Facebook's latest crisis is the product of an employee revolt about how Mark Zuckerberg and the social network manage its real-world harm

Katie Canales

Thu, November 11, 2021, 

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in New York City on Friday, Oct. 25, 2019. AP Photo/Mark Lennihan

• Facebook is in the midst of a PR firestorm after leaked materials shed light on internal research into the harms it can cause.

• Part of that scrutiny has notably come from company insiders, including whistleblower Frances Haugen.

• Their stories signal that there are many more employees conflicted about working at the firm.

Meta, formerly known as Facebook, is currently swept up in another storm of scrutiny - and a notable portion of it is coming from inside the company itself.

Employees-turned whistleblower Frances Haugen and Sophie Zhang have detailed harrowing accounts before Congress about their time at the company, and other insiders are cited as sources in books detailing turmoil and alleged misconduct.

Then there's the massive trove of documents shared by Haugen appearing to show multiple instances of employees growing angry with how the platforms handle misinformation, divisiveness, and other potential sources of real-world harm. Yet they say their concerns were dismissed in the name of profits and growth.

Together, stories like Haugen's and Zhang's raise the question: How many more are there like them inside Zuckerberg's company?

Haugen seems to believe she's not alone. She's stressed the importance of keeping the company's moves transparent and encouraged more of the company's 58,000 employees to keep watch.

"If people just hate Facebook more because of what I've done, then I've failed," she told the Wall Street Journal in October. "I believe in truth and reconciliation - we need to admit reality. The first step of that is documentation."

'We started to feel like we were part of a cover-up'

Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen. Matt McClain-Pool/Getty Images

In Zhang's case, the former data scientist said she asked the company's VP of Integrity for more safety guardrails in foreign markets to prevent political manipulation. She said she was told there are limited resources and that she was later fired in 2020 for "poor performance."

And there's more evidence of employee discontent building on that, thanks to the leaked documents.

In one instance, multiple employees posted on internal message boards taking issue with Facebook quietly allowing 5.8 million noteworthy figures, like politicians and celebrities, to evade certain rules on its platform.

"This kind of special treatment has always made me uncomfortable," one employee posted, according to the leaked documents.

Other employees worried that an algorithm tweak, made in 2018 to boost slumped engagement, would elevate political divisiveness and outrageous posts. Zuckerberg vetoed implementing solutions broadly across the platform because it could have caused people to spend less time on it.

"This is an increasing liability," one data scientist wrote.

Company representatives have repeatedly said the documents do not paint an entire picture of the company's business development investments, internal research, and efforts to mitigate harm.

But the evidence doesn't end with the trove of documents.

Take "The Ugly Truth," a new book from New York Times journalists Cecilia Kang and Sheera Frankel. The authors said they spoke to 400 sources, including executives, investors, and current and former employees, as well as their friends and families.

In the book, the authors thanked the many sources for speaking to them, pointing out that many of them are still at the company and "trying to change things from within."

Some of those sources said executives instructed employees to remove all mention of Russian hacks surrounding the 2016 presidential election from a 2017 white paper about security concerns. One employee said they "started to feel like we were part of a cover-up," according to the book.

It's Zuck's world. We're just living in it.

Responsibility for most decisions by the company lands squarely on one person: Zuckerberg.

Virtually no investor proposals or board motions are green-lit without his approval.

The leaked documents never directly implicate Zuckerberg as the reason many safety proposals or solutions never reached the finish line, but it hasn't stopped Haugen from insinuating as much.

"There is no one currently holding Mark accountable but himself," she told Congress. "The bucks stop with Mark."

Risky business: Climate change turns up the heat on insurers, policyholders

Noor Zainab Hussain and Carolyn Cohn
Thu, November 11, 2021,


Risky business: Climate change turns up the heat on insurers, policyholders

FILE PHOTO: Firefighters battle to save homes at the Camp Fire in Paradise

(Reuters) - Tony and Jhan Dunn never thought they would leave California, where they grew up, built a life together and planned to retire.

But after a wildfire swept through their Northern California town of Paradise three years ago, burning their home to the ground, they could not get insurance to buy another.

"We basically got priced out of California," Dunn, a retired planning specialist, told Reuters from the couple's new home in North Carolina.

There are thousands of homeowners and businesses from California to Australia in a similar position because the insurance industry, known for its readiness to cover anything from Bruce Springsteen's vocal chords to alien abductions, has trouble factoring in climate change.

The tried and tested approach, where decades' worth of historical data serve to estimate future claims, falls short when weather patterns change and hurricanes, floods, heat waves or snowstorms become more extreme and unpredictable, industry experts say. And the British hosts of the U.N. climate conference in Glasgow acknowledged on Wednesday that current pledges to cut greenhouse gases were not enough to avert climate catastrophe.

Insurance broker Aon said in a report last week that "highly anomalous" floods in Germany and China this year caused record insured losses in those regions.

"Insurers are pulling out because nobody wants to be in the business of losing money," says Attila Toth, chief executive at specialist risk analytics firm Zesty.ai. "And if they don't trust their traditional models, then they are concerned that they will be losing money."


Zesty.ai, whose customers include Farmers Insurance, reinsurer Berkshire Hathaway and Aon, uses artificial intelligence trained on more than 1,400 wildfire events to produce climate change risk scores for any individual property.

In the same vein, reinsurance broker Willis Re is using data from AI firm Cloud to Street to help clients price flood reinsurance.

Insurance statistics show an urgent need for such innovation.

For example, the average number of large U.S. wildfires has risen by 30% over the past 15 years and by nearly a fifth in just the last five, according to Lloyd's of London insurer Chaucer.

