DINOS

GOP Donors Back Manchin and Sinema as They Reshape Biden's Agenda

Kenneth P. Vogel and Kate Kelly
Sun, November 21, 2021,

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., right, holds the door open for Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., left, after they attended a Democratic policy luncheon, Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2021, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

WASHINGTON — Over the summer, as he was working to scale back President Joe Biden’s domestic agenda, Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia traveled to an $18 million mansion in Dallas for a fundraiser that attracted Republican and corporate donors who have cheered on his efforts.

In September, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who along with Manchin has been a major impediment to the White House’s efforts to pass its package of social and climate policy, stopped by the same home to raise money from a similar cast of donors for her campaign coffers.

Even as Sinema and Manchin, both Democrats, have drawn fire from the left for their efforts to shrink and reshape Biden’s proposals, they have won growing financial support from conservative-leaning donors and business executives in a striking display of how party affiliation can prove secondary to special interests and ideological motivations when the stakes are high enough.

Sinema is winning more financial backing from Wall Street and constituencies on the right in large part for her opposition to raising personal and corporate income tax rates. Manchin has attracted new Republican-leaning donors as he has fought against much of his own party to scale back the size of Biden’s legislation and limit new social welfare components.

It is not unusual for well-heeled political activists and business interests to spread a smattering of cash across party lines. Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., collected a handful of checks from major Democratic donors this year as she bucked her party leadership’s defense of former President Donald Trump.

But the stream of cash to the campaigns of Sinema and Manchin from outside normal Democratic channels stands out because many of the donors have little history with them. The financial support is also notable for how closely tied it has been to their power over a single piece of legislation, the fate of which continues to rest largely with the two senators because their party cannot afford to lose either of their votes in the evenly divided Senate.

Their influence has been profound. The domestic policy bill, which would expand the social safety net and efforts to fight climate change, started out at $3.5 trillion and has been shrunk — mainly at the insistence of Manchin — to around $2 trillion; it could get smaller as the Senate takes up the version passed Friday by the House. New spending measures were originally to have been paid for mostly through tax-rate increases on the wealthy and corporations — a component of the plan that had to be substantially rewritten because of Sinema’s opposition.

This month, billionaire Wall Street investor Kenneth G. Langone, a longtime Republican megadonor who has not previously contributed to Manchin, effusively praised him for showing “guts and courage” and vowed to throw “one of the biggest fundraisers I’ve ever had for him.”

In a statement to The New York Times, Langone, who has given an overwhelming majority of his millions of dollars in federal political donations to Republicans, said, “My political contributions have always been in support of candidates who are willing to stand tall on principle, even when that means defying their own party or the press.”

Stanley S. Hubbard, a billionaire Republican donor, wrote his first check to Sinema in September and said that he was considering doing the same for Manchin because of their efforts to trim the sails of the Democrats’ agenda. “Those are two good people — Manchin and Sinema — and I think we need more of those in the Democratic Party,” he said.

Cash has also poured in for Manchin and Sinema from political action committees and donors linked to the finance and pharmaceutical industries, which opposed proposals initially included in the domestic policy bill that the lawmakers helped scale back, including changes to Medicare and the tax-rate increases.

John LaBombard, a spokesman for Sinema, rejected any suggestion that campaign cash factored into her approach to policymaking. She was a lead negotiator on the bipartisan infrastructure deal that Biden signed last week, and during her time in the Senate, she has positioned herself as an ideologically flexible centrist willing to buck her party in representing a purple state.

“Sen. Sinema makes decisions based on one consideration: what’s best for Arizona,” LaBombard said.

Manchin’s office did not respond to requests for comment. But he has long expressed concern that the legislation, if not pared back to the level he is seeking, would add to the budget deficit and could fuel inflation.

The lawmakers share a campaign finance consultant, who helped organize fundraising swings through Texas for both lawmakers that yielded cash from Republican donors, as well as a fundraiser for Sinema in Washington in late September with business lobbying groups that oppose the domestic policy bill.

