Ancient Rocks Reveal How Volcanos Unleashed The Mother of All Extinctions


(Westend61/Getty Images)

MIKE MCRAE
23 JUNE 2021

Over a quarter of a billion years ago, at the close of the Permian, life's resilience was put to the ultimate test. Nine out of every ten marine species perished – along with nearly three quarters of species on land – in what's now referred to as The Great Dying.

The smoking gun is an intense period of volcanic activity in what is modern-day Siberia, blasting material into the atmosphere hundreds of thousands of years prior to the ecological catastrophe.

Now chemists have uncovered what looks to be the bullet: traces of a nickel isotope that altered the chemistry of the planet's oceans, triggering a domino-effect that would ultimately suffocate animals far and wide around the globe.

Building a case on the mother of all extinctions is a forensics exercise on an epic scale. There's no shortage of evidence, from the litany of fossils to vast plates of igneous rock deposited in a series of cataclysmic eruptions roughly half a billion years ago.

It tells an all-too familiar story of global climate change driven by volcanic eruptions, sending temperatures soaring and robbing oceans of their oxygen. On land, the story was just as grim. Plants weathered the changes well enough, but over a period of hundreds of thousands of years, terrestrial animals gradually dropped away.

Figuring out the details is where it all gets a little messy. Was it global warming from a surge in greenhouse gases? Ozone-depleting compounds tearing a hole in the atmosphere? Mass poisoning of the oceans?

A significant clue can be found in the geology of Meishan, a prefecture in China's Zhejiang Province. For decades this compressed strip of rock has served as the marker defining the end of the Permian and the start of the Triassic.

Mixed in among the sediments making up this critical layer of history, along with other similar layers around the world, is an unusual concentration of nickel.

"Nickel is an essential trace metal for many organisms, but an increase in nickel abundance would have driven an unusual surge in productivity of methanogens, microorganisms that produce methane gas," says geochemist Laura Wasylenki from Northern Arizona University.

Aerosols spewed out by volcanoes are certainly one source of the metal, but other, more localized environmental factors would need ruling out before any definitive claims could be made.

Wasylenki and her team analyzed samples of black shale taken from Arctic Canada, representing oxygenated and oxygen-depleted deposits laid down during the end-Permian mass extinction.

Concentrations of a specific isotope of nickel along with the total amount of the element were traced over an extensive period during the extinction, and then compared with the predictions of several explanatory models.

While amounts of the isotope barely changed at the horizon of the extinction event, the total concentration of nickel plummeted, pointing to an uptake of the nutrient by an explosion of nickel-hungry microbes.

Their rapid growth under low oxygen conditions – and belching out of copious amounts of methane – would be bad news all round, not only contributing greenhouse gases, but greedily stripping organic carbon from the environment, feeding a food web that would suck all of the available oxygen from the ocean's depths.

"Our data provide a direct link between global dispersion of [nickel]-rich aerosols, ocean chemistry changes, and the mass extinction event," says Wasylenki.

It wasn't a slow death, either. The changes to ocean chemistry would have taken place over the course of hundreds of thousands of years, a timeline reflected in other studies.

Studying nickel isotopes to better understand fluctuations in chemistry in the deep past is a relatively new tool in the geologist's box, yet could potentially be used to solve the mystery of other ancient events.

While there's no such thing as a closed case in science, the story behind one of the most catastrophic events in all of biology is slowly becoming crystal clear.

"Prior to this study, the connection between Siberian Traps flood basalt volcanism, marine anoxia, and mass extinction was rather vague, but now we have evidence of a specific kill mechanism," says Wasylenki.

This research was published in Nature Communications.

Flood-basalts(red areas) and corresponding hotspots (yellow dots). Hotspots are stationary regions of increased igneous activity; the spatial discrepancy of these spots and lava deposits is explained by the slow movement of the tectonic plates. The radiometric ages of some of the igneous provinces correlate with major mass extinction events during Earth's history, as shown by the number of families recognized in the geological record.

 D.BRESSAN

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UPDATE

The Coelacanth May Live for a Century. That’s Not Great News

Scale markings reveal that this weird fish's lifespan is double what scientists first estimated. That also means they’re closer to extinction than we thought.

PHOTOGRAPH: THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM/SCIENCE SOURCE

AFRICAN COELACANTHS ARE very old. Fossil evidence dates their genesis to around 400 million years ago, and scientists thought they were extinct until 1938, when museum curator Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer noticed a live one in a fisher’s net.