In all, insured losses for so-called "secondary" perils such as floods and wildfires - rather than more closely modelled perils such as hurricanes - nearly doubled over the past decade, data compiled by Swiss Re shows.

The reinsurer expects no let-up, forecasting a 30-63% rise in insured losses for all types of natural catastrophes in advanced markets by 2040. China, Britain, France and Germany, could even see those soaring between 90% and 120%.

Given the momentum, it is no surprise that traditional models cannot keep up, Bruce Carnegie-Brown, chairman of insurance market Lloyd's of London told Reuters.

"If you’ve reached an exponential part of the curve where suddenly, something’s accelerating, it’s almost certain that we are underpricing the risk that we’re taking."

FEELING THE HEAT

Policyholders are already feeling the heat, with coverage getting costlier or harder to come by.

Broker Marsh estimates U.S. property insurance rates have risen by 10% in the third quarter.

In California, non-renewals of homeowners' insurance policies rose 31% from a year earlier in 2019 to more than 235,000, the state's Insurance Department's most recent data showed. The data for 2020 could be similar, according to Carmen Balber, executive director of Consumer Watchdog LA.

Across the northern border, the Insurance Bureau of Canada warned on its website homeowners might not be able to buy a new insurance policy if they have suffered a fire.

Among those pulling back from home insurance in California are some household names such as Liberty Mutual, Nationwide and State Farm. Liberty Mutual said it was a "difficult but necessary step to reduce overall exposure to wildfires," a sentiment echoed by other insurers.

Some insurers aim to reduce their exposure by helping clients become more resilient. Commercial insurer AXA, for example, offers a consulting service for clients such as manufacturers, identifying their vulnerabilities and suggesting remedies, such as erecting flood barriers, its chief risk officer Renaud Guidee told Reuters.

"This is really an alignment of interest."

U.S. insurer Chubb is also working with clients to help them make their infrastructure sturdier, said Paul J Krump, Vice Chairman, Chubb Group, Global Underwriting and Claims.

Reinsurers, with their global scope and long history of underwriting catastrophe risks, also have a role to play in helping the industry adapt to climate change, analysts say.


Ernst Rauch, chief climate and geo scientist at Munich Re, said the group had the expertise and willingness to take on climate risk.

The 141-year-old company set up a team to work on natural catastrophes and climate change in the 1970s after noticing loss patterns starting to change for weather related events, Rauch said.

"We observed a continuation of years with losses significantly higher compared to the last 35 years or so. And that's reflected in our models," he said.

Yet there was a gap between what the reinsurer considered a fair premium and what insurers were prepared to pay.

"We can only transfer this risk on our balance sheet if we get the premium which we need to cover these risks, based on our own assessment," Rauch said.

Ratings agency S&P Global warned even reinsurers could be underestimating their exposure to climate risk by as much as 50%, describing their efforts to account for climate change as "nascent" in a recent report.

Industry experts also say disasters such as hurricanes in Florida with a long history of causing severe damage, are more closely modelled than floods or wildfires, which have only in recent years begun to cause major losses.

That calls for reinsurers and independent risk modelling firms such as RMS and KCC to try new ways of approaching natural catastrophes.

One such approach is scenario modelling, where insurers are provided with a number of possible climate impacts on their portfolios over years, to take account of "the whole range of uncertainty," said Laurent Marescot, senior director, EMEA and CIS, at RMS, which sells its risk models to insurers.

Another involves machine learning, which can be used to take existing models of floods in a particular region, for example, and map them to other parts of the world, Marescot said.

But any developments in making insurance more available and affordable will come too late for the Dunns.

"It was sad because we both spent our whole lives in California, we both grew up in San Diego," Tony Dunn said. "I never had any intentions ever of leaving California."


(Reporting by Noor Zainab Hussain in Bengaluru and Carolyn Cohn in London; Editing by Tomasz Janowski and Elaine Hardcastle)

John Kerry predicts U.S. 'won't have coal' by 2030, but new report raises doubts

David Knowles

·Senior Editor

Thu, November 11, 2021

GLASGOW, Scotland — Climate envoy John Kerry told the U.N. Climate Change Conference Tuesday that the United States would likely phase out coal power within the next nine years, but quitting coal may be tougher than he assumes. 

“By 2030 in the United States, we won’t have any coal,” Kerry said during a press conference. “We will not have coal plants.”

A report released Thursday by Ember, an independent energy think tank, shows the U.S. is still among the world's top coal users. 

The U.S. currently ranks fourth in terms of per capita coal use among the world's nations, according to the report, behind only Australia, South Korea and South Africa. The average U.S. citizen emits nearly three times the amount of carbon dioxide from coal as the world average. China is by far the biggest producer of coal, but with a population of over 1.4 billion people, it ranks fifth in per capita use.  

For the past two weeks, coal has been depicted in Glasgow as public enemy No. 1 in the effort to reduce greenhouse gases in an effort to keep temperatures from rising above 1.5°C over preindustrial levels. 

“Phasing out coal from the electricity sector is the single most important step to get in line with 1.5C goal,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres has said of coal, which is the dirtiest fossil fuel in terms of carbon emissions. 

During the first week of the conference, more than 40 countries signed on to an initiative led by the United Kingdom to phase out coal as an energy source over the next two decades. The U.S., where coal accounts for 19 percent of electricity generation, was not among them. Still, officials hailed the pledge, which was the first of its kind. 

U.S. climate envoy John Kerry. (Jeff J. Mitchell/Pool via Reuters)

“The end of coal is in sight,” Kwasi Kwarteng, the U.K. business and energy secretary, said in response to the pledge. “The world is moving in the right direction, standing ready to seal coal’s fate and embrace the environmental and economic benefits of building a future that is powered by clean energy.”

