The cost of net zero is a small price to pay

Jordan O'Brien
Contributing Editor
Electrical Review
July 8, 2021




I’m not sure if any of you caught Rishi Sunak’s interview on GB News, but during the segment, Andrew Neil drilled the Chancellor of the Exchequer on how much it will cost the UK to achieve net zero. Unsurprisingly, Sunak wasn’t exactly forthcoming with an answer.

Neil continuously pressed Sunak claiming that the cost of net zero is colossal, which I don’t think anyone is under any illusion that it wouldn’t be, but just how colossal is it? Well, if you believe Good Energy, a renewable energy supplier, the bill will come to around £14 billion a year.

Good Energy claims that the UK will be able to achieve net zero by 2050 by leaning on renewable energy, with it estimating that it will cost £14 billion more a year to enable renewables to provide 98% of all electricity. Last year, renewables was responsible for just 27% of all electricity generated in the UK, meaning to get to 98% by 2050 will be quite a leap.

So, how do we get there? According to Good Energy, the UK will need a total of 210GW of solar power and 150GW of wind capacity, as well as 100GW of lithium-ion battery energy storage. That energy storage will be vital to deal with the intermittency of renewables.

Additionally, the report calls for people to become responsible for their own power generation needs, with half of all houses adopting rooftop solar panels, while over 80% of heating and 90% of transport needs to be electrified. This can all be funded by interest free loans from the Government, as well as a new-look Green Homes Grant.

But how much will this all cost in total? Well, Good Energy suggests that the annual cost of the total energy system will be approximately £126 billion. That’s a smidgen more than the current £117 billion it costs now, and more than worth it for the benefits that net zero will bring.

Let’s put that figure into perspective, £126 billion is £14 billion more each year. That’s less than the cost of Hinkley Point C, a single nuclear power plant. It’s less than the £350 million a week Vote Leave claimed that the UK paid to the European Union. It’s almost a tenth of the estimated final cost of HS2, while also being less than Crossrail.

So, £14 billion a year. Sounds like a lot, but if you ask me, it sounds like a small price to pay for the multitude of benefits that net zero brings.

 

Growing concern over SARS-CoV-2 Lambda variant

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By Dr. Tomislav Meštrović, MD, Ph.D.Jul 8 2021

A new report from Chile – currently available on the medRxiv* preprint server – reveals how mutations in the spike glycoprotein of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Lambda variant can confer protection from neutralizing antibodies and increase viral infectivity rates, which means massive vaccination campaigns should be accompanied by strict genomic surveillance.

Study: Infectivity and immune escape of the new SARS-CoV-2 variant of interest Lambda. Image Credit: NIAID

Variants of concern and variants of interest of SARS-CoV-​2 have been a distinctive feature of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic during 2021, demonstrating the importance of viral sequencing in our epidemiological approach.

A variant of interest is “suspected” to be more infectious when compared to the initial strain, to escape the vaccine protection or result in more severe disease. Consequently, it can become a variant of interest if there is ample evidence that it actually has one or more of the aforementioned features.

A newly described SARS-CoV-2 lineage C.37 was recently designated as a variant of interest by the World Health Organization (WHO) on June 14th and denominated as the Lambda variant. Its presence was reported in more than 20 countries as of July 2021, and most sequences to date stem from South American countries – particularly for Chile, Argentina, Ecuador and Peru.

And albeit the Lambda variant is characterized by specific mutations in the SARS-CoV-2 spike glycoprotein, their exact impact of infectivity and potential escape to neutralizing antibodies are still unknown. The latter is particularly important in countries currently undergoing massive vaccination efforts.

Since one of such countries is Chile, a research group led by Dr. Mónica L. Acevedo from the University of Chile School Of Medicine aimed to appraise the impact of the Lambda variant on the neutralizing antibodies responses stemming from the inactivated virus vaccine CoronaVac (also known as the Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine).

An emphasis on neutralization assays

In this study, volunteers employed in two health care institutions in Santiago (Chile) received two doses of CoronaVac – each dose being administered 28 days apart (in accordance with the Chilean vaccination program). Patient samples were acquired between May and June 2021.

Pseudotyped virus neutralization assays were performed in order to study functional antibody responses against SARS-CoV-2 in laboratory conditions. The researchers calculated the percentage of neutralization for each dilution, as well as the infectious dose ID50, which is an estimated number of viral particles necessary to produce infection in 50% of individuals.

This study also pursued public data analysis by using available data on SARS-CoV-2 lineages from the Consorcio Genomas CoV2 site in Chile, and vaccination data published by the Chilean Ministry of Science, Technology, Knowledge and Innovation.

Schematic representation of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and the variants used in this study. Lineages are indicated in parenthesis. RBD, receptor-binding domain, CM; cytoplasmic tail.

Increased infectivity and escape from neutralization

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The researchers observed an increased infectivity potential of the variant of interest mediated by the Lambda spike glycoprotein that was even higher in comparison to the D614G (lineage B) or the Alpha and Gamma variants.

