Sunday, October 10, 2021

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Philippine Nobel winner Ressa calls Facebook 'biased against facts'

By Karen Lema

© Reuters/ELOISA LOPEZ Filipino journalist Maria Ressa, one of 2021 Nobel Peace Prize winners, poses for a picture

MANILA (Reuters) -Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa used her new prominence to criticise Facebook as a threat to democracy, saying the social media giant fails to protect against the spread of hate and disinformation and is "biased against facts".

The veteran journalist and head of Philippine news site Rappler told Reuters in an interview after winning the award that Facebook's algorithms "prioritise the spread of lies laced with anger and hate over facts."

Her comments add to the pile of recent pressure on Facebook, used by more than 3 billion people, which a former employee turned whistleblower accused of putting profit over the need to curb hate speech and misinformation. Facebook denies any wrongdoing.


© Reuters/ELOISA LOPEZ Filipino journalist Maria Ressa, one of 2021 Nobel Peace Prize winners, poses for a picture

Sought for comment on Ressa's remarks, a Facebook spokesperson said the social media giant continues to invest heavily to remove and reduce the visibility of harmful content.


"We believe in press freedom and support news organisations and journalists around the world as they continue their important work," the spokesperson added.

Ressa 
shared the Nobel
 on Friday, for what the committee called braving the wrath of the leaders of the Philippines and Russia to expose corruption and misrule, in an endorsement of free speech under fire worldwide.

© Reuters/ELOISA LOPEZ Filipino journalist Maria Ressa, one of 2021 Nobel Peace Prize winners

Facebook has become the world's largest distributor of news and "yet it is biased against facts, it is biased against journalism," Ressa said.

"If you have no facts, you can't have truths, you can't' have trust. If you don't have any of these, you don't have a democracy," she said. "Beyond that, if you don't have facts, you don't' have a shared reality, so you can't solve the existential problems of climate, coronavirus."

Ressa has been the target of intense social-media hatred campaigns from President Rodrigo Duterte's supporters, which she said were aimed at destroying her and Rappler's credibility.

ELECTION 'A BATTLE FOR FACTS'

"These online attacks on social media have a purpose, they are targeted, they are used like a weapon," said the former CNN journalist.

Rappler's reporting has included close scrutiny of Duterte's deadly war on drugs https://www.reuters.com/investigates/section/philippines-drugs
 and a series of investigative reports into what it says is his government's strategy to "weaponise" the internet, using bloggers on its payroll to stir up anger among online supporters who threaten and discredit Duterte's critics.

Duterte has not commented on Ressa's award. The presidential palace, Duterte's spokesperson, his chief legal counsel, and communications office did not respond to Reuters requests for comment.
© Reuters/ELOISA LOPEZ Filipino journalist Maria Ressa, one of 2021 Nobel Peace Prize winners

Facebook in March 2019 removed an online network in the Philippines for "coordinated inauthentic behaviour ", and linked it to a businessman who has previously said he helped manage the president's social media election campaign in 2016.

Filipinos top the world  in time spent on social media, according to 2021 studies by social media management firms.

Platforms like Facebook have become political battlegrounds and have helped strengthen Duterte's support base, having been instrumental in his election victory in 2016 and a rout by his allies in mid-term polls last year.

The Philippines will hold an election in May to choose a successor to Duterte 
who under the constitution is not allowed to seek another term.

That campaign "will be a battle for facts," Ressa said. "We are going to keep making sure our public sees the facts, understands it. We are not going to be harassed or intimidated into silence."

(Reporting by Karen Lema; Additional Reporting by Neil Jerome Morales; editing by William Mallard and Jason Neely)


Philippine journalist's Nobel called 'rebuke' to Duterte, who remains silent


Maria Ressa, an executive of online news platform Rappler, 
poses at Rappler's office in Pasig City, Metro Manila

Neil Jerome Morales
Sat, October 9, 2021

MANILA (Reuters) - The Nobel Peace Prize for Philippine journalist Maria Ressa was hailed by many at home on Saturday as a rebuke on official attacks on the media, but there was no comment from President Rodrigo Duterte, a frequent critic of Ressa's news site.

Ressa 
, who is free on bail as she appeals a six-year prison sentence last year for a libel conviction and has faced a slew of other court cases, shared the prize




Duterte has described Rappler news site that Ressa co-founded as a "fake news https://www.reuters.com/article/us-philippines-media-idUSKBN1F50HL outlet" 
and a tool of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

Rappler, launched in 2012, has challenged Duterte's policies and the accuracy of his statements. Its investigations have included a spate of killings by law enforcement during a war on drugs
Duterte launched when he took office in June 2016.

