Researchers turn to trees to determine if multicellular life on exoplanets exist

by Carly Banks, Northern Arizona University

Graphic of conceptual design of the team’s shadow theory. Credit: Northern Arizona University

Is there life outside our planet?

The age-old question has long been asked by scientists and researchers without much progress in finding the answer.

There have been more than 4,200 exoplanets discovered outside our solar system, and while past techniques were developed to test for life on exoplanets, none of which tested for complex, non-technological life like vegetation. Now, space telescopes may soon be able to directly view these planets—including one within the habitable zone of the Earth's nearest star neighbor. With the help of these telescopes and a team of researchers in informatics and astronomy at Northern Arizona University, an answer to this question might not be so out of this world.

Funded by a NASA Habitable Worlds grant, a team of researchers, which includes Chris Doughty, David Trilling and Ph.D. student Andrew Abraham, published a study in the International Journal of Astrobiology that develops and tests a technique to determine whether specifically multicellular or complex-but-not-technological life can be uniquely detected outside the solar system.

In an attempt to find some answers, the team turned to one of Earth's most common multicellular life forms—trees. More specifically, their shadows.

"Earth has more than three trillion trees, and each casts shadows differently than inanimate objects," said Doughty, lead author on the paper and assistant professor in the School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems. "If you go outside at noon, almost all shadows will be from human objects or plants and there would be very few shadows at this time of day if there wasn't multicellular life."

The team hypothesizes that abundant upright photosynthetic multicellular life (trees) will cast shadows at high sun angles, distinguishing them from single cellular life. Therefore, using future space telescopes to observe the types of shadows cast should, in theory, determine if there are similar life forms on exoplanets.

"The difficult part is that any future space telescope will likely only have a single pixel to determine if life exists on that exoplanet," said Abraham, who worked closely with Doughty on the study. "So, the question becomes: Can we detect these shadows indicating multicellular life with a single pixel?"


With just one pixel to work with, the team had to make sure that the shadows detected in these telescopes were conclusively multicellular life, not other exoplanet features like craters.

"It was suggested that craters might cast shadows similar to trees, and our idea would not work," said Trilling, associate professor of astronomy. "So, we decided to look at the replica moon landing site in northern Arizona where the Apollo astronauts trained for their mission to the moon."

Drones were used at different times of the day to determine that craters did in fact cast shadows differently than trees.

The researchers then turned to imaging to determine if their theory would work on a large scale. By using the POLDER (Polarization and Directionality of Earth's Reflectance) satellite, the team was able to observe the shadows on Earth at different sun angles and times of day. The resolution was reduced to mimic what Earth would look like as a single pixel to a distant observer as it rotates around the sun. Then, the team compared this to similar data from Mars, the moon, Venus and Uranus to see if Earth's multicellular life was unique.

The team found that on parts of the planet where trees were in abundance, like the Amazon basin, multicellular life could be distinguished, but when it came to observing the planet as a whole as a single pixel, distinguishing multicellular life was difficult.

However, the potential that observing shadows brings to the conversation of life on exoplanets could be closer than scientists and researchers have ever been before. Doughty believes the technique remains valid in theory—a future space telescope could rely on the shadows found in a single pixel.

"If each exoplanet was only a single pixel, we might be able to use this technique to detect multicellular life in the next few decades," he said. "If more pixels are required, we may have to wait longer for technological improvements to answer whether multicellular life on exoplanets exists."


Explore further Looking for exoplanet life in all the right spectra

More information: Christopher E. Doughty et al. Distinguishing multicellular life on exoplanets by testing Earth as an exoplanet, International Journal of Astrobiology (2020). DOI: 10.1017/S1473550420000270

Journal information: International Journal of Astrobiology

Provided by Northern Arizona University

Earth grows fine gems in minutes

by Jade Boyd, Rice University

Black tourmaline going to pink tourmaline within a quartz pegmatite at California's Stewart Lithia mine. Credit: Patrick Phelps/Rice University

Rome wasn't built in a day, but some of Earth's finest gemstones were, according to new research from Rice University.

Aquamarine, emerald, garnet, zircon and topaz are but a few of the crystalline minerals found mostly in pegmatites, veinlike formations that commonly contain both large crystals and hard-to-find elements like tantalum and niobium. Another common find is lithium, a vital component of electric car batteries.

"This is one step towards understanding how Earth concentrates lithium in certain places and minerals," said Rice graduate student Patrick Phelps, co-author of a study published online in Nature Communications. "If we can understand the basics of pegmatite growth rates, it's one step in the direction of understanding the whole picture of how and where they form."

Pegmatites are formed when rising magma cools inside Earth, and they feature some of Earth's largest crystals. South Dakota's Etta mine, for example, features log-sized crystals of lithium-rich spodumene, including one 42 feet in length in weighing an estimated 37 tons. The research by Phelps, Rice's Cin-Ty Lee and Southern California geologist Douglas Morton attempts to answer a question that has long vexed mineralogists: How can such large crystals be in pegmatites?

