It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Saturday, October 09, 2021
Coconuts and prayers: Solomon's pair survive 29 days adrift at sea
Issued on: 09/10/2021
Two men were travelling between islands in the notoriously unpredictable Solomon Sea got caught in rough weather, leaving them adrift for 29 days
ANDY HALL RAAF/AFP
Kokopo (Papua New Guinea) (AFP)
Lost at sea for 29 days, two Solomon Islanders survived on coconuts, oranges and prayers before being rescued 400 kilometres (250 miles) away off the coast of Papua New Guinea.
The two men were travelling between islands in the notoriously unpredictable Solomon Sea, when their seven-metre (23-feet) boat got caught in rough weather a few hours into their journey on September 3.
Livae Nanjikana and Junior Qoloni lost sight of land in the "heavy rain, thick dark clouds and strong winds," Nanjikana told the Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corporation from the PNG district of Pomio on Friday.
As the battery in their GPS died and nightfall approached, they switched off their 60-horsepower engine to save fuel.
The men spent their first night being battered by wind and rain which drove their boat further out to sea.
For the first nine days, they lived on oranges they had packed for the trip.
When those ran out, Nanjikana said they survived on rainwater, coconuts "and our faith in God because we pray day and night."
Collecting rainwater in a canvas bag, the pair would power up their engine whenever they came across a floating coconut, racing to pick it up.
"After several days, because we prayed, God gave us this thought of constructing a device to sail. So we constructed a mast-like structure using paddles and canvas and set sail following the direction of the wind," Nanjikana said.
The sail sent them towards New Britain island in Papua New Guinea where they saw a fisherman in the distance. Starting the engine for one final push, they motored towards him but ran out of fuel.
"It was then that we shouted and continually waved our hands to the fisherman that he saw us and paddled towards us," Nanjikana said.
"When he reached us, we asked, where are we now? And he replied, PNG. Ooh, we are now safe."
The pair have remained in Pomio while arrangements are being made to return them to the Solomon Islands.
Matthew MacAdam is going public with his story of being bullied and harassed at the Royal Canadian Mint. (CBC)
A Royal Canadian Mint employee says bullying and harassment are still widespread in the Crown corporation — a claim that comes as a new report obtained by CBC News makes sweeping recommendations to tackle racism and a "traumatizing" and "toxic" workplace environment in the mint's security division.
Matthew MacAdam said he was berated by his production floor co-workers into a nervous breakdown. He said he is now speaking out publicly in the hope of driving reform.
At one point, he said, the climate in the workplace was so dire he even considered suicide.
"I've never been in such a dark place in all of my life," MacAdam said.
"If there's one thing I can't forgive from what happened at (the mint) was that it brought me to that point."
MacAdam, who is now on long-term disability with the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board, said a previous mint policy of clawing back employee bonuses to compensate for time lost to workplace injuries pitted employees against each other.
MacAdam said his colleagues made crude and sexual remarks against him and criticized his weight. He said his union executive even called his wife a sexist slur.
And he's just one of several employees reporting such abuse at the mint.
WATCH:
External review says toxic workplace environment persists at Royal Canadian Mint
An external review obtained by CBC News says the protective services section of the Royal Canadian Mint still has a toxic workplace culture, despite former employees speaking out about racism, discrimination and misogyny. One employee says harassment is rampant throughout the Crown corporation. 2:01
CBC News has obtained a redacted copy of an Aug. 11 report on the mint's protective security services division through an access to information request. Commissioned by the mint, it was compiled by investigators Arleen Huggins and Mireille Giroux of Koskie Minsky LLP, a Toronto-based law firm.
It examined complaints about the workplace climate at the mint's Ottawa headquarters, and racist comments and jokes in protective security services at the Winnipeg branch.
"It is evident that although significant progress has been made, a toxic environment remains within operations in Ottawa," the report says.
Mint commits to implementing all 24 recommendations
The report makes 24 recommendations to improve the mint's workplace culture, complaint reporting, training and employee retention — particularly for women and people of colour.
But the former protective services officer who blew the whistle on the mint said she isn't convinced the findings will make a lasting difference.
The probe was launched in the fall of 2020 after Joelle Hainzelin wrote an email to the mint's president and CEO Marie Lemay detailing incidents of racism and sexual harassment on the job.
"The fact that nobody has been fired — and when I was there, some people got promotions after behaving that way — doesn't inspire any confidence," said Hainzelin, who worked as a mint protective services officer in Ottawa from 2011 to 2019.
Joelle Hainzlin, a former protective services officer at the Royal Canadian Mint, blew the whistle on rampant racism and sexual harassment within her department. (Raphael Tremblay/CBC)
Hainzelin said she was called a "chimpanzee" by a male colleague and that team leaders and supervisors participated in other racist insults.
She also said she was sexually harassed on two occasions — once by a team leader.
The report says that a lack of targeted diversity recruitment strategies and effective and consistent training, coupled with a low number of women and people of colour working as team leaders and in operations management, have resulted in "extremely low levels of representation of women and BIPOC individuals (Black, Indigenous, and other people of colour) in Ottawa."
This situation, the report says, has "left a vacuum for the hiring and promotion of certain individuals with sexist and racist views which, while more hidden than in the past, still permeate the culture 'behind the scenes.'"
The report said the mint's Ottawa workplace is not as troubled as it was before the fall of 2019, when some employees described it as "hell, highly toxic, unbearable and traumatizing."
The report says that some mint employees from Ottawa and Winnipeg said they feared employment reprisals for participating in the probe. The investigators said this suggests a lack of trust in management.
Marie Lemay, president and CEO of the Royal Canadian Mint, said the Crown corporation has already taken steps to prevent discrimination and harassment. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press)
The 19-page report calls on the mint to establish an effective reporting system to fully document all claims of discrimination and harassment made by employees, and to provide them with timely updates.