Nelson Peltz, a billionaire investor who brought a Republican-heavy group of CEOs to have lunch with Manchin in Washington a few months ago, said the senator “understands that you can’t spend, spend, spend and feel there’s no recourse for it.”

Peltz, who donated to Manchin in 2017, has not given to Sinema, but he said that she had requested a meeting, which will take place in a few weeks.

Individual donors like Peltz, who over the years has donated nearly three times as much to Republicans as he has to Democrats at the federal level, offer the two Democratic senators a way to restock their campaign coffers — both are up for reelection in 2024 — at a time when they are unlikely to get an enthusiastic reception from some more traditional Democratic donors.

Manchin has long been to the right of his party on litmus-test issues like abortion rights and fossil fuels, while Sinema started her political career as a liberal activist before shifting to the center. One Wall Street executive joked that in his industry, Sinema — who as a young politician once likened political donations to “bribery” — was now referred to as “Saint Sinema” for opposing most of Biden’s proposed taxes on the wealthy. (She has, however, supported a 15% corporate minimum tax and other revenue-raising measures that will help pay for Biden’s legislative spending.)

Progressives are less amused and have accused both senators of undermining their party’s agenda at the behest of special interests.

Wealthy liberals recently began an effort to lay the groundwork for a primary challenge to Sinema in 2024, and liberal group Demand Progress wrote in a petition that “a small group of right-wing Democrats backed by corporate cash, including Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, are trying to destroy” Biden’s legislative agenda.

This year, Manchin and Sinema have received donations from major Republican donors who had never before given to them, including James A. Haslam III, who owns the Cleveland Browns football team, and Dallas real estate developer Harlan Crow, who is close to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Several other prominent Republican donors who supported Trump also wrote their first checks to Manchin in the last few months. They include Oklahoma oil and gas billionaire Harold Hamm, who pushed the former president to deregulate the energy industry; Dallas-based lobbyist and investor Roy W. Bailey, who helped lead fundraising for Trump’s inauguration and a pro-Trump nonprofit group; and banker Andrew Beal, who donated a total of $3 million to a super PAC supporting Trump from 2018 through last year.

Executives at Goldman Sachs, including the firm’s president, John Waldron, combined to donate tens of thousands of dollars to Sinema in the spring and summer. In July, she attended a meet-and-greet at the offices of the Blackstone Group, which is headed by a major Republican donor; some Blackstone employees made donations around the same time. A handful of employees from investment firm Apollo Global Management, including Marc J. Rowan, the CEO and a major donor to predominantly Republican candidates and causes, donated to Sinema in late September after the firm sent a plea to industry contacts seeking donations for her.

G. Brint Ryan, the Republican donor who hosted the fundraisers in Dallas for Manchin and Sinema, said the senators were “out of step with their party, but I tend to believe that they’re in the right.”

Ryan had not previously donated to Sinema and had not held fundraisers for either before this year, though he donated $1,000 to Manchin’s 2018 reelection campaign.

The website for Ryan’s tax consulting firm says it works at “liberating our clients from the burden of being overtaxed.”

The firm’s lobbyists have been monitoring the debate in Congress over the tax implications of the domestic policy bill, according to disclosure filings. Ryan, who said in an email that the measure would “make a bad tax code worse and kill economic growth,” has ties to Republicans who have helped lead opposition to it.

He advised Trump on tax policy during his presidential campaign in 2016. One of the partners in Ryan’s tax consulting firm is Jeff Miller, a corporate lobbyist and close political adviser to Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, the House Republican leader.

Miller, who is a top Republican fundraiser, helped steer Ryan’s team to people who could assist in planning the fundraisers for Sinema and Manchin. And Miller’s wife gave to Sinema’s campaign.

In the days around the fundraisers at his home, Ryan, his employees, his company’s political action committee and a relative’s law firm combined to donate nearly $80,000 to Sinema’s campaign and more than $115,000 to Manchin’s.