Rights group says authorities summarily executed thousands of drugs suspects. The police deny this, saying those killed violently resisted arrest in sting operations.

Lawmakers and media experts said the award highlights the importance of free speech and speaking truth to power ahead of next year's elections to choose Duterte's successor.

Carlos Isagani Zarate, an opposition lawmaker, said the government is in an awkward position.

"The deafening silence from the palace speaks volumes on how they treated Maria Ressa in the past and how they were taken aback by this recognition," Zarate told Reuters. "This is a personal rebuke on Duterte who was insulting critics, especially women."

Ressa is the first Filipino to individually win a Nobel - 13 Filipinos were in organisations that received the prizes in 2017, 2013 and 2007.

PALACE DILEMMA

"For the palace, the dilemma is how to congratulate someone who is a victim of persecution by the government," Danilo Arao, a journalism professor at the University of the Philippines, told Reuters.

Duterte's government denies persecuting critics in the media.

The presidential palace, Duterte's spokesperson, his chief legal counsel, and communications office did not respond to Reuters requests for comment on Ressa's award or on critics' reactions.

Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra welcomed Ressa's win but said libel laws would be upheld.

"As an ordinary Filipino, I am happy that a fellow Filipino has been included in this year’s roster of Nobel Peace laureates," Guevarra said in a statement.

He said freedom of expression is constitutionally guaranteed in the Philippines but there are legal limits, including libel and defamation.

"Prosecutorial discretion will always be guided by these legal principles and the facts obtaining in any given case, regardless of the persons involved," Guevarra said.

In 2018, Duterte banned Rappler 
from covering his official events, prompting the news site to cover event speeches and activities via live television and social media.

Several well-wishers said the Nobel highlights the importance of the media, truth and democracy ahead of Duterte ending his six-year term in June.

Ressa's prize highlights the importance of protecting freedom of the press "as our vanguard against abuse of power, and an essential element of democracy," the Management Association of the Philippines, one of the premiere business groups, said in a statement.

(Reporting by Neil Jerome Morales; Editing by William Mallard)
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Yurok people see victory in decades-long effort to revive language


Eliyahu Kamisher
Sun, October 10, 2021

Photograph: Bill Gozansky/Alamy

Skip Lowry interacts with nature much like his Yurok ancestors did – in the Indigenous Yurok language. There’s the original name for a purple flower, low-slung Yurok homes and sweet huckleberries. “Our worldview is harbored within the language,” said Lowry. He has been working for years to master the language and now works as a California state parks interpreter, guiding visitors through the Indigenous history of a state park on the foggy northern California coast.

Yurok members have always referred to the state park where Lowry works – a craggy point north of Eureka – as Sue-meg, but for around 150 years the region was known as Patrick’s Point and the park, established in 1929, kept the name. Patrick refers to Patrick Beegan, an Irish settler who built a cabin on the peninsula in 1851 and fled the area after his arrest on charges of killing a Yurok boy. He later resurfaced in the historical record for instigating an attempted massacre of Indigenous people in the region.


Peering through the foliage & coastal pine trees at Sue-meg state park.
 Photograph: Randy Andy/Shutterstock

“It hurt my feelings to have to say Sue-meg village within Patrick’s Point state park,” said Lowry, referring to a collection of recreated Yurok structures in the park. “It’s painful for someone who knows how much more this place is than just an old homestead.”

As of last week, Lowry won’t have to. A commission of the California state parks unanimously voted to change the name, marking one of the most significant Indigenous name restorations in the American west and earning comparisons to the 2015 restoration of Alaska’s Denali mountain – the highest peak in North America. Not only is the name restoration the first in a statewide effort to address discriminatory names, it is also the product of decades of arduous work by Yurok Tribe members in reclaiming and rejuvenating their language – a tongue brought to the edge of destruction by genocide and forced boarding schools.

In the name Sue-meg lies a story about breathing new life into an Indigenous language and the sometimes contentious process of relying on western phonetics to capture the nuance and worldview of the Yurok people.

“It’s kind of bittersweet we’re using the western European alphabet to save our language,” said Lowry, who is part of the grassroots True North Organizing Network that pushed for the name change. “It doesn’t really always taste good.”

Sue-meg – which will be pasted on California’s 101 Highway and viewed by hundreds of thousands of visitors to the park each year – is often pronounced as it appears to a non-Native person, but its traditional pronunciation is closer to “Sue-mae”. The word encapsulates one of the most difficult sounds for Yurok learners to master, said Andrew Garrett, a linguistics professor at the University of California, Berkeley. There is no hard G in the Yurok language, and the consonant indicates an intermediate sound between a Y and G. “It corresponds to nothing that happens to be in English.”