In a written statement to CBC News, Lemay said the mint is committed to implementing all of the report's recommendations.
"The Royal Canadian Mint does not tolerate discrimination, harassment or inappropriate workplace behaviour of any kind," Lemay wrote.
"We investigate all complaints and do not hesitate to take disciplinary action when warranted."
Lemay said the mint has established a dedicated staff position within the protective services group to support diversity in the recruitment process, and has introduced cultural bias screening for all new hires.
It already has launched a third-party platform where employees can anonymously report workplace concerns, and mandatory unconscious bias and harassment prevention training for all employees. It also recently adopted a diversity, equity and inclusion action plan.
Union, mint employee call for corporation-wide investigation
Clint Crabtree is the president and business agent for Amalgamated Transit Union 279, representing protective security services in Ottawa. He said he wasn't aware of the review.
The Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), which represents protective services in Winnipeg and other non-security employees in Ottawa, is calling on the mint to launch a full probe of its workplace culture.
"We've received a complaint about a toxic workplace culture that's having a significant impact on the mental health of employees," said Randy Howard, national president of the Government Services Union, which is part of PSAC.
"We're calling on the employer to launch a full investigation into the allegations to make the mint a better, safer place to work. We'll also continue to represent our members who have faced harassment and discrimination at work."
The mint said it has not received any communication from PSAC on this matter.
The protective security services division isn't the only one with problems, said Hainzelin. She said she's heard from employees in other departments who have been left "scarred" by their experiences.
"If you want change, you have to come out and say something," she said.
"It might seem hard at first. It was for me. But when I saw the results of the people coming to me … You'll always find help and resources, and you'll always find somebody who has something in common with you."
WATCH | Former mint employee says she faced racism on the job:
Several former security guards at the Royal Canadian Mint have told CBC News they faced a toxic work environment that included racism and sexual harassment. They said the atmosphere was so nasty, they feared reprisals if they filed grievances. 2:00
MacAdam said that while he was processing gold and silver at the mint from 2013 to November 2019, the mint had a policy of clawing back employee bonuses for time lost due to injuries. That policy, he said, "pitted people against each other" and made employees reluctant to report injuries at work.
"I watched a guy cut his hand from end to end on a blade, sneak it out," he said. "Called the next day and said that he cut his hand on a trailer hitch because he didn't want to be stigmatized."
MacAdam said he had to take time off for surgery after he injured himself while moving precious metals in September 2016. He said he was injured again at work in December 2018.
When he returned to the job, he said, his colleagues were furious with him.
"I had [a union member and departmental lead] in my room come up and say to me, 'You're the reason that we are not going to get a 10 per cent bonus and I have told everybody on the floor that,'" MacAdam said.
The mint told CBC News that bonus policy is no longer in place.
MacAdam said his angry colleagues spread a rumour that he was granting sexual favours for higher pay. After he complained, he said, his supervisor admitted he "might have made it up."
MacAdam's accusations were confirmed by a human resources investigation after he suffered a nervous breakdown. He hasn't returned to work since November 2019.
"I just felt very betrayed," he said. "There needs to be a serious inquiry into all departments and I think the union really needs to stand up here."
UK
Labour shortage a human disaster for pig farms - NFU
IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES
Pig farmers are facing a "human disaster" due to a shortage of abattoir workers, the National Farmer's Union has said.
Farmers are already having to destroy healthy pigs due to a backlog on farms, the union said.
Time is running out for the UK pig sector, the National Pig Association (NPA) warned. But a government minister said businesses should pay higher wages and invest in skills. 'Pigs in blankets' shortage
The industry blames the shortage of people to slaughter pigs in abattoirs on factors including Covid and Brexit.
The chronic labour shortage has led to an estimated backlog of 85,000 pigs on farms, with an extra 15,000 being added per week, according to NPA figures.
The industry association warned on Thursday that "empty retail shelves and product shortages are becoming increasingly commonplace and Christmas specialities, such as pigs in blankets are already under threat".
"The knock-on effect of the staff shortages is having a devastating effect on the country's pig farmers," the NPA said.
"We are already seeing producers up and down the country getting out of pigs or cutting down on numbers because they cannot sustain these losses any longer," NPA chief executive Zoe Davies said.
"Without immediate government intervention, more producers will be pushed over the edge."
"Sadly we are expecting a serious contraction of the UK pig industry," she added, saying mainly smaller independent farmers were affected.
Around 600 pigs have already been killed to deal with overcrowding, and a mass cull is the next stage, the industry association has said. 'Livelihoods at risk'
Speaking on BBC Question Time, National Farmers Union president Minette Batters said the UK is the "first country in the world facing a cull of healthy livestock".
She said pigs were having to be destroyed using either a bolt gun or lethal injection, and added: "As far as I'm concerned this is the start and it has to be resolved.
"This is livelihoods and this is people's businesses.
"This has been a human disaster for those pig farmers who are absolutely distraught."
She said that the government must address labour shortages unless we "don't want a pig industry in this country" which she argued would mean "we will import pig meat that is produced to lower standards."
Ms Batters said Environment Secretary George Eustice and Cabinet Office minister Stephen Barclay were doing "everything" they can, but said she had not been able to see Home Secretary Priti Patel to discuss more migrant visas to address shortages.
But Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi said the government was working with the industry to find sustainable solutions and that issuing temporary visas was "not enough".
He also said shortages were happening elsewhere in the world.
Mr Zahawi added that Prime Minister Boris Johnson was "right" to challenge businesses to pay higher wages and invest in skills.
A Nasa astronaut who holds the record for the longest space mission by an American said projects like the UAE’s Venus mission would inspire the next generation of scientific explorers.
Scott Kelly spoke to The National during a visit to Expo 2020 Dubai, where he interacted with visitors and toured the exhibits at the US pavilion, including a model of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, Moon rocks and Martian meteorites.