"In magmatic minerals, crystal size is traditionally linked to cooling time," said Lee, Rice's Harry Carothers Wiess Professor of Geology and chair of the Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences at Rice. "The idea is that large crystals take time to grow."

Magma that cools rapidly, like rock in erupted lavas, contains microscopic crystals, for example. But the same magma, if cooled over tens of thousands of years, might feature centimeter-sized crystals, Lee said.

"Pegmatites cool relatively quickly, sometimes in just a few years, and yet they feature some of the largest crystals on Earth," he said. "The big question is really, 'How can that be?'"

Rice University graduate student Patrick Phelps used cathodoluminescence microscopy to measure the chemical composition of sample crystals. Credit: Linda Welzenbach/Rice University

When Phelps began the research, his most immediate questions were about how to formulate a set of measurements that would allow him, Lee and Morton to answer the big question.

"It was more a question of, 'Can we figure out how fast they actually grow?'" Phelps said. "Can we use trace elements—elements that don't belong in quartz crystals—to figure out the growth rate?"

It took more than three years, a field trip to gather sample crystals from a pegmatite mine in Southern California, hundreds of lab measurements to precisely map the chemical composition of the samples and a deep dive into some 50-year-old materials science papers to create a mathematical model that could transform the chemical profiles into crystal growth rates.

"We examined crystals that were half an inch wide and over an inch long," Phelps said. "We showed those grew in a matter of hours, and there is nothing to suggest the physics would be different in larger crystals that measure a meter or more in length. Based on what we found, larger crystals like that could grow in a matter of days."

Pegmatites form where pieces of Earth's crust are drawn down and recycled in the planet's molten mantle. Any water that's trapped in the crust becomes part of the melt, and as the melt rises and cools, it gives rise to many kinds of minerals. Each forms and precipitates out of the melt at a characteristic temperature and pressure. But the water remains, making up a progressively higher percentage of the cooling melt.

"Eventually, you get so much water left over that it becomes more of a water-dominated fluid than a melt-dominated fluid," Phelps said. "The leftover elements in this watery mixture can now move around a lot faster. Chemical diffusion rates are much faster in fluids and the fluids tend to flow more quickly. So when a crystal starts forming, elements can get to it faster, which means it can grow faster."

Crystals are ordered arrangement of atoms. They form when atoms naturally fall into that arranged pattern based on their chemical properties and energy levels. For example, in the mine where Phelps collected his quartz samples, many crystals had formed in what appeared to be cracks that had opened while the pegmatite was still forming.

Brazilian emeralds in a quartz-pegmatite matrix. Credit: Photo courtesy of Madereugeneandrew/Wikimedia Commons

"You see these pop up and go through the layers of pegmatite itself, almost like veins within veins," Phelps said. "When those cracks opened, that lowered the pressure quickly. So the fluid rushed in, because everything's expanding, and the pressure dropped dramatically. All of a sudden, all the elements in the melt are now confused. They don't want to be in that physical state anymore, and they rapidly start coming together in crystals."

To decipher how quickly the sample crystals grew, Phelps used both cathodoluminescence microscopy and laser ablation with mass spectrometry to measure the precise amount of trace elements that had been incorporated into the crystal matrix at dozens of points during growth. From experimental work done by materials scientists in the mid-20th century, Phelps was able to decipher the growth rates from these profiles.

"There are three variables," he said. "There's the likelihood of things getting brought in. That's the partition coefficient. There's how fast the crystal is growing, the growth rate. And then there's the diffusivity, so how quickly elemental nutrients are brought to the crystal."

Phelps said the fast growth rates were quite a surprise.

"Pegmatites are pretty short-lived, so we knew they had to grow relatively fast," he said. "But we were showing it was a few orders of magnitude faster than anyone had predicted.

"When I finally got one of these numbers, I remember going into Cin-Ty's office, and saying, 'Is this feasible? I don't think this is right.'" Phelps recalled. "Because in my head, I was still kind of thinking about a thousand-year time scale. And these numbers were meaning days or hours.

"And Cin-Ty said, 'Well, why not? Why can't it be right?'" Phelps said. "Because we'd done the math and the physics. That part was sound. While we didn't expect it to be that fast, we couldn't come up with a reason why it wasn't plausible."


Explore further Growing metallic crystals in liquid metal

More information: Patrick R. Phelps et al, Episodes of fast crystal growth in pegmatites, Nature Communications (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-18806-w 

Provided by Rice University

The US unveiled H-1B restrictions that it said would cut visas by a third and stop the 'replacement' of American employees by overseas workers

President Donald Trump (R) speaks on immigration issues while meeting with members of the U.S. Congress in the Cabinet Room of the White House June 20, 2018 in Washington, DC. Also pictured is Sen. James Inhofe Win McNamee/Getty Images

The Trump administration has made further restrictions to its H-1B visa programme that it says will ensure American employees are not "replaced" by overseas workers.