Found off the southeastern coast of Africa, coelacanths also live a long time—scientists have suspected about 50 years. But proving that lifespan has been tough. (Coelacanths are endangered and accustomed to deep waters, so scientists can’t just stick their babies in a tank and start a timer.) Now a French research team examining their scales with polarized light has determined that they can likely live much, much longer. “We were taken aback,” says Bruno Ernande, a marine ecologist who led the study. The new estimated lifespan, he says, “was almost a century.”

His team from the French Institute for the Exploitation of the Sea, or IFREMER, found not only that individuals can live to nearly 100 but also that they have gestation periods of at least five years, and may not mature sexually until they’re at least 40. The results were published on Thursday in Current Biology. This slow-motion life highlights the importance of conservation efforts for this rare species, which is marked as “critically endangered” on the IUCN Red List. Only about 1,000 exist in the wild, and their long gestation and late maturity are bad news for their population’s resilience to run-ins with humans. “It's even more endangered than we previously thought,” Ernande says.

“It will have enormous consequences,” agrees Daniel Pauly, an ichthyologist from the University of British Columbia, who was not involved in the study. Pauly is the creator of FishBase, a database of biological and ecological information about tens of thousands of species. If a fish takes decades to spawn, then killing it wipes out its potential to replenish the population. “A fish that needs 50 years to reach maturity, as opposed to 10 years, is five times more likely to be in trouble,” he says.

COELACANTHS HAVE THICK scales that grow up to two inches long, and for decades ichthyologists have been debating how to read those scales for signs of age. In the 1970s, researchers noticed small calcified structures on them. They figured the rings were age markers, like tree rings. They disagreed, however, on how to count them: Some figured that each marking denoted one year; others believed that seasonal flips created two rings per year. At the time, the best guess placed their life expectancy at about 22 years. That conclusion, which meant that a 6-foot, 200-pound coelacanth is 17 years old, implied that they grow very quickly: “They would grow as fast as tuna, which is crazy,” Pauly says.

It’s crazy because these are animals with slow metabolisms, which should indicate slow growth. Coelacanths’ hemoglobin is adapted to that slow metabolism, which means they can’t take in enough oxygen to support a fast-growing fish. Some argue that their small gills are further evidence of oxygen limitations. They also live very passive lifestyles, resting most of the day in caves and lumbering slowly through the ocean’s twilight zone, down at 650 feet and below, when they do deign to move around. “Overwhelmingly, the biological features were pointing to a slow-living fish,” says Ernande.


Plus, scientists tracking the lives of individual coelacanths have known that 20 years is far too low. In the 1980s, researchers started sending submersibles and remote-operated vehicles down to a cave harboring 300 to 400 coelacanths. They returned to this spot for over 20 years. During each visit, they recognized individuals by their characteristic white markings. Only about three or four fish in this group would die, and an equal number of new ones would be born, each year. This observation provided striking evidence that coelacanths live long lives—even more than 100 years, that study argues.

But a population assessment doesn’t pin down age or lifespan directly. Intrigued by this gap, Ernande and his colleagues began tackling coelacanth age as a “fun side project.” He and the study’s lead author, Kélig Mahé, had been determining the ages of species that are commercially fished. Knowing the relationship between a fish’s age and its size helps forecast—and conserve—future populations. They figured they’d conduct a similar analysis for the coelacanth, but since they are endangered, they couldn't fish for them or find any in an aquarium. They instead requested museum specimens from France and Germany.

PHOTOGRAPH: MARC HERBIN/MNHN

The usual way of determining a fish's age is by looking at its otoliths, inner-ear stones that fish use for hearing; they also record the passing years as the calcium carbonate builds up. But otoliths are inside fish heads. Would the French National Museum of Natural History let researchers chop open their prized collection to dig out the little stone for a "fun side project"? The team didn’t even bother asking.

Instead they focused on examining the fish’s scales. In previous studies devoted to counting their rings, researchers had examined them by microscope under regular light. Mahé had something else in mind: polarized light. Light waves normally vibrate every which way, not just the direction in which the wave is traveling. Polarized light is like streaking a comb through messy hair—all the waves now vibrate in the same plane. (The glare of sunlight bouncing off a river is polarized; that’s why polarized sunglasses can filter that entire bundle of rays out simultaneously.) When light hits a sample containing minerals—as calcified fish scale structures do—the polarized light exaggerates these minerals against the rest of the scale, making otherwise invisible structures visible.

The polarized light microscope revealed five times more rings in the coelacanth’s scales than anyone had seen before. These “circuli” were much more fine than the larger and sparse “macrocirculi” that had been observed in the ’70s, and they appeared across all of the museum’s 27 specimens, which ranged from embryos to nearly full-grown adults. Counting circuli told a completely new story: Coelacanths grow very slowly, and they can live extremely long. A coelacanth thought to be 17 years old, if you only counted its macrocirculi, would instead be about 85.