More specifically, when compared to the wild-type virus (i.e., Wuhan-1 reference lineage A), the neutralization potential was diminished by 3.05-fold for the Lambda variant. For comparison purposes, this was 1.37-fold lower for the D614G, 2.03-fold lower for the Alpha variant and 2.33-fold lower for the Gamma variant.

No correlation between age, sex, smoke status, or body mass index and neutralizing antibody titers has been observed in this study cohort, which means that this should be considered a relatively universal phenomenon.

Correlation of neutralizing antibody titers against SARS-CoV-2 variants and participants’ sex, age, BMI or smoke status. Stratification neutralizing antibody titers (NAbTs) against SARS-CoV-2 variants by sex (A), Age (B),

The need for strict genomic surveillance

In a nutshell, these results indicate that mutations present in the spike glycoprotein of the Lambda variant of interest give rise to increased infectivity and enable the immune escape of this specific lineage from neutralizing antibodies elicited by CoronaVac.

“These data reinforce the idea that massive vaccination campaigns in countries with high SARS-CoV-2 circulation must be accompanied by strict genomic surveillance allowing the identification of new isolates carrying spike mutations and immunology studies aimed to determine the impact of these mutations in immune escape and vaccines breakthrough”, caution study authors in this medRxiv paper.

Such propensity of variants to escape from vaccine-induced immunity means there is still a need for next-generation vaccines that would provide broader neutralizing activity against present and potential future SARS-CoV-2 variants.

*Important Notice

medRxiv publishes preliminary scientific reports that are not peer-reviewed and, therefore, should not be regarded as conclusive, guide clinical practice/health-related behavior, or treated as established information.

Journal reference:

• Acevedo, M.L. et al. (2021). Infectivity and immune escape of the new SARS-CoV-2 variant of interest Lambda. medRxiv. https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.06.28.21259673, https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.28.21259673v1.full

Written by

Dr. Tomislav Meštrović

Dr. Tomislav Meštrović is a medical doctor (MD) with a Ph.D. in biomedical and health sciences, specialist in the field of clinical microbiology, and an Assistant Professor at Croatia's youngest university - University North. In addition to his interest in clinical, research and lecturing activities, his immense passion for medical writing and scientific communication goes back to his student days. He enjoys contributing back to the community. In his spare time, Tomislav is a movie buff and an avid traveler.

SHOULD BE GLOBAL FRONT PAGE NEWS

Covid 19 coronavirus: Scientists pour cold water on lab leak theory

7 Jul, 2021 

Security personnel gather near the entrance of the Wuhan Institute of Virology during a visit by the World Health Organization team in February. Photo / AP

By: Jamie Morton
Science Reporter, NZ Herald

jamie.morton@nzherald.co.nz@Jamienzherald

Top international scientists have again poured cold water on widespread claims the Covid-19 pandemic began in a Chinese laboratory.

At first dismissed, the "lab leak theory" has been given more credence after intense media coverage in the US over the past few months.

US President Joe Biden directed scientists to take a closer look, an open letter published in The Lancet called for more transparency, reports said a top Chinese official defected with sensitive information and a leaked US intelligence memo talked of several researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) becoming ill shortly before the outbreak.

One theory was that Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, had been deliberately engineered; another was that that scientists could simply have been growing a culture of the virus, and it escaped from there.

But, as a team of international scientists have set out in a review just published online, ahead of peer review, there's still scant evidence to support either possibility.

"All of the evidence points toward a natural, zoonotic origin," Otago University virologist and review co-author Dr Jemma Geoghegan told the Herald.

In particular, there were "striking" similarities to the early spread of the 2003 Sars epidemic to markets in Guangdong, near where the earliest-infected people lived and worked.

Already, the World Health Organisation's report on the Covid-19 pandemic's beginnings had identified that live animals like ferret-badgers and rabbits were being traded in the markets

The animals could provide an intermediate host for the virus to jump to humans – and the market was just the type of setting for a zoonosis event to happen.

By contrast, all lab escapes documented to date had almost exclusively involved viruses that were being studied specifically because of their known human infectivity.

The researchers said there was still no evidence that any of the early cases had any connection to the WIV, nor was there any evidence the institute had or worked on a progenitor of Sars-CoV-2 virus before the pandemic.

"The suspicion that Sars-CoV-2 might have a laboratory origin stems from the coincidence that it was first detected in a city that houses a major virological laboratory that studies coronaviruses," they said.

"Wuhan is the largest city in central China with multiple animal markets and is a major hub for travel and commerce, well connected to other areas within China and internationally.

The SARS-CoV-2 genome sequence happened to be 96 per cent identical to a coronavirus found in horseshoe bats. Photo / 123RF

"The link to Wuhan therefore more likely reflects the fact that pathogens often require heavily populated areas to become established."

Going deeper, the researchers addressed widespread speculation about the supposedly unusual molecular make-up of Sars-CoV-2.

In one of the earliest major studies into the virus, scientists analysed its genetic template for spike proteins, which it used to grab and penetrate the outer walls of human and animal cells.

More specifically, they focused on its receptor-binding domain (RBD) - a kind of grappling hook that grips on to host cells - and what's called the furin cleavage site, a molecular can opener that allows the virus to crack open and enter host cells.