American firms will have to pay higher salaries for workers enrolled in the H-1B programme. The new rules also narrow the list of qualifications that make you eligible for the visa.

US firms will have to offer jobs to US citizens before hiring foreign workers, the Department of Homeland Security said.

The US government has announced new restrictions on H-1B visas that it claims will stop the "replacement" of US employees by skilled overseas workers.

Under a new Department of Labor rule that will come into force Thursday, American companies must pay higher salaries to workers enrolled in the H-1B program.

New Department of Homeland Security (DHS) rules will narrow the list of qualifications that make you eligible for the visa and reduce the length of visas for workers in some fields.

Ken Cuccinelli, second-in-command at the DHS, estimated the new rules would cut the number of visas by a third.


The DHS argued in a statement that more than 500,000 qualified American workers have been "displaced" by "low-cost" H-1B workers.

Full details on the proposals would follow soon, the DHS said. The DHS rules will take two months to come into force, once laid out in full.
"Real" offers to "real employees"

The new rules require US firms to make "real" offers to "real employees" — meaning Americans — before hiring foreign workers. The DHS also said it would carry out worksite inspections and monitor compliance before and after the approval of a H-1B visa.

"We must do everything we can within the bounds of the law to make sure the American worker is put first," said acting secretary Chad Wolf in the statement, adding that the world had entered an era where "economic security is homeland security."


Cuccinelli told reporters on a conference call on Tuesday that "companies have been incentivized to avoid hiring Americans or even lay off their own qualified, better-paid American workers and replace them with cheaper foreign labour," per the Washington Post.

In June, the Trump administration blocked foreign workers on H-1B visas and other temporary visas from entering the country until the end of 2020. Major tech companies, such as Apple and Facebook, who rely on H-1B visas to hire many of their workers, argued that the visa ban would make the US economy less competitive.

Apple's CEO Tim Cook tweeted on June 23: "Like Apple, this nation of immigrants has always found strength in our diversity, and hope in the enduring promise of the American Dream."

On October 1, a federal judge blocked the ban for companies that are represented by the National Association of Manufacturers, the US Chamber of Commerce, the National Retail Federation, and TechNet.


Around 500,000 people are currently living in the US with a H-1B visa, with a maximum of 85,000 people put on the visa programme each year.

.
SEE ALSO: The US said it had canceled the visas of 1,000 Chinese students to stop them stealing 'sensitive military research'

SEE ALSO: Trump to suspend certain foreign worker visas despite tech, business group opposition

SEE ALSO: Trump signs a proclamation halting H-1B work visas and other temporary visas

Wall Street's regulatory gains set to stand even under Biden



By Pete Schroeder, Michelle Price

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A victory for Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden on Nov. 3 would spell the end of the party for the banking industry which has enjoyed more than $40 billion in regulatory cuts under U.S. President Donald Trump’s business-friendly administration.

But the industry is likely to keep many of its wins as Democrats prioritize more pandemic aid, healthcare, tax reform and financial rules that address racial injustice, environmental and inequality issues, rather than attacking banks, said nearly a dozen lobbyists and policy experts in Democratic circles.

Banks and investors were preparing for a Biden victory over the weekend after Trump tested positive for COVID-19 on Friday, in a blow for his campaign.

“A hypothetical Biden administration will be confronting an economy mired in COVID-19, an unsustainable climate policy, a healthcare system whose flaws were exposed by the disease,” said Aaron Klein, a former Treasury Department official during the 2009 financial crisis that badly marred Wall Street’s image.

“This is not 2009 where the stability and soundness of the financial system is the top priority for restoring the economy and the semblance of normalcy,” said Klein, who is now a policy director at Washington think tank Brookings Institution.

From the relaxation of capital, leverage, liquidity, swap trading and speculative investment rules, to lighter-touch supervision and enforcement, banks have enjoyed a bonanza under the Republican-led Senate and Trump appointees who say the rules were overly burdensome, stymied lending and hurt the economy.

Biden, who was also accused of being too cozy with Wall Street as a senator and later Barack Obama’s vice president, has rarely attacked Trump’s financial giveaways and has said relatively little on financial reform more broadly.

As progressives pull the Democratic party to the left, policy experts expect a Biden administration to be tougher on financial firms than both the Trump and Obama administrations. Some liberal groups are already pushing Democrats to consider repealing several Wall Street-friendly rules.

But while Democrats may swiftly overturn some financial rules if they take the Senate, they are likely to focus legislative efforts on Trump healthcare, immigration, environmental and tax policies they hate more, said the sources.

That would leave most of Trump’s Wall Street giveaways intact initially, and put financial policy in the hands of Biden’s regulatory appointees who would get to choose whether to spend years unraveling their predecessors’ work.

“The personnel appointed to draft and carry out these rulemakings will have particular importance and also far more independence than under the Trump administration,” wrote D.C. research group Beacon Policy Advisors in a client note.