To validate the new approach, the team charted the relationship between each fish’s size and age. Like other fish, coelacanths should grow logarithmically—at first a period of fast growth, followed by a slow plateau as they approach a maximum lifespan. The new ages made sense. Smaller specimens fit neatly in the range they would expect of a fast-growing adolescent, and the largest specimens fit in a slower-growth phase that plateaued near 2 meters and around 100 years old.

The rings found on two large embryos also suggested that they gestate for at least five years. “As far as we know, this is the longest gestation period for a fish,” Ernande says.

Coelacanths become reproductively mature when they’re about 5 feet long. And based on the growth model for the species, Ernande’s team concluded, coelacanths don’t reach that length until they are 40 to 69 years old. That time until sexual maturity is among the longest of any known species.

“That is crazy old,” says Prosanta Chakrabarty, an ichthyologist from Louisiana State University who is not involved in the study. “So old that it makes me kind of dubious, to be honest.” He completely buys the team’s lifespan conclusion. But, he says, the deduction that coelacanths can’t reproduce until halfway to two-thirds of the way into it is extraordinary. And extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence.

The age range for spawning may be off, since it’s deduced from previously reported sizes of mature individuals and their model for determining age from size. To him, the team could solidify the sexual maturity conclusion by accessing one or two coelacanth otoliths or repeating the same scale analysis in other species of fish. “It just comes down to scales,” Chakrabarty says. “Show me that the scales on a brown ruffe, which can also live 100 years, would work in the same way.” Lungfish, a fellow long-lived and limb-finned fish like the coelacanth, could also provide extra assurance in the method, he says.

Ernande shares Chakrabarty’s caution. But since ichthyologists are fairly confident that coelacanths don’t mature while smaller, and coelacanths clearly grow slowly, Ernande is satisfied with his team’s conclusion. “Even though it might not be 50, but 40, or 35, it's still a very old age. That's for sure,” he says.

PHOTOGRAPH: MARC HERBIN/MNHN

Pauly is not surprised that coelacanths take so long to mature: “Fish don't know their age, they know their size.” When a fish gets bigger, it has more trouble breathing. Their body grows in volume, but the gills only grow in surface area. So as the surface-to-volume ratio decreases. At about one third of their maximum weight, a transition to sexual maturity begins. “This tension between the gills and the body—between the oxygen supply and the oxygen need—triggers a transition to do spawning,” Pauly says.

The coelacanth’s delayed sexual maturity and long gestation suggests that conservation efforts are extra important, because any animal that’s lost cannot be quickly replaced. If it takes 40 years for an individual to mature and five more to gestate, removing any adult would make the population “quickly collapse,” Pauly says.

Their unique look and reputation for long life has made coelacanths vulnerable to illegal trafficking and incidental catches in Madagascar. People in the neighboring Comoros Islands sometimes fish them as well. “They were using the scales like sandpaper for their bicycles,” according to Pauly.

Ernande’s team has turned their side project into a major focus area—they now plan to expand their analysis with more and larger specimens. (Perhaps a larger coelacanth might even be older than 100.) And a new area of focus for them will be measuring the fish’s climate resilience. If coelacanths struggle to extract oxygen from warmer water, evidence could show up in their scale rings. If warm water years show up as tighter rings, that’d mean they are growing slower and maturing later as the planet warms—more bad news for coelacanths.

His team won’t know until they glean more stories from the coelacanths’ anatomy. They hope these life stories and climate stories told on a yearly timescale, printed finely on scales of a different sort, will not be cut short.

A Strawberry Moon Will Rise This Thursday — No, It Won't Be Red Or Pink

June's full moon, known as the strawberry moon, was named for its appearance during the strawberry picking season. Here, the strawberry moon rises above the Apollo Temple in ancient Corinth, on June 17, 2019.
VALERIE GACHE / AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

Originally published on June 22, 2021 

Look to the eastern skies for a sweet sight on Thursday evening: a strawberry moon is set to rise just as the sun dips below the horizon.

June's full moon is best known as the strawberry moon, and it's the first full moon after the summer solstice. It's also a marginal supermoon, according to NASA, as definitions of a supermoon are widely varied among publications.

While the moon will still be large and at one of its closest points to Earth in its elliptical orbit, this moon will be further away from our planet than the last three full moons, NASA says.

The strawberry moon gets its sweet name from the Algonquin tribes of North America who related its appearance to the start of the strawberry picking season. So it won't appear red or pink; it will look large and gold as it appears above the horizon, says Jackie Faherty, an astrophysicist with the American Museum of Natural History.