Not only will the UAE benefit, it will benefit the whole world
Scott Kelly, retired US astronaut
The UAE announced on Tuesday it had set its sights on Venus, in addition to exploring the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter in 2028.
A veteran of four space flights, Mr Kelly told The National that countries such as the UAE were right in recognising the value of “not only what you learn, but how you inspire”.
“If you can inspire a generation of kids to be scientists or engineers, they are going to do really important work that is important to the country’s economy and national security,” said the retired US astronaut.
“What I like is other countries around the world recognising the importance of space flights and dedicating resources to it, because not only will the UAE benefit, it will benefit the whole world.”
Mr Kelly spent 340 days at the International Space Station (ISS) during 2015-2016. Only Russian astronaut Valeri Polyakov has lived longer in space, after he spent 437 days on the Mir space station in 1994.
As one of the world's most experienced cosmonauts Mr Kelly had a few words of advice for UAE astronauts Hazza Al Mansouri and Sultan Al Neyadi.
The Emiratis are currently in training at the Nasa's Johnson Space Centre in Houston.
“I would tell them to appreciate every moment of it,” Mr Kelly said.
“Be careful, be safe, be deliberate, don’t guess because the consequences when you are operating in that environment could be very, very serious.”
Mr Kelly is currently filming a reality television show where contestants go through challenges to become Arab world's most eligible future astronaut. The show will be broadcast next month.
Scott Kelly, American astronaut, second left, tours the US pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai.
Pawan Singh / The National
As a former commander of the ISS, Mr Kelly has had his share of challenging situations, and he vividly recalled several of the risky moments of his space journeys.
In the summer of 2015, a satellite travelling at 35,000 miles an hour narrowly missed hitting the station.
“We couldn’t move the space station out of the way,” he said.
“It was going to get within half a mile of us … and basically we were preparing for the potential of it hitting us. Fortunately it didn’t.”
After a total of 520 days in space, Mr Kelly's eyesight, height and his health were dramatically affected by zero gravity.
His heart shrank by 25 per cent, and after one year aboard the ISS, Nasa researchers found he had grown five centimetres, and was taller than his identical twin brother Mark, who is also an astronaut
But Mr Kelly is not concerned about the changes to his body - instead he worries about the depletion of the Earth’s resources.
"I still have some genetic changes but nothing serious," he said.
“But when you see the atmosphere, it looks like a thin film over the planet.
“Over the course of my 17 years of flying in space, rainforests in South America looked much different in 1999 than they did in 2016 and certain parts of the planet – despite being beautiful – are almost always covered in pollution.
“So we need to take these things more seriously.”
A supporter of space tourism, he believes it will give people a new perspective about climate change and make them more responsible about protecting the planet.
“Climate change is probably the most serious thing that is going to affect our future,” Mr Kelly said.
“It will affect food production, there will be more natural disasters. We need to take more serious action.”
Updated: October 6th 2021, 10:29 PM
Ancient river delta bolsters search for signs of life on Mars
Issued on: 07/10/2021 -
In February Perseverance landed in Jezero crater where scientists suspected a long-gone river once fed a lake
Handout NASA/JPL-CALTECH/AFP/File
Paris (AFP)
Images from Mars reveal how water helped shape the Red Planet's landscape billions of years ago, and provide clues that will guide the search for evidence of ancient life, a study said Thursday.
In February, NASA's Perseverance rover landed in Jezero crater, where scientists suspected a long-gone river once fed a lake, depositing sediment in a fan-shaped delta visible from space.
The study in Science analysed high-resolution images captured by Perseverance of the cliffs that were once the banks of the delta.
Layers within the cliffs reveal how its formation took place.
NASA astrobiologist Amy Williams and her team in Florida found similarities between features of the cliffs seen from the crater floor and patterns in Earth's river deltas.
The shape of the bottom three layers showed a presence and steady flow of water early on, indicating Mars was "warm and humid enough to support a hydrologic cycle" about 3.7 billion years ago, the study says.
The top and most recent layers feature boulders measuring more than a metre in diameter scattered about, probably carried there by violent flooding.
But it is the fine-grained sediment of the base layer that will likely be the target of sampling for signs of long-extinct life -- if it existed -- on Mars.
The findings will help researchers figure out where to send the rover for soil and rocks that may contain precious "biosignatures" of putative Martian life forms.
Mars rover: Perserverance Laurence CHU AFP
"From orbital images, we knew it had to be water that formed the delta," Williams said in a press release.
"But having these images is like reading a book instead of just looking at the cover."
Finding out whether life may have existed on Mars is the main mission of Perseverence, a project that took decades and cost billions of dollars to develop.
- 'Profound' mission -
Over the course of several years, the multi-tasking rover will collect 30 rock and soil samples in sealed tubes, to be eventually sent back to Earth sometime in the 2030s for lab analysis.
Last month mission scientists announced Perseverance had collected two rock samples in Jezero that showed signs they were in contact with groundwater for a long period.
Their hope is that the samples might at one point have hosted ancient microbial life, evidence of which could have been trapped by salt minerals.
Learning that Mars might once have harboured life would be one of the most "profound" discoveries ever made by humanity, Williams said.
She also expressed wonder at having a window onto an ancient river system on another planet.
"It's really eye-opening to see something no one on Earth has ever seen before," she said.
Perseverance landed on February 18, and the study looks at long-distance images it captured during its first three months on Mars.
About the size of an SUV, it is equipped with 19 cameras, a two metre (seven foot) long robotic arm, two microphones, and a suite of cutting-edge instruments.
One of them is called the SuperCam, a tool that laser-zaps rocks from a distance in order to study their vapour with a device that reveals their chemical composition.