Progressive firebrand Senator Elizabeth Warren would hold sway over some appointments, particularly at the consumer watchdog which she helped create, and bank regulators.

Overall, though, lobbyists said they would expect a diverse mix of progressives and moderates, even though few are likely to come straight from Wall Street.

“I don’t think you’ll see the progressive liberals getting all the appointments they want,” said Richard Hunt, CEO of Washington group the Consumer Bankers Association.

Biden’s campaign, which did not immediately comment, has said he plans to use all available tools to reverse Trump’s damaging policies. Warren’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

RACIAL JUSTICE, EQUALITY

Progressives have criticized Trump’s watchdogs for easing some post-crisis capital, liquidity and leverage requirements, changes which have saved banks more than $40 billion, according to industry estimates. Many centrist Democrats believe, however, that those rules were ripe for review and are wary of getting bogged down rewriting them again, the sources said.

Appointees are expected to prioritize policies on which Democrats broadly agree - boosting consumer protections and measures to help tackle racial injustice, diversity, wealth inequality and climate change, said Graham Steele, a director at Stanford Graduate School of Business and formerly a senior Democratic aide on the Senate Banking Committee.

Those policies include boosting financial inclusion; cracking down on predatory lending, overdraft fees, and debt collectors; strengthening fair lending rules; overhauling the credit reporting system; halting Trump’s housing finance reforms; and imposing corporate climate change risk disclosures and bank climate risk controls.

Some measures could put banks on the defensive. Others may offer opportunities for the industry, which has improved its standing in Washington by helping the government distribute more than $500 billion in pandemic aid, said lobbyists.

“I’m not worried about being shut out,” said Hunt. “We have so many people employed in every state and district and we provide so much to the economy.”


Reporting by Michelle Price and Pete Schroeder; Editing by Nick Zieminski

Greek court rules far-right Golden Dawn leaders ran a crime group



By Renee Maltezou, Lefteris Papadimas


ATHENS (Reuters) - A Greek court on Wednesday declared far-right party Golden Dawn a criminal group, effectively banning a radical organisation that was once the third-largest political force in the country.

The courtroom cheered as the high-profile trial reached its end after five years of hearings, as did thousands who gathered outside the Athens appeals court.

But the mood on the streets turned sour when isolated groups of hooded youths threw petrol bombs at police, who responded with tear gas and water cannon.

Golden Dawn was catapulted from obscurity to infamy in the space of a few years, attracting supporters with a xenophobic rhetoric at the height of Greece’s debilitating debt crisis.

But it started to unravel in September 2013, when a party supporter was arrested for the killing of Pavlos Fyssas, a musician and rapper aligned to the political left.

“With today’s decision, a traumatic cycle in the country’s public life comes to an end,” said Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. “As in the ballot, this Nazi group was also convicted by the court.”

Golden Dawn members, including its leader Nikos Mihaloliakos, were rounded up and authorities launched an inquiry into whether the group was a criminal organisation in parallel to the probe into Fyssas’s death.

Before the court ruled that the party leadership was running a criminal group, the court found Golden Dawn supporter Yiorgos Roupakias guilty of Fyssas’s murder.

Fyssas’s black-clad mother Magda, who has not missed a day since the trial started, burst into tears when the verdict went against Golden Dawn.

“Pavlos you did it,” she said. “We won a battle but are continuing the fight.”

The Golden Dawn members were not in court on Wednesday. They were arrested in 2013, the first time that elected politicians had been detained in Greece since a military coup in 1967, and released after their pre-trial detention period expired.


Golden Dawn failed to win a single seat in last year’s parliamentary election.

Prosecutors had charged 65 people, including 18 former Golden Dawn lawmakers, with being members of a criminal group. The party said it was the victim of a political witch-hunt.

Dozens of others on trial, party members and alleged associates, face convictions on charges that range from murder to perjury, linked to violent attacks on immigrants and left-wing activists.

Wednesday’s verdict sets the stage for the high-profile case to proceed with the court looking into sentencing for the murder of Fyssas and other violent attacks.

Tens of thousands rallied outside the court, holding banners reading “Fascism, Never Again” and “Freedom for the People, Death to Fascism”.


“We must send a message to the younger generations, a message against fascism,” said 69-year-old Sophia. “It’s our duty to democracy to be here today, to show we are standing up against such criminal actions.”

Amnesty International said Wednesday’s verdict would boost efforts to fight hate crimes.

“This verdict sends a clear message to political groups with aggressive anti-migrant and anti-human rights agendas in Greece and across Europe that violent and racist criminal activity will not go unpunished,” said Nils Muiznieks, Amnesty’s Europe director.