"It'll look goldish. It can have a tiny bit of a red tinge to it depending on what's in the atmosphere, but mostly it will look like a nice yellow," Faherty says.

Moonrise is the perfect time to get the most picturesque views of our gray celestial neighbor, Faherty says, as it will appear at its largest and most colorful when it's just above the horizon. She considers watching a full moon rise one of the "most unappreciated astronomical phenomena" and encourages viewers Thursday to watch for the moon's most detailed characteristics as the setting sun vividly illuminates its rising form.

"You can look for the dark parts and the light parts, and it is a particularly close full moon," she said. "You can see some of the structures — there are mountains on the moon, there are valleys on the moon. You can try and look for all that as it's rising."
The strawberry moon is a moon of many names, including "honey moon"

While in some circumstances the strawberry moon can temporarily appear reddish or pinkish, it is named for the start of the strawberry picking season, and not the color. Here, a strawberry moon rises behind St. Michael's Mount in Marazion near Penzance on June 28, 2018 in Cornwall, England.
MATT CARDY / GETTY IMAGES

The strawberry moon goes by many other names, including "hot moon" for the introduction of warmer summer weather, "rose moon" for the time that roses bloom in late June and "honey moon," an old European name because it appeared when honey was ready to be harvested from hives to make mead, according to NASA. The word "honeymoon," which dates back to the 1500s, may also be related to this particular moon, possibly due to the number of marriages in June.

"We came up with names for the moon because it used to be what people looked at and set their calendars by, the original lunar calendars," Faherty said. "That's why we get these really fun descriptive names. Not because of what it's going to look like, but because of what's happening around you."

While Thursday's strawberry moon will reach peak illumination at around 2:40 p.m. ET, it won't be visible until it appears above the horizon. But Faherty says this won't noticeably dull its vibrance.

To see when the moon is set to rise and set in your area, use the Almanac's moonrise/moonset calculator.

View not the best where you live? You can also watch the strawberry moon live online as it rises and sits over Rome.

Josie Fischels is an intern on NPR's News Desk.

Audi to stop making fossil fuel cars by 2033: CEO

Issued on: 22/06/2021

Starting in 2026, Audi plans to only launch new all-electric car models, while "gradually phasing out" production of internal combustion engines until 2033 John MACDOUGALL AFP/File

Frankfurt (AFP)

German luxury carmaker Audi said Tuesday it will stop manufacturing diesel and petrol cars by 2033 as part of an industry-wide pivot towards more environmentally friendly electric cars.

"Audi is ready to make its decisive and powerful move into the electric age," CEO Markus Duesmann said in a statement.

Starting in 2026, Audi plans to only launch new all-electric car models, while "gradually phasing out" production of internal combustion engines until 2033.

However, strong demand in China could see Audi's local partners there continue to manufacture combustion engine cars beyond 2033, he added.

Carmakers everywhere are pouring huge sums into the shift towards battery-powered vehicles as they tout green credentials in a world growing more concerned about climate change.

In Europe, the transition has been sped up in part because of tougher EU pollution regulations and the "dieselgate" emissions cheating scandal uncovered at Audi parent Volkswagen in 2015.

Duesmann said Audi is this year already launching more new electric models than diesel or petrol models.

By 2025, the four-ring brand aims to have more than 20 e-models in its lineup.

Duesmann also said Audi would keep working to improve its internal combustion engines until the end to ensure greater efficiency.

"Audi's last internal combustion engine will be the best we've ever built," he said.

Audi parent company Volkswagen announced an e-offensive earlier this year, saying it would spend 46 billion euros ($54 billion) over the next five years to dominate the global electric car market.

The 12-brand group has vowed to set up six battery factories in Europe by the end of the decade as part of the push, hoping to reduce reliance on Asian suppliers of the key component in electric cars.

Electric car pioneer Tesla meanwhile is building a "gigafactory" near Berlin that aims to produce around 500,000 vehicles a year initially.

Audi's announcement comes as carmakers around the globe are vowing to go all-electric over the coming years.

BAIC, one of China's largest state-owned automakers, has said it will phase out sales of petrol vehicles by 2025, as has Britain's Jaguar.

Sweden's Volvo plans to sell only electric models from 2030, followed by US giant General Motors from 2035.

Mercedes-Benz maker Daimler plans to phase out internal combustion engines by 2039, with German rival Volkswagen targeting the year 2040.

