Sunday, October 10, 2021

As the homeless population booms due to sky-high rent prices, we need to think of the California homeless crisis as a refugee crisis


Jack Herrera
Sun, October 10, 2021

A man lays on a mattress in People's Park in Berkeley, California,
 on Tuesday, September 28, 2021.
Scott Strazzante/San Francisco Chronicle/Getty Images


I've reported from refugee camps in Mexico, and the homeless camps in San Francisco feel familiar.


Both refugees and unhoused people are forced to leave their homes through no fault of their own.


By rethinking the crisis, we can stop blaming our unhoused neighbors and better take care of them.


Jack Herrera is an independent reporter writing about immigration, race, and human rights. He is a contributing opinion writer for Insider.



This is an opinion column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author.



In August, around the same time I realized I could no longer afford the rent of my home in San Francisco, I began speaking with Afghan refugees arriving in California. They had survived a perilous journey - but their struggles were not over. Many were still living in hotels as they diligently worked to find apartments for themselves and their families. In the Bay Area, however, that could prove impossible.

Median rent in San Francisco is $3,900 a month for a two-bedroom. To the south, in San Mateo, it's more than $3,200. Oakland, where rents are cheaper than elsewhere in the Peninsula, still has a median rent cost of more than $2,600 for just two bedrooms.

For most people working anywhere in the world, those rents are simply not tenable. For Afghan refugees, who had to sell off their possessions in a rush - or simply leave them behind - the basic requirements to get one's family in an apartment are impossible. In the Bay Area, landlords often ask for proof of income three times higher than rent; they also ask for credit checks. Security deposits, which legally can run up to two months rent, can easily put a family back more than $6,000.

Something about talking with refugees in the Bay Area crystallized a realization - putting words to an amorphous frustration I have felt. Even before we welcomed these latest Afghan newcomers to the Bay, California's housing crisis has been a kind of refugee crisis. And it's time we think of it that way.

Rethinking the housing crisis


I was born in San Francisco in the '90s, about three miles from where I live now. In that time, I've seen the number of my unhoused neighbors increase horrifically, year after year. Right now, up to 35,000 people are living on the streets in the Bay Area.

When I was a kid going to school in San Mateo, just to the south of San Francisco, it didn't feel like Silicon Valley quite yet. But steadily, tech's tentacles spread throughout every city and suburb. GoPro opened offices on the hill by the community college; a historic hotel was turned into a gauche and self-satisfied start-up incubator. The costs of living skyrocketed. And every year, people leave.

Young people decamp to Denver, Austin, and Portland; families flee to "the other valley" - the dry, hot grasslands of the San Joaquin, in towns like Manteca or Fresno. As the years have gone on, community support systems have broken down as neighbors and relatives escape to cheaper cities. Now, there is little infrastructure left to support those who are still here.

When I get out on the 16th Street BART in San Francisco's Mission District, I see tents and tarps on the sidewalks. In Oakland, entire encampments spring up, get brutally "sweeped" by the city, and spring up again in an unending cycle. City governments and the state have invested billions in the issue, but when I talk to my unhoused friends and neighbors, they say the shelters aren't safe: Robbery and assault are common.

It sometimes shocks me how similar the homelessness "camps" around the Bay Area resemble the refugee camps I've spent time in as a reporter in Northern Mexico. In both, rows of tents, many of them housing families, bear the tender marks of home - a teddy bear, a battered copy of the Bible. These marks are juxtaposed against the precarious tarps, mended with duct tape, pitched on concrete.

In both places, local residents regard the inhabitants of the tents with a mix of pity and distrust; I've spoken to Central American asylum-seekers in Mexico who bear scars from robbery and assault by locals. In San Francisco, besides robbery and attacks, unhoused people have to deal with constant police harassment, as their housed neighbors use 911 like a concierge service to come "sweep" their stoops of any evidence of our city's economic brutality.

One of my unhoused neighbors, who I share a coffee with every few days, says one of the hardest parts of being unhoused is sleeping - he's woken up countless times every night, often forced to move somewhere else to sleep.

Being homeless is like being a refugee

Asylum-seekers in Mexico and so many of my unhoused neighbors in the Bay share something else in common: They're fleeing something. Domestic abuse is one of the leading causes of homelessness. But beyond physically dangerous homes, the forcefulness of displacement in a place like the Bay Area and, say, Honduras, have some similarities. In towns like San Pedro Sula in Honduras, gangs have taken control of entire neighborhoods, and these pandillas charge townspeople an impuesto, or a tax - extortion money (typically 80% of income) in exchange for safety. The cost of living becomes untenable; people are forced out of their homes, and, without any guarantees of safety in their hometowns, they often flee northward.

In the Bay Area, rents have risen precipitously almost every year (the pandemic caused a sharp dip, but rents have steadily increased in the last few months). In 2019, 13% of all people living on the streets in San Francisco had become homeless because of an eviction; 26% were forced out of their homes after losing their jobs.

Speculative real estate has seen national and international moguls buy up huge swaths of housing stock, leaving a shocking number of houses and apartments empty as they wait for their value to appreciate - in San Francisco, there are as many as five empty houses per unhoused resident. Silicon Valley has also disrupted the traditional labor market, for the worse. Increasing numbers of workers, especially janitors and maintenance staff, are no longer salaried employees with benefits and a chance to move up in the company; instead, they're hired as contractors. The result is that greed and brutal economics are valuing profit over basic facets of human well-being, like a roof over one's head. The manic, speculative real estate market has led landlords to charge rents that cannot be survived.

While it can get complicated in the law, refugeeism is simple from a moral perspective: People who have been forced to leave their homes through no fault of their own deserve hospitality, and we have an obligation to house and welcome them.
Where do we go from here?

The homelessness crisis is a social creation, a danger so much larger than any one individual or their choices. The response, then, must take place at the societal level.

For both Afghan refugees trying to make a new life for themselves and unhoused people across California, the answer is simple: Massive public investment. The US government had a direct role in the crisis that forced Afghans to flee, so it should be responsible for their rent and any other costs of relocation, now that Afghans are in the country.