This earliest research suggested the RBD portion of the spike proteins had evolved to effectively target a molecular feature on the outside of human cells called ACE2 - a receptor involved in regulating blood pressure.

The Sars-CoV-2 spike protein was so effective at binding the human cells, in fact, that the scientists concluded it was the result of natural selection, and not the product of genetic engineering.

Yet many theorists have surmised that the furin cleavage site was so unusual it must have been artificially inserted by scientists.

The review authors did note the cleavage site was absent from the closest known relatives of Sars-CoV-2, but they added that wasn't surprising, given the lineage leading to the virus had been poorly sampled.

"All of the evidence points toward a natural, zoonotic origin," Otago University virologist Dr Jemma Geoghegan says. Photo / Supplied

Further, they added, furin cleavage sites were common in other coronavirus spike proteins, including the last coronavirus to spark a global incident - MERS-CoV – and also feline alphacoronaviruses, most strains of mouse hepatitis virus, and endemic human betacoronaviruses.

A near identical nucleotide sequence to Sars-CoV-2's had also been found in the spike gene of the bat coronavirus HKU9-172 – and there were indications the evolution of both viruses had involved "recombination", or the natural exchange of genetic material.

"Hence, simple evolutionary mechanisms can readily explain the evolution of an out-of-frame insertion of a furin cleavage site in Sars-CoV-2," the researchers said.

They added there was "no logical reason" why an engineered virus would use such a poor furin cleavage site as Sars-CoV-2's.

That would have entailed an "unusual and needlessly complex" feat of genetic engineering, for which there were few precedents.

"Further, there is no evidence of prior research at the WIV involving the artificial insertion of complete furin cleavage sites into coronaviruses."

Although they said the possibility of a lab accident still couldn't be entirely dismissed, they concluded the explanation remained "highly unlikely, relative to the numerous and repeated human-animal contacts that occur routinely in the wildlife trade".

"Failure to comprehensively investigate the zoonotic origin through collaborative and carefully coordinated studies would leave the world vulnerable to future pandemics arising from the same human activities that have repeatedly put us on a collision course with novel viruses."

 

Sunak Hints U.K. Government May Stray From Pensions Triple Lock

Alex Morales and Khadija Kothia, Bloomberg News

Rishi Sunak. Photographer: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images , Photographer: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images Europe

(Bloomberg) -- Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak hinted he may abandon the U.K. government’s “triple lock” pledge on pension rises, saying his decision will be guided by “fairness.”

The election manifesto promise means pensions rise every year by the highest of three measures: annual growth in average earnings, inflation, or 2.5%.

But the pandemic has led to volatile data, with earnings plunging last year because of the effect of millions of workers going on furlough, and rebounding strongly this year.

Average earnings rose by 5.6% in the three months to April 2021, and the Office for Budget Responsibility has said the risk is “high” that the data point feeding into the pensions decision will be as much as 8%.

Each percentage point increase in pensions adds about 900 million pounds ($1.2 billion) to annual spending. That puts Sunak in a quandary: whether to abandon an electoral promise and opt for a lower rise in the state pension, or whether to swallow a sizable and permanent increase to government spending

“I do recognize people’s concerns on this, I think they are completely legitimate and fair concerns to raise,” Sunak told the BBC on Thursday. “Our approach to these things will be driven by fairness. Fairness both to pensioners and for taxpayers.”

The OBR in March estimated the government would have to raise pensions by 4.6% next year because of surging wages. If that were to rise to 8% for average earnings in the three months through July, the data point used in the triple lock pledge, the extra 3.4 percentage points would increase annual spending on pensions by about 3 billion pounds.

In a round of broadcast interviews on Thursday morning, Sunak also:

• Told Times Radio that he and Prime Minister Boris Johnson are “on exactly the same page” when it comes to managing public expenditure and that “we go through these things together”
• Told LBC the 20 pound a week increase in Universal Credit “will end because it was always meant to be temporary”
• Told BBC Radio’s ‘Today’ program that the England soccer team’s run to the final in this year’s European Championship “can have an impact” on a services-oriented economy such as the U.K.
• Told multiple broadcasters that Health Secretary Sajid Javid is taking advice on the National Health Service Covid app because of concerns too many people are having to self-isolate after being alerted they’ve been near someone with the virus

©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

USING JEWS AS A TROPE

We want to avoid NI jewish exodus says Boris Johnson in attack on EU over protocol implementation

The PM said the Jewish community is considering leaving amid concerns about access to kosher foods.

A loyalist protest against the Northern Ireland protocol (Brian Lawless/PA)

By Gavin Cordon, PA Whitehall Editor

July 07 2021 05:39 PM

Boris Johnson has again accused the EU of implementing the provisions on Northern Ireland in the Brexit divorce settlement in a “grossly disproportionate and unnecessary” fashion.

Giving evidence to the Commons Liaison Committee, the Prime Minister insisted the NI Protocol did not pose any threat to Northern Ireland’s status within the United Kingdom.

Read More
Northern Ireland Protocol puts Belfast’s Jewish community under threat

But he said recent problems over to movement of chilled meats from the rest of the UK were still “far from fixed” following an agreement to delay the implementation of border checks.