According to Lowry, these subtle variations have deep meaning for expressing the Yurok worldview through language. “The last EG means ‘habitually’,” said Lowry. “The elders knew that the Sue-meg village was a habitually used fishing camp. It wasn’t always a really big village, but the two largest villages would all show up there during the right time of year to harvest and gather and trade at that village.”


Yurok members have always referred to the craggy point north of Eureka as Sue-meg, but for around 150 years the region was known as Patrick’s Point. 
Photograph: Melissa Kopka/Alamy

History of violence

Patrick Beegan came to present-day Humboldt county as California’s Gold Rush spread to the redwood forests in the far reaches of northern California. He arrived only a year after white settlers first made contact with Indigenous peoples who had lived in the area for millennia, including the Yurok, Karuk, Wiyot and Hoopa, according to historian Jerry Rohde of Humboldt University. “Whites arrived here in April of 1850. By May the whites had begun killing the local Indians, and that was the start of our local genocide,” said Rhodes.

The large-scale attacks on tribes by the US military and vigilante groups continued for 15 years until the remaining First Nation people were forced onto reservations. The systematic attempts to wipe out Indigenous culture in the area, and throughout the country, continued as forced boarding schools sought to strip Yurok children of their culture and language. By the early 1900s, the Yurok language hung on by a thread.

Related: ‘No fish means no food’: how Yurok women are fighting for their tribe’s nutritional health

“[I] met elders who went to boarding school who were beat for speaking their language,” Rosie Clayburn, the Yurok tribal heritage preservation officer, said during a California parks commission meeting. “Those folks, when they would start to speak Yurok again it was hard for them. They would break down and cry.

“So even though this is a small world, it’s Sue-meg, it carries so much to us, it carries so much more meaning to us,” she added.

Starting around the 1970s the Yurok Tribe began the process of reviving their language through systematization, an effort that gained traction in the 1990s. Garrett, the UC Berkeley professor, has developed a Yurok language dictionary with the tribe since 2001. But in the background of his relationship with tribal language experts was a history of linguists belittling the Indigenous knowledge that they also sought to document. “Traditionally, you know, meaning 30 or 50 years [ago] the linguist mindset was ‘I’m the professional expert on the language and because I’m the expert I get to write down how the word is written and what it means,” said Garrett.


Yurok tribal headquarters in Klamath, California.
 Photograph: Andre Jenny/Alamy

Linguists have had a long history of attempting to control Indigenous languages they documented, one that parallels colonization of the US and still echoes today. Under US law, a self-taught linguist owned the language of the Penobscot Nation in Maine – the tribe is still seeking to wrest cultural authority over their language from his legacy. In 1998 the language dictionary for the Hopi people in Arizona – considered the gold standard in Indigenous language preservation – was beset by controversy over whether the University of Arizona or the Hopi Tribe owned the dictionary’s copyright.

When Garrett first started working with the tribe in 2001, he felt a lot of “resistance” to how Yurok experts wanted to structure their language, which deviated from the academic standards prescribing single-letter symbols for vowel sounds in phrases like “sue” in Sue-meg. Yurok experts were attached to the system they had begun to develop and wanted a dictionary that catered to language learners, not academics, said Garrett. “I’m sure I would have been relieved if the Yurok people had succumbed and used the Spanish or Italian type of vowel writing, but they didn’t,” added Garrett. “Eventually, I became attached to what they have and decided it was kind of lovely.”

Yurok language revival has been a resounding success and is held up as a national model by many. The language is taught in public high schools, and students can study the language for California college requirements. All of the elder tribe members who spoke Yurok as a first language have now passed away, but people like Lowry are living in tandem with their vibrant language. His 12-year-old son is named K’nek’nek’. “It means heartbeat or pulse of energy, which is exactly the way he is,” said Lowry.

The collection of redwood structures called Sue-meg village that now form the heart of the 640-acre Sue-meg state park were constructed in 1990 by a team of Yurok builders, including Axel Lindgren III. Lindgren helped carve the 20-ft redwood boards with an antler tool and turned Hazel branches into rope to strap the structure together. Later, as a maintenance supervisor for the park, he painstakingly kept the buildings in good condition despite pressure from his boss to spend his time on other projects. “I felt I was kind of in-between two worlds,” said Lindgren. “It was time for this change to be made.”
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Bitter sugar: How money has flowed from the sugar fields of the Dominican Republic to the burgeoning tax haven of South Dakota



Zoeann Murphy,Debbie Cenziper,Will Fitzgibbon,Whitney Shefte and Salwan Georges, (c) 2021, The Washington Post
Sat, October 9, 2021


For decades, the U.S. government has condemned prominent offshore tax havens, where liberal rules and guarantees of discretion have drawn oligarchs, business tycoons and politicians.