It took seven months for Perseverance to travel from Earth to Mars with its sister craft Ingenuity, a tiny helicopter whose rotors have to spin five times faster than Earth versions to get lift in the far-less-dense atmosphere.
The plan is for the rover to cross the delta, then the ancient lake shore, and finally explore the edges of the crater.
Daniel Foote, seen in 2016, resigned in protest as the US special envoy on crisis-hit Haiti Drew Angerer GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File
Washington (AFP)
The former US envoy on Haiti who resigned in protest last month testified Thursday that the United States made a mistake by backing Prime Minister Ariel Henry, saying he had no credibility.
Asked at a congressional hearing if Henry's government could stay in power without US support, Daniel Foote replied: "I do not believe they would survive for a minute."
Henry was appointed just two days before the July 7 assassination of president Jovenel Moise, who had been ruling by decree, ushering in a new crisis in a nation already battered by rampant violence and natural disasters.
Under a deal reached later in July, a new government was tasked with working toward holding elections. Henry became the favorite after the US, French and other ambassadors in Port-au-Prince in a joint statement threw their support behind him.
Foote said he had no personal grudge against Henry but believed the "consensus is nearly unanimous" among the public that the prime minister belonged to a ruling party that was to blame for Haiti's problems.
"Haitians see that as meddling and are not happy and do not see the current interim government as credible," Foote told the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Foote said that officials in President Joe Biden's administration had "almost blindly" supported Henry as they felt "nervous" about too much change in government in the troubled country.
Foote, a veteran diplomat who served only two months in his role, said that the row contributed to his resignation.
Representative Andy Levin told Foote he was "furious" that the United States missed what he called a historic chance to involve civil society and instead blessed an appointee of Moise, who had led a "kleptocracy, a gangsterization" of Haiti.
The Democratic lawmaker urged the Biden administration to encourage a "real and not just for-show transition back to democratic rule."
"I believe our current policy disrespects and fails to see the Haitian people, something our country has done over and over again," Levin said.
In a letter last month, Foote said that he could not support mass deportations being carried out under Biden amid widespread outrage at scenes of horseback border guards' harsh rounding up of Haitians.
Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman replied that his explanation was disingenuous and that he had lost a policy debate by calling for a US military involvement in Haiti.
Haitian migrants queue to register with the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance in the border city of Tijuana
Guillermo Arias AFP
Mexico City (AFP)
With the United States turning away migrants at its southern border, Mexico is also taking a firm stance against undocumented arrivals, including thousands of Haitian asylum seekers.
Mexico, which will host US Secretary of State Antony Blinken for talks on Friday, recorded 90,314 asylum requests from January to September, according to the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance.
That compares with 70,406 for the whole of 2019 and 41,059 in 2020, when the pandemic reduced the number of applications for refugee status in Mexico.
As usual, Hondurans make up the largest proportion this year with 31,884 applications, ahead of Haitians, whose number has increased sharply, to 26,007 in 2021, against 5,954 in 2020.
Mexico has expelled 54,000 migrants so far in 2021, according to Jose Miguel Vivanco, director of Human Rights Watch's Americas division.
Thousands of US-bound migrants are stranded in the overcrowded southern city of Tapachula, where some have been waiting months for documents so they can avoid being deported.
Tens of thousands of Haitian migrants have arrived in Mexico in recent months, many of whom had previously been living in South America
Guillermo Arias AFP
Security forces have broken up several migrant caravans attempting the journey from Tapachula to the United States in recent weeks, dismaying rights activists.
President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said last month that Mexico cannot become a "migrant camp."
His warning followed the arrival in recent months of tens of thousands of US-bound Haitian migrants, many of whom had previously been living in South America.
While most cling to hope of eventually crossing the US-Mexican border, Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard has suggested that Mexico could grant refugee status to 13,255 Haitians.
"We Haitians dream of reaching the United States so our families have a better life, but the immigration authorities don't let anyone through," Joseph Yorel told AFP in a shelter in the northeastern city of Monterrey.
"If I find a job so that I can live in Mexico and support my family ... then I have no problem staying here," added the 34-year-old, who traveled overland from Chile with his wife and baby. - 'Dirty work' -
The Haitians face an anxious wait to see if they will be allowed to stay.
Mexico repatriated 129 Haitian migrants to Port-au-Prince on Wednesday, the second such flight since late September.
Mexican immigration authorities have called the repatriation flights voluntary and pledged to respect migrant rights.
But witnesses said the Haitians protested before their departure on Wednesday from the southern state of Chiapas.
Mexico has suggested that it could grant refugee status to 13,255 Haitians
Guillermo Arias AFP
One man apparently even tried to jump from the plane's boarding bridge, according to HRW's Vivanco and video footage.
Lopez Obrador has urged the United States to invest in economic development in Central America and Haiti to generate jobs so people do not need to flee poverty.
Mexico and Central American countries are still waiting for four billion dollars pledged by Washington, he said last month.
The left-wing populist has urged the United States to end a security assistance program called the Merida Initiative and instead use the money for development assistance.
When Donald Trump was president from 2017-2021, a former Mexican foreign minister, Jorge Castaneda, accused his own country of doing the "dirty work" of the United States by hindering migrant flows.
Under Trump's successor Joe Biden, the United States still wants Mexico "to be a kind of wall against migrants," said Gaspard Estrada, a Latin America expert at the Paris Institute of Political Studies.
"Mexico is above all a country which expels migrants. It responds to the wishes of the Democratic administration," he said.
CRYPTO CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M Unexpected guilty plea in North Korea case shows crypto's wild and defiant days are coming to an end
Ethan Lou: The idealistic, devil-may-care attitude for which crypto is known, and which Griffith exemplifies, is fast becoming a spent force
Author of the article: Ethan Lou, Special to Financial Post Publishing date:Oct 07, 2021 •
Virgil Griffith plead guilty last week in New York City in his North Korea-cryptocurrency case, taking a plea deal for up to six-and-a-half years in prison.