There is absolutely no threat to Northern Ireland's place within the United KingdomBoris Johnson

He said there were now concerns among Northern Ireland’s Jewish community that they would be unable to access kosher foods unless it was resolved.

“They are talking now about an exodus from Northern Ireland. We want to do everything that we can to avoid that,” he said.

“I think what we all need to do is work rapidly on some solutions, fix this thing fast.

“I think it will take some effort but we really can’t exclude any actions that the UK government my need to take to protect what it says in the Protocol.”

Boris Johnson said he wanted to avoid an exodus of Northern Ireland’s Jewish community (House of Commons/PA)

At the same time, the Prime Minister sought to allay concerns among some unionist communities that Northern Ireland’s place in the UK had been weakened as a result of the Protocol.

“There is absolutely no threat to Northern Ireland’s place within the United Kingdom and there should not be from the Protocol,” he said.

“It is clear that Northern Ireland is part of the sovereign territory of the United Kingdom. That is all clear from the Protocol.”

Mr Johnson however indicated that he regretted some parts of the agreement which he had signed to get the UK out of the EU.

He said he had agreed to checks on goods moving from Great Britain out of “neighbourliness” as part of the arrangements to ensure there was no return of a hard border with the Republic.

“We also agreed, unfortunately, that the EU could have a say in how this was done,” he said.

Collapsed Florida tower could have been repaired faster under repealed law, experts say

If a 2008 Florida law that required condos to plan for repairs had still been in place, "this never would have happened," said the legislator who sponsored the law.


Rescue workers search in the rubble at the Champlain Towers South condominium in Surfside, Fla., on June 26. Gerald Herbert / AP

July 8, 2021, 2:31 AM MDT
By Jon Schuppe and Phil Prazan, NBC Miami


SURFSIDE, Fla. — Late last year, after years of delays and disputes, the Champlain Towers South Condominium Association began a desperate search for $16.2 million to fix major structural damage that was slowly threatening the Surfside high-rise — and that may have contributed to the building's partial collapse June 24.

The obvious place to look was the building's reserve fund — extra money socked away to cover the cost of future repairs. But the account held just $777,000, according to condo board documents — nowhere near enough to soften the blow.

The collapse, which killed at least 54 people and left 86 others missing, occurred before the condo board could collect the needed money from residents and begin repairs. The cause of the collapse is unknown, and investigators, experts and advocates are trying to determine whether the uncompleted repairs played a role, whether the board could have seen the problem coming earlier — and whether a Florida law regulating condo repairs that was repealed a decade ago could have made a difference.

One way to keep track of needed repairs is a "reserve study," in which condo boards bring in experts like engineers or certified specialists every few years to inspect buildings and estimate how much the boards should collect from residents to prepare for future fixes. The building's financial documents, obtained by NBC News and NBC Miami, show that Champlain Towers South had not done a professional reserve study since at least 2016. That decision was legal, but it meant that planning was left to the board, a shifting group of volunteers with little training in building maintenance.

 

"If the owners would have had a reserve study, if the board was proactive and had funded its reserves, this never would have happened," said Julio Robaina, a former Republican state legislator.

Robaina sponsored a 2008 law requiring condo associations to hire engineers or architects to submit reports every five years about how much it would cost to keep up with repairs.

The law lasted just two years before it was repealed in 2010, after Robaina left office. Robaina blamed pushback from real estate lawyers and property managers, who he said claimed that the law was too burdensome for condo owners. The legislator who sponsored the repeal, former state Rep. Gary Aubuchon, a Republican real estate broker and homebuilder, did not reply to messages seeking comment.

The repeal left Florida's condo residents less protected than those in nine states that legally require reserve studies, according to the Community Associations Institute, a nonprofit organization that advocates for condo associations. Thirty-one other states, including Florida, regulate reserves in some way — although Florida is one of three states with loopholes that enable owners to opt out of requirements, the nonprofit said. Ten states have no regulations about reserves at all.


"One of the steps that should be taken by a building, especially an aging building, is having adequate funds available so that when you have to face significant cost challenges there's an appropriate amount of money available," said Gary Mars, a South Florida lawyer who represents condo associations.

A survey last year by the Community Associations Institute found that most homeowners associations are hesitant to increase residents' fees, anticipating opposition, and therefore fail to plan for long-term infrastructure fixes.

"In postponing inspections, reserve studies, and — ultimately — complete repairs or renovations, boards often end up facing an exponentially more comprehensive and expensive project in the long run," the report said.

Maxwell Marcucci, a spokesman for the Champlain Towers South Condominium Association, declined to comment on reserve studies. In a previous statement to NBC News, he said the condo board was doing its best to ensure the building was safe. “They are not engineers and not building safety experts,” Marcucci said. “They hired experts, trusted experts, and at no point did the experts indicate that there was a threat of imminent collapse.”

The lack of a professional reserve study is a departure from what many experts say is best practice for condominiums, particularly older ones on the coast — like Champlain Towers South, built in 1981 — that have been exposed for decades to corrosive salt and water.

Robaina, who co-owns a property management company, said maintaining healthy reserves "is the single most important action that a condominium board needs to take."