The U.S. did, however, join 19 nations in committing to stop financing coal-fired plants abroad by 2022. 

Kerry’s remarks on the end of coal power in the U.S. may have a familiar political resonance in states that are still reliant on the fossil fuel. In the 2016 presidential campaign, then-Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton famously cheered the demise of coal.

“We’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business,” she said at a rally. 

Her Republican opponent, Donald Trump, pounced on the comment and made his support of coal power a central plank of his campaign, rushing out T-shirts, signs and baseball caps that read “Trump digs coal.”

U.S. consumption of coal continued to plummet throughout Trump’s term, however, falling to a 60-year low in 2020. But thanks to soaring gas prices, coal use is expected jump by 20 percent over the next year in the U.S., bringing with it a rise in carbon emissions. Although that may end up saving consumers money in the short term, climate hawks and officials at COP26 aren’t celebrating. 

Former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon responded in a statement to the Ember report on per capita coal use by calling out nations that continue to lag on transitioning away from it. 

“If the world does not take the necessary steps to cut emissions and fund climate adaptation, the future will be bleak. There can be no place for coal when the potential of renewable energy is growing exponentially,” he said. “OECD countries including the U.S., Germany, South Korea and Japan need to align with the 2030 target to phase out coal entirely. This will be a true demonstration of global leadership.”

U.S. Senate Democrat Manchin opposes $4,500 EV union tax credit

Thu, November 11, 2021,

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Democratic Senator Joe Manchin said on Thursday he opposes a proposal in President Joe Biden's $1.75 trillion social spending and climate legislation that would give union-made U.S. electric vehicles a $4,500 tax incentive.

Manchin's comments came at an event where Toyota Motor Corp said it would invest $240 million in its West Virginia engine and transmission plant to build hybrid transaxles. Manchin represents the state.

His opposition was first reported by Automotive News, which quoted him as saying that the union-made vehicle incentive was "wrong" and "not American." He told the publication: "We shouldn’t use everyone’s tax dollars to pick winners and losers."

Toyota has been heavily lobbying against the proposed $4,500 electric vehicle tax credit for union-made vehicles.

The social spending and climate bill being considered in Congress includes up to $12,500 in tax credits for U.S.-made EVs, including the $4,500 union provision. The bill is a key pillar of Biden's domestic agenda.

Vehicles would have to be made in the United States starting in 2027 to qualify for any of the $12,500 credit.

The EV tax credits are backed by Biden, many congressional Democrats and the United Auto Workers union and would disproportionately benefit Detroit's Big Three automakers - General Motors Co, Ford Motor Co and Chrysler-parent Stellantis NV - which assemble their U.S.-made vehicles in union-represented plants.

Foreign automakers have harshly criticized the decision to give union-made vehicles a big leg up, while 25 ambassadors recently wrote lawmakers opposing it.

The Senate is evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans and Manchin is a key voice on a number of provisions in the spending legislation.

Tesla Inc and foreign automakers like Toyota do not have unions representing U.S. factory workers and many have fought UAW efforts to organize U.S. plants.

Toyota said on Thursday that large parts of the world are not ready for zero-emission vehicles, which is why it did not sign a pledge this week to phase out fossil-fuel cars by 2040.

Six major carmakers, including GM, Ford, Sweden's Volvo Cars and Daimler AG's Mercedes-Benz, signed the Glasgow Declaration on Zero Emission Cars and Vans, as did a number of countries including India.

Toyota and No. 2 global automaker Volkswagen AG, as well as crucial car markets the United States, China and Germany did not.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Peter Cooney)

Clashes, arrests mark first day of strike in Bolivia

Online News EditorNovember 9, 2021

La Paz, Nov 8 (EFE).- Clashes between protesters blockading roads, and police and groups that tried to disperse the demonstrations on Monday marked the first day of an indefinite strike in Bolivia that ended with more than 100 arrests.

The intensity of the strike in protest of a law on a national strategy to combat the legitimization of illicit profits and the financing of terrorism was especially felt in seven of the nine regions of the country where the protesters blocked several roads, including Santa Cruz, Cochabamba, La Paz, Tarija, Potosí, Oruro and Beni.

Clashes also broke out in eastern Santa Cruz, the country’s economic powerhouse, between demonstrators and supporters of the ruling Movement Toward Socialism party who were trying to remove the blockades.

The protesters said that people wearing hoods came in vans and lit firecrackers to unblock the roads, before leaving.

Police also arrived early to unblock the streets and used tear gas at some sites, according to local media reports.

The Pro Santa Cruz Civic Committee said that about 90 people were arrested in that region alone and confirmed that the strike would continue for a second day.

In Cochabamba’s Suticollo area, protesters erected barricades out of mud and stones to prevent the passage of heavy transport.

“The police do nothing when the masistas blockade, but when real people are in the streets they have brutally grabbed us and gassed us,” one of the protesters told Efe.

At least 20 arrests were registered in various parts of Cochabamba amid police crackdowns.

Clashes also broke out in Tarija, in southern Bolivia between demonstrators and groups trying to unblock the roads.

Beni, one of the poorest regions of the country, complied with the strike demanding that the government repeal the law and confirmed that it would strike for only 48 hours.

Some incidents were also reported in La Paz and Oruro.

“It is a strike without any grounds,” said Vice Minister of Communication Gabriela Alcón, adding that all “issues are being addressed” by the government.

Vice Minister of Internal Affairs Nelson Cox said that 125 people were arrested throughout the country on the first day of the strike.