Additional reporting by Angeliki Kountatou; Writing by Michele Kambas and George Georgiopoulos, editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise and Giles Elgood

Strange bedfellows: Laredo's millionaires, nuns and muralists battle border wall



By Laura Gottesdiener


LAREDO, Texas () - Former U.S. Border Patrol agent Daniel Perales spent hours over the years crouched at the mouth of the Zacata Creek, a tributary of the Rio Grande, listening for the snap of carrizo cane as border crossers from Mexico arrived on the northern banks.



FILE PHOTO: Historical buildings that could be affected by the enforcement zone that must be cleared for the border wall according to preliminary plans are seen in Laredo, Texas, U.S., September 19, 2020. REUTERS/Veronica G. Cardenas

These days, he listens for the whistle of the Morelet’s seedeater, a bird rare in these parts, and frets about the proposed construction of a border wall here.

“It would fragment the habitat of the birds, especially those that live along the river,” said Perales, who spent nearly 30 years with the federal agency and oversaw 400 agents at the Laredo North Station before retiring in 2007.

Perales said he voted for President Donald Trump in 2016 and plans to do so again. But that hasn’t stopped him from joining the ranks of residents in Laredo opposed to building a barrier here as part of Trump’s promised wall spanning the U.S.-Mexico border.

“It’s not necessary. You don’t need a wall here,” said Perales, adding that cameras and patrol roads were sufficient.

Less than a month before the U.S. presidential election, resistance to the wall, a centerpiece of Trump’s 2016 campaign, is flaring across parts of the approximately 2,000-mile border. Near construction sites in Arizona and California in recent weeks, members of Native American tribes have clashed with law enforcement and others over plans for building on lands the tribes consider sacred. Two weeks ago in front of a Laredo courthouse, military veterans against the border project mobilized to thwart a caravan of Trump supporters who had sought to drive over a 30-foot “Defund the Wall” street mural.

Amid an election upended by Trump’s positive coronavirus diagnosis, the future of the wall hangs in the balance. Trump’s Democratic challenger, former vice president Joe Biden, has said he would not build “another foot of wall” if elected.

Meanwhile, opposition to plans for a stretch of wall in the counties of Zapata and Webb, which includes Laredo, has united some strange bedfellows: the street artists, multimillionaire Republicans, Catholic nuns, military and border patrol veterans, conservationists and a local Native American tribe.

In Webb County, CBP has issued contracts worth $1.05 billion to three construction companies to build approximately 69 miles of a 30-foot steel bollard wall, as well as construct roads and adding cameras and other surveillance technology.

Construction is slated to begin as early as January depending on the availability of land.

In an August press release, CBP officials said the Laredo wall is necessary to “impede and deny illegal border crossings and the drug and human smuggling activities of transnational criminal organizations.” In the Laredo sector, traffic has not abated during the coronavirus pandemic as it has in other sectors, government data show.

In statements to Reuters, CBP spokesman Matthew Dyman said the agency is committed to protecting cultural and natural resources, such as wildlife corridors and culturally sensitive Native American artifacts or sites.

The agency is now surveying land for possible purchase. Dyman said it is “always CBP’s preference” to obtain land voluntarily through negotiated offers but if that is not possible, a condemnation action - known as eminent domain - may be required.

The majority of Americans oppose a substantial expansion of the border wall, according to a January 2019 Pew research poll, although the opinions tended to fall along party lines, with 82% of Republicans in favor and 93% of Democrats opposed.

Opposition in Laredo, which is predominantly Democrat but contains a substantial Republican contingent, appears more lopsided. More than two dozen cities, counties, and Native American tribes in the border region have passed resolutions opposing the project, including Laredo in 2017.

DECLARING INDEPENDENCE - AGAIN

A city of 262,000, Laredo sits in a former Spanish colony and Mexican territory, hugging the Rio Grande River. Here, partisan political divisions quickly evaporate when it comes to deciding on boundaries and the fate of the land.

Webb County is 95% Hispanic and many residents have family connections to Mexico. Business owners depend on cross-border trade. Some ranchers trace their property rights back to the 18th century Spanish land grants. The ancestors of the Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe of Texas formed their ties to the territory well before then.

In 1840, Laredo was the seat of the short-lived Republic of the Rio Grande, whose independence from Mexico lasted for 10 months before its cavalry was crushed by that country’s Army.

“We’ve declared independence before — and we could do it again,” said Margarita Araiza, executive director of the Webb County Heritage Foundation who traces her family’s roots in Laredo back twelve generations to that 19th-century rebellion.

She worried the wall’s construction could destroy or destabilize the city’s 250-year-old historic sandstone buildings and sever its cozy relationship to the Rio Grande, where residents often fish, picnic, and stroll.

“This is the reason this city was created, because of access to the river,” said Araiza.

CBP spokesman Dyman said that no historic buildings would be directly affected by border wall construction based on current plans.

Araiza is one of the founding members of the Laredo No Border Wall Coalition, a loosely organized group that seeks to halt the project.

Working with a coalition of concerned landowners is the Laredo-based IBC Bank, whose chief executive officer, Dennis Nixon, was a top Trump donor in 2016. The proposed barrier could cut through the bank’s 75 acres of waterfront property.