Florida law requires condo boards to maintain reserves for repairs over $10,000, but it does not say exactly how much to set aside. That means condo boards have some flexibility in avoiding saving for repairs that do not need to be made right away.

In addition, the law allows condo buildings to waive the reserve requirement altogether. Once it has passed its annual budget, a condo board can give residents the opportunity to opt out of collecting reserves by a vote of a majority of unit owners. The votes are common in Florida condo buildings, condo lawyers say.

That is what it appears Champlain Towers South did, lawyers and reserve experts said.

The experts pointed to the board's reliance on special assessments — additional fees on top of residents' normal monthly payments — to fund needed repairs. The board imposed a $1 million special assessment in 2016 for hallway renovations and a $350,000 special assessment in 2019 for work on a generator, a fuel pump and a fuel tank. Such lump-sum levies are indicative of a building whose owners have decided not to set aside enough reserves through regular monthly fees, choosing instead to wait until a big-ticket repair is needed to ask residents to pay for it, experts said. Many associations make that choice by repeatedly voting to waive or reduce the funding of their reserves.

"I can't help but think that the building did that for years and years, which is why there was not enough funds available," said Matthew Kuisle, Southeast regional director for Reserve Advisors, which prepares reserve studies. "Why would they do that? So they have lower fees. But in the long run, the fees are a small price to pay."


The shortcomings of that approach started to become clear in 2018, when the board began inspecting the building before a checkup mandated by Miami-Dade County for buildings that reach 40 years old. In an October 2018 report, engineer Frank Morabito alerted the board to "major structural damage" to concrete slabs underneath the building's pool deck and its entrance drive. He blamed a "major error" in the building's construction and years of corrosion. He estimated the cost of repairs at $9 million.

Reeling from sticker shock, the board invited a Surfside building official to its November 2018 meeting. The official told the board that the building was "in very good shape," according to minutes of the meeting. Some residents have said that led them to believe the situation was not dire.

Even so, the board began trying to find a way to repair the damage — and to pay for it.

Disagreements over the costs frustrated board members. Five members quit over two weeks in fall 2019. The condo association has had four presidents since 2018.

Damage to Miami building was known — but key oversight process was broken, experts say

By late last year, the board had accepted that there was no safe way forward without doing the massive reconstruction Morabito recommended, along with repairs to a deteriorating roof. Morabito began preliminary work and found that the damage discovered in 2018 had gotten worse. The bill rose to more than $16 million.

The board scrambled for money. It found $707,000 left over from the previous special assessments and $777,000 more in reserves. But a quarter of the reserves were designated for insurance deductibles, leaving $556,000. The board chose not to tap the reserves just in case there was another emergency. That meant the building was short by $15.5 million, which the board voted in April to raise through a special assessment. The cost to residents would be $80,000 to $360,000 per unit.

"A lot of this work could have been done or planned for in years gone by. But this is where we are now," board President Jean Wodnicki wrote to residents before the vote.

By last month, the board had started work on the roof, and it put other repairs out for bid. Responses were due July 7. Two weeks before the deadline, the building partly collapsed.

The remaining part of the partly collapsed 12-story Champlain Towers South condominium building falls in a controlled demolition Sunday.Joe Raedle / Getty Images

The board's nearly three-year struggle to start work on the concrete replacement project has loomed over the catastrophe's aftermath. Investigators have not determined what caused the failure; the deteriorating supports are among the possibilities.

Experts say the extent of disrepair documented in the 2018 report raises questions about how the damage went unnoticed previously.

"I read the report, and I wondered how long the building looked that way," said Robert Nordlund, founder and CEO of Association Reserves, a reserve study firm based in California. "Did it look that way in 1998? 2008? Because clearly there was some significant deterioration in that 2018 report."

Documents reviewed by NBC News and NBC Miami, including audits, budgets, financial statements and board meeting minutes, do not indicate when the structural issues noted by Morabito started, though the board did pay to replace leaking pipes in the building’s parking garage in 2016. But the documents do show that the board did not perform professional reserve studies and instead relied on board members to determine how much to set aside for repairs. In 2016, an accountant performing a year-end audit noted that "an independent study has not been conducted to determine the adequacy of the current funding" and that "the estimates for future replacement costs are based upon estimates provided by the budget committee."

Audits conducted by the same accountant in 2017, 2018 and 2019 included the same language. Last year, a different accountant provided a similar disclaimer.

Mars, the lawyer who represents condo associations, said he believes that the note was "the CPA saying, 'We don't have any official documentation to rely on.'"

The accountants who conducted the audits did not respond to messages seeking comment.

Jeffrey Rembaum, another lawyer for condo associations, pointed to figures in the audits that showed that from 2016 to 2020, the board did not update the amount of money needed to replace balconies and concrete. Each year, the board estimated needing $320,000 for the work, even after Morabito's report found that much more extensive and costly repairs were needed.

"We know the building had millions in concrete repairs on the horizon," Rembaum said. "So how did it come up with $320,000 for their current needs? If they'd had a reserve study and an engineer looked at what they had, they would have come up with a higher number. That suggests the board wasn't regularly updating it."