Likewise, the thousands of people forced out of their homes in the Bay Area have been forced out by the failures of our society at large, rather than any personal failings. The costs here will be massive: A recent report estimated that it would take $11.8 billion investment to end homelessness in the Bay Area alone. To put that in perspective, Governor Gavin Newsom announced the largest ever effort to address homelessness last year, with $1.4 billion designated in the state's budget.

However, the costs of homelessness already exist: They're simply being felt by the economic refugees from Hunger Games-esque inequality we've allowed to fester in the Bay. To fix this problem, we will all need to pay our part.

In California, this will require levying taxes on the corporations and real estate interests that have created such a horrific housing market in the first place.

And on a personal level, my neighbors in this city need to abandon a mindset that blames an unhoused person for their own homelessness. They are refugees from a society and an economic system we created, and our responsibility to help them comes not just from a place of charity, but from moral obligation. We are all part of this society; they are owed our help.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Amazon fulfillment center Tijuana, Mexico
Visiting the community of Nueva Esperanza in Tijuana, Mexico next to Amazon's new fulfillment center. Thomas Pallini/Insider
  • Amazon's new warehouse in Tijuana, Mexico borders homes made of wood, tarps, and cardboard.

  • Some residents of the homes have reportedly said they are fearful Amazon will kick them out.

  • Insider went to Tijuana, where several residents said they were grateful for the new jobs.

  • See more stories on Insider's business page.

Amazon's newest fulfillment center in Tijuana, Mexico made headlines after it opened in September and put the neighboring community of Nueva Esperanza in the spotlight.

Photographer Omar Martinez captured photos of the Amazon facility, the first of its kind in Tijuana, that showed the brand-new facility standing feet away from a sprawling community of makeshift homes made of wood, tarps, and cardboard, where stray dogs lie in unpaved streets.

The photos were widely shared on social media, with users quick to condemn them as "dystopian" symbols of inequality, as Insider's Katie Canales reported. Some residents have expressed fears that Amazon could evict them, while the local government has praised Amazon's decision to move into the northwestern Mexican city.

Insider hired an interpreter and crossed the border to talk with residents living in the shadow of Amazon's new facility. Most of the eight people interviewed for this story said they felt hopeful about Amazon's arrival in Tijuana.

Locals praise Amazon's new jobs

"It's good for the community because it brings jobs," said Rosano Ochoa Builon, whose home neighbors the Amazon warehouse. "The factory is welcome."

She said she was surprised by the recent media attention on the facility, saying she's never seen anything like it in 20 years of living there.

The blue and gray Amazon factory is instantly recognizable when approaching by air or on land. It sits in a newly-developed industrial zone on the Tijuana River just a few miles from the US-Mexico border.

Amazon fulfillment center Tijuana, Mexico
Amazon opened the facility in September and says it's creating 250 new jobs. Thomas Pallini/Insider

Lourdes Velazquez Toledo, who runs the eatery Comedor/Antojitos Mexicanos just outside the main gate to the industrial park, told Insider that she's seen an increase in customers since Amazon moved in.

"It's a better job than what they had before," Velazquez Toledo said of Amazon's new hires, speculating that local factories could lose workers to Amazon.

It's unclear what Amazon is paying workers at the Tijuana facility. Amazon declined Insider's request to confirm its wages, saying only that it pays "industry-competitive salaries."

Amazon pays workers a $15 minimum hourly wage in the US and at a nearby facility just over the border in San Diego, California. By comparison, Tijuana's 2021 minimum wage is around 26 pesos ($1.29) an hour - which is slightly higher than the minimum wage elsewhere in Mexico given the city's status as a special economic zone near the US border.

Amazon fulfillment center Tijuana, Mexico
Locals reported hearing Amazon offering wages at the Mexican peso equivalent of $15 per hour for some positions. Thomas Pallini/Insider

Reuters reported in April that 15 contracted staffers at Amazon warehouses across Mexico earned roughly 25 pesos ($1.25) per hour - above the minimum wage in their area - plus bonuses. The report also included allegations of unfair mandatory overtime practices.

Without confirming any specifics, Amazon has managed to make an impression - at least among the locals interviewed by Insider - that its wages are competitive. Two employees of a nearby factory told Insider that they've heard that Amazon's jobs are "good work in a good company" and that they pay well, without knowing specifics on wages.

One resident of Nueva Esperanza, who asked not to be identified, said some of her coworkers quit their jobs to work at Amazon. She said they may have left because of the perception that Amazon is a "better company than ours" and had a nicer facility.

She also said she had seen social media posts that expressed concern over whether Amazon could destroy nearby homes because they were giving the e-commerce giant a "bad image."

Amazon fulfillment center Tijuana, Mexico
Amazon's facility was built from the ground up in Tijuana. Thomas Pallini/Insider

Amazon declined to comment directly on the Nueva Esperanza settlement but told Insider: "We are in constant communication with the local government to find a way to generate a positive impact in the community."

"At Amazon, we are committed to the development of Mexico and the communities in which we operate, benefiting thousands of Mexican families, through the generation of direct and indirect jobs," Amazon said.

The Amazon fulfillment center will allow for same-day deliveries in Tijuana and next-day deliveries to nearby cities, a government press release said. Amazon is investing around $21 million into the ground-up construction of the 344,000-square-foot facility.

"Since our arrival in Mexico, Amazon has created more than 15,000 jobs throughout the country and now we are adding 250 in Tijuana, creating employment opportunities with industry-competitive compensation packages for all our employees, who enjoy benefits superior to the law, such as health insurance, life insurance, savings fund, and food vouchers," an Amazon spokesperson told Insider in a statement.

Amazon fulfillment center Tijuana, Mexico
The community of Nueva Esperanza is a collection of makeshift homes and unpaved streets. Thomas Pallini/Insider

"Our wages and benefits strengthen local communities, and our investments help these areas to grow and to build better futures," Amazon said, citing 6.5 billion pesos of donations in Mexico that it says helped 30,000 families.