The $2.6 million raised by Sinema’s campaign through the first nine months of this year was 2 1/2 times as much as she raised in the same period last year, while the $3.3 million raised by Manchin’s campaign was more than 14 times as much as his haul through the end of September last year.

Overall, Sinema’s campaign took in about $6.1 million in donations between the beginning of 2019 and the end of September, and it had $4.5 million in the bank with three years to go until she faces the voters in Arizona. Manchin’s campaign raised about $3.8 million and had $5.4 million on hand.

© 2021 The New York Times Company

NYT INTERVIEW
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Why Democrats' 'Talking Points Are Not Enough'

Astead W. Herndon
Sun, November 21, 2021

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., speaks during a House Financial Services Committee hearing on financial stability, on Capitol Hill, Thursday, Dec. 5, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Last year, after Joe Biden won the Democratic presidential nomination, a group of progressive lawmakers rallied around him to project party unity at a critical time.

More than a year later, as the president seeks to pass a robust spending package of social policies that represent the bulk of his domestic agenda, many of the same leaders are looking for a return on their political investment.

In an interview with The New York Times, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, one of the country’s most prominent progressives, questioned whether Democratic leaders and the White House understood the scope of the demands coming from the party’s base.

The interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

Q: Why do you feel this social policy bill has to pass as soon as possible, at the biggest scale possible?

A: I think the stakes are really, really high.

The entire reason that the Progressive Caucus gave their votes [for the infrastructure bill] was based on direct promises from the president, as well as direct promises from more conservative Democratic holdouts. And from House leadership as well. So if those promises don’t follow through, it’s going to be very, very difficult for them to get votes on anything moving forward, because the trust that was already so delicate will have been broken.

Q: Do you think these extended negotiations and the stuff that was cut will have an electoral effect? Obviously the Senate will have its say, but if the spending bill largely looks like what the House passed, will Democrats say it fulfills the promise of Election Day?

A: I think that if we pass the Build Back Better Act as the House passed it, that we have a shot to go back to our communities and say we delivered. But that’s not to say that this process has not been demoralizing for a lot of folks, because there were enormous promises made. Not just at the beginning, and not just during the election, but that continued to be made.

And this is where I have sounded the alarm, because what really dampens turnout is when Democrats make promises that they don’t keep.

With the bipartisan infrastructure plan, there’s all of these headlines going around. And I understand the political importance of making a victory lap. But I think that the worst and most vulnerable position we could be in is to overpromise and under-deliver.

So let’s not go around and say, “We’re going to replace every lead pipe in this country,” because according to the bipartisan infrastructure plan, that is not going to happen. That has not been funded. And if the Build Back Better Act gets cut even further, then that’s definitely not going to happen.

Q: You and other progressives backed Biden during the general election. Do you feel that this White House has continued to be open to the left?

A: And that created trust, because trust requires vulnerability from all parties.

There was some good faith with the American Rescue Plan [Democrats’ $1.9 trillion economic stimulus package, signed in March]. But after that, which was quite early, it’s been a bit of a slog.

I actually don’t direct this critique directly at the White House. I think, in general, the party doesn’t quite fully grasp what is happening in deep-blue communities.

Q: What is it that you say they’re missing?

A: The talking points are not enough.

Yes, is child care great? Absolutely. Universal pre-K, this is something I’m deeply, deeply supportive of. But we also have too much of a top-down strategy when it comes to our base. We’re always giving them the medicine and telling them what they need to accept, as opposed to really monitoring where the energy is and being responsive to it. And allowing that to shape our strategy.

And even with the infrastructure plan, this kind of investment is deeply needed in underserved communities like the Bronx. However, if we as a party are asking every single person in this party to take a victory lap, and do a news conference in front of a bridge or pothole, and we aren’t funding and actually fixing that pothole, I’m very concerned about how people are going to interpret that a year from now.