PHOTO BY LULU LORIEN
It was definitely a surprise seeing Virgil Griffith plead guilty last week in New York City in his North Korea-cryptocurrency case, taking a plea deal for up to six-and-a-half years in prison.
For nearly two years, the American citizen and former Ethereum Foundation executive had been fighting a charge of trying to help North Korea break sanctions through a 2019 talk about blockchain in that country — a case at the unique confluence of technology, finance and geopolitics that has shocked and disturbed observers. Then on the first day of what was supposed to be a two-week trial, Griffith gave up that fight.
It’s unclear what specifically sparked the reversal and Griffith’s lawyers have not elaborated publicly on the rationale. But as important as the motivation is the implication. As someone who had been in North Korea with Griffith and followed the case closely, I could not help but feel that the conclusion of the case symbolizes a wider cryptocurrency capitulation. That idealistic, devil-may-care attitude for which this field is known, and which Griffith exemplifies, is fast becoming a spent force.
That does not mean, of course, that there will be no more crypto crime cases, or that the scrappy industry will find eternal peace with rules and regulators. Just this year, a libertarian in Keene, New Hampshire, was arrested for allegedly selling bitcoin with no regard for where the resulting money came from. There will always be such cases.
It’s just that the accused will no longer be seen as defining the industry, and they will be less likely to be major figures known outside it. (Who but the crypto folks have heard of Ian Freeman from the city of Keene, anyway?) And the truly defiant are finding more pragmatic methods, such as when the noted exchange ShapeShift said it would become an uncontrollable, decentralized entity. As the crypto world moves on from the Griffith case, it will become only more orderly, more pleasing to investors, more serious.
I could not help but feel that the conclusion of the case symbolizes a wider cryptocurrency capitulation
In the public’s consciousness, at least, such crypto crimes first came about more than five years ago, when the American entrepreneur Charlie Shrem went to prison for flouting money-laundering rules for his BitInstant brokerage. He became known as the proverbial “first felon,” the earliest notable figure in this freewheeling world to butt against constraints and consequences.
Shrem’s case would exemplify a special type of crypto crime. Shrem did not steal anything or maim anyone. He did not believe he was actively trying to inflict harm. He had simply not given a lot of heed to the established rules. Now, Griffith’s case marks the crescendo in the bitter ballad that began with Shrem.
As he admitted, Griffith did break the law. But he had not sought to harm anyone and had derived no benefit for himself. The defence has long maintained that Griffith’s presentation in North Korea amounted to no more than publicly available information. He never tried to hide anything. In fact, I remember Griffith talking about meeting U.S. officials to tell them about the trip. “As a friend of his told me, Griffith views life as a role-playing video game, and the conference was just another quest,” a journalist wrote recently in an industry publication.
Such have been crypto’s escalating growing pains. They had symbolically started with Shrem. Then Ross Ulbricht — who believed that people should have the freedom to buy whatever drugs they wanted, as long as they were not directly harming others — got two life sentences for running the Silk Road marketplace. Now North Korea. Griffith’s sentence will be far lower than Ulbricht’s, but the deed is arguably the most outlandish and attention grabbing.
In that respect, it’s going to be tough to find a crypto crime to top Griffith’s, and the whimpering conclusion to the case last Monday was heard around the world. Journalists like me watched as Griffith sighed repeatedly, told the court he had depression and incorrectly stated his own age, the weight of an uphill two-year fight heavy upon him. Even without the government press release afterward, the message the U.S. justice department had wanted to send was starkly clear. After such a climax, the only way forward is downhill.
Back in the day, this field had even less legitimacy, and many early bitcoiners had came from society’s fringes. Then, however, came the suits to build order out of chaos — like, for example, the Winklevoss twins of Facebook fame. Tellingly, when investing in a crypto startup, they had almost immediately clashed with an earlier libertarian investor named Roger Ver. That startup was none other than Shrem’s BitInstant. The ensuing criminal case marred that Winklevoss-Ver partnership, and over the years, more moderate and pragmatic forces would increasingly squeeze crypto’s less-mainstream aspects.
Griffith’s case and his public admission of defeat mark a pivotal moment in that jockeying. The wild and chaotic side of crypto is in decline, perhaps for good.
Ethan Lou is a journalist and author of Once a Bitcoin Miner: Scandal and Turmoil in the Cryptocurrency Wild West, to be released Oct. 19.
'Moleman': 4chan user linked to Alberta man charged in extremism investigation The bail hearing was the first time authorities have made a link between Maure and Moleman. Since then, Postmedia has reviewed dozens of posts from a 4chan user of that name, which reveal something of the world of firepower, survivalism and extremist views which attracted the attention of national security investigators
Author of the article: Jonny Wakefield Publishing date:Oct 07, 2021 •
Photo posted to 4chan from user 'Moleman' shows three men posing for a photo with an Edmonton Police Service officer on Whyte Avenue on Halloween 2016.
To the largely anonymous world of 4chan, Moleman was an outlier: an outlandish figure who liked to dig tunnels, shoot guns and thumb his nose at authority.
Unlike other users on the notorious message board site, Moleman made no secret of his real-world location, posting alleged photos of himself and his friends at recognizable locations around Edmonton wearing camouflage and other military gear.
Prosecutors claim Moleman is Kelvin Gregory Maure, the 26-year-old alleged right-wing extremist arrested after police turned up a cache of weapons and explosives at his Parkland County home earlier this year.
Maure is facing 34 charges after an investigation by the RCMP’s Alberta-based Integrated National Security Enforcement Team (INSET). Police say their search turned up seven prohibited weapons including loaded assault-style rifles and materials for making explosives.
Maure was released on bail in late August over the objections of Crown prosecutors, who allege he displayed a “cavalier” attitude in firing semi-automatic assault rifles and engaging with online neo-Nazi content.