He added: "This is the effect of the Florida Legislature not requiring a reserve study by qualified people."

More than a decade since his short-lived law on reserve studies was repealed, Robaina said he hopes lawmakers will change course and reimpose the mandate.

"This is a window of opportunity," he said, "and unfortunately it took a tragedy that could have been prevented."

Jon Schuppe reported from New York; Phil Prazan reported from Surfside, Florida

A White Teen Was Killed by Cops. Working Class Lives Need to Matter, Too | Opinion

SKYLAR BAKER-JORDAN , 

JOURNALIST WRITING ABOUT THE INTERSECTION OF IDENTITY, POLITICS, AND PUBLIC POLICY.

Hunter Brittain should have been celebrating this Fourth of July weekend. A seventeen-year-old white boy from McRae, Arkansas, Hunter was a rising senior at Beebe High School. Like so many country boys, Hunter enjoyed the little things in life: fishing, riding dirt bikes, 4-wheelers. He dreamed of becoming a NASCAR driver.

But instead of spending the holiday weekend fishing, wheeling and dreaming, Hunter spent it being laid to rest by his family. He was the latest victim of police brutality in the United States.

Last week, after being stopped by a police officer, Hunter's truck wouldn't shift into park, so he got out of the car to get a blue oil jug to put behind a tire; he wanted to make sure it wouldn't roll back and hit the police cruiser. According to a witness, without warning, the officer who had pulled him over shot and killed Hunter.

Like George Floyd before him and Eric Garner before him and Michael Brown before him, Hunter Brittain was killed in cold blood by the police who ostensibly were there to protect him. Like Floyd and Garner and Brown, he was unarmed. Unlike Floyd, Garner, and Brown though, you probably haven't heard Hunter Brittain's name. That's because Hunter Brittain was white.

Some on the right like The Federalist's Eddie Scarry have latched onto Hunter's death and the fact that poor and working-class white people suffer from brutality as a means of discrediting the Black Lives Matter movement. "Hunter Brittain's life mattered just as much as Andrew Brown's," he writes, referencing the killing of yet another Black man by police earlier this year. "Say his name, even though he's white."

We should say Hunter Brittain's name, but not for the reasons Scarry and his ilk would have. Yes, Hunter represents an often-overlooked reality: White working-class and poor Americans are also disproportionately victims of police brutality. But rather than using identity politics to stoke racial divisions, Hunter Brittain's death should serve as a call-to-action for everyone interested in justice to join a diverse coalition committed to ending police violence against unarmed Americans.

Over the past several years, we have begun a reckoning in this country about violence committed by agents of the state against Black and brown citizens. It is as right and just as it is long overdue. Studies show that Black people are more than three times as likely to be killed by police as white people.

But lost in this discourse is an important fact, one tragically represented by the killing of Hunter Brittain: Working class and poor white people are also disproportionately victims of police brutality. A 2020 study by the People's Policy Project found that "whites in the poorest areas have a police killing rate of 7.9 per million, compared to 2 per million for whites in the least-poor areas." This experience is mirrored in attitudes towards the police, with a 2016 CATO Institute study finding that white folks making more than $60,000 a year had a much more favorable view of police than those making less than $30,000 a year.

Over the years, cases of unarmed white boys being killed by the police have occasionally made the headlines. In 2014, 18-year-old Keith Vidal was killed by a cop in North Carolina after suffering a schizophrenic episode. The officer reportedly said, "I don't have time for this shit," shortly before killing Vidal in his home, while his parents watched helplessly. In 2015, 19-year-old Zachary Hammond was shot and killed by an officer when the passenger in his car attempted to buy marijuana from an undercover cop. He was unarmed. And last year, a Salt Lake City, Utah officer shot and killed 13-year-old Linden Cameron after his mother called for a crisis intervention team while the autistic teen has a "mental breakdown."

And yet, none of these cases ever solicited outrage from the #AllLivesMatter brigade. No one on the right organized marches or protests for these boys. No one said their names, except preceded by "what about" whenever police brutality against Black Americans was brought up. Instead, they use these deaths to stoke racial division and keep white working-class Americans from joining in arms with our Black brothers and sisters to demand justice for our slain children.

Meanwhile, Black civil rights leaders are left to speak for white victims of police brutality—as they have done for Hunter Brittain, standing alongside his family and friends in their own community. Crowds gathered last week outside the Lonoke County Sherriff's Office chanting "No justice, no peace" just as they do when unarmed Black people are killed.

The local NAACP chapter pledged to support the family as they seek justice for Hunter. Benjamin Crump and Devon M. Davis, the attorneys who represented the families of Trayvon Martin, Ahmaud Arbery, and George Floyd, are representing the Brittain family. The Reverend Al Sharpton will speak at his funeral today.

"At his funeral today." Those words fill me with an incandescent rage and inconsolable sadness. I think of my own teenage brother, two years older than Hunter and, like him, a racing fan who just graduated from the NASCAR Technical Institute. I think of all the crazy ass redneck boys I grew up with in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky who drove too fast, smarted off too much, even the ones who bullied me, who were just kids themselves.

I think of Hunter. He was 17. A child. Just trying to fix his truck.