Q: But doesn’t the White House agree — didn’t it propose a more robust package? The obvious response here is that the administration faces the reality of a 50-50 Senate.

A: There is an enormous amount of executive action that they’re sitting on that I think is underutilized. On student loans. We’ve got executive action on the table with respect to climate. There are certainly things that we can do with immigration.

So why are we taking this as a legislative compromise, when the opportunity is so much greater, or when Biden could do this stuff with a stroke of a pen, and is just reminding us that he’s choosing not to?

We always try to tell people why they need to settle for less, instead of being able to harness the energy of our grassroots and take political risks in service of them, the same way that we take political risks in service of swing voters. We can do both.

Q: Is this frustration a growing sentiment in the Democratic congressional caucus? Or is this just you?

A: Frustration is there, and it’s part of why the Progressive Caucus was holding out on passing both of these two pieces of legislation together, because we’re like, listen, we’re not going to take these empty promises anymore.

We went from the American Rescue Plan to six months of watching us just hand the pen to Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. If you even look at the [infrastructure bill], it was drafted in the Senate, and they didn’t even allow conferencing with the House version. They said you just need to take this legislation as is — no compromises, no edits, nothing.

You’ve got to give me something to work with, with my communities. And if you’re not, how can I make the argument that they should turn out again? And this notion that saying “We’re not Trump” is enough — this is such a deeply demoralizing message.

Democrats have a trifecta and have been unable to pass voting-rights protections. And so people can wring their hands and say “but Manchin” all they want or “but the filibuster” all they want, but at the end of the day, what people see are the results of their actions and the results of investing their time.

We are up against political nihilism. The idea that nothing we do matters, because as long as I live in the Bronx, the political reality of this country is that no one’s going to fight for me. That is why it’s so important that we take some of these risks for our base.

Q: Your party is trying to project political victory at this moment — and pulling out all the stops to do so. You’re sounding the alarm.

A: Before the Virginia elections, it was very clear that our help and our participation was not wanted or asked for, which is fine. I’m not here to tell people how to run their races. But at the same time, to consider the members here that have some of the tightest relationships to our political base as just a uniform liability — and not something that can be selectively deployed or consulted or anything — I think it’s just sad. I think it was a mistake.

And we saw a big youth turnout collapse. Not a single person asked me to send an email, not even to my own list. And then they turn around and say, “It’s their fault.” When I think it was communicated quite expressly that we were unwelcome to pitch in.

The idea that we just accept a collapse in youth turnout — and essentially turn it into a self-fulfilling prophecy — in times when races are decided by such narrow margin points: I think it’s ill-advised.

© 2021 The New York Times Company

FOR PROFIT HEALTHCARE USA
Cap on drug price hikes for privately insured sparks battle

By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR

FILE - Pharmaceuticals are seen in North Andover, Mass., June 15, 2018. Workers and families with private health insurance would reap savings on prescription drugs from a little-noticed provision in President Joe Biden's sweeping social agenda bill. Drug companies would have to pay rebates to Medicare if they increase prices above the rate of inflation. Business groups are paying close attention, and the issue has divided them in a fierce lobbying battle. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola, File)


WASHINGTON (AP) — Workers and families with private health insurance would reap savings on prescription drugs from a little-noticed provision in President Joe Biden’s sweeping social agenda bill. It’s meant to break the cycle of annual price increases for widely used medicines.

That provision would require drug companies to pay rebates to Medicare if they increase prices above the rate of inflation. Drugs sold to private plans would count in calculating the penalty, like a tax on price increases. The issue is dividing business groups in a fierce lobbying battle.

Corporate groups focused on affordable employee benefits want to keep the language as is so it would provide price-increase protection for companies and their workers and not just Medicare enrollees. Other groups such as the influential U.S. Chamber of Commerce are backing the pharmaceutical industry’s drive to block restraints on pricing, including inflation caps, saying they would stifle innovation.