A woman who lives near the new warehouse told the Voice of San Diego that she's worried about being kicked out of her home.

"They have not threatened us directly with eviction but we have seen how other houses in the neighborhood have been sidelined to move or worse have destroyed their homes because they want to develop the land. I just don't want that to happen to us, " she said.

While none of the locals interviewed by Insider said they were fearful of being evicted by Amazon, they agreed Amazon has deep enough pockets to be able to resettle them.

"If Amazon wants to get rid of these houses, Amazon has the money to relocate these people," Trinidad Adel Calles Zazueta, a passerby near the warehouse, told Insider.

Read the original article on Business Insider

 

'The Billion Dollar Code': The battle over Google Earth

Netflix's new miniseries fictionalizes the story of two Berlin internet pioneers who attempt to prove that Google stole their idea, worth billions.

    

'The Billion Dollar Code' is also a journey back to the beginnings of the internet

Two guys in Berlin in the early 1990s: One of them is an art student with big ideas, the other a computer nerd.

After meeting in 1993 in a techno club, they developed together the idea of creating a kind of global work of art that would allow people to travel to any point in the world, simply by zooming into a location with a click of the mouse.

They quickly realized that computers in the early 1990s weren't performant enough for their project.

But that could change, especially with the help of a telecommunications giant and experienced hackers on board: They were sponsored by Deutsche Telekom, and developers were members of the Chaos Computer Club.


Juri Müller (Marius Ahrendt) and Carsten Schlüter (Leonard Schleicher) develop their idea

Despite a chaotic process, the two partners managed to have their "Terra Vision" project ready for a presentation at an international communications fair in Kyoto, Japan, in 1994. It was a resounding success.

But during a trip to Silicon Valley, the source code for "Terra Vision" fell into the wrong hands — and in 2005 Google, by then a tech giant, suddenly released Google Earth.

The two developers from Germany felt that Google had stolen their idea — leading to a David vs. Goliath court case.

Overtaken by a tech giant

The Netflix miniseries tells in two timelines and four parts how two computer freaks developed their idea, convinced a large corporation and finally the whole world of its interest — only to be robbed of their fame and fortune by a tech giant's legal ruse.

With this German production, Netflix demonstrates once again that the setting of a story is not what matters most, but rather what it is about. The two developers could just as well have been from Japan or South Africa instead of Germany; the core of their tale is universal.

The Netflix production's look, story, editing, script and soundtrack is on par with similar international productions, and, adding an authentic feel, the German actors in The Billion Dollar Code have synchronized their own voices in the English version.

Time travel to the 1990s

Details of the 1990s are meticulously reproduced. Through the story of Juri Müller and Carsten Schlüter, the miniseries dives into the atmosphere of Berlin's post-reunification era, with its techno clubs, its wildly experimental art scene and its hackers, who weren't really taken seriously at that point. It was a time when having an actual bank account felt like being part of the establishment, and young people had found their own way of being cool.

The internet embodied dreams of revolution and freedom without borders. The idea that all knowledge could be available to everyone was incredibly new and exciting at the time.


Arriving in paradise: Carsten (Leonard Schleicher) and Juri (Marius Ahrendt) in Silicon Valley

Funders were investing insane sums to help build this new world. Silicon Valley was the El Dorado of the new computer age, with digital prospectors gathering in the gigantic tech park under palm trees, with basketball courts and espresso machines.

Twenty-five years later, the Berlin programming pioneers set off for a lawsuit against internet giant Google. They want to prove that they were the ones who, with "Terra Vision," laid the foundations for Google Earth, Google Maps and all the navigation systems in use today.


25 years later: Carsten (Mark Waschke) and Juri (Misel Maticevic) meet Google's lawyers

A fiction, based on real events

A rollercoaster ride, fast-paced and emotional, which ends in an exciting court drama — with a cast of consistently outstanding actors.

With The Billion Dollar Code, director Robert Thalheim and screenwriter Oliver Ziegenbalg have created a journey through time in a fiction based on real events.

The idea for the story arose while having a barbecue with a neighbor, who turned out to be Joachim Sauter, a media artist who helped develop "Terra Vision" in the early 1990s and who actually went to court against Google.

Of course, the miniseries' creators dramatized interpretation of the story does not represent all the facts behind the development of the program and the ongoing court case.

The filmmakers didn't hope to re-establish justice. They simply wanted to portray the ideals that initially drove the tech generation and what it ultimately turned into, says Robert Thalheim.

Joachim Sauter

One of the men behind the actual events: Joachim Sauter

The director explained that he wanted to show "how the balance of power has shifted and the internet pioneers themselves are overwhelmed by this development," said Thalheim. "Today, everyone only talks about the multimillionaires who have become extremely rich with the internet and are now flying to the moon. But we wanted to show how it all began, and tell the story of those who were never in the limelight. "

Interviews with the people involved in the events as well as the court files contributed to the authenticity of the series. The script reproduces the actual court statements to avoid coming into conflict with Google.

Joachim Sauter also collaborated with the filmmaker. But the art professor did not get to see the series as a completed work — he died in July 2021. The Billion Dollar Code, released on October 7 on Netflix, is dedicated to him.

 

Update: This article was updated shortly after its publication to better reflect that it is solely about the fictional miniseries, and not about the actual court case.
The text was translated from German.

It's all in the eye: Tunisia's veteran photographer Jacques Perez


Issued on: 10/10/2021 - 
A visitor views the works of Tunisian photographer Jacques Perez during the launch of his exhibition "Memories before Oblivion"
 FETHI BELAID AFP

Tunis (AFP)

"It's the eye that makes a photograph, not the camera," says 90-year-old Jacques Perez, who has forever retained his curiosity for his homeland Tunisia.

An exhibition of his work named "Souvenirs d'Avant l'Oubli" (Memories before Oblivion) is being held until the end of October in a palace in the medina of Tunis, the old city where he was born and still lives.

"I didn't study to take photos -- no need. It's above all about seeing. I like to look at 360 degrees and show what I saw," he said. "This was not a vocation, it came on its own."