Several detainees were in possession of sharp weapons and tear gas, according to Cox.

“We regret that there were blockades with belligerent attitudes, there is a level of violence in people who have been at the blocking points,” he added.

Cox said that it was an “absolutely regular” day except in Santa Cruz and that the police ensured smooth movement of traffic.

The strike occurred on the same day that Bolivian President Luis Arce completed a year in office. EFE

jpr-ja-ysm/pd/t

Anti-govt Protesters Take To The Streets Of Bolivia

Several cities in Bolivia experienced a day of social unrest Monday due to protests called by the opposition.

Last Updated: 12th October, 2021 
Written By Associated Press Television News

Several cities in Bolivia experienced a day of social unrest Monday due to protests called by the opposition.

Civil and trade organizations took to the streets in "defense of democracy" and to show their discontent against policies promoted by President Luis Arce's government in the largest anti-government protests since the crisis of 2019 that led to the resignation of then President Evo Morales.

Police attempted to disperse protesters with tear gas.
Arce, a supporter of Morales, is pushing for judicial proceedings against the opponents of such protests.

Monday's street demonstrations were mainly directed against Morales, leader of the ruling Movement to Socialism (MAS) and who remains active in politics.

To counter the opposition, MAS has called for a march on Tuesday in La Paz in support of Arce on Tuesday.

South Africa’s last apartheid president 

F. W. de Klerk dies

Former South African president posthumously apologizes 'without qualification' for apartheid


1 of 10

FILE- South African Deputy President F.W. de Klerk, right, and South African President Nelson Mandela pose with their Nobel Peace Prize Gold Medal and Diploma, in Oslo, Dec. 10, 1993. F.W. de Klerk, who oversaw end of South Africa's country’s white minority rule, has died at 85 it was announced Thursday, Nov. 11, 2021. (Jon Eeg/Pool photo via AP, File)

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — F.W. de Klerk, who shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Nelson Mandela and as South Africa’s last apartheid president oversaw the end of the country’s white minority rule, has died at the age of 85.

De Klerk died after a battle against cancer at his home in the Fresnaye area of Cape Town, a spokesman for the F.W. de Klerk Foundation confirmed Thursday.

De Klerk was a controversial figure in South Africa where many blamed him for violence against Black South Africans and anti-apartheid activists during his time in power, while some white South Africans saw his efforts to end apartheid as a betrayal.

“De Klerk’s legacy is a big one. It is also an uneven one, something South Africans are called to reckon with in this moment,” the Mandela Foundation said of his death.

It was de Klerk who in a speech to South Africa’s parliament on Feb. 2, 1990, announced that Mandela would be released from prison after 27 years. The announcement electrified a country that for decades had been scorned and sanctioned by much of the world for its brutal system of racial discrimination known as apartheid.

With South Africa’s isolation deepening and its once-solid economy deteriorating, de Klerk, who had been elected president just five months earlier, also announced in the same speech the lifting of a ban on the African National Congress and other anti-apartheid political groups.

Amid gasps, several members of parliament left the chamber as he spoke.

Nine days later, Mandela walked free.

Four years after that, Mandela was elected the country’s first Black president as Black South Africans voted for the first time.

By then, de Klerk and Mandela had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 for their often-tense cooperation in moving South Africa away from institutionalized racism and toward democracy.

The country would be, de Klerk told the media after his fateful speech, “a new South Africa.” But Mandela’s release was just the beginning of intense political negotiations on the way forward. Power would shift. A new constitution would be written. Ways of life would be upended.

“There is an element of uncertainty, obviously, with regard to everything which lies in the future,” de Klerk calmly told reporters on Feb. 10, 1990, after announcing that Mandela would be released the following day.

The toll of the transition was high. As de Klerk said in his Nobel lecture in December 1993, more than 3,000 died in political violence in South Africa that year alone. As he reminded his Nobel audience, he and fellow laureate Mandela remained political opponents, with strong disagreements. But they would move forward “because there is no other road to peace and prosperity for the people of our country.”

After Mandela became president, de Klerk served as deputy president until 1996, when his party withdrew from the Cabinet. In making history, de Klerk acknowledged that Mandela’s release was the culmination of what his predecessor, former President P.W. Botha, had begun by meeting secretly with Mandela shortly before leaving office. In the late 1980s, as protests inside and outside the country continued, the ruling party had begun making some reforms, getting rid of some apartheid laws.

De Klerk also met secretly with Mandela before his release. He later said of their first meeting that Mandela was taller than expected, and he was impressed by his posture and dignity. De Klerk would say he knew he could “do business with this man.” But not easily. They argued bitterly. Mandela accused de Klerk of allowing the killings of Black South Africans during the political transition. De Klerk said Mandela could be extremely stubborn and unreasonable.

Later in life, after South Africa’s wrenching political transition, de Klerk said there was no longer any animosity between him and Mandela and that they were friends, having visited each other’s homes. De Klerk did not seem to fit easily into the role of a Nobel laureate. He remained a target of anger for some white South Africans who saw his actions as a betrayal. Though he publicly apologized for the pain and humiliation that apartheid caused, he was never cheered and embraced as an icon, as Mandela was.

“Sometimes, Mr. de Klerk does not get the credit that he deserves,” Nobel laureate and former archbishop Desmond Tutu told David Frost in an interview in 2012.

Despite his role in South Africa’s transformation, de Klerk would continue to defend what his National Party decades ago had declared as the goal of apartheid, the separate development of white and Black South Africans. In practice, however, apartheid forced millions of the country’s Black majority into nominally independent “homelands” where poverty was widespread, while the white minority held most of South Africa’s land. Apartheid starved the Black South African education system of resources, criminalized interracial relations, created black slums on the edges of white cities and tore apart families.