“At a time when (America’s) number one trading partner is Mexico, what is the message we are sending to our friends in Mexico?” said Gerardo Schwebel, executive vice president of the bank’s corporate international division.

Not everyone in the city is opposed to the barrier. Supporters say the Mexican town of Nuevo Laredo, just across the river, is a hub for drug trafficking and human smuggling.

“No one wants to build a wall around their homes if they don’t have to, but there’s a need for that security,” said Hector Garza, president of the National Border Patrol Council’s local union chapter.

‘A BETTER WAY’?

The proposed border wall in Texas primarily cuts through private land, generating opposition and some alliances among occupants and landowners large and small.

Felipe Antonio Perez, a 92-year-old retired carpenter, said he’d lived in his modest wooden house near the river bank in Laredo’s historic La Azteca neighborhood for over sixty years. Standing beside a “No Border Wall” sign on his fence, he told Reuters he’d thrown away a government inquiry about surveying his land.

The oil-rich Fasken family, one of the top-fifty largest landowners in the United States with 85,000 acres in Webb County alone, co-founded the Rio Grande Landowners’ Coalition to stop the wall project.

“We feel there is a better way to secure the border and that putting up a 30-foot high wall to make a political statement is not the best use of taxpayers’ money,” said Bill Skeen, the family’s real estate manager.

Also opposed are the sisters of the century-old Sacred Heart Children’s Home for orphans, which overlooks the river.

“Put yourself in the place of an individual who has been orphaned - abandoned, abused, or whose parents have died -- the land and its natural beauty and its view becomes your refuge,” said Beto Cardenas, the attorney representing the sisters in their negotiations with the government.

The ancestral territory of the Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe of Texas extends on both sides of the river, said Chairman Juan Mancias as he surveyed riverside willow trees that the tribe uses to build sweat lodges on ranch land outside Laredo. Native burial grounds lie along the river, he said.

“The wall is a racial attack on our identity as people of the land,” he said.

He said the tribe does not own riverfront land - it “owns us.” But his people are committed to protecting it.

“My great grandchildren would be denied this,” he said, looking across the landscape dotted with mesquite trees and purple sage. “They would be denied who they are.”


Laura Gottesdiener reported from Laredo, Texas. Editing by Frank Jack Daniel and Julie Marquis

E-commerce firm Shopee in Thai twitter storm for banning anti-government store


By Chayut Setboonsarng, Panarat Thepgumpanat

BANGKOK (Reuters) - E-commerce firm Shopee has reversed a ban on a store linked to a dissolved opposition party in Thailand, a spokeswoman said, after online criticism of its perceived pro-government stance.



FILE PHOTO: The Shopee logo is seen at an office building in Singapore January 17, 2018. REUTERS/Thomas White/File Photo

#BanShopee became the third highest trending hashtag with over 57,000 uses on Saturday and many Twitter users saying they’ve deleted the app.

“Double standards @ShopeeTH,” wrote Twitter user @chanson_2013. “You need to explain why you banned the stores of those advancing democracy but allow businesses who are pro government to sell on your platform.”

Shopee, a unit of Tencent-backed Sea Ltd, is the latest business in Thailand to be targeted by pro-democracy campaigners for appearing to support the government of Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha.

The campaign also comes a week ahead of the crucial online shopping event, 10.10.


“Our platform is neutral, and everything is up to company policy,” a Shopee Thailand spokeswoman told Reuters, adding that its policies were applied equally to all sellers.

Companies in Thailand are finding it increasingly difficult to navigate political division. In August, after calls for a boycott, Burger King and others pulled advertisement off the Nation television, which activists branded as pro-government.

Shopee says Democstore had violated its terms several times before the ban for posting “politically sensitive” material.

Democstore is run by the Progressive Movement, a group founded by banned politicians from upstart opposition Future Forward party, which was dissolved in February.


“We were selling urban camping equipment for the protesters and we were banned,” Progressive Movement spokeswoman Pannika Wanich told Reuters.

In September, ten thousand protesters joined an overnight demonstration calling for amendments to the constitution and reform of the monarchy.

DemocStore said it would continue selling t-shirts and mugs with the group’s logo on the chat app, Line.

Anti-government memorabilia are fast becoming hot items online.

Column: Central banks' eye on inequality makes QE uncomfortable



By Mike Dolan


LONDON (Reuters) - Central banks may not be out of ammunition just yet but parts of their strategic policy rethinks related to inequality and fairness raise questions about the extent they should use it.


Small toy figures are seen in front of an Economy and stock graph logo in this illustration taken, September 9, 2020. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

Ever since the last financial crisis 12 years ago, investors have fretted about a moment when central banks - having floored borrowing rates to zero or below and ballooned their balance sheets - would simply run out of ways to support increasingly indebted economies and panic-prone markets.