House Democrats passed the roughly $2 trillion social agenda legislation on Friday and sent it to the Senate. The bill resets national priorities on issues from climate to family life and faces more scrutiny in that evenly divided chamber. Prescription drugs are but one component, and most of the attention has focused on Medicare provisions to slash out-of-pocket costs for seniors and allow the program to negotiate prices for a limited number of medicines.

But the inflation caps would have far-reaching impact for as many as 180 million Americans with private insurance.

“A lot of people don’t realize that the bill applies to, and will help, privately insured people,” said Shawn Gremminger, health policy director at the Purchaser Business Group on Health. “But that isn’t a sure thing. As currently structured, that would be the case. But we have been worried and continue to be worried that will change.” His coalition represents nearly 40 large employers that cover more than 15 million workers, retirees and their families.

Inflation caps would be a “game changer,” said James Gelfand, a vice president of ERIC, a group that represents major national companies as providers of employee benefits.

Earlier legislation would have based the “inflation rebates” on sales to Medicare plans, but the House-passed bill broadens the formula to include private plans.

“If they raise prices in private markets faster than the economy grows, they will be required to pay that money back to the government,” Gelfand said. The goal is to deter drug companies from extravagant price increases.

Polls show that Americans across the political spectrum overwhelmingly favor government action to reduce drug prices. The chief cost complaints are: high out-of-pocket costs for patients, high and rising list prices, and high launch prices for new medicines. The Biden package would tackle the first two issues, but Democrats were unable to agree on authorizing Medicare to negotiate prices of new drugs.

Annual price increases for established prescription drugs usually outpace inflation, although there have been periods of moderation in recent years.

Gremminger said his group estimates that the privately insured market could save $250 billion over 10 years under the inflation caps currently in the bill. Without them, Gelfand estimates that employers could face an additional 3.7% annual increase in health care costs over the usual medical inflation because drug companies could in effect raise prices on privately insured patients to make up for rebates paid on behalf of Medicare enrollees.

“It’s true that not all the business groups are in the same place,” Gelfand said of divisions in the business community. “If you look at groups on either side of the issue, there are groups that protect the business interests of pharma, and then there’s everybody else.”

The main drug industry lobbying group, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, says inflation rebates would undermine innovation that continues after medicines are approved.

The generic drug industry wants their products exempted. Dan Leonard, president of the generic lobbying group Association for Accessible Medicines, said he fears his members will be penalized for price increases that amount to pennies on the dollar. “When generics are not exempted ... they’ll get caught up in the jet wash,” he said.

In the Senate, Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who has taken a lead role on prescription drugs, supports keeping the inflation caps for privately insured people.

Opponents could pursue a parliamentary challenge under Senate rules, arguing that penalizing price increases by one private company on another has no bearing on federal budgetary issues. If the challenge succeeds, costs to private insurance plans would be stripped from the inflation rebates. Supporters of the caps say they do have a budgetary purpose because they would raise revenue and generate savings for Medicare.

Katie Mahoney, the top health policy expert for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said her organization has “very real concerns” that the drug pricing provisions would undermine incentives for industry to develop new medicines, and is pressing that point in the Senate.

“We continue to hammer on the damage that such policies would do,” she said. “We feel that message is making headway with senators and with some members of Congress.”

Asked about other business groups that are supporting inflation caps, Mahoney said they don’t reflect private enterprise generally.

“When you look at those other organizations, first of all they’re significantly smaller and their policy focus is very narrow,” she said. “They don’t represent business across the board, they represent a very discreet and narrow slice of issues.”

GENTRIFICATION OF ABATTOIR

Dinner on the patio? First, hold the stench

By SCOTT McFETRIDGE

Des Moines Downtown Neighborhood Association president Brandon Brown stands on the roof of his condo building, Friday, Nov. 12, 2021, in Des Moines, Iowa. After decades of downplaying or simply ignoring the problem, Des Moines officials here recently began a comprehensive study that will lead to tighter regulations on some smelly manufacturing plants near downtown. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)


DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Parts of downtown Des Moines have been so transformed in the past decade by new apartments, trendy shops and microbreweries, it’s sometimes hard to reconcile the present with the not-so-distant past.