De Klerk late in life would acknowledge that “separate but equal failed.”

F.W. de Klerk was born in Johannesburg in 1936. He earned a law degree and practiced law before turning to politics and being elected to parliament. In 1978, he was appointed to the first of a series of ministerial posts, including Internal Affairs. In the late 1970s and 1980s, South Africa faced violent unrest as the government tried modest reforms to cultivate a Black South African middle class and allow limited political power to the country’s other marginalized groups, mixed race people classified as “coloreds” and those of Asian and Indian backgrounds.

The moves only increased bitterness over apartheid, while international pressure for more fundamental changes increased. In February 1989, de Klerk was elected the National Party leader and in his first speech called for “a South Africa free of domination or oppression in whatever form.” He was elected president in September of that year.

After leaving office, de Klerk ran a foundation that promoted his presidential heritage, and he spoke out in concern about white Afrikaaner culture and language as English became dominant among the new South Africa’s 11 official languages. He also criticized South Africa’s current ruling party, the African National Congress, telling the Guardian newspaper in a 2010 interview that the ANC, once the champion for racial equality, “has regressed into dividing South Africa again along the basis of race and class.”

In a speech in Cape Town in early 2016, de Klerk warned that many white South Africans were “oblivious of the plight of less advantaged communities” and that “the attitude of many Blacks toward white South Africans is becoming harsher and more uncompromising.” South Africans once again were seeing people as racial stereotypes instead of human beings, de Klerk said, adding: “We need to hear Nelson Mandela’s call for reconciliation and nation-building again.”

His leadership of the apartheid regime dogged de Klerk throughout his life, even though he helped negotiate its end.

Human rights activists and legal experts pointed to documents that they said showed de Klerk being present at meetings where extrajudicial killings of anti-apartheid leaders were ordered.

His assertion in 2020 that apartheid was not a crime against humanity stirred up a furor in South Africa. When de Klerk attended President Cyril Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation Address in the South African Parliament that year, opposition members shouted at him and demanded that he leave.

“We have a murderer in the House,” declared Julius Malema, firebrand leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters party, denouncing de Klerk as an “apartheid apologist … with blood on his hands.”

Later de Klerk said he accepted that apartheid was a crime against humanity and apologized, but the damage had been done. He was viewed by many in South Africa as the last apartheid ruler, not the leader who helped steer the country away from violent racial oppression.

VIDEO

Former South African president posthumously apologizes 'without qualification' for apartheid

7:09

In a message recorded shortly before his death, former South African president F.W. de Klerk apologized for the pain, hurt and indignity caused by apartheid to the 'Black, brown and Indians in South Africa.'

 

Death of South Africa’s last apartheid-era president draws mixed reactions

FW De Klerk died Thursday aged 85 following struggle against mesothelioma cancer

Hassan Isilow |12.11.2021


JOHANNESBURG

The death of South Africa’s last apartheid-era President Frederik Willem de Klerk has drawn mixed reactions in the country, with some praising his role in ending apartheid and others accusing him of being responsible for the murders of people during the regime.

De Klerk died early Thursday at his home in Fresnaye in Cape Town following a struggle against mesothelioma cancer, his foundation said in a statement. He was 85.

De Klerk, who served as president from September 1989 to May 1994, is known for playing a key role in dismantling the white oppressive system of apartheid.

In 1990, he announced the release from prison of activist Nelson Mandela, who served 27 years for opposing apartheid.

This led to multiparty elections in 1994 which saw Mandela’s African National Congress (ANC) party win and Mandela become the country’s first Black president.

De Klerk also shared the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize with Mandela.

He also served as deputy president under the new democratic dispensation under Mandela in 1994.

President Cyril Ramaphosa offered his condolences to the De Klerk family Thursday and acknowledged his contribution to South Africa’s democracy.

Ramaphosa said De Klerk played a vital role in the country’s transition to democracy in the 1990s after his first meeting in 1989 with Mandela, who was a political prisoner at the time.

“He took the courageous decision to unban political parties, release political prisoners and entered into negotiations with the liberation movement amid severe pressure to the contrary from many in his political constituency,” he recalled.

Ramaphosa said De Klerk was a committed South African who embraced the democratic constitutional dispensation and placed the long-term future of the country ahead of narrow political interests.

“Serving as deputy president from 1994 to 1996, Mr. De Klerk played an important role in the Government of National Unity, dedicating himself to the constitutional imperative of healing the divisions and conflict of our past,” Ramaphosa said.

South African opposition figure Bantu Holomisa, also a former struggle activist, said De Klerk’s decision to hold talks to end apartheid helped prevent the country from descending into a “bloodbath.” The Nelson Mandela Foundation also acknowledged De Klerk’s contribution to the country’s transition, saying his role was important.

What De Klerk’s critics say

His critics, however, such as the radical Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party, think otherwise.

“As a president of apartheid, De Klerk holds no legitimate claim to any title of honor of having led this country,” it said in a statement Thursday.

The third largest party in parliament known for championing pro-poor policies said De Klerk was the president of a undemocratic and racist society who presided over a murderous and inhumane regime of terror against African people.

“It is for this very reason that the EFF calls for De Klerk not to be given a state funeral of any category, as he lost the right to be honored the day that the evil regime he led collapsed in 1994,” the party said.

The EFF claims that to honor De Klerk with a state funeral would be to spit in the face of gallant liberation heroes who suffered at his hands and had their children murdered in his quest to stifle the freedom of Black people.