But a cache of more than 11.9 million secret documents obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and shared with The Washington Post and other media outlets around the globe found that some of the most sought-after tax havens are now in the United States - and that the expanding U.S. trust industry is becoming a repository for some fortunes linked to individuals or companies that have been accused of worker exploitation and other human rights abuses.

In South Dakota, shares of a Dominican sugar company are being sheltered, part of a $14 million portfolio connected to family members of its onetime president.

The growing American trust industry promises levels of protection and secrecy that rival or surpass those offered by overseas havens. Its expansion has been enabled by a handful of state legislatures seeking an economic boost.

Among those who set up trusts in the United States were family members of the former chief executive of the largest sugar producer in the Dominican Republic.

This company - Central Romana - produces the sugar that Americans put in their coffee every morning and use to bake their birthday cakes.

For years, Central Romana and other sugar producers in the Dominican Republic have faced allegations that they pay their workers substandard wages and force them to work in unsafe conditions. The company has denied mistreating its workers.

By 1974, when Carlos Morales Troncoso became president of operations for Central Romana, then known as Gulf and Western Industries, allegations of evictions and human rights abuses had mounted for decades.

Morales would go on to become vice president of the Dominican Republic and later the ambassador to the United States before his death in 2014. His wealth - including shares of Central Romana - now sits in trusts set up by his family in Sioux Falls, S.D., in 2019.

Through an attorney, Morales's four daughters, who are dual U.S. citizens, declined to answer questions about why the trusts were established in South Dakota. They said they were never involved in the operations of Central Romana.

Workers for Central Romana say they earn around $125 a month cutting sugar cane, well below the country's average monthly salary of $777, according to the latest figures from the Central Bank of the Dominican Republic. Most are migrants from Haiti, and few have the rights of full citizenship. Their status in the country is tenuous, and their lives precarious.

Cutting sugar cane is perilous work, done in the middle of the Dominican summer, when the heat index can reach 110 degrees. The leaves of the plant are sharp enough to draw blood, and the slip of a machete can lead to permanent injury. Despite the dangers, workers say they are unsupervised and that quality medical care is hard to come by.

Morales amassed millions in personal wealth, some from shares earned from Central Romana's sugar production. In 2019, members of his family finalized the transfer of several trusts with assets worth $14 million from the Bahamas to a trust company in Sioux Falls.

The trusts were opened at Trident Trust, a global provider that opened its Sioux Falls office in 2014. Trident said it is committed to complying with all applicable regulations and routinely cooperates with authorities. The company declined to answer questions about its clients.

There is no evidence in the leaked documents that any of the trusts established by Morales's family shelter criminal proceeds.

In a written statement, Central Romana said, "Like any socially responsible company, we strive to advance each year and continue to invest in all of our processes, including health and industrial safety, labor aspects, environmental compliances and social responsibility programs."

It's not just workers who have accused Central Romana of wrongdoing. The company has been blamed for a pattern of forced evictions - periodically driving people from their homes and seizing the land for sugar cultivation. In 2016, they evicted families who had built makeshift houses on land that sits right up alongside the sugar cane plantations.

Last year, families who allege they were illegally evicted from their homes in the middle of the night sued Central Romana in federal court in Florida.

The 2016 evictions took place in one of the many informal settlements scattered across the Dominican Republic, where land rights are unclear or disputed. The homes in these communities often lack electricity or running water, but some have stood for decades.

Central Romana denied wrongdoing and accused the families of squatting on company land. "Our company would not and has never engaged in the eviction of people that have the right to live on or legally own the land they possess," the company said.

Advocates say the houses were built on a service road that had not been used in more than a half-century, the land had no clear owner and that the forced evictions - no matter who owns the property - breached widely accepted international human rights standards.

The lawsuit on behalf of the evicted families was recently dismissed. Their lawyer, Robert Vance, has appealed. After the evictions, experts for the United Nations appealed to the government of the Dominican Republic to help the evicted families. In 2018, Maria Magdalena Alvarez spoke at a U.N. conference in Geneva.

- - -

The Pandora Papers is an investigation based on more than 11.9 million documents revealing the flows of money, property and other assets concealed in the offshore financial system. The Washington Post and other news organizations exposed the involvement of political leaders, examined the growth of the industry within the United States and demonstrated how secrecy shields assets from governments, creditors and those abused or exploited by the wealthy and powerful. The trove of confidential information, the largest of its kind, was obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, which organized the investigation.
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Mexico's Napa Valley protests against unfettered development


Sat, October 9, 2021

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Defenders of Mexico’s Valle de Guadalupe wine-producing valley protested Saturday against unfettered development they say threatens the area’s environment and agriculture.