South African opera star furious over Paris airport grilling  STRIP SEARCH


Issued on: 22/06/2021

Pretty Yende's opera career has soared over the past decade 

STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN AFP/File

Paris (AFP)

South African opera star Pretty Yende on Tuesday accused French customs agents of treating her with "outrageous racial discrimination" at Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport, a claim strongly contested by police and airport sources.

"Police brutality is real for someone who looks like me," the soprano, who is black, wrote on her Instagram account a day after arriving for a string of performances in Paris.

Yende, 36, said she was "traumatized" after being "stripped and searched like a criminal offender" at the airport.

"I am one of the very very lucky ones to be alive to see the day today even with ill-treatment and outrageous racial discrimination and psychological torture and very offensive racial comments in a country that I've given so much of my heart and virtue to," she wrote.

Yende did not say why she was pulled aside for questioning, but a French police source said the singer had arrived from Milan on a South African passport without a visa.

"At no moment were there any incidents," the source said, adding that Yende had not been asked to remove her clothes.

She was released an hour and a half later with a visa allowing her to enter French territory, an airport source said, adding that Yende was held for "verification" purposes that had nothing to do with the colour of her skin.

Yende, who was born in the small South African town of Piet Retief, has enjoyed a meteoric rise over the past decade, starring in operas from Vienna and Berlin to Barcelona and Los Angeles.

Landmark trial in France over avalanche of threats against teen critic of Islam
FREE THINKER ATHEIST WOMAN HARRASSED BY TROLLS GOES TO TRIAL


Issued on: 22/06/2021 

Eighteen-year-old Mila walks back to the courtroom after a break during the opening hearing of the so-called "Mila case" trial where thirteen people face charges of online harassment and in some cases death threats against the then teenager who strongly criticised Islam in social media posts. © Bertrand Guay, AFP


A landmark cyberbullying trial in Paris – over thousands of threats against a teenager who strongly criticised Islam in online posts – is blazing a trail in efforts to punish and prevent online abuse.

Thirteen young people of various backgrounds and religions from around France face potential prison time for charges including online harassment, online death threats and online rape threats in the two-day trial wrapping up Tuesday.

It is the first such trial since France created a new court in January to prosecute online crimes, including harassment and discrimination.

One of the defendants wants to become a police officer. Another says he just wanted to rack up more followers by making people laugh. Some denied wrongdoing, others apologised. Most said they tweeted or posted without thinking.

The teen at the centre of the trial, who has been identified publicly only by her first name, Mila, told the court she feels as if she’s been “condemned to death".

"I do not see my future,” she said.

Mila, who describes herself as atheist, was 16 when she started posting videos on Instagram and later TikTok strongly criticising Islam and the Quran. Now 18, she testified that “I don’t like any religion, not just Islam.”

Her lawyer Richard Malka said Mila has received some 100,000 threatening messages, including death threats, rape threats, misogynist messages and hateful messages about her homosexuality.

Mila had to quit her secondary school, then another. She is now monitored daily by the police for her safety.

“It’s been a cataclysm, it feels like the sky is falling on our heads [...] a confrontation with pure hatred,” her mother told the court.

Mila’s online enemies don’t fit a single profile. Among the thousands of threats, authorities tracked down 13 suspects who are on trial this week. All are being identified publicly only by their first names, according to French practice.

'Digital lynching'

The trial focused on comments in response to a TikTok video by Mila in November criticising Islam. A defendant named Manfred threatened to turn her into another Samuel Paty, a teacher who was beheaded outside Paris in October after showing caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed in class.

Manfred told the court he was “pretending to be a stalker to make people laugh”.

“I knew she was controversial because she criticised Islam. I wanted to have fun and get new subscribers,” he testified.

Defendant Enzo, 22, apologised in court for tweeting “you deserve to have your throat slit”, followed by a misogynistic epithet.

Others argued their posts did not constitute a crime.

“At the time, I was not aware that it was harassment. When I posted the tweet, I wasn’t thinking,” testified Lauren, a 21-year-old university student who tweeted about Mila: “Have her skull crushed, please.”

Alyssa, 20, one of the few Muslim defendants, says she reacted “like everyone else on Twitter” and stood by her criticism of Mila’s posts.

While the defence lawyer argued that it’s not the same thing to insult a god or a religion and a human being, Alyssa disagreed.

“For me, it is of the same nature. Mila used freedom of expression, I thought that (tweeting an angry response) was also freedom of expression,” she said.

Freedom of expression is considered a fundamental right and blasphemy is not a crime in France. Many French people see the right to blaspheme as a pillar of the country’s liberal, Enlightenment values, hard-won in the French Revolution’s fight against the power of the Catholic Church.

After Mila’s initial video in January 2020, a legal complaint was filed against her for incitement to racial hatred. That investigation was dropped for lack of evidence.