Maybe you disagree with certain tactics or tenants of the Black Lives Matter movement. That's fine. One needn't want to defund the police to recognize that something's rotten when a good ol' boy can't even fix his truck without the law shooting him like roadkill. If, like me, you are white and working class or poor, I want you to consider the injustice and inhumanity of this. I want you to consider Hunter.

Saying Black Lives Matter doesn't mean Hunter's didn't. Recognizing the material reality of racism in policing does not diminish Hunter Brittain's life, nor the pointless and evil taking of it. But failing to demand justice for Hunter and all victims of police brutality insults the memory of that precious boy whose family will lay him to rest today. It is downright sinful.

The time has come for the white working class join hands with our Black brothers and sisters and say, quite simply, enough is enough. We will not sit here while our children, our neighbors, our friends and family are gunned down like dogs on the side of the road. Enough is enough is enough. It is time for the white working class to join the movement for Black lives—and for all lives cruelly and needlessly taken by this barbarous and inhuman system we dare call policing.

NEWSWEEK ON 7/6/21 

Skylar Baker-Jordan writes about the intersection of identity, politics, and public policy based. He lives in Tennessee.

OPIUM IS THEIR MAJOR EXPORT

Laila Haidari, the mother to Kabul's drug addicts


Issued on: 08/07/2021 -

The founder of a rehabilitation centre for drug addicts, Haidari says many of her social activist friends have already quit the country ADEK BERRY AFP


Kabul (AFP)

Her friends and family tell her to pack up and flee Afghanistan without waiting for the possible return of the Taliban, but sitting on a terrace, smoking a cigarette, Laila Haidari is determined to stay.

The founder of a rehabilitation centre for drug addicts, she says many of her social activist friends have already quit the country.

"How can I easily leave all this behind? 'Laila Haidari, the mother of the addicts' -- this is my identity," she told AFP.

The US has pulled out more than 90 percent of its troops from the country, at a time when peace talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government have stalled and the insurgents are waging a blistering offensive.

There are growing fears that Afghan security forces will be unable to hold back the militants without the help of international troops.

"For the Taliban, drug addicts are criminals who are tried and sent to prison, they do not see them as sick," she said.

Poppy cultivation was banned under Taliban rule, but since being kicked out of power by a US-led invasion in 2001, the export of heroin has provided militants with billions of dollars, fuelling their insurgency.

With poppies cheap and easy to grow, Afghanistan now provides 90 percent of the world's production of heroin.

Crystal methamphetamine production has also surged, created from the ephedra plant which grows wild in the country.

According to anti-narcotics experts, 11 percent of Afghanistan's 34 million population are drug users, with four to six percent addicted to hard stimulants.

- 'The Mother Centre' -

Raised in Iran where her family had taken refuge, Haidari was married at 12 to a mullah, who as a man had instant custody rights over their three children when she divorced him a decade later.

On her return to Afghanistan, she discovered her brother, Hakim, had become addicted to heroin and was living with other homeless users under a squalid Kabul bridge, next to a filthy stream.#photo1

Like "something out of a Hollywood movie", she began rescuing the "living dead" and attempting to wean them off drugs using the Narcotics Anonymous programme, at a live-in centre that she launched.

"When I started, it was estimated that there were around 5,000 (addicts) in the country. The youngest were 15 to 18 years old," she said.

"Today the number is only increasing. And above all, 10 to 12 year-old children are falling victim," she said.

Affectionately named "the Mother Centre" by her first guests, she has helped hundreds kick their habits and connected them with support groups for ongoing help.

Sayed Hossein was one of those pulled from under the bridge and given a fresh start by Haidari.

"I started using drugs when I was in Iran, I arrived here at 20 without a family," said Hossein, who called Haidari "my mother".

The 33-year-old now works at a restaurant -- temporarily shut because of the pandemic -- Haidari established to offer employment to recovered addicts.

- 'Can the Taliban accept me?'

In a yellow dress and with turquoise painted nails, Haidari watches over the Taj Begum restaurant -- increasingly popular with young Hazaras, a minority persecuted under the Taliban and now facing a fresh wave of violence in Kabul.

As a woman who enjoys speeding through the city's streets in her car, singing along to the radio with her friends, she knows there is much that puts her at risk.#photo2

A string of high profile women, including activists, judges and journalists have been assassinated in recent months -- attacks the US and Afghan government have blamed on the Taliban.

"Can the Taliban accept me, with an uncovered head, smoking and chatting with a man?"

"I received a lot of threats in the past... now the only threat is the Taliban," she said.

As violence surges across the country, Haidari -- who has already overcome so many challenges in her lifetime -- is doubtful peace will ever return to her country.

"The Taliban killed people 20 years ago. Today they are attacking the districts. When they get here, we will have to fight," she said.

© 2021 AFP

Mary Akrami, fighting to keep Afghan women's shelters open

Issued on: 08/07/2021 

As the Taliban seizes large swathes of the country, Mary Akrami fears for the safety of the women at her shelters for survivors of domestic violence

 ADEK BERRY AFP

Kabul (AFP)

Gathered around a tandoori oven in the kitchen of a small Kabul restaurant, a group of Afghan women prepare naan for their lunchtime customers.