On Saturday, federal authorities announced they shut down a massive land-clearing project that had bulldozed native semi-desert vegetation on a hillside to create a concert venue.

“Acting on complaints from the public, this morning federal authorities inspected and closed a property where they had tried to install a massive concert forum,” the Environment Department said in a press statement.

Protesters from the group For a True Valley gathered nearby to demonstrate under the slogan “More grapevines, less plunder.”

“This devastation of flora and fauna on more than 20 hectares (44 acres) in the Valle de Guadalupe was done by APM Producciones,” a concert promoter, the group said in a statement. “This is a project which shows not the least consideration for the environment.”

APM Producciones said in a statement that the project had all necessary permits and affected only 4.4 hectares (9 acres). It said the final project would include building housing and planting trees and grape vines.

The company claimed a concert planned for the weekend would go ahead.

But the Environment Department said the developers did not have a permit to change the land use of the property.

The area between Ensenada and the border city of Tijuana has become a victim of its own success as Mexico’s answer to California’s prized Napa Valley. Wine tours, hotels, luxury apartments and entertainment venues threaten the area’s already-scarce water, thin soil and relative calm.

A bit dustier and rougher around the edges than Napa Valley, the Baja California wine country has vineyards clustered along a main highway known as the Ruta del Vino.

The fast-growing wine mecca just two hours south of San Diego is home to hip boutique hotels, an impressive culinary scene and more than 100 wineries.
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Turkish fires endanger world pine honey supplies

Issued on: 10/10/2021 
Turkish beekeepers Fehmi Alti, (R) and his father Mustafa 
are now scrambling to get extra work
 Adem ALTAN AFP



Cokek (Turkey) (AFP)

Beekeepers Mustafa Alti and his son Fehmi were kept busy tending to their hives before wildfires tore through a bucolic region of Turkey that makes most of the world's prized pine honey.

Now the Altis and generations of other honey farmers in Turkey's Aegean province of Mugla are scrambling to find additional work and wondering how many decades it might take to get their old lives back on track.

"Our means of existence is from beekeeping, but when the forests burned, our source of income fell," said Fehmi, 47, next to his mountainside beehives in the fire-ravaged village of Cokek.

"I do side jobs, I do some tree felling, that way we manage to make do."

Nearly 200,000 hectares of forests -- more than five times the annual average -- were scorched by fires across Turkey this year, turning luscious green coasts popular with tourists into ash.

The summer disaster and an accompanying series of deadly floods made the climate -- already weighing heavily on the minds of younger voters -- a major issue two years before the next scheduled election.

Mugla is home to around 3.5 million of Turkey's eight million bees 
Adem ALTAN AFP

Signalling a political shift, Turkey's parliament this week ended a five-year wait and ratified the Paris Agreement on cutting the greenhouse emissions that are blamed for global warming and abnormal weather events.

But the damage has already been done in Mugla, where 80 percent of Turkey's pine honey is produced.

Turkey as a whole makes 92 percent of the world's pine honey, meaning supplies of the thick, dark amber may be running low worldwide very soon.

- Special insect -

Turkey's pine honey harvests were already suffering from drought when the wildfires hit, destroying the delicate balance between bees, trees, and the little insects at the heart of the production process.

The honey is made by bees after they collect the sugary secretions of the tiny Basra beetle (Marchalina hellenica), which lives on the sap of pine trees.

The honey is made by bees after they collect the sugary secretions of the tiny Basra beetle which lives on the sap of pine trees. A
dem ALTAN AFP

Fehmi hopes the beetles will adapt to younger trees after the fires. But he also accepts that "it will take at least five or 10 years to get our previous income back".

His father Mustafa agrees, urging President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government to expand forested areas and plant young trees.

"There's no fixing a burnt house. Can you fix the dead? No. But new trees might come, a new generation," Mustafa said.

For now, though, the beekeepers are counting their losses and figuring out what comes next.

The president of the Mugla Beekeepers' Association, Veli Turk, expects his region's honey production to plunge by up to 95 percent this year.

"There is pretty much no Marmaris honey left," he said.

"This honey won't come for another 60 years," he predicted. "It's not just Turkey. This honey would go everywhere in the world. It was a blessing. This is really a huge loss."

- 'So much loss' -

Beekeeper Yasar Karayigit, 45, is thinking of switching to a different type of honey to keep his passion -- and sole source of income -- alive.

"I love beekeeping, but to continue, I'll have to pursue alternatives," Karayigit said, mentioning royal jelly (or "bee milk") and sunflower honey, which involves additional costs.

"But if we love the bees, we have to do this," the father-of-three said.