Perez said he began photography at the age of 11 or 12: "I was lucky to have a German mother and an Italian grandmother who gave me illustrated magazines" and educated his eyes.

After 15 years of amateur photography alongside a teaching job, he was commissioned by a major Tunisian publisher to create a photo book of Sidi Bouzid, a poor but picturesque blue-and-white city, that launched his career.

Born to a Tunisian father and a German mother, the 90-year-old Perez says he started photography between the ages of 11 and 12
 FETHI BELAID AFP

In the exhibition, all his works are "inhabited" by people, Perez said. "People speak to me, their faces intrigue me, I would like to know what's behind them."

This idea is at the core of the work of Perez, a photographer of international repute, from the United States to France.

He "is a humanist photographer," like those who inspired him, including Robert Doisneau, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Elliot Erwitt, said exhibition curator Hamideddine Bouali.

- 'It's all intuitive' -

Perez has only ever wanted to photograph his own country, in all its diversity.

"I feel concerned only by Tunisia," he said.

The 70 photos in the exhibition cover the breadth of his work: the sea and fishermen, the daily life of Tunisians, the old arts and crafts.

The 70 photos in the exhibition cover the breadth of his work: the sea and fishermen, the daily life of Tunisians, the old crafts
 FETHI BELAID AFP

Some of the most striking images are portraits of women, including "Lady of Chebika" and "Lady with a Lion".

Both were spontaneous portraits by Perez, who likes to interact with his subjects and has shunned "stolen" images or those shot from far away with telephoto lenses.

In the Lady of Chebika, wrinkled with age, "her face interested me but I did not know if I could approach her," Perez said. "I got closer, she did not react. I got closer again and she gave me a sign of assent. I took the picture."

"It's all intuitive," he said, stressing that "photographers have this ability to predict the next move".

He himself is surprised that he was able to capture the moment when a drop fell from the jar of a water carrier.

For the exhibition being held close to where he was born, he chose "emblematic photos ... always framed, geometric and always inhabited" by people. 
FETHI BELAID AFP

It's all about "patience", he said, knowing how to "wait for the right moment without provoking it".

But he remains humble, stating that "I do not take myself seriously. I am neither the father, nor the cousin, nor the grandfather of the Tunisian photo. I am just a photographer in Tunisia."

© 2021 AFP
Murder trial of ‘African Che Guevera’ Thomas Sankara to finally begin


Issued on: 10/10/2021 - 
Captain Thomas Sankara, President of Burkina Faso gives a press conference on September 2, 1986, at a summit in Harare, Zimbabwe. 
© Dominique Faget, AFP

Text by: Romain BRUNET

The murder trial of Thomas Sankara, Burkina Faso’s iconic “father of the revolution”, is due to open on Monday, 34 years after his assassination. Fourteen people, including the country’s ex-president, Blaise Compaoré, will stand trial. FRANCE 24 examines why Sankara is such a heroic figure in Africa and at what to expect from this long-anticipated court case.

In one of Africa’s most eagerly awaited trials for years, 14 people will be tried on October 11 at a military court in Burkina Faso’s capital Ouagadougou for the murder of the country’s former president, Thomas Sankara, and 12 members of his entourage.

Nicknamed the “African Che Guevara”, Sankara came to power in a coup in 1983. He was a hero to many fans – who say he championed national sovereignty by rejecting aid from the International Monetary Fund and point to his advancement of women’s rights, banning forced marriages, polygamy and female genital mutilation. Sankara’s detractors say he was an authoritarian leader, alleging human rights violations including arbitrary arrests of political opponents and extrajudicial killings.

Sankara was killed four years after taking power, when commando troops stormed the headquarters of his National Revolutionary Council and shot him dead – bringing to power Blaise Compaoré, hitherto Sankara’s close friend and right-hand man.

Compaoré then ruled Burkina Faso for nearly three decades, before a popular uprising overthrew him in 2014 and he fled to neighbouring Ivory Coast. The ex-strongman is the main defendant in the forthcoming trial – but he will not go to Ouagadougou to stand in the dock, his lawyers said on Thursday.

Despite Compaoré’s absence, the trial is hotly anticipated – with more than 200 hundred journalists from across the world accredited to cover the proceedings.

What does Sankara represent?

Sankara left an indelible mark on his country and became a pan-African icon in the process.

In a major symbolic move, he changed the country's name from Upper Volta, given by France, to Burkina Faso, meaning “the land of upstanding men”.

Sankara made a break with former colonial power France, which maintained clientelist relationships with its former African colonies in an approach known as the Françafrique.

“Sankara developed complete independence in his country by giving its people confidence in themselves,” said Bruno Jaffré, author of L’insurrection inachevée: Burkina 2014 (“The Unfinished Rebellion: Burkina 2014”) who runs a website devoted to Sankara, thomassankara.net. “Outside of Burkina Faso, he is seen as an anti-imperialist revolutionary who spoke for the oppressed and bolstered his nation’s sovereignty in the face of France.”

In this context, the Sankara legend continues to grow, especially among young people who worship him despite having no memory of his rule in Burkina Faso.

Why did it take 34 years for a trial to take place?


The trial announcement in August was a huge shock, Jaffré pointed out, since the 1987 assassination had long been a taboo subject in Burkina Faso: “When the trial was announced, Burkinabés didn’t even dare to believe it,” he said.

“Compaoré’s regime did everything it could to prevent the criminal justice process from doing its work over Sankara’s death – and it wasn’t until [Compaoré was ousted in] autumn 2014 that the ball got rolling,” Jaffré continued.

Indeed, it was the government put in place for Burkina Faso’s democratic transition that started the justice process in March 2015. An international arrest warrant was issued for Compaoré in December of the same year. Eventually, the first reconstruction of Sankara’s assassination took place at the scene of the crime in February 2020. The judge presiding over the inquiry then transferred it to a military court in October – paving the way for the trial starting on Monday.