But one strong reminder of the city’s heritage remains: the stench. A pungent smell of rancid meat regularly wafts through all the shiny new development, a reminder of the region’s less polished history as a pork processing center.

“You can’t escape it,” said Brandon Brown, president of the Des Moines Downtown Neighborhood Association, calling it “very frustrating.”

Many cities eager for new investment and vitality have welcomed urban housing and entertainment venues into older sections of town that housed grittier industries, only to be stumped by what happens when someone like Brown, who moved into an upscale downtown apartment, actually wants to enjoy a latte or meal at an outdoor patio.

After decades of downplaying or simply ignoring the problem, Des Moines officials recently began a comprehensive study that will lead to tighter regulations on some smelly manufacturing plants to finally clear the air.

Similar difficulties are cropping up in other cities with smelly businesses, especially rendering plants that are common in agricultural regions and even some big cities. Angry residents are deluging officials with complaints and filing lawsuits, while some leading companies are installing new equipment, making payments to neighbors or even closing down.

No one tracks such disputes, but Iowa State University professor Jacek Koziel, who studies air quality and livestock odors, said he thinks the conflicts may be increasing. Sometimes, as in Des Moines, it’s because more noses are nearer the bad smells, but in other spots, it’s that residents are simply pushing harder for changes.

“It’s very common in this juncture of animal agriculture in general and meat packing plants or feed processing plants,” Koziel said. “It’s very tough. For us engineers, we know there are technologies to minimize the impact but then come all the fiscal realities of doing that.”

In Des Moines, residents and workers have for decades complained about the smells from an industrial area little more than a mile from downtown, describing the scent as putrid or akin to animal waste. Brown takes a more charitable view, labeling the smell “yeasty.”

People typically blame two companies: pork processor Pine Ridge Farms and rendering plant Darling Ingredients. Although the city created an odor board and odor hotline, its efforts were ineffective and largely abandoned until recently, when people who moved into expensive apartments that had replaced warehouses and scrap yards complained of nauseating smells periodically settling over their neighborhoods.

City officials agree there’s a problem, but say they need more data before deciding what to do.

“You’ve got to know what is the truth that’s out there, and then make the plans work for each of the industries,” said SuAnn Donovan, deputy director of Des Moines’ Neighborhood Services Department. The new study will take air samples and figure out a baseline for air quality.

Iowa is an agricultural powerhouse and Donovan is quick to note that the city wants to work with Pine Ridge, Darling and other companies.

Darling didn’t respond to an inquiry about its Des Moines operations.

Pine Ridge Farms is owned by meat industry giant Smithfield, which said in a statement that its pork plant, which employs about 1,000 people, opened in 1937 and slaughters about 4,000 hogs daily. As more people moved nearby, the company said, it had invested millions of dollars on new technology, such as air treatment equipment, to reduce odors.

“We also follow a rigorous daily cleaning schedule during and after each production run,” the statement said. “At the end of each week, we perform a top-to-bottom deep cleaning to keep odor to a minimum.”

Even with efforts to reduce smells, rendering is an especially pungent business. The plants use heat, centrifuges and other techniques to convert waste animal tissue into fats and proteins for many uses, including as animal feed, fertilizer and cosmetics. There are more than 200 plants in the U.S. and Canada, according to recent estimates.

In Fresno, California, a citizens group filed a lawsuit against a Darling rendering plant that produced a stench so strong that residents complained of health problems. Last year, the company agreed to close the plant. Another rendering plant near the Sacramento suburb of Rancho Cordova that had operated for more than 50 years also opted to close after concluding it couldn’t coexist with new nearby housing.

Rendering plants in an industrial area of Los Angeles have been ordered to abide by strict new rules. And in Denver, where new urban development has been especially extensive, there have been sharp clashes between new residents and old industries.