Ismail Atici, head of the Milas district Chamber of Agriculture in Mugla, said the price of pine honey has doubled from last year, threatening to make the popular breakfast food unaffordable for many Turks.

Turkey's pine honey harvests were already suffering
 from drought when the wildfires hit
 Adem ALTAN AFP

He expects price rises to continue and supplies to become ever more scarce.

"We will get to a point where even if you have money, you won't be able to find those medicinal plants and medicinal honey," Atici said.

"It's going to be very hard to find 100-percent pine honey," beekeeper Karayigit agreed. "We have had so much loss."

- 'We must continue' -

Looking ahead, the president of the Turkey Beekeepers' Association, Ziya Sahin, suggests selectively introducing the Basra beetle to new areas of Mugla, expanding coverage from the current seven to 25 percent of local pine forests.

"If we conduct transplantation of the beetle from one area to another and continue this for two successive years, we can protect the region's dominance in the sector," Sahin said.

Yet despite the pain and the troubled road ahead, the younger Alti has no plans to quit.

"This is my father's trade. Because this is passed down from the family, we must continue it," Fehmi said.

© 2021 AFP
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Green energy springs from abandoned UK coalmine

Issued on: 10/10/2021 - 
Landmarks around Seaham like a mural by artist Cosmo Sarson remind of the town's coal-mining past 
PAUL ELLIS AFP

Seaham (United Kingdom) (AFP)

Dawdon coalmine in northeast England was abandoned three decades ago, but is being brought back to life as the unlikely setting for a green energy revolution.

The carbon-intensive colliery, near the town of Seaham on the windswept northeast English coast, hauled coal from deep underground until its closure in 1991.

Dawdon has long since flooded with water because part of the mine is below sea level, and is heated by geothermal energy.

Authorities now want to capture and harness this valuable and unlimited green energy source to power a new garden village development.

"The heat is basically coming from the ground," said Durham County Council official Mark Wilkes, whose portfolio includes climate change.

Water deep inside the mine heats up underground to about 20 degrees Celsius (68 degrees Fahrenheit).

Huge volumes of water surge through the former colliery's treatment plant
 PAUL ELLIS AFP

At the colliery's entrance, where thousands of miners once rushed to work, the vast pipes of a treatment plant now suck up the equivalent of a bathtub of warm water every two seconds, which is used to heat up a separate water supply.

In turn, this water circuit is heated via a pump until it reaches 55-60 degrees Celsius.

The plant treats the highly acidic and ferrous water in order to prevent contamination of local beaches and water supplies.

Its heat will eventually power local homes, while the treated water is released back into the sea.

- Industrial revolution turns green -

"We are taking what was from the industrial revolution -- and we're using it for the green revolution," Wilkes told AFP.

Heat from the water has so far only been used for the heating of the facility.

But in two years' time the local authority will create a new village of 1,500 homes nearby -- entirely heated by the plant.

"It is an unlimited source of energy: the water is coming through all the time," added Wilkes.

Waste from the colliery was tipped directly onto Seaham's beach until its closure in 1991 PAUL ELLIS AFP

"There are costs with the technology, but hopefully this will help to keep the cap on those costs going forward."

This is the first geothermal project on such a large scale in Britain, and Wilkes hopes it could also heat nearby businesses.

Britain is heavily dependent on natural gas for electricity generation, although Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who hosts the COP26 climate summit next month in Glasgow, wants to shift all UK energy production to renewable sources by 2035 to help reach carbon neutrality by 2050.

The urgency of the move was underlined by a surge in gas prices last week to record heights, stoked by economies reopening after coronavirus shutdowns and fears of spiking demand in the upcoming northern hemisphere winter.

Durham County Council has yet to name the company that will operate and partly finance the Dawdon plant.

The geothermal heating will not be cost-free but authorities hope it will be cheaper than using gas.

- Pretty low carbon -

"The heat pump uses an electrical input," said Charlotte Adams, manager for mine energy at the UK Coal Authority industry body, which oversees old mines.

"So it's not carbon-neutral, but it is energy efficient.

"But as you can imagine, over time the carbon content of electricity is decreasing, as we decarbonise our electricity supply.

Local homes and businesses may soon be heated with geothermal energy in Seaham PAUL ELLIS AFP

"So over time, you're getting close to something which is pretty low carbon."

The process is four times more energy efficient than a purely electric heating system, Adams said.

The Dawdon green energy project will cost between £12 million and £15 million, funded via government, the plant's future operating company and property fees.

© 2021 AFP
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Pandemic saviors, food delivery apps now under fire

Issued on: 10/10/2021 - 
A DoorDash delivery person in Brooklyn in December 2020 
Michael M. Santiago GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File

New York (AFP)

Meal delivery services became essential during the pandemic, when millions of Americans were under lockdown and restaurants were shut to visitors.

