meaning blog
April 15, 2019
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2019-04-15/our-actions-create-the-future-a-response-to-jem-bendell/



Deep Adaptation: A Map for Navigating Climate ... - Lifeworth
https://www.lifeworth.com › deepadaptation
Jul 27, 2018 - For instance, the first Occasional Paper, by Professor Jem Bendell and Professor. Richard Little, was subsequently published in the Journal of ...

Natural history TV 'boosts species awareness'
By Mark Kinver BBC Environment reporter

Programmes, such as Sir David Attenborough's, triggered a greater interest in species among audiences

Programmes, such as Sir David Attenborough's Planet Earth II series, boost people's awareness and interest in species, a study has suggested.

Despite lacking an overt conservation message, the programmes stimulated people to find out more about the species featured in the broadcasts.

The team from University College Cork based their findings on analysing data from Twitter and Wikipedia.

The findings have been published in Conservation Letters journal.

The researchers said their results appeared to show that "natural history films can provide vicarious connection to nature and can generate durable shifts in audience awareness".
Conservation criticism

Co-author Dario Fernandez-Bellon said that he and co-author Dr Adam Kane decided to carry out the study after the Planet Earth II series attracted some criticism for not carrying a more overt conservation message.

Screen-time, rather than how charismatic an animal was, influenced how an audience behaved

The scientists decided to investigate the initial criticism more closely, using "big data" collated from Twitter and Wikipedia, to see if there was an issue that needed to be highlighted.

"We found that there was, in fact, very little of the script dedicated to conservation," observed Dr Fernandez-Bellon, "and that barely had any impact on Twitter, let alone Wikipedia."

But the researchers found that there was a clear link when it came to the species featured in the programmes.

"What we found was that people's reactions and interest in species was mainly led by how long they were on screen, and independent of whether they were mammals, birds or reptiles," he told BBC News.

In other words, the creatures did not have to be so-called "charismatic species" in order to attract attention.

Dr Fernandez-Bellon added: "It was really quite interesting because it showcases that dilemma producers sometimes have in finding the balance between producing a show that's entertaining, while generating awareness in people without taking a preachy approach."

He observed: "If a producer wants to highlight a specific species that is endangered, they do not really have to rattle on about how endangered it is, but just by giving it more time on screen, people are more likely to go on to Wikipedia and find out the information themselves."

Media professionals recognise that an increasing proportion of the audience now "dual-screen", which describes how they watch television while also using a mobile device, such as a smartphone or a tablet.

Drs Fernandez-Bellon and Kane also decided to see if the data suggested the programmes led to people taking a more proactive approach when it came to conservation, such as donating to a wildlife charity.

"We did look at a couple of charities to see whether they registered peaks in donations around the time Planet Earth II was broadcast," Dr Fernandez-Bellon said.

"The truth is that there was not, not in the same way we had found a peak in Twitter activity, and a peak in Wikipedia activity but there was not in proactive action."

Dr Fernandez-Bellon said that there was a lot of scope to use the big data from social media platforms, such as Twitter, to help shape policies on how to communicate conservation to a wider audience.

"If this data is being used for marketing or business purposes, why couldn't we use it for conservation purposes or to assess potential changes in human behaviour," he said.