The massive monetary response to this year’s pandemic shock to date showed there’s plenty still in the armoury. Policymakers insist they have more firepower if needed and both the Federal Reserve and European Central Bank are now loosening long-term inflation or employment goals as additional policy guidance.

But with borrowing rates already so low, and with a reluctance to go deeply negative for fear of undermining banking systems, ever-more purchases of government bonds and other assets is the only practical tool left to meet the rising list of increasingly more vague goals in any fresh downturn.

While that’s still useful to cap interest bills on exploding government debt or to support credit markets, it also risks exaggerating wealth inequality - something economists partly blame for putting central banks in this cul-de-sac to start off with.

The emphasis last month in the Fed’s strategic policy review on monitoring inequality in its pursuit of an enhanced full employment goal is getting more attention as a result.


Bastien Drut, strategist at Amundi-owned CPR Asset Management, argues that working to reduce inequality aims to give the Fed more policy room over time by helping re-establish better relationships between employment, wages and inflation.

“One of the problems posed by rising inequalities is that it contributes to the fall in the real natural (interest) rate,” he wrote. “As the natural rate has already fallen sharply in recent years, the rise in inequalities is tending to erode the Fed’s leeway.”

One of the macroeconomic puzzles of the past decade has been the inexorable decline in the “natural” rate of interest - the theoretical rate that keeps economies at full employment with stable inflation, or a rate above or below which policy rates are either a drag or spur for activity and prices.

As wage growth for large swathes of workers in developed countries has stalled over the past 10-15 years despite the lowest jobless rates in a generation, inflation and expectations of it also went missing in action. The presumed natural interest rate slumped - by many estimates to less than zero, even through 2019.

As a result, the only way central banks could get policy rates to stimulate growth and inflation was to either get rates to unprecedented sub-zero levels below that natural rate - something most seem unwilling to do - or ramp up bond-buying and asset purchases to loosen financial conditions another way.


The leftfield shock from COVID-19 provided that test, and central banks responded mostly with asset purchases once any remaining positive policy rates were removed - action that helped reverse a plunge in stock and bond markets despite unemployment rates that are still more than double pre-pandemic levels.

COVID GAPS

But the net result is both the pandemic, and perhaps the central bank response to it too, likely exaggerated inequality - and central banks may reasonably wonder if they can keep it up.

Fed data out this week showed U.S. income inequality narrowed slightly in the three years before the pandemic, but it said wealth inequality was unchanged in that period, with the richest 25% of families holding more than 90% of the nation’s wealth, and the bottom 25% having less than 1% of it.


Both income and wealth measures likely worsened this year. Washington think-tank the Institute for Policy Studies, for example, estimated U.S. billionaires increased their worth by over $800 billion or almost 30% in the six months to September.

And the COVID shock is widely expected to have hit low-income workers hardest - part-time staff, younger cohorts, those unable to work remotely and those in retail, transport or hospitality jobs.

HSBC economists this week said a disproportionate hit to young workers in particular could hit wage growth significantly, citing studies showing ageing workforces over the past decade may have been one aspect suppressing wage inflation as older workers may have higher earnings but weaker bargaining power.

“They (young workers) are also less likely to have benefited from the distributional consequences of central bank quantitative easing given they are less likely to own equities, other financial assets.”

And so when Fed chair Jerome Powell now talks of a “maximum employment” goal as not a single number but as a qualitative judgement mindful of disparities between ages, genders, races and communities, he’s partly responding to criticism that the Fed tightened policy too early in 2017/18, before all groups had experienced similar levels of low unemployment.


But it’s hard to see how central bank asset purchases don’t just aggravate the problem as much as help it.

Underwriting the debt of governments who do have the means to address these gaps - even if not always the willingness - is one key route. But ensuring their political masters use the fiscal space is a harder task in the messier world of advocacy and politics, and will make parsing the course ahead trickier.

Graphic: Central bank assets: reut.rs/3aDxo8U

Graphic: Median family net worth by race: tmsnrt.rs/3kRPecY

The author is editor-at-large for finance and markets at Reuters News. Any views expressed here are his own.


by Mike Dolan, Twitter: @reutersMikeD; Editing by Prav

Turkey's EU membership bid evaporating, Commission says

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union’s executive said on Tuesday that Turkey’s government was undermining its economy, eroding democracy and destroying independent courts, leaving its bid to join the EU further away than ever.

The criticism drew an angry retort from Ankara.

Blaming “excessively” centralised presidential power for deteriorating conditions in freedom of speech, prisons and the central bank, the European Commission said the government was also exposing Turkey to “rapid changes in investors’ sentiment”.

“The EU’s serious concerns on continued negative developments in the rule of law, fundamental rights and the judiciary have not been credibly addressed by Turkey,” the Commission said in its annual report on the country.

“Turkey’s (EU) accession negotiations have effectively come to a standstill,” it said.

A NATO ally, Turkey has been negotiating EU membership since 2005 after economic and political reforms that made it an important emerging market economy and trade partner.