But these days the platforms are increasingly finding themselves under fire, with politicians seeking to regulate the industry and restaurateurs accusing the likes of DoorDash, Grubhub and Uber Eats of freeloading. And they are looking for ways to do without them.

In just the first nine months of this year, DoorDash has likely filled over 1 billion orders, most of them in the US, where the company is the market leader.

But Mathieu Palombino, founder of the New York-based pizza chain Motorino, calls the boost provided by delivery apps a "big illusion" because more orders don't bring bigger profits to restaurants.

"When you receive thirty or forty orders a day, you are happy. But the problem is that it does not translate into profits," Palombino told AFP.

Food delivery services can charge restaurants fees of up to 30 percent of the bill for a meal, according to their web sites.

To address that problem, in August the New York city council passed a law, capping third-party delivery fees at 15 percent.

"Small businesses should not be pressured into accepting these fees in order to remain viable and competitive," said New York City Councilman Francisco Moya, who initiated the bill. A similar law was passed in San Francisco in June.

Food delivery giants have challenged the laws in courts, and some analysts think they have a point.

"We believe DoorDash will have a strong legal case against the permanent fee caps," Bank of America said in a research note last month.

"At the end of the day, they take it all," says one restaurant owner about delivery services' commission fees 
Cindy Ord GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File

DoorDash, Grubhub and Uber Eats argue that the cap is unconstitutional and that restaurants are free to negotiate their commissions with delivery platforms.

The delivery giants also say they have made huge investments during the pandemic that led millions of customers who had never ordered meals online to get started.

And DoorDash says that restaurants that used its platform during the pandemic had a survival rate eight times higher than the industry average. The company also says that even before the laws were passed it already offered a 15% fee formula.

Put Palombino, the pizza chain founder, is unconvinced.

"The problem is that they have become so established that there no longer is a way back," he said. "If you're not on Seamless (one of the most popular delivery services in New York), you no longer exist."

As for the 15 percent commission, Palombino said that a successful restaurant can "only hope" for a profit margin of 15 or 20 percent.

"So at the end of the day, they take it all."

- 'The only real solution' -

In court, the food delivery platforms have argued that the cap will trigger higher fees for consumers, who have been relatively spared for now.

Collin Wallace, managing director of the marketing firm ZeroStorefront and former head of innovation at Grubhub, says that so far it's the restaurants who have had to bend.

"The only way to get this resolved is going to be by the technology platforms, using the same engineering and innovation they used to get their companies to this point," Wallace said.

Some businesses are already trying to get around the all-powerful delivery apps by creating their own platforms.

One such start-up, ChowNow, helps restaurants launch their own order-taking applications, so as not to have to pay any commissions at all.

Another company, LoCo, creates delivery cooperatives owned by restaurants, where they get to choose their own commissions, often half of what delivery giants charge, said LoCo founder Jon Sewell.

Sewell, himself an owner of a restaurant in Iowa, added that this arrangement also allows restaurants to keep their clients' data to themselves.

LoCo has launched franchises in Virginia, Nevada, and Nebraska and is looking to expand further.

But Sewell admits that the concept is not easy to sell.

"It's difficult to get the people convinced that they need to start to work as a collective."

But, Sewell added, "to me, that's the only real solution."

© 2021 AFP
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OUTSOURCING IS WAGE THEFT
Airport support contractor to cut 177 workers at SFO in latest mass layoff



Prospect International Airport Services Corp. indicated in a recent filing that it plans to cease operations at SFO effective December 31.

By Alex Barreira – Staff Reporter, San Francisco Business Times
Oct 8, 2021, 

A contractor of airport support staff has become the latest company to initiate a mass layoff of workers supporting San Francisco International Airport (SFO), according to filings with the state employment authority.

Prospect International Airport Services Corp., headquartered in Des Plaines, Ill., indicated in a recent filing made public this week it plans to cease operations at SFO effective December 31, laying off 177 workers including passenger service agents, aircraft security guards, and related management. In recent weeks several large catering operations serving SFO have conducted mass layoffs citing lower-than-anticipated travel demand and exhaustion of federal funding, but Prospect did not provide an explanation for its move.

It’s unclear if similar plans are in store for Prospect’s lone remaining operation in California at Oakland International Airport, where it began staffing support operations in fall 2019, per its website. Prospect was not immediately available for comment but I’ll update this story if I hear back.

The company was founded in 1966 by Robert Strobel and maintains operations in 22 states.

The vast majority of the employees given notice at SFO are passenger service agents. Prospect intends to work with the airlines and successor contractors to find other airport jobs for “as many of our employees as possible” who are impacted.