“Racist apartheid criminals such as #FWDeKlerk shouldn’t die peacefully at home. They should die in prison where they belong all along,” suspended outspoken ANC member Carl Niehaus, who served formerly as party spokesman, wrote on his Twitter page.

Niehaus was also a political prisoner convicted of treason against South Africa's former apartheid regime.

Another Twitter user, @Labane_Rakuoane, wrote: “The mass murderer of black people is dead. May he never rest in peace #DeKlerk FW de Klerk.”

Some South Africans had criticized De Klerk for not apologizing for apartheid crimes such as treating millions of Blacks as inferior and sending them to Black homelands.

However, his foundation released a video Thursday shortly after his death showing a frail looking De Klerk addressing the criticism in a video message.

“Let me today, in the last message repeat: I, without qualification, apologize for the pain and the hurt, and the indignity, and the damage, to Black, brown and Indians in South Africa,” he said.

The former president said his views of apartheid had changed since the early 1980s. He said in his heart of hearts, he had realized that apartheid was wrong.​​​​​​​

COP26 told climate pledges 'hollow' without fossil fuel phase out

Protesters have sought to keep up the pressure from the outside. (Photo: AFP)

12 Nov 2021 

GLASGOW: Climate promises from nations ring "hollow" while they continue to invest in oil, gas and coal, UN chief Antonio Guterres said on Thursday (Nov 11), as the COP26 summit struggled to make headway on its goal to halt devastating warming.

Representatives from nearly 200 countries have gathered in Glasgow for painstaking talks aimed at keeping the world within the Paris Agreement goal of limiting temperature rise to between 1.5 and 2 degrees Celsius.

But with emissions still rising and current promises putting the world on a path to heat far beyond that target, negotiators were wrangling over a range of issues.

"The announcements here in Glasgow are encouraging - but they are far from enough," Guterres told the COP26 climate summit, urging negotiators to "pick up the pace".

"Promises ring hollow when the fossil fuels industry still receives trillions in subsidies."

Ugandan activist Vanessa Nakate said delegates had "two pathways" to choose from.

"There is the pathway of commitments and hype and promises and fanciful Net Zero targets and happily ever after," she told the plenary.

"And then there is the pathway of the best available science, of ever stronger storms and droughts and floods of toxic polluted air of real people suffering and dying."

COP26 President Alok Sharma warned that time was running short to clinch a deal before the meeting's scheduled end on Friday evening.

"We still have a monumental challenge ahead of us," he said, appealing to delegates to show more ambition.

"Quite a lot has been achieved. But we are still some way away from finalising those very critical issues that are still outstanding."

He welcomed a joint China-US pact to accelerate climate action this decade, which experts said should allay fears that tensions visible early in the summit might derail the talks.

SCIENCE WARNING

The 2015 Paris Agreement saw nations promise to limit heating to "well below" two degrees Celsius and to work towards a safer 1.5 degrees Celsius cap through sweeping emissions cuts.

The 1.1 degrees Celsius of warming so far is already magnifying weather extremes, subjecting communities across the world to more intense fire and drought, displacement and severe economic hardship.

But the UN says that even the most up-to-date national pledges set Earth on course to warm 2.7 degrees Celsius this century.

More than 200 scientists sent an open letter to the summit Thursday urging countries to take "immediate, strong, rapid, sustained and large-scale actions" to halt global warming.

A handful of nations committed to phasing out oil and gas production, in what organisers Denmark and Costa Rica hope will inspire a global movement towards the ending of fossil fuels.

"The fossil era must come to an end," said Danish Climate, Energy and Utilities Minister Dan Jorgensen.

"But just as the Stone Age did not end due to lack of stone, the fossil era will not end because there's no more oil left in the ground. It will end because governments decided to do the right thing."

However major emitters were not part of the initiative.

'CREDIBILITY TEST'

Egypt was on Thursday was confirmed as the host of COP27, due for 2022, while the United Arab Emirates will host COP28 in 2023.

Wednesday saw the release of draft "decisions", which were the first real indication of where nations are 10 days into deeply technical discussions.

The text, which is sure to change during ministerial debates, called for nations to "revisit and strengthen" their new climate plans, known as nationally determined contributions (NDCs) by next year, instead of 2025 as previously agreed.

The issues that remain unresolved at the COP26 include how vulnerable nations are supported financially to green their economies and prepare for future shocks.

Rules over transparency, common reporting of climate action and carbon markets are all also still under discussion.

Also contentious is wording in the draft text to "accelerate the phasing-out of coal and subsidies for fossil fuels", something which large emitters are opposing, according to sources close to the talks.

And nations already hit by climate disasters are demanding "loss and damage" support from rich emitters.

But the main sticking point is ambition: which countries plan to slash their carbon emissions fast enough to avert dangerous heating.

"We need action if commitments are to pass the credibility test," Guterres said, urging negotiators not to settle for a lowest common denominator outcome.

"We know what must be done."

Activists, experts say draft U.N. climate change agreement isn't strong enough

Ben Adler

·Senior Climate Editor

Wed, November 10, 2021

GLASGOW, Scotland — The first draft of an agreement to combat climate change being negotiated at the U.N. Climate Change Conference was released early Wednesday morning, and while certain provisions represent landmark progress in the effort to avert catastrophic climate change, activists and experts say it still falls short of what is needed in several key areas.

“This is not a plan to solve the climate crisis,” said Jennifer Morgan, executive director of Greenpeace International, at a Wednesday morning press briefing at the climate summit, also known as COP26. “It won’t give the kids on the street the confidence they need,” she added, referring to the mostly young activists who have been marching during the conference in Glasgow to demand stronger climate action.