“People moving in are savvy and they’re not afraid to complain,” said Greg Thomas, the city’s director of environmental quality.

Residents in South St. Paul, Minnesota, filed a class action lawsuit over fumes from a rendering plant, and neighbors received up to $1,000 payments as part of a $750,000 settlement.

Still, though, smells of rancid meat remain.

“The lawsuit didn’t seem to make a difference,” said Chris Robinson, who lives less than a mile from the plant. “Just last night, my husband couldn’t sit out on the deck. It’s still really bad.”

Brown, of Des Moines, said with new outdoor projects underway, from a soccer stadium to a whitewater rafting course, the city has little option but to clear the air.

“You don’t want the smell to contaminate the experience,” Brown said.

___

Follow Scott McFetridge on Twitter: https://twitter.com/smcfetridge

Rare Einstein manuscript set to fetch millions


Einstein was a genius scientist. He later earned pop culture icon status (AFP/TIMOTHY A. CLARY)

Sun, November 21, 2021

A rare manuscript by theoretical physicist Albert Einstein goes under the hammer in Paris on Tuesday, with auctioneers aiming for a stratospheric price tag.

The manuscript, containing preparatory work for Einstein's key achievement the theory of relativity, is estimated at between two and three million euros (2.3-3.4 million), according to Christie's which is hosting the sale on behalf of the Aguttes auction house.

"This is without a doubt the most valuable Einstein manuscript ever to come to auction," Christie's said in a statement.

The 54-page document was handwritten in 1913 and 1914 in Zurich, Switzerland, by Einstein and his colleague and confidant, Swiss engineer Michele Besso.

Christie's said it was thanks to Besso that the manuscript was preserved for posterity.

This was "almost like a miracle" since the German-born genius himself would have been unlikely to hold on to what he considered to be a simple working document, Christie's said.

Today, the paper offers "a fascinating plunge into the the mind of the 20th century's greatest scientist", it said.

Einstein, who died in 1955 aged 76 and is considered to be one of the greatest physicists ever, revolutionised his field with the theory of relativity and made major contributions to quantum mechanics theory.

He won he Nobel physics prize in 1921 and was later adopted by pop culture as a genius scientist icon, helped by his trademark unruly hair, moustache and bushy eyebrows.

hh-pr/jh/har

Evicted villagers pay the price for MotoGP's Indonesia return

Haeril Halim with Lucie Godeau in Jakarta
Sun, November 21, 2021, 5:37 AM·5 min read

The holiday island of Lombok welcomed thousands of fans Sunday for Indonesia's first superbike race on a new circuit that is part of a mega tourism infrastructure project denounced by the UN over the eviction of local families.

With a population of more than 270 million people, many of whom get around on two wheels, Indonesia has one of the world's biggest communities of bike-race fans.

But the archipelago had not hosted a major race since 1997.

Several villages have been relocated voluntarily or by force for construction of the new Mandalika circuit. But around 40 families -- along with their cattle and dogs -- are still holding out in the centre of the track despite intimidation to cede their land.

Environmentalists also question the wisdom of hosting large-scale events on an island under threat from natural disasters.

The superbike spectacle on the 4.3-kilometre (2.7-mile) circuit Sunday was a prelude to a MotoGP race -- the top tier of the motorcycle Grand Prix -- to be held on the island in March 2022.

"I am here to watch World Superbike. It is very cool and I almost could not believe (Indonesia has this circuit) ... The event will help the economy here," said Rini Yuniarti, a fan from Bali.

The government hopes to create thousands of jobs and attract up to two million foreign tourists a year with the circuit complex, which covers more than a thousand hectares bordered by white-sand beaches.

But the gleaming new project has been the subject of bitter conflict between authorities and local residents.

Near one village in the area the houses have been abandoned and a metal sign reads: "This land belongs to the state."

But Abdul Latif, 36, and his four children have so far stayed behind because they have not received any compensation for leaving.