Nawfel, 19, said he did not see the harm when he tweeted that Mila deserved the death penalty and insulted her sexuality. He has passed tests to become a gendarme and hopes not to be sentenced, to keep a clean record. The trial has given him new perspective on online activity.

“Without social media, everyone would have a normal life,” he said. “Now there are many people who will think before they write.”

The defendants face up to two years in prison and €30,000 in fines if convicted of online harassment. Some are also accused of online death threats, an offence that carries a maximum prison sentence of three years and a fine of up to €45,000.

The prosecutor however only requested suspended sentences. A verdict is expected at a later date.

“You have the power to stop this digital lynching,” defence lawyer Malka told the judges. “Fear of the law is the only thing that remains.”

Mila remains active on social networks.

“I have this need to show that I will not change who I am and what I think,” she said. “I see it as like a woman who has been raped in the street and who is asked not to go out, so that it doesn’t happen again.”

(FRANCE 24 with AP)

Bitcoin is worth zero and there is no evidence that blockchain is a useful technology, Black Swan author Nassim Taleb says
ilee@insider.com (Isabelle Lee) 

REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

He also said there is no evidence that blockchain is a useful technology.

In a new paper, Taleb laid out four key arguments against the cryptocurrency.

"Black Swan" author Nassim Taleb doubled down on his criticism against bitcoin - this time, saying the cryptocurrency is worth exactly zero, and that there is no evidence that blockchain is a useful technology.


In a recent six-page draft paper titled "Bitcoin, Currencies, and Bubbles," Taleb laid out four key arguments against the cryptocurrency, which he promoted to his 743,000 Twitter followers.

First, the author said that in spite of the hype, bitcoin failed to satisfy the notion of "currency without government." In fact, he said, bitcoin proved to not even be a currency at all.

"The total failure of bitcoin in becoming a currency has been masked by the inflation of the currency value, generating (paper) profits for large enough a number of people to enter the discourse well ahead of its utility," he said.

Taleb's second criticism said bitcoin can neither be a short nor long-term store of value. He used the famous juxtaposition of gold versus bitcoin - which he said was poor comparison - to illustrate his point.

"Gold and other precious metals are largely maintenance-free, do not degrade over a historical horizon, and do not require maintenance to refresh their physical properties over time," he said. "Cryptocurrencies require a sustained amount of interest in them."

His final two points argued that bitcoin is not a reliable inflation hedge, contrary to some analysts' views, and is not a safe haven for investments - whether meant to protect against government tyranny or other catastrophes.

"Not even remotely," he said, citing the March 2020 market panic when bitcoin sank lower than the stock market, as well as the recent ransom payments following the Colonial Pipeline cyberattack, which authorities were able to track.

"Government structures and computational power will remain stronger than those of distributed operators who, while distrusting one another, can fall prey to simple hoaxes," he added.

Taleb has been a vocal critic of bitcoin, but the paper also slammed the underlying technology bitcoin relies on. The author pointed to what he sees as a lack of utility of blockchain technology.

"There is no evidence that we are getting a great technology -unless 'great technology' doesn't mean 'useful.'"

He continued: "And we have done -at the time of writing -in spite of all the fanfare, still close to nothing with the blockchain."

In April, Taleb told CNBC that bitcoin is an open Ponzi scheme and a failed currency.

He hasn't always been a bitcoin bear, though. In 2017, Taleb wrote the foreword to "The Bitcoin Standard," a book by economist Saifedean Ammous.

Back then, Taleb wrote that bitcoin is "an excellent idea" as it "fulfills the needs of the complex system … because it has no owner, no authority that can decide on its fate."

Bitcoin on Tuesday continued to tumble, falling as much as 10% to $29,333. It has now slid more than 50% from its all-time high of nearly $65,000 in April.

Analysts have said if the world's largest cryptocurrency prints consecutive daily closes decisively below the support level, it could see further downside to $20,000 - back to its level in December 2020.

Read the original article on Business Insider

El Salvador is banking on bitcoin, but will it work?

Issued on: 22/06/2021 

Bitcoin is accepted at a store in El Zonte, El Salvador, which will begin using the cryptocurrency as legal tender Stanley ESTRADA AFP


Montevideo (AFP)

El Salvador will soon become the only country in the world accepting bitcoin as legal tender, a cutting-edge but potentially risky new avenue for its large expat community to send money back home.

Experts and regulators have highlighted concerns about the cryptocurrency's notorious volatility and the lack of any protections for its users, and some predict its widespread adoption may still be a ways off.