Last week, world leaders including President Biden and U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson made speeches at the conference, calling with soaring rhetoric for the world to tackle the climate crisis. Although the first draft of the final agreement and the pledged actions by individual nations thus far reflect greater ambition than the preceding Paris Agreement from 2015, they would still lead to a rise in global temperatures of 1.8 to 2.6 degrees Celsius, rather than the widely shared goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson arrives Wednesday at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland. (Phil Noble/Pool/Reuters)

“The text is not as strong as the political direction given last week,” said Alden Meyer, who studies U.S. climate policy for the European think tank E3G, at the Wednesday briefing.

“This draft COP decision text is too weak,” said Tracy Carty, head of Oxfam’s COP26 delegation, in a statement. “It fails to respond to the climate emergency being faced by millions of people now who are living with unprecedented extreme weather and being pushed further into poverty.”

The three biggest points of contention with the draft, experts said, are the need for more immediate action to limit emissions, the future use of fossil fuels and the amount of financing being offered to developing countries to build a clean energy economy and deal with the already occurring and inevitable future effects of climate change.

Previously, no climate agreement has specifically called for the end of fossil fuel use. This draft makes history by explicitly stating that coal use needs to be phased out, but it makes no such recommendation for oil and gas.

As of now, however, national pledges actually allow for greenhouse gas emissions to rise 16 percent between now and 2030, while the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that they need to be cut 45 percent by the end of this decade.

A youth activist demonstrates during the U.N. climate summit on Wednesday for limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. (Andy Buchanan/AFP via Getty Images)

“This is the first time in a text like this you’ve had mention of fossil fuels and the need to phase down subsidies,” said Meyer. “The problem is the text is not consistent at all with what needs to be done in the next eight years.”

There are reportedly more than 500 fossil fuel lobbyists at the climate summit, and while COP26 president Alok Sharma strongly denied in a Tuesday press conference that they have any influence on the outcome of the agreement, environmental activists think there is still insufficient willingness on the part of government delegations to confront the fossil fuel industry.

“It’s significant that fossil fuel subsidies have been mentioned, albeit in an insufficient way,” said Teresa Anderson, climate policy coordinator for ActionAid International, at a press conference Wednesday morning organized by the Climate Action Network. “They need to go back and make it about all fossil fuels, not just coal.”

Activists at a protest during the Glasgow climate conference on Monday. (Russell Cheyne/Reuters)

The other problem, according to activists from developing countries, is that while rich nations have stepped up their ambition in terms of cutting their own emissions between now and midcentury, they aren’t offering enough money to developing countries to bring them on board for a more ambitious agreement. To develop their economies sustainably, poorer nations need “climate finance,” such as loan guarantees for renewable energy production. They also simply need an inducement, in the form of aid for adapting to climate change and reparations for the losses and damages they are already experiencing and will continue to incur.

“You don’t have a clear target — i.e., a global goal — on adaptation,” said Mohamed Adow, director of the think tank Power Shift Africa. “Neither do you have clear processes to help the world deal with losses and damage. That part of the text is very fuzzy and vague.”

Experts such as Adow are hoping that the details become sufficiently clear in the next two days, before the conference wraps up on Friday evening, to get an agreement that will put the world on course to avoid climate disaster.

CDC, WHO warn of increased risk of measles outbreak after 22M infants miss vaccine 2020


In this March 27, 2019, file photo, measles, mumps and rubella vaccines sit in a cooler at the Rockland County Health Department in Pomona, N.Y. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)


By: Kyle Hicks
Posted, Nov 11, 2021

ATLANTA, Ga. — Health officials are warning that the risk of a measles outbreak is mounting after more than 22 million infants missed their first vaccine dose in 2020.

That’s 3 million more babies than in 2019, marking the largest increase in two decades and creating dangerous conditions for outbreaks to occur, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO).

Additionally, the CDC says only 70% of children received their second dose of the measles vaccine, which is well below the 95% coverage needed to protect communities from the spread of the measles virus.

Compared to 2019, reported measles cases actually decreased by more than 80% in 2020, but the CDC says measles surveillance also deteriorated with the lowest number of specimens sent for laboratory testing in over a decade. This was likely the result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Large numbers of unvaccinated children, outbreaks of measles, and disease detection and diagnostics diverted to support COVID-19 responses are factors that increase the likelihood of measles-related deaths and serious complications in children,” said Kevin Cain, MD, CDC’s Global Immunization Director.

The CDC says weak measles monitoring, testing and reporting jeopardize countries’ ability to prevent outbreaks of the highly infectious disease.

“We must act now to strengthen disease surveillance systems and close immunity gaps, before travel and trade return to pre-pandemic levels, to prevent deadly measles outbreaks and mitigate the risk of other vaccine-preventable diseases,” said Cain.

Even though reported measles cases dropped in 2020, officials say evidence suggests we are likely seeing a calm before the storm as the risk of outbreaks continues to grow around the world.

“It’s critical that countries vaccinate as quickly as possible against COVID-19, but this requires new resources so that it does not come at the cost of essential immunization programs. Routine immunization must be protected and strengthened; otherwise, we risk trading one deadly disease for another,” said Dr Kate O’Brien, Director of WHO’s Department of Immunization, Vaccines and Biologicals.

Measles is one of the world’s most contagious viruses, but officials say it’s almost entirely preventable through vaccination.

In the last 20 years, the measles vaccine is estimated to have averted more than 30 million deaths globally. Estimated deaths from measles dropped from around 1,070,000 in 2000 to 60,700 in 2020. The estimated number of measles cases in 2020 was 7.5 million globally.