But obstructionism delayed this historic trial. Compaoré’s defence lawyers did “everything they could to delay or even cancel it”, Jaffré noted. In particular, they got a lot of mileage out of saying that Compaoré’s international arrest warrant was “cancelled” by Burkina Faso’s highest court in 2016. Compaoré’s defence lawyers also said their client had “never been summoned for questioning” and that he had “never been notified” of any procedure by the Burkinabé criminal justice system except for his “final summons” to stand trial. The defence lawyers have also argued that Compaoré benefits from immunity as a former head of state.

In April 2016, the attorney general of Burkina Faso’s highest court did indeed announce a cancellation due to a technicality of the international arrest warrant targeting Compaoré. But a month later, the government’s commissioner at the military court denied reports that the trial was cancelled, clarifying that the cancelled warrants only concerned a September 2015 coup case against the transitional government.

Given that the ex-president has always denied responsibility for anything that has gone wrong in Burkina Faso, “it’s not surprising” that Compaoré will not be at the court to face the accusations against him, Guy Hervé Kam, the lawyer representing the civil party in the case against Compaoré, told AFP.

Who are the accused?


Compaoré is one of 14 people who stand accused. General Gilbert Diendéré – one of the main Burkinabé army chiefs at the time of the 1987 coup – is the other main defendant. After serving as Compaoré’s chief of staff during the latter’s long presidency, Diendéré was imprisoned for 20 years for attempted murder in the 2015 coup attempt. At the forthcoming trial, he and Compoaré both stand accused of “complicity in murder”, “concealment of dead bodies” and “attacking state security”.

Soldiers in Compaoré’s former presidential guard – in particular Hyacinthe Kafondo, who is accused of leading the commando group that assassinated Sankara and who is currently on the run – are also among the defendants.

Initially, more people were expected to stand trial. However, “many defendants died”, according to lawyers for the civil party.

What should be expected from the trial?

There has been much speculation about the possible role of foreign countries – including France, Ivory Coast, Liberia and Libya – in the killing of Sankara. But the trial will focus exclusively on Burkinabé people involved in his assassination.

The focus will be on Compaoré, according to Jaffré. “His absence is regrettable; nevertheless, the question of his responsibility for the killing will be at the heart of the trial,” he noted.

The judge in charge of the inquiry was able to question all the surviving witnesses present on the day of the assassination who had never before spoken.

These witnesses have already clarified some important issues – in particular, they have established that the “commando force came from Compaoré’s house” and that “Diendéré was present to direct the operations”, Jaffré observed.

As well as trying to understand the exact sequence of the assassination, the trial will also seek to hold people responsible for complicity in the attempted cover-up of Sankara’s murder. For example, the doctor Jean Christophe Diébré said he died a “natural death”; Diébré is being prosecuted for “forging a public document”.

Will France’s alleged role be addressed?


While the focus is on the role of Burkinabé actors, France will still be relevant to the trial.

“The inquiry established that French agents were present in Burkina Faso on the day after the assassination to destroy wiretaps targeting Blaise Compaoré and Jean-Pierre Palm, a gendarmerie officer implicated for his alleged role in Sankara's killing,” Jaffré said.

Many observers note that Sankara’s government opposed the operation of Françafrique, rejecting his country’s longstanding alliance with France. He also angered Paris by calling for New Caledonia, a French overseas territory, to be included on the UN’s list of places to be decolonised.

During a 2017 trip to Burkina Faso, French President Emmanuel Macron promised to lift the “national defence secret” classification of all French archives concerning Sankara’s killing. Since then, three batches of declassified documents have been sent to Ouagadougou. But these contain only secondary documents and do not include any documents from the offices of François Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac, who were respectively president and prime minister of France at the time of the assassination.

“There is no sign, in the documents provided so far, of a French presence in Ouagadougou the day after the assassination. But these documents must exist – and the fact that Macron didn’t keep his word shows a certain degree of embarrassment,” said Jaffré.

This article was translated from the original in French.
Colombian nun freed four years after being kidnapped by Mali jihadists


Issued on: 10/10/2021 - 07:42
Sister Gloria Cecilia Narvaez celebrates her release from captivity in Mali, October 10 2021. © FRANCE 24 screengrab.
Text by: NEWS WIRES

A Franciscan nun from Colombia kidnapped by jihadists in Mali more than four years ago has been freed, Mali's presidency said.

Sister Gloria Cecilia Narvaez was taken hostage on February 7, 2017 in southern Mali near the border with Burkina Faso where she had been working as a missionary.

A statement on the presidential Twitter account paid tribute to her "courage and bravery" along with photos of the nun taken after her release Saturday.

"I thank the Malian authorities, the president, all the Malian authorities, for all the efforts you've made to liberate me, may God bless you, may God bless Mali," Sister Gloria said in images broadcast on state television showing her with Mali's interim president Colonel Assimi Goita and the archbishop of Bamako Jean Zerbo.


"I am very happy, I stayed healthy for five years, thank God," the nun said, smiling and wearing a yellow robe.

Her liberation had been the fruit of "four years and eight months of the combined effort of several intelligence services", the presidency said.

In the official statement, Goita assured that "efforts are under way" to secure the release of all those still being held in Mali.

Archbishop Zerbo said Sister Gloria was "doing well".

"We prayed a lot for her release. I thank the Malian authorities and other good people who made this release possible," the archbishop said.

Sister Gloria, 59, was kidnapped near Koutiala, 400 kilometres (250 miles) east of Bamako. She had worked as a missionary for six years in the parish of Karangasso with three other nuns.

According to one of her colleagues, Sister Carmen Isabel Valencia, she offered herself in place of two younger nuns the kidnappers were preparing to take.

"She is a woman of a very particular human quality, down to earth ... moved by the love of the poor," Sister Carmen said.

In Colombia, her brother Edgar Narvaez said he was very emotional after receiving news of her release.

"She is in good health, thank God. They sent me pictures and she looks well," he told AFP.

In a letter sent last July by the Red Cross to her brother, Sister Gloria said she was held by "a group of GSIM", the Al-Qaeda-linked Group to Support Islam and Muslims, the largest jihadist alliance in the Sahel.