In describing its mass layoffs of airport food preparation workers, Gate Gourmet told me in a statement last week, "The sheer number of flights is still greatly reduced, particularly to (the Asian-Pacific region). Unfortunately, this directly impacts our operations at SFO."

The leading carrier at SFO, United Airlines (Nasdaq: UAL), said Thursday it will fly more than 3,500 daily domestic flights in December — about 91% of its December 2019 schedule, in anticipation of a surge in holiday travel. United is bullish on European travel's recovery next spring and summer, but is not expecting its schedule to Asia to return to pre-pandemic normal anytime soon.
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DUTY TO REPRESENT/DUTY TO ACCOMODATE
Pilot union warns of staffing shortages if American Airlines refuses vaccination exemptions



The union representing pilots for American Airlines warned the company could face a staffing shortage ahead of the busy holiday travel season if it implements a stringent COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

The Allied Pilots Association requested that American Airlines find “alternate means of compliance with the Executive Order be made available for professional pilots” so as not to prompt mass firings and unpaid leave following President Joe Biden's September announcement mandating large employers to require vaccinations or weekly testing.

SOUTHWEST AIRLINES INSTITUTES VACCINE MANDATE TO COMPLY WITH BIDEN ADMINISTRATION

“Some of APA’s members are unable to undergo vaccination for documented medical reasons, while others are reluctant to get vaccinated based upon concerns about the potential for career-ending side effects,” read the Sept. 24 letter.

“All of those members are still able to perform their duties as professional pilots,” the letter continued. “To force those pilots out of their positions, rather than offering viable alternatives will have adverse consequences upon their families and the airline industry as a whole.”

As of Wednesday, the APA was hopeful that it could negotiate exemptions despite the company’s looming deadline, saying it “fully expects American Airlines management to continue its historical practice of bargaining with APA over issues related to the implementation and impact of the announced COVID-19 vaccine mandate.”

American Airlines, along with several other major airlines, said it would fully comply with the mandate’s goal of having all employees vaccinated. The deadline for staff to submit proof of vaccination is Nov. 24, the day before Thanksgiving.

While Biden's vaccine mandate has been adopted by many major companies, some on the Right have pushed back on the concept, with many GOP-led states, such as Florida and Texas, banning the use of vaccine passports.

There have been more than 44 million cases of COVID-19 in the United States, and 187.2 million people are fully vaccinated against the disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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IT'S CRICKETS
Germany investigates possible ‘sonic weapon attack’ against US embassy staff


Julian Borger in Washington
Fri, October 8, 2021

Photograph: Odd Andersen/AFP/Getty Images

German police are investigating an “alleged sonic weapon attack” against staff of the US embassy in Berlin, in the latest in a growing number of incidents of “Havana syndrome” around the world.

The police statement, which said the investigation had been under way since August, was issued on Friday in response to a report in Der Spiegel, which said the inquiry into at least two cases had been opened on the basis of evidence handed over by the US embassy.

About 200 cases of Havana syndrome – so named because the first cases were reported in the Cuban capital in 2016 – have now been reported around the world, with incidents in China, India and even Washington DC. The victims have been mostly US diplomats and intelligence officers, though Canada also reported cases in its Havana embassy.

Austrian authorities have also said they are working with the US to investigate another cluster of cases among American embassy staff in Vienna.

The syndrome describes a range of symptoms, including dizziness and nausea in the short term; migraines and memory loss in the longer term.

The CIA, state department and the Pentagon are carrying out investigations. About 100 of the cases have affected CIA officers and the agency’s director, William Burns, said in July that ​​there was a “very strong possibility” that the symptoms had been caused deliberately, and pointed to Russia as a possible culprit. Moscow has denied responsibility.

When Burns traveled to India in September, a member of his team was struck with symptoms consistent with Havana syndrome and had to receive medical attention. Burns was “fuming” over the incident, CNN reported at the time.

Related: Microwave weapons that could cause Havana Syndrome exist, experts say

Joe Biden signed a law on Friday that guaranteed better healthcare and support for victims of the syndrome, which he referred to as “anomalous health incidents”, stopping short of calling them attacks.

Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House intelligence committee, who receives classified briefings on the investigation, said the cause was still unknown.

“It’s possible that not all of these incidents, not all of these anomalies, are attributable to the same cause,” Schiff told reporters last month.

“What the cause is and what the motivation is, what the intent is, I think these are still very much open questions. There are certainly many of them that seem quite deliberate. But I do think that we are getting closer to some of the answers and bringing new tools to bear to help us get those answers. So we’ll figure this out.”

If a foreign government was found to be involved, he said, “I’m also confident there’ll be very serious repercussions.”

SEE


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