The bail hearing was the first time authorities have made a link between Maure and Moleman. Since then, Postmedia has reviewed dozens of posts from a 4chan user of that name, which reveal something of the world of firepower, survivalism and extremist views which attracted the attention of national security investigators. ‘Fascistic or neo-Nazi predilections’
Maure was allegedly part of an online community that INSET began monitoring in September 2020. The following January, while under surveillance, police say Maure made posts which “displayed escalating behaviour” which led police to deem him a “threat to critical infrastructure, the police and the public.”
Maure was arrested with the help of an RCMP tactical team on Feb. 13, 2021, after an hours-long operation outside the Parkland County home where he lived with a family member. The arrest came one day after Maure allegedly damaged a propane tank and shed at an oil and gas facility near Drayton Valley. Investigators say they recovered “numerous” guns during a search of Maure’s property, including three AK-style rifles, an SKS rifle, a 9 mm pistol and high-capacity magazines — as well as police and military paraphernalia.
Kelvin Maure arrested at 35 Heatherlea Dr in Parkland County with a cache of weapons after making extremist views known online. Taken on Friday, April 30, 2021 .
PHOTO BY GREG SOUTHAM /Postmedia
Seven of the weapons were deemed prohibited, meaning they are illegal to own in Canada without special exemptions, while three — an AK-47, AK-74 and Baikal Viking 9 mm — were allegedly loaded when Maure was arrested.
Police also seized explosive substances including TATP, a volatile compound used in terrorist attacks including the 2005 London bombings, as well as fuses and percussion caps. TATP can be synthesized from household chemicals including hydrogen peroxide.
Police released news of Maure’s arrest in April. He was granted bail Aug. 31.
During the bail hearing, Crown prosecutor Richard Tchir alleged Maure was part of a group that — as Justice Sterling Sanderman summarized — had “extreme right-wing … fascistic or neo-Nazi predilections.” The Crown argued Maure should stay in jail ahead of trial given his collection of prohibited firearms, his “cavalier” attitude in firing them, and his alleged interest in promoting social unrest.
Tchir also claimed Maure had researched how explosives could be used to “create chaos” in the electrical grid, and how to “remediate” firearms to allow them to fire fully automatic.
RCMP’s Integrated National Security Enforcement Team have laid 34 criminal charges against Kelvin Gregory Maure. RCMP executed search warrants on several properties resulting in the seizure of numerous firearms and other paraphernalia. Images supplied by RCMP.
RCMP’s Integrated National Security Enforcement Team have laid 34 criminal charges against Kelvin Benjamin Maure. RCMP executed search warrants on several properties resulting in the seizure of numerous firearms and other paraphernalia. Images supplied by RCMP.
Defence lawyer Robert LaValley characterized his client as an “immature, role-playing young man” who failed to understand the seriousness of his actions. He said the Crown had overstated his client’s relationship with the far-right.
Sanderman disagreed with the Crown’s concerns. He likened them to “the over-reaction during the McCarthy era of the early 1950s and to the unjustified fear of communist subversives.” Sanderman said he was shown no “concrete” evidence that tied Maure “inexorably” to any particular ideology or group.
As part of his bail plan, Maure has been ordered to live with his mother in Edmonton, and cannot leave the apartment unless escorted by his mom or the man acting as his surety. Sanderman also prohibited him from possessing any firearms or devices that can access the internet.
‘Moleman’
The Crown alleges Maure used the online alias “Moleman.” Postmedia has found numerous posts from a user of that name on 4chan, an online image board service.
Created in 2003, 4chan is built around anonymity. Unlike many message forums, users do not register a unique username that follows them around the site. Many simply post as “Anonymous,” though some choose a distinctive handle and tripcode, a unique identifier recognizable to others in the community.
Postmedia has reviewed a variety of posts from a 4chan poster named Moleman, dating back to 2016. All use the same tripcode.
Postmedia provided copies of the posts to LaValley, who declined to comment.
Moleman posted frequently on /k/, 4chan’s weapons and gun culture board. /K/ users are known to meet in person, and Moleman and other Alberta posters appear to have done so on several occasions. In June 2016, Moleman identified himself as Canadian on a post about his tunnelling project. One user questioned whether the author of the post was the “real moleman” because he was using an unfamiliar tripcode. To prove his identity, Moleman posted a photo of guns from a “Burta” (Alberta) meet-up as “proof.”
A December 2018 photo posted to 4chan from user ‘Moleman’ shows an apparent meet up, featuring eight armed, masked men, and a goat named Doug.
In late 2016, Moleman reached out to others in the Edmonton area for a “group buy” of tracer ammunition. He also posted about a “winter meet,” featuring gunplay and outdoor camping in -30 C weather. In December 2018, Moleman posted a photo of another apparent meet up, featuring eight armed, masked men, and a goat named Doug which Moleman claimed they killed and ate. He posted a photo of the goat’s severed head as proof.
One of the pieces of alleged police paraphernalia seized from Maure is a tan shirt with an RCMP patch on the shoulder. The shirt also includes a patch from a seemingly fictitious military organization called “Task Force 165: Doug’s Darlings,” which features a goat skull insignia.
Moleman also posted several alleged photos of himself at Edmonton landmarks.
Most of the photos stem from an outing around Halloween 2016, which Moleman and two other men spent wearing military-style uniforms around the city. Moleman said he was “ccing” (sometimes used as an acronym for concealed carrying) and “nursing” a hidden bottle of Stolichnaya vodka. Moleman said they told people — including police — that they were “GRU (a Russian military intelligence service) and naval infantry living in Canada.” Moleman said it was the “best moment of my life.”
Photo posted to 4chan from user ‘Moleman’ shows three individuals posing on the steps of the Alberta Legislature on Halloween 2016.