A source close to the negotiations to release her told AFP she had not been ill-treated during her captivity and during that time she had learned the Koran.

"The negotiations lasted months, years," said the source, without giving further details.

Bound for Rome

An official at Bamako airport, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP the nun had arrived in the Malian capital on Saturday evening from where she was due to fly to Rome. Her departure from Bamako was confirmed by the city's archdiocese.

In Colombia, Vice-President Marta Lucia Ramirez -- who is also foreign minister -- said she was "very happy" at Sister Gloria's release, which she attributed to the work of the government and also stressed the "humanitarian efforts of the French government to contribute to this success".

National police director Jorge Luis Vargas also welcomed her release.

"Today is very good news for Colombia, but also for the national police for all the efforts made over the years to secure the safe release of our compatriot," he said.

Vargas said meetings had been held with several European and African ambassadors to try to secure the nun's release.

"With Interpol, and with other international organisations, we have always sought to bring those responsible to justice."

There were irregular reports about the nun over the years, including at the beginning of 2021, when two Europeans who managed to escape captivity reported that she was well.

Then in March, her brother received proof that she was still alive, passed on from the Red Cross.

It was a letter written in capital letters "because she always used capital letters", containing the names of their parents and ending with her signature, he told AFP earlier this year.

Mali has been struggling to contain a jihadist insurgency that first emerged in the north of the country in 2012, and which has since spread to neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger.

Kidnappings, once rare, have become more common in recent years as a security crisis has deepened in Mali, particularly in the centre of the former French colony.

French journalist Olivier Dubois was abducted on April 8 in northern Mali by jihadists affiliated with Al-Qaeda.

Dubois, who worked with several French news outlets, said in a hostage video that GSIM had abducted him.

(AFP)
Iran's power company warns of cuts due to illegal crypto mining


Issued on: 10/10/2021 
The global values of cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin 
have massively fluctuated over the past year 
Yuri CORTEZ AFP/File

Tehran (AFP)

Illegal cryptocurrency mining in Iran risks causing new power cuts this winter, the state electricity company warned Sunday.

Iranian officials regularly accuse unlicensed cryptocurrency miners of using vast amounts of electricity.

Illegal cryptocurrency mining will account for at least "10 percent of electricity outages this winter", the power company said in a statement carried by state news agency IRNA.

Such illegal mining was responsible for 20 percent of blackouts over the summer, it added.

Iran was among the first countries in the world to legalise the mining of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in September 2018, but it requires miners to have a licence.

Authorities said in May that "illegal" miners who usually have access to subsidised electricity consume between six and seven times more power than those with permits.

The same month, Iran announced a temporary ban on all cryptocurrency mining, a day after the energy minister apologised for unplanned power cuts in major cities.

Authorities lifted the ban in mid-September.

Iranian news agencies have reported frequent police raids on "illegal farms" for cryptocurrency.

Profitably creating, or mining, bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies requires masses of computers dedicated to solving deliberately complicated equations -- an endeavour that globally consumes more electricity than some entire nations.

An Iranian official last month suggested that cryptocurrencies could be used to overcome problems related to international sanctions imposed on the Islamic republic.

He was speaking as parliament discussed a report outlining the size of the cryptocurrency market in Iran and how best to use the technology.

Some 19,500 Bitcoins are mined annually in Iran, compared with 324,000 around the world, while around 700 Bitcoins are traded daily in the country, the report said.

© 2021 AFP
Guest post: AI surveillance in prisons is a terrible idea, both technologically and ethically


Editor’s note: This is a guest post written by University of Washington professors Emily M. Bender and Rachael Tatman on the use of AI in prison settings.

© Provided by Geekwire University of Washington professors
 Rachael Tatman and Emily M. Bender. (UW Photos)

Thomson Reuters Foundation reported on Aug. 9 that a panel in the U.S. House of Representatives has asked the Department of Justice to explore using so-called “artificial intelligence” (AI) technology to monitor phone communication from incarcerated people with the ostensible purpose of preventing violent crime and suicide.

This is not a hypothetical exercise: LEO Technologies, a company “built for cops by cops,” already offers automated surveillance of incarcerated persons’ phone calls with their loved ones as a service.

As linguists who study the development and application of speech recognition and other language technologies, including the ways in which they work (or don’t) with different varieties of language, we would like to state clearly and strongly that this is a terrible idea both technologically and ethically.

We are opposed to large-scale surveillance by any means, especially when used against vulnerable populations without their consent or ability to opt out. Even if such surveillance could be shown to be in the best interests of the incarcerated people and the communities to which they belong — which we do not believe that it can be — attempting to automate this process scales up the potential harms.

The primary supposed benefit of the technology to the incarcerated people, suicide prevention, is not feasible using an approach “based on keywords and phrases” (as LEO technologies describes its product). Even Facebook’s suicide prevention program, which itself has faced scrutiny from legal and ethics scholars, found keywords to be an ineffective approach as it does not take context into account. Furthermore, humans frequently take the output of computer programs as “objective” and therefore make decisions based on faulty information with no notion that it is faulty.

And even if the ability to prevent suicide were concrete and demonstrable, which it is not, it comes with massive potential for harm.

Automated transcription is a key part of these product offerings. The effectiveness of speech recognition systems is dependent on a close match between their training data and the input they receive in their deployment context, and for most modern speech recognition systems this means that the further a person’s speech is from newscaster standard, the less effective the system will be at correctly transcribing their words.

Not only will such systems undoubtedly output unreliable information (while seeming highly objective), the systems will also fail more often for the people the U.S. justice system most often fails.

A 2020 study that included the Amazon service used by LEO Technologies for speech transcription corroborated earlier findings that the word error rate for speakers of African American English was roughly twice that of white speakers. Given that African Americans are imprisoned at a rate five times greater than white Americans, these tools are deeply unsuited to their application and have the potential to increase already unacceptable racial disparities.