Early this month, El Salvador's parliament approved a law to allow the crypto money to be accepted as tender for all goods and services in the small Central American nation, along with the US dollar, its national currency.

The bill, an initiative of President Nayib Bukele who is under fire domestically and abroad for moves to tighten his grip on power, was presented to lawmakers on a Tuesday and approved within 24 hours.

Bukele touted the move, which will take effect in September, as a way to prevent losses amounting to "millions of dollars" in transaction fees for remittances from abroad, traditionally sent in dollars via agencies such as Western Union.

The country of 6.4 million people is heavily dependent on remittances from its estimated 1.5 million expats -- the transfers represent almost a quarter of its GDP.

According to World Bank data, El Salvador received more than $5.9 billion in 2020 from nationals living abroad, mainly in the United States.

This makes it the Latin American country receiving the most money from its diaspora as a percentage of its economy.

- 'Ongoing experiment' -

Now El Salvador is betting on a rise in remittances -- which were down 4.8 percent last year -- to boost its struggling economy which contracted 7.9 percent in 2020 largely due to the coronavirus epidemic.

"El Salvador's decision to make bitcoin legal tender is an ongoing experiment that could be successful if bitcoin volatility continues to ease, with the overall direction remaining higher," Edward Moya, a market analyst at the Oanda brokerage told AFP.

"In May, transfers of bitcoin to El Salvador quadrupled and that could grow if prices continue to rise."

On Tuesday, however, the cryptocurrency fell beneath $30,000 for the first time in five months. At its highest, bitcoin was worth more than $63,000 in April.#photo1

Manuel Orozco, director of the Center for Migration and Economic Stabilization in Washington, highlighted that bitcoin, like other cryptocurrencies, "lacks strong security controls".

It is also "totally wrong to assume there will be no transaction cost," he said.

Last week, the World Bank rejected a request from El Salvador for assistance in its bid to adopt bitcoin as a currency, citing "environmental and transparency shortcomings".

Bitcoin and other cyber currencies are "mined" by solving complicated puzzles using powerful computers that consume enormous amounts of electricity -- much of which is produced by coal plants.

Bitcoin is also criticized by regulators for its potential for illegal use -- notably in laundering money from criminal activities and financing terrorism.

- Dollar or bitcoin? -

The IMF has also flagged concerns, with spokesman Gerry Rice telling reporters El Salvador's move "raises a number of macroeconomic, financial and legal issues that require careful analysis."

The Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI) has said it will provide technical assistance for El Salvador to regulate the use of bitcoin.

But it is the currency's price instability that will likely most worry would-be users.

"For a currency to fulfil the function of a value reserve... it should not be so volatile", said Oscar Cabrera, former president of the Central Reserve Bank of El Salvador.

A survey by the country's Chamber of Commerce and Industry, published last week, found that 96.4 percent of the business community would prefer for bitcoin to remain optional, 93.2 percent of employees would rather get their wages in dollars, and 82.5 percent would continue using the greenback for remittances.

"El Salvador... will likely still use traditional methods (for remittances) until bitcoin can become a stable asset class," said Moya.

For Orozco, there are potential pluses, including the generation of "significant liquidity that would generate a surplus for credit and investment", as well as modernizing the banking system, to which many in El Salvador do not have access.

"In the short term, strategically, this is an opportunity for the Salvadoran financial system," he said.

Already, bitcoin has brought a revolution to one town in El Salvador -- El Zonte on the Pacific coast -- where hundreds of businesses and individuals now use the currency for everything from paying utilities bills to buying a can of soda.

El Zonte has no banks and only one cash machine -- in a hotel to which only guests have access.

Started as a project by an anonymous bitcoin donor, the town now boasts El Salvador's only bitcoin teller machine where people deposit US dollars in cash into a personal bitcoin "wallet," then use a smartphone app to spend it.

© 2021 AFP

Racist Colonial Military Police
Class action alleging RCMP abuse of Indigenous people in Northern Canada certified

TORONTO — A lawsuit alleging RCMP systematically brutalized Indigenous people in Northern Canada can proceed as a class action despite objections from the government, Federal Court ruled on Wednesday

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© Provided by The Canadian Press

In her decision, Judge Glennys McVeigh rejected the government's arguments that the proposed suit failed to meet the legal grounds for certification although individuals could sue on their own, and that the claim had no prospect of success.

"I disagree with Canada's characterization of these claims as individual," McVeigh wrote. "The claims do not ask if an RCMP officer illegally assaulted a class member, but rather whether the operations of the RCMP create a system where illegal assaults happen."