"Life is difficult here now... Access is very restricted," he said. "We play cat-and-mouse with security personnel guarding the area."

Another villager, 54-year-old Abdul Kadir, said young people struggled to get to school because they were blocked by security.

"We have to go through a tunnel to go to school," said her 10-year-old daughter. "I would like to go to school easily like before."

Making matters worse, local wells have run dry for six months since tunnels were built under the circuit, leaving residents without water.

- 'They dragged me away' -

Many villagers have lost their livelihoods, with farmers confiscated of their land and fishermen relocated from the coast.

Security forces have been deployed to remove some families while others have been coerced into accepting meagre compensation packages, said human rights lawyer Widodo Dwi Putro, who is defending the villagers.

Sibawai, a 53-year-old farmer, has lost most of his land.

He said the authorities tried to evict him several times before police came for him in January 2021.

"They deployed around 700 personnel just for my land. I tried to prevent the bulldozers from entering but they dragged me away," he said.

United Nations experts in March called on the Indonesian government and the companies involved in the project "to respect human rights".

Special rapporteur on human rights and extreme poverty Olivier De Schutter said the project had seen "complaints about land grabbing, evictions of indigenous communities in the Sasak ethnic group and intimidation and threats against defenders of local populations".

Several international companies previously associated with the $3 billion-dollar project denied still being a part of it, including construction giant Vinci and holiday operator Club Med.

The Accor group operates a Novotel on the site and is building a Pullman hotel.

The company told AFP it did not own the land or the hotel but would manage it on behalf of the Indonesian public company Indonesia Development Tourism Corporation.

The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which is due to contribute $250 million to the project, said it had carried out a study and did not identify any human rights violations.

- 'Just the start' -

Lombok is one of 10 new locations that Indonesian authorities want to develop into tourism destinations in the same vein as Bali.

The impoverished island has struggled to rebuild since a major earthquake struck in 2018, killing more than 500 people.

For most locals, tickets to the motorbike races are too expensive and many have to settle for watching from a hill overlooking the circuit.

But authorities are hopeful the venture will suck in investment.

Superbike and Moto GP events represent "one of the best ways to attract visitors and for significant investments to be made in our region", said Zulkieflimansyah, governor of West Nusa Tenggara province, of which Lombok is a part.

"This international road circuit will be just the start."

Asked about the accusations of human rights violations, Zulkieflimansyah -- who like many Indonesians goes by one name -- said he was "very optimistic" that the disputes would be settled to the satisfaction of investors and the local community.

Maharani, an environmental activist with NGO the Lombok Research Centre, said the risks from earthquakes and tsunamis were a worry.

"A landslide could directly come down to hit and cover the circuit area. In the case of a tsunami the circuit could become a water pit," he said.

Abdul Latif, stuck in the centre of the circuit clinging to his home, had no desire to watch the race.

"I feel abandoned and isolated," he said. "Like a bird in a cage."

hrl-lgo/axn/leg

Evicted villagers pay the price for MotoGP's Indonesia returnA sign on an abandoned hut reads: "This land belongs to the state" (AFP/BAY ISMOYO)More

12-year-old girl's marriage causes stir in Iraq

Issued on: 21/11/2021

Activists demonstrate outside a court in Iraq's capital Baghdad in protest against the legalisation of a marriage contract for a 12-year-old girl AHMAD AL-RUBAYE AFP

Baghdad (AFP) – An Iraqi court adjourned a hearing Sunday to allow a man to formalise his religious marriage to a 12-year-old girl, according to a lawyer for the girl's mother, who opposes the union.

Rights activists protested outside the Baghdad court with banners such as "the marriage of minors is a crime against childhood", while lawyer Marwan Obeidi told AFP the case had been postponed until November 28.

The legal age for marriage in Iraq is 18 but can be lowered to 15 in cases of parental or judicial consent, according to charity Save the Children.

"Religious marriages are not permitted outside civil or religious courts but these types of marriages still happen regularly and can be formalised on