This surveillance, which covers not just the incarcerated but also those they are speaking with, is an unnecessary violation of privacy. Adding so-called “AI” will only make it worse: The machines are incapable of even accurately transcribing the warm, comforting language of home and at the same time will give a false sheen of “objectivity” to inaccurate transcripts. Should those with incarcerated loved ones have to bear the burden of defending against accusations based on faulty transcripts of what they said? This invasion of privacy is especially galling given that incarcerated people and their families often have to pay exorbitant rates for the phone calls in the first place.

We urge Congress and the DOJ to abandon this path and to avoid incorporating automated prediction into our legal system. LEO Technologies claims to “shift the paradigm of law enforcement from reactive to predictive,” a paradigm that seems out of keeping with a justice system where guilt must be proved.

And, finally, we urge everyone concerned to remain highly skeptical of “AI” applications. This is especially true when it has real impacts on people’s lives, and even more so when those people are, like incarcerated persons, especially vulnerable.


Thanks to Big Oil, Your Tax Dollars Are Spent Ruining the Climate

Jeff Goodell
Fri, October 8, 2021
ROLLING STONE

Huntigton Beach. Oil Spill Clean Up Efforts. - Credit: Ted Soqui/Sipa USA/AP

About $11 million a minute. That’s the amount of direct and indirect subsidies the International Monetary Fund calculates the global fossil fuel industry receives to ensure that cooking the planet remains profitable for them. If you do the math, it comes to about $5.9 trillion a year.

As The Atlantic’s Robinson Meyer has pointed out, only $826 billion of that comes from actual price cuts or tax breaks. The rest is calculated from damages caused from the environmental and health costs of carbon pollution. But that’s sorta the point. This is an antiquated industry that is knowingly and willfully poisoning the planet and killing millions of people every year. And governments of the world — which ultimately means you and me and everyone else who pays taxes — are essentially paying them to do it.

It’s no wonder the rallying cry for upcoming demonstrations in Washington D.C. is “People vs. Fossil Fuels.” For decades, the fossil fuel mafia has been pretending to be a good citizen, pretending that it didn’t really understand the risks of climate change, and pretending that fossil fuel consumption is really your problem, not theirs. If the world is burning, it’s because you’re too lazy to switch your lightbulbs, not because the industry has shoveled millions of dollars into lobbying efforts to make sure that the energy that powers our world is generated by coal or gas, even if there are better, cheaper, cleaner alternatives.

The fossil fuel mafia has used money and political muscle to stall and derail action on the climate crisis, and they will do everything they can to draw out the inevitable transition to clean energy as long as possible. Given the stunning decline in the cost of solar and wind power in most of the world, they know their days are numbered. It’s not a question of if they go. It’s a question of how fast. But every day they wait, every delay tactic they come up with, imperils the rest of us.

To put it another way, this is no longer an economic issue. It is a climate justice issue.

“Climate justice is the simple idea that those who have done the most to cause the climate crisis – and who have the most resources – must also do the most to fix it,” Brandon Wu, the director of policy and campaigns at ActionAid USA, has said. “In global terms, this means that wealthy countries like the U.S. must lead by example when it comes to climate action by undertaking urgent emissions reductions at home and providing hugely ramped-up financial support for action in poorer countries.”

An essential opportunity to move the ball on climate justice is coming up fast, in the next round of international climate talks, known as COP26, which will begin in Glasgow on October 31st. Maybe it’s too much to say that life on Earth depends on the outcome of these talks. So let’s just say that climate negotiators have a lot of work to do. A recent U.N. analysis found that even if nations meet their current promises for CO2 emissions reductions, the climate would still warm by 2.7 C by the end of the century — a path U.N. Secretary António Guterres has described as “catastrophic,” dramatically boosting the frequency and intensity of heat waves, wildfires, storms, and drought, as well as increasing the risk of ice sheet collapse in West Antarctica and disrupting planetary-scale systems like the circulation pattern of current in the Atlantic.

Since a central tenet of a just climate transition is that the countries and people most responsible for climate change should take the most responsibility in stopping it, the question then becomes, who is most responsible? A lot of people like to point the finger at China. Just google “CO2 emissions by nation” and you will see why: In 2019, China emitted about 10 billion tons of CO2, which is about 28 percent of the global total. The U.S., in contrast, emitted 5.3 billion tons, or about 15 percent of the global total. The EU is third, with about 10 percent of global total, and India below that with 7 percent.

In addition, Chinese emissions are continuing to rise fast, while U.S. emissions have plateaued and started to decline in recent years. And a lot of China’s emissions growth has come from continued reliance on coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel. Last year, China built more than three times more new coal power capacity than all other countries in the world combined, equal to “more than one large coal plant per week,” according to estimates from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air in Finland.

What all this means is that without a big commitment from China, there will be no meaningful progress toward the goal of keeping warming below 1.5 C, which is the threshold scientists have identified to maintain some semblance of a stable climate.

Chinese President Xi Jinping seems to understand this. He has promised his country will start reducing CO2 emissions from coal, gas, and oil by 2030 and then stop altogether by 2060. But will they?

Xi has made some moves to show they are serious about addressing the climate crisis. He recently pledged to finance no new coal plants outside of China, which is a big deal. But as John Kerry, President Biden’s international climate envoy, recently pointed out, the Chinese still plan to build 247 gigawatts of new coal power within China. That is nearly six times Germany’s entire coal power capacity. China’s plan “would actually undo the ability of the rest of the world” to avert climate catastrophe, Kerry said.

So if you’re looking for a fall guy in the climate crisis, China fits the bill.

But that’s not the whole picture. China’s current status as the biggest emitter has been very convenient for U.S. politicians who have been protecting the interests of the fossil fuel industry. China has been their perfect “whataboutism” foil. A classic example: During a congressional hearing in 2019, Rep. Garret Graves (R-Louisiana), then the ranking Republican on the Climate Crisis Committee, tried to use the example of China as a reason the U.S should hang back on climate action. “So while in the United States we need to continue investing in innovative solutions and exporting clean energy technologies, it makes no sense for us to be doing it if we’re simply watching for increases in China,” he said.