Photo posted to 4chan shows ‘Moleman’ standing behind the Alberta Legislature on Halloween 2016.
In one photo of the outing, the three men — two of them with face-covering balaclavas — stand with an Edmonton Police Service officer on Whyte Avenue. Later, they took photos at the Alberta legislature. In one shot, two of the men squat by a peace officer vehicle, one of them with his middle fingers in the air. They also posed on the legislature steps. Moleman wrote: “the legislature is dangerously unprotected and under manned i knocked on the door for a minute trying to annex it and yelled im here to take your country but no one showed up.”
Moleman later posted an apparent photo of himself drinking from a bottle of vodka behind the legislature. In another photo, he stands in the same area with his balaclava on, holding what appears to be a handgun. In all the photos, his uniform has a distinctive green shoulder patch.
Some /k/ users were critical of Moleman’s night out. “Going out with friends in gear for Halloween and interacting with police and other people is cringey and try hard,” one wrote.
Moleman responded with bravado: “I don’t see you walking up to cops from behind while in body armour and a balaclava, with open alcohol on you, just to stop them so you can get pictures or messing around the city center and legislature.” He attacked the author of the post, saying “your crippling social autism prevents you from doing s— like that.”
In response, another user agreed with the criticism. “You still kinda come off as someone trying to prove something to everyone here,” they wrote. ‘Unnaground’
In addition to firearms, Moleman showed a fascination with digging, regularly posting photos of a bunker-like excavation project and talking about life “unnaground.” Tchir, the prosecutor, told court that police found “essentially a bomb making facility” in a dugout in Maure’s yard.
On April 15, 2017, Moleman posted a photo of an underground entrance with a “blast door.” He wrote: “Moleman here with the first ever footage from inside my tunnel project, join me as I dig my grave, post unnaground memes, post your bunkers, etc.” One of his tunnels was 12 feet deep, with room for two people to sit inside.
Photo posted to 4chan in April 2017 from user ‘Moleman’ shows the entrance to an underground bunker
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Photo posted to 4chan from user ‘Moleman’ dated December 2016.
Absent from the Moleman posts reviewed by Postmedia is any explicit neo-Nazi content, though the user is clearly concerned with race. In one 2017 post Moleman said he was half-French and half-Slavic and thus “not even human let alone white.” He also occasionally used racial slurs to attack other posters.
David Jones, a researcher with the Edmonton-based Organization for the Prevention of Violence, has reviewed the Moleman posts.
He said unlike many in the anonymous world of 4chan, Moleman seemed to seek notoriety. Some believed Moleman was really a police officer.
“He became really well-known as Moleman on the page,” Jones said.
The user also seemed to have few compunctions about posting images of themselves, which some believed foolish.
“Some other users, including ones who seem to be in Alberta, or in Western Canada, were deeply skeptical of him, because he kind of sought to de-anonymize his activity online and associate it to one consistent poster,” said Jones.
News of Maure’s bail was greeted with mixed reaction on 4chan. Several users posted news stories about his release. Some sought to find out who “ratted” on the user, while others blamed Moleman himself for what happened.
One user suggested anyone paying attention to people who post on weapons forums “would quickly become attracted to a young man posting prohibited firearms and concerning messages.”
One user posted simply: “MOLEMAN IS OUT OF JAIL.”
Maure’s trial is scheduled to begin April 4, 2022.
A gharial has the same skull shape as some extinct crocodiles. This skull shape has likely evolved three different times during the history of crocodiles.
DeAgostini / Getty Images
Crocodiles look like they belong to another time, an era when reptiles ruled. But appearances can be deceiving. Today’s crocodiles are not holdovers that have gone unchanged since the Jurassic, but are one expression of a great, varied family that’s been around for over 235 million years. More than that, crocodiles are still evolving—and faster than they have at other times in their family’s scaly history.
The seemingly contradictory conclusion about crocodylian evolution comes from a recent study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B by University College London anatomist Ryan Felice and colleagues. By comparing three-dimensional models to track anatomical landmarks on crocodylian skulls over time, the researchers found that modern crocodile species in Australia, southeast Asia and the Indo-Pacific are evolving quickly despite looking like semi-aquatic antiques. Modern croc species look so similar not because of conserving ancient traits, but because crocodiles are evolving the same skull shapes over and over again through time.
“Crocodylians just seem ancient and primordial and look a bit like Hollywood dinosaurs,” Felice says, not to mention that some species are among the largest reptiles on the planet. American alligators can grow to be 14 feet long, and saltwater crocodiles can get to be over 20 feet in length. On top of that, Felice notes, some fossil crocodiles superficially resemble living species. The spitting reptilian image can create a narrative that crocodiles haven’t changed much at all, content to lurk in the evolutionary backwaters. But that’s not the real story.
Today’s alligators, crocodiles and gharials—grouped together as crocodylians—shared a common ancestor back in the Cretaceous, around 95 million years ago. But crocodile history goes much deeper. Today’s alligators and crocodiles are just the remaining members of a broader, older group of reptiles called pseudosuchians—or crocodiles and their extinct relatives. The first pseudosuchians evolved over 235 million years ago, around the time that the first dinosaurs were making their mark on the Triassic landscape, and have gone through a vast array of changes through time.
Many fossil pseudosuchians were unlike any creatures alive today. Triassic animals called aetosaurs, for example, are sometimes called “armadillodiles” for the way these crocodile relatives resembled large, omnivorous armadillos. Around the same time there lived bipedal crocodile relatives like Poposaurus and Effigia, pseudosuchians that evolved dinosaur-like body plans and habits independently. In fact, during the Triassic there was a greater diversity of pseudosuchian species and body plans than dinosaurs. They, not the “terrible lizards,” were the dominant reptiles on land. That is, until massive volcanic eruptions triggered a mass extinction about 201 million years ago and many forms of pseudosuchians died out, allowing the dinosaurs to step out of the shadows.