They are all survivors of domestic violence, and many will never be able to return to their families.

Mary Akrami, the founder of the shelter where they sleep and the restaurant where they work, fears these lifelines will be lost with the departure of foreign forces, who had pledged to restore women’s rights in war-weary Afghanistan.

"The international community encouraged us, supported us, funded us... now they ignore us," said the 45-year-old, who is also director of the Afghan Women's Network, an alliance of NGOs.

US and international troops have all but gone from Afghanistan, as the Taliban seizes control of large swathes of the country, leaving Afghan forces in crisis.

Akrami fears for her safety and that of the women at her shelters. One site has already closed because of clashes in the provinces.

"A woman who is running away from home has no place to go," she said, adding that many girls and women end up on the streets.
.
"We received cases of women tortured, sexually abused, physically abused," she added.

Having spent the Taliban's 1996-2001 rule in Pakistan, Akrami returned after the Islamist group was toppled by the US-led invasion.

With the help of some European NGOs in 2002, she opened Afghanistan's first shelter for women fleeing family violence.

More than 20,000 women have passed through Akrami's network of more than two dozen shelters since then.

In Afghanistan, a country of 35 million, the vast majority of women are estimated by the United Nations to have experienced physical, sexual or psychological violence, and the culture remains unforgiving to those who part with their husbands.

In some parts of the country, women are still given as brides to settle debts or feuds, and subjected to so-called "honour killings".

- 'I can be independent' -

Since the ousting of the Taliban, which denied girls and women education and employment, there have been some hard-won gains -- women are now judges, police officials and legislators, and schools have reopened.

The government passed a law on the Elimination of Violence Against Women, although the provisions are unreliably enforced.

At the shelter in Kabul, some women study for exams or go to work, returning at night to sleep.

Others raise their children within its walls.#photo2

For those who have no opportunity to leave, Akrami has opened the restaurant.

Hassanat, who was married off as a peace offering, fled her husband when he strangled her, leaving her permanently hoarse.

The 26-year-old found her way to the capital’s shelter and has since mastered cooking.

"I learned to read and I can make kebabs for 100 people. I can be independent," said Hassanat, who used a pseudonym to protect her identity.

At the restaurant, male customers are only welcome if escorted by women, flipping the conservative tradition where women have to be chaperoned to leave the house.

- 'Betrayed' -

After pouring her life into the shelters, Akrami said she felt "betrayed" to discover Washington had failed to make any demands over women’s rights in the landmark withdrawal deal with the Taliban last year.

At peace talks between the warring Afghan government and Taliban, the militants have made only vague commitments to protecting women's rights in line with Islamic values.

Meanwhile, high-profile women including media workers, judges and activists are among more than 180 people who have been assassinated since September -- killings the US and Afghan government blame on the militants.

While some activists have been able to flee the country, most ordinary women face no option but to watch the chaos unfold.#photo3

"Being a woman in Afghanistan is not easy," Akrami said.

"I'm tired of fighting continuously and I'm on the verge of losing everything," she said.

Norway's Telenor quits Myanmar over military coup

Issued on: 08/07/2021 -

Telenor has had a commercial presence in Myanmar since 2014 and employs a workforce of around 750 in the country Ye Aung Thu AFP/File

Oslo (AFP)
Norwegian telecoms group Telenor said Thursday it is selling its subsidiary in Myanmar, where it is one of the major operators, as a result of the military coup there.

The agreement to sell Telenor Myanmar to M1 Group for $105 million will ensure continued operations of its fixed and wireless networks, it said.

"The situation in Myanmar has over the past months become increasingly challenging for Telenor for people security, regulatory and compliance reasons," Telenor chief executive Sigve Brekke was quoted as saying in a statement.

"We have evaluated all options and believe a sale of the company is the best possible solution in this situation," he said.

Telenor was pushed deep into the red in the first quarter after it was forced to write down all of its assets in Myanmar, taking their value from 6.5 billion kroner ($769 million) to zero.

Telenor has had a commercial presence in Myanmar since 2014 and employs a workforce of around 750 in the country.

Myanmar has been rocked by massive protests and a brutal military response since the February coup that ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her government.

More than 880 civilians have been killed in a crackdown by the State Administration Council -- as the junta calls itself -- and almost 6,500 arrested, according to a local monitoring group.

The sale is subject to regulator approval by the authorities in Myanmar.

The junta has vested interests in swathes of the country's economy, from mining to banking, oil and tourism.

NGOs have urged foreign companies to review their presence in Myanmar.

M1 Group is a holding company founded by former Lebanese prime minister Najib Azmi Mikati and his brother.

It holds a major stake in the MTN mobile operator that is a leader in Africa but which is also active in Asia.

M1 is also on the blacklist established by Burma Campaign UK, which monitors the business ties of international firms with the Myanmar military.

According to a 2019 report conducted by an international independent fact-finding mission presented the UN Human Rights Council on the economic interests of Myanmar's military, the M1 Group has a stake in a company that rents mobile phone towers to the MEC, an army-owned firm that owns the Mytel mobile network.

© 2021 AFP