Jamie Margolin, a teenage climate change activist from Seattle who was testifying before the committee, dismantled Graves’ argument: “When your children ask you: Did you do absolutely everything in your power to stop the climate crisis, when the storms were getting worse and we’re seeing all the effects … Can you really look them in the eye and say, ‘No, sorry, I couldn’t do anything because that country over there didn’t do anything, and if they’re not going to do anything then I’m not.’ That is shameful and that is cowardly, and there is no excuse to not take action. …”

How you judge a nation’s responsibility for the climate crisis also depends on how you count emissions. For one thing, CO2 – the main greenhouse gas – is not like other forms of air pollution, such as sulfur dioxide, which rain out of the sky quickly once you stop emitting them.

Most fossil fuel CO2 stays in the atmosphere for centuries before it is removed by geologic processes. But about 25 percent of it remains in the atmosphere essentially forever. “The climatic impacts of releasing fossil fuel CO2 to the atmosphere will last longer than Stonehenge,” University of Chicago oceanographer David Archer writes in his book The Long Thaw. “Longer than time capsules, longer than nuclear waste, far longer than the age of human civilization so far.”

So when you ask, “Who is responsible for the climate crisis?” what matters is not just current emissions, but also historic emissions. From a strictly scientific perspective, a ton of CO2 emitted in 1921 is just as potent as a ton emitted in 2021.

A new report by Carbon Brief lays all this out. If you do the math this way, the U.S. has done twice as much to cause the problem as China.


Credit: Carbon Brief

Carbon Brief

(The Carbon Brief calculation also takes into account land use and deforestation, as well as the burning of fossil fuels, which is the main reason why Brazil and Indonesia are high on the list.)

You can see why this gets complicated. U.S. climate negotiators use China’s booming emissions to argue – justifiably – that the climate problem won’t be solved unless China takes dramatic action now to reduce emissions. Furthermore, they argue that weighing historic emissions is unfair, because in, say, 1920, nobody knew anything about climate change. Meanwhile, the Chinese argue – justifiably, also — that because of the U.S.’s large historical emissions, the U.S. has the moral duty to take the lead and make a much bigger contribution to emission cuts.

But in the midst of a climate emergency, when island nations are disappearing beneath the waves, and drought is leaving millions without food and heat waves are killing a billion marine creatures in the Pacific Northwest, it feels almost comically self-destructive to be wasting time doing math and finger-pointing while the world burns. “For us, it is inexplicable the world isn’t taking action and it suggests we in small islands are to remain dispensable and remain invisible,” Mia Mottley, prime minister of Barbados, recently said.

The point is, we need both China and the U.S., and every other big, rich polluter, to go full speed on transitioning off fossil fuels now. But the foot-dragging and the squabbling and the bowing to Big Oil and Big Coal over and over and over again reveals the heartbreaking dynamic at the foundations of the climate crisis: The rich pollute. The poor suffer. And the rich don’t really care.

At the moment, the primary mechanism for dealing with the inequities of the climate crisis is the Green Climate Fund, by which wealthy nations of the world promised $100 billion a year in funding to developing nations to help them transition to clean energy and adapt to climate impacts.

But that isn’t going so well. The latest figures from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development show that in 2019, rich nations channeled $79.6 billion to vulnerable countries, up just 2 percent from $78.3 billion in 2018. An analysis by aid charity Oxfam put the real figure for 2018 much lower, between $19 billion and $22.5 billion, when counting only grants and not loans that have to be paid back. Meanwhile, according to Reuters, the 46 least-developed countries between 2014 and 2018 received just $5.9 billion in total for adaptation.

This is likely to be a key issue in Glasgow. President Biden recently vowed to double the aid the U.S. gives to developing nations to $11 billion, but that is only a fraction of what is needed. African negotiators have already signaled they want to up contributions to $1.3 trillion by 2030. As climate impacts accelerate, the gap between rich and poor, between the saved and the suffering, will only grow.

It may be that Glasgow marks a new turning point in the climate fight, one where the justice and equity finally take center stage and access to power and money shifts from the old to the new. After all, we know now that the climate crisis is not some kind of inadvertent and unfortunate consequence of two centuries of fossil fuel consumption, or because we humans don’t give a shit about the planet we live on. It is the deliberate and willful consequence of a handful of powerful corporations and their political enablers who have knowingly stolen our future and cashed it in for a quick buck. And we have let them get away with it.

Until now, anyway. Just as there are climate tipping points, there are also human tipping points, where the path to a better world suddenly becomes clear and the journey to it becomes unstoppable.

Let’s hope Glasgow is one of them.
Georgia: Several dead after part of building collapses

Many of the residents in the building were thought to be trapped in the rubble as rescue workers searched for survivors. The accident is suspected to be caused by unsafe renovation work.


Georgia's building collapse crushed several cars parked 
outside and left several buried under the rubble

At least five people, including two children, were killed when a residential building partially collapsed in the Georgian Black Sea resort city of Batumi, the country's interior ministry said on Saturday.

The five-story building collapsed on Friday, and several people are believed to be trapped in the rubble.

"So far emergency responders have saved two citizens, who were brought to hospital, and recovered five bodies," police said in a statement.

However, one of the injured died after being transferred to the hospital, they said later.

Prime Minister Irakli Garibachvili and Interior Minister Vakhtang Gomelauri traveled to Batumi where hundreds of rescue workers were searching for survivors.

Rescue teams were initially using their bare hands to remove the huge mounds of rubble before professional equipment arrived at the scene of the collapse.


Hundreds of first responders reached the scene of the 
collapse in the port town of Batumi

'Violation of safety rules'

The accident  
PREVENTABLE INCIDENT has been blamed on unsafe renovation work, authorities said.

Three people have been arrested in an investigation into the collapse; the owner of a ground-floor apartment, and two construction workers he had hired.

The two workers were acting under the direction of the owner and "in gross violation of safety rules," which ultimately led to the collapse of one of the entrances of the apartment building, according to a police statement.

All three face between two and 10 years in prison if convicted.

The residential building was constructed in 1981, and over the years, two additional floors were subsequently added, along with a lift.

adi/rc (AFP, dpa)