But even in Jurassic and Cretaceous heyday of the dinosaurs, surviving lineages of pseudosuchians thrived. Some crocodile relatives spent their whole lives at sea. Sharp-toothed predators like Dakosaurus and Thalattosuchus hunted the oceans for prey alongside ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs. Others were terrestrial carnivores that were stiff competition for dinosaurs. In prehistoric Brazil around 90 million years ago, land-dwelling crocodiles like Baurusuchus were among the apex predators of their time and bit into prey with blade-like teeth. And semi-aquatic ambush predators existed, too. Some of them were about the size of their modern counterparts, but a few were giants. Deinosuchus, the “terror crocodile,” was an alligator that could grow to be almost 40 feet long and lurked in North America’s swamps between 82 and 73 million years ago.
Even after the asteroid strike that ended the “Age of Dinosaurs,” some species of crocodile survived and continued to evolve in new ways. While mammals were going through a major evolutionary flowering, new terrestrial crocodiles—such as the “hoofed” crocodile Boverisuchus —evolved to chase after them. And even in recent times, until about 4,000 years ago, there lived terrestrial crocodiles in the South Pacific called mekosuchines that had teeth and jaws suited to crunching mollusks and insects. Crocodiles and their relatives haven’t been evolutionary slouches. Instead, these reptiles have rapidly responded to changing times.
To track how crocodile skull shapes changed through the ages, Felice and colleagues used a technique called geometric morphometrics to compare the skulls of 24 living crocodylian species and 19 of their fossil relatives. These three-dimensional models allowed researchers to look at different landmarks on the skulls—such as the placement of the eyes or the length of the snout— and track how anatomy has shifted over time and through evolutionary relationships.
A 19th century illustration shows the different skull shapes of three species of crocodylians.
The Print Collector / Getty Images
The analysis did more than track shape. Crocodile snout shapes are heavily-influenced by what those species eat. For example, very long, narrow snouts filled with many small teeth are considered clues to a diet heavy in fish. Living gharials have this shape, but so do some extinct marine crocodiles. Felice and colleagues hypothesize that this fish-eating snout shape has evolved at least three times in the history of crocodiles.
Two crocodiles with similar skull shapes, then, might not be close relatives. Instead, distantly-related crocodiles are converging on the same skull shapes because they’re feeding on similar prey and living in similar habitats, with an array of species repeating a small number of skull shapes. The fact that distantly-related branches on the crocodile family tree are converging on similar skull shapes, University of Tennessee paleontologist Stephanie Drumheller-Horton says, suggests that crocodiles are evolving rapidly to repeatedly fill the same set of niches.
And new studies are beginning to track just how quickly crocodiles are changing, especially modern species. Earlier this year Harvard University paleontologist Stephanie Pierce and colleagues reported that some modern crocodylian lineages are evolving rapidly. The study by Felice and coauthors adds to this picture. Crocodile species living through the landmasses of the southern Pacific—like the famous saltwater crocodile—are showing a high rate of evolutionary change over the past two million years. Over and over again, Felice and colleagues found, modern crocodiles are converging on a small set of skull shapes. Africa’s Nile crocodile and Morelet’s crocodile of Central America are not especially close relatives, for example, but they’ve evolved remarkably similar skull shapes. Likewise, today’s broad-snouted caiman of South America has a very similar skull to the extinct crocodile Voay whose remains are found in Madagascar. This is why they seem ancient. It’s not that they’ve gone unchanged, but that crocodiles are evolving into a limited number of forms over vast spans of time. Look at a saltwater crocodile and you’re seeing the revival of one of evolution’s greatest hits.
Recognizing the pattern is just a first step towards answering some deeper evolutionary questions. “With new and more sophisticated analytical techniques,” Pierce says, “we can start to better understand how and why they converged on similar morphologies.” The new study helps lay the groundwork for experts to investigate how particular diets influence the evolution of distinct skull shapes in both modern and fossil crocs. In addition, Pierce notes, a skull can come together during embryonic development in only so many ways. The number of anatomical forms crocodiles can take are influenced by what internal factors, such as growth, allow as well as outside influences like diet.
Digging in deeper to why crocodiles tend to repeat similar forms over time might help explain why today’s alligators, crocodiles and gharials seem so similar to each other. They are all semi-aquatic carnivores that hunt by ambush. There are no more terrestrial crocs, seagoing crocs, crocodiles with a varied toolkit of different-shaped teeth, or species like many of those that used to exist. Felice and colleagues estimate that of all the crocodile skull shapes that have existed, today’s species only represent about a third of that variety. But given the longstanding survival of these reptiles, could crocodiles someday undergo another evolutionary burst and evolve some of these lost forms again?
“It’s possible, but highly unlikely,” Felice says. There might be some characteristics inherent to modern crocodylians that prevent them from reclaiming some of their family’s past diversity. Living crocodylians generally have low, squat bodies with limbs that need to hold them up on land as well as push them through water. The need for an amphibious body makes them less efficient on land than mammalian carnivores and not quite as maneuverable as entirely-aquatic hunters, and so competition from other meat-eaters may keep them restricted. The global climate likely has a factor to play, as well. During warmer global climates, Drumheller-Horton says, crocodylian species spread and diversify. “But the crocodylians living today are the survivors of the last cycles of ice ages, so we’re looking at a fairly restricted sampling of the total diversity they once had,” she says. On top of that, many modern crocodylian species are facing habitat loss and other extinction threats created by humans. If the armored reptiles are to someday thrive again, they’ll need a major ecological shakeup to open a path to a new Age of Reptiles.
Riley Black | | READ MORE Riley Black is a freelance science writer specializing in evolution, paleontology and natural history who blogs regularly for Scientific American.
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