Although never easy because of disputed Turkish claims over Cyprus, talks rapidly unravelled after a failed coup in Turkey in 2016 and President Tayyip Erdogan’s ensuing crackdown on perceived opponents.

“In Turkey, the serious backsliding observed since the 2016 coup attempt continued,” the Commission said.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry dismissed the report as “biased, far from constructive” and rejected criticism of its economy, democracy and courts.

“Just as it (Turkey) is not straying from the EU, it remains committed to the EU membership process despite attempts by some circles to push it away,” the ministry said. “Turkey is acting within the framework of universal norms, in line with fundamental rights, democracy and the principle of rule of law.”

Turkey has faced several years of harsh Commission reports, and the EU executive once again intensified its criticism, citing monetary policy, public administration and widespread corruption as failures of the Turkish government.

While the EU, Turkey’s biggest foreign investor, relies on the country to house some 4 million Syrians fleeing civil war rather than let them proceed to Europe, Brussels also reiterated its threat to impose economic sanctions on Ankara over an energy dispute in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Reporting by Robin Emmott; Additional reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu in Ankara; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Giles Elgood

Russia warns that Nagorno-Karabakh could become Islamist militant stronghold

By Nvard Hovhannisyan, Nailia Bagirova

YEREVAN/BAKU (Reuters) - The Kremlin issued a new appeal for an end to hostilities in and around Nagorno-Karabakh on Tuesday after Moscow’s foreign intelligence chief said the mountain enclave could become a launch pad for Islamist militants to enter Russia.

Moscow expressed alarm after the deadliest fighting in more than 25 years between ethnic Armenian and Azeri forces entered a 10th day, though the French news agency AFP later said Armenia had offered concessions only if Azerbaijan was ready to do so.

AFP gave no details of the offer it said had been made by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. Azerbaijan has said it will stop fighting only if Armenia sets a timetable to withdraw from Nagorno-Karabakh, which under international law belongs to Azerbaijan but is populated and governed by ethnic Armenians.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called for fighting to stop and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov voiced “serious concern about the unprecedented escalation” in a phone call with Iran’s foreign minister,

Sergei Naryshkin, the head of Russia’s SVR Foreign Intelligence Service, said the conflict was attracting people he described as mercenaries and terrorists from the Middle East.

“We are talking about hundreds and already even thousands of radicals hoping to earn money in a new Karabakh war,” Naryshkin said in a statement.

He warned that the South Caucasus region could become “a new launch pad for international terrorist organisations” from where militants could enter states including Russia.

His comments were released after Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, whose country is a close ally of Azerbaijan, urged Moscow to be more active in peacemaking

Russia, Iran concerned about risk of foreign fighters in Nagorno-Karabakh - ministry

NEW FIGHTING

Mediation efforts led by Russia, France and the United States have failed to prevent intermittent flare-ups of fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh despite a ceasefire which ended a 1991-94 war that killed about 30,000.

Renewed fighting since Sept. 27 has increased concern that Turkey and Russia, which has a defence pact with Armenia, could be sucked into the South Caucasus conflict.

Iran, which borders Azerbaijan and Armenia, is also worried about the conflict and President Hassan Rouhani underlined the importance of peace in the region in a phone call with Azeri leader Ilham Aliyev on Tuesday.

In the latest fighting, Armenia said Azerbaijan launched an attack with tanks and artillery on a southern part of the contact line that divides ethnic Armenian and Azeri forces.

Nagorno-Karabakh said four cluster bombs had exploded in the centre of Stepanakert, its main administrative centre.

Azerbaijan says Azeri cities outside the conflict zone have been struck, taking the fighting closer to territory from which pipelines carry Azeri gas and oil to Europe.

Both sides say the other has hit civilian areas. Each denies targeting civilians.

Nagorno-Karabakh said 244 of its servicemen and 19 civilians had been killed since Sept. 27 and many more wounded.

The Azeri prosecutor’s office said 27 Azeri civilians had been killed in the renewed fighting. Azerbaijan has not disclosed information about its military casualties.

In an interview with Russian news agency RIA, Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad said Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan was “the main instigator and the initiator of the recent conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh between Azerbaijan and Armenia”.

Reiterating accusations first levelled by French President Emmanuel Macron that Turkey has sent Syrian jihadists to fight in the conflict, Assad said: “Damascus can confirm this.”

Assad offered no evidence for his allegation against Turkey, which backs rebels trying to oust him in Syria’s civil war.

Ankara did not immediately respond but has described similar accusations as part of attempts by Armenia to create “dark propaganda” about Turkey.

Additional reporting by Margarita Antidze in Tbilisi, Tuvan Gumrukcu and Jonathan Spicer in Ankara, and Alexander Marrow, and Andrew Osborn and Maxim Rodionov in Moscow; Writing by Timothy Heritage; Editing by Giles Elgood and Gareth Jones/Mark Heinrich