ITS GOING TO BE BLUE H2

Alberta's hydrogen boom well on its way: Nally

Alberta will be speeding up the goal of exporting hydrogen by 10 years, said Morinville-St. Albert MLA Dale Nally.

On Friday Nally, the associate minister of natural gas and electricity, announced with Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, a Hydrogen Roadmap, which outlines how the province plans to become a big player in the hydrogen energy market by 2030.

Nally said the province has many advantages to producing hydrogen and will be similar to when the province entered the oil and gas boom.

“Hydrogen can absolutely be a game changer for our province on many levels,” Nally said.

Nally, who represents Morinville and part of the industrial heartland, said the province is moving quickly on hydrogen and didn’t expect the sector to be adopted at such a fast pace.

“The speed that we've seen companies flock to Alberta, to take advantage of the hydrogen opportunity, shows that not only are we on the right track, but we're creating a space that investors can thrive in,” Nally said.

The province estimates the global hydrogen market is expected to be worth up to $2.5 trillion by 2050.

Alberta wants to see hydrogen integrated into the provincial electricity grid, feeding trucks and public transport, used in processing, and exported globally.

Kenney said the federal government will have to provide some funds get the industry off the ground and will rely on them for costs associated with increasing the current carbon capture, utilization, and storage capacity.

"Hydrogen gives the world an exciting new tool to build a stronger, more reliable, low-emission energy future," Kenney said.

"Alberta is uniquely positioned to become a dominant global player in this burgeoning new technology."

To do this Alberta will rely on the current systems in place to allow for a transition to carbon capture and storage, and on the abundant and low-cost gas in the province to help produce hydrogen at a competitive price.

Nally said the province is encouraging all forms of clean-energy production, such as hydrogen made from renewable energies or from emerging technologies such as making hydrogen from natural-gas decomposition.

“We are agnostic over the colour of the hydrogen as long as it is clean and industry will decide what type of production it will be,” Nally said.

Overall the strategy will cost $30 billion, although there are no specific funding commitments made to get the strategy off the ground. The government will rely on existing policies, such as a low corporate tax rate and petrochemical incentives program, to attract investors to the province.

The new strategy will help the province reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 14 megatons per year by 2030 by integrating hydrogen into industrial processes. In 2017 it was estimated Alberta's greenhouse-gas emissions stood at 272.8 megatonnes per year.

Jennifer Henderson, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, St. Albert Gazette

Penticton Indian Band is using syilx traditional methods to reduce wildfire risk

The Penticton Indian Band (PIB) is working with BC Wildfire Service on a new wildfire risk reduction project using traditional syilx methods.

“All of the PIB [wildfire risk reduction] projects are informed by Elders and knowledge keepers,” says James Pepper, director of PIB’s natural resource department. “They write the prescriptions, then we implement them.”

Pepper says PIB has done several wildfire risk reduction projects throughout the Southern Okanagan over the last few years.

The latest project, which started on Nov. 9, involves burning around 1,300 piles of wood debris in syilx territory around the city of Penticton — in the Penticton Creek watershed, around White Lake Basin, along the Naramata Bench and in the urban Carmi area.

“Smoke and/or flames may be visible from Kelowna, Peachland, Summerland, Penticton, Okanagan Falls and HWY 97,” according to PIB’s media release.

“We remove residual timber, we prune the base of larger trees, and we clean up fuel debris on the ground,” says Pepper, who worked in PIB’s natural resources department since 2015.

“Sometimes, depending on the amount of fuel on the ground, we pile it and burn it. And sometimes if it’s less fuel or an appropriate amount of fuel, we spread it out and do a prescribed burn.”

Pepper says the project will be carried out between now and February, and the main goal is to prevent catastrophic wildfires in the upcoming fire season.

“Traditional prescribed burning has been suppressed for many decades. And as a result, fuel has built [on the] forest floor,” he says.

“If there’s a wildfire now, it’s kind of catastrophic. It burns very, very hot and it can move very quickly and burn a lot of ground. Whereas previously, when it was managed by the syilx people, these fires were way less intense and didn’t spread so quickly or burn so hot.

“In the Okanagan, the forests are actually fire dependent. A lot of the seeds won’t open up unless heat and fire is introduced, so fire is a natural part of the life cycle.”

Pepper says PIB is working closely with syilx elders and traditional fire knowledge keepers from multiple communities throughout the syilx Okanagan Nation to ensure this collaborative project follows syilx protocols.

“We’re restoring the landscape back to a managed landscape in the syilx traditional way in collaboration with the province via BC Wildfire.”

After “years and years of lobbying by Indigenous Peoples,” Pepper says the province is providing more resources to implement traditional practices.

“We have a really strong and wonderful partnership with the BC Wildfire Service,” he adds. “We keep [them] informed with the traditional firekeepers’ knowledge and then they incorporate Western scientific knowledge as well.

“The traditional approach doesn’t necessarily measure kilojoules of energy on the ground, but that information is important and that’s what the scientific part does … it just makes the process more robust and even better.”

He says they decide which areas to burn based on available funding (which tends to be targeted toward “urban forest interface”), as well as “cultural significance and needs.”

“We really do want to reach out to other Indigenous communities, syilx communities to show them how we got to where we are. We have a very large, well-trained crew now.”

He says this year’s crew includes 19 people from PIB and five from BC Wildfire.

“We’re hopeful that the province will continue to recognize this as being a very important proactive measure, as well as the Indigenous leadership … given the thousands of years of knowledge and experience in this regard, and that all communities will be able to develop programs for the good of all.”

To report a wildfire, unattended campfire, or open burning violation in B.C., call 1-800-663-5555 toll-free or *5555 on a cell phone.

Athena Bonneau, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Discourse