The untested claim, initially filed in 2018, seeks $600 million in various damages. Among other things, it alleges the federal government negligently failed to stop what it characterizes as routine police assaults on Aboriginal people who comprise the majority in the Northwest Territories, Nunavut and Yukon.

The claim asserts systemic negligence, breach of fiduciary duty and constitutional violations. The government, it says, has known about the issues for years but has failed to substantively address the problem.

"Aboriginal persons are frequently arrested, detained or held in custody by RCMP officers in the territories on the basis of their race, ethnic and/or national origin," the claim states.

"RCMP officers and other agents of the RCMP regularly discriminate against Aboriginal persons by employing excessive and unnecessary force, by arresting or detaining Aboriginal persons for no reason, and by using hateful speech and language in the course of policing in the territories."

The claim, which names the attorney general as defendant on behalf of the RCMP, alleges common incidents involve officers beating, pepper-spraying, shooting and verbally abusing Indigenous people.

The representative plaintiff is a high school student, Joe David Nasogaluak, now 19, of Tuktoyaktuk, N.W.T., who claims RCMP arrested and assaulted him without cause or provocation in November 2017. Among other things, he alleges officers punched and choked him, used a stun gun on him, and used derogatory slurs. He was released to his mother shortly after.

"As a result of this assault, Mr. Nasogaluak sustained physical and psychological harm," the claim asserts. "Incidents like the above take place ordinarily in the territories."

In affidavits, other potential class members similarly described experiences of racism and RCMP violence when being detained and arrested.

A year ago, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the RCMP had a problem with systemic racism after Commissioner Brenda Lucki denied racism was entrenched within the organization. Those comments came after video emerged showing Mounties wrestling the chief of an Alberta First Nation to the ground in a parking lot.

In certifying the action, McVeigh noted the plaintiff's assertion that class members had a reasonable expectation Canada would run its RCMP detachment in the North in the same way it runs policing of non-Indigenous people.

Members of the class, McVeigh decided, comprise all Indigenous people who allege being assaulted at any time while in RCMP custody or detention in the territories, and were alive as of December 18, 2016.

"I do not agree that Canada’s claim that a public inquiry or internal complaint process would be preferable procedure," McVeigh said.

Nevertheless, the judge said, the plaintiffs still have to prove their claims at trial which is "far from an easy hurdle."

Because the plaintiff was a minor when he sued, his mother acted as a litigation guardian. McVeigh said Nasogaluak, now a legal adult, must get court permission to substitute his name for his mother's on the claim but appeared perfectly capable of acting as representative plaintiff.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 23, 2021.

Colin Perkel, The Canadian Press

The fund that staged a board revolt at Exxon last month is launching a retail ETF designed to spar with corporate management

ewu@insider.com (Ethan Wu)

© Francis Scialabba 

The activist group that won two board seats at Exxon last month is launching an ETF.

The fund is explicitly aimed at retail investors, and will vote on corporate matters related to ESG goal.

The new ETF comes as the SEC is evaluating its role in regulating the growing universe of ESG investments.

Engine No. 1, the activist group that fomented a coup against Exxon and won two seats on the board of the oil giant last month, announced an ETF designed to exert ESG pressure on corporate management of the 500 biggest American companies.

Engine No. 1 said the ETF, trading under the ticker VOTE, will seek to passively replicate a Morningstar large-cap index while offering a near-zero expense ratio, much like other low-cost index funds. The twist is that VOTE will actively wage shareholder campaigns against corporate management on ESG issues.

"There shouldn't be a trade-off between positive impact and financial performance," said Yasmin Dahya Bilger, Engine No. 1's head of ETFs, in a statement. "VOTE will be a unique solution to this long-time concern, enabling index investors the ability to generate long-term value while bringing action to the most critical environmental, social, and governance issues facing these companies."


The fund is explicitly aimed at retail investors, both with its 0.05% expense ratio and its crusading pitch for ESG goals. The ETF has a $100 million initial investment and backing from robo-advisory firm Betterment.

In May, Engine No. 1 won a milestone victory against Exxon, rallying shareholders to secure two of four director seats against the oil giant's wishes. The activists owned a minuscule fraction of Exxon stock, but won over big shareholders like Blackrock with a climate-focused push.

The new ETF comes as the SEC is evaluating its role in regulating the ever-expanding universe of ESG investment products. In a speech on Tuesday, Commissioner Elad Roisman said calls for the SEC to standardize ESG disclosures may be premature.

"I worry that by stepping in to promulgate a static list of ESG disclosure requirements, the SEC would displace a good amount of this private sector engagement and freeze disclosures in place prematurely," he said.

"The proliferation of ESG disclosure frameworks suggests that the standards have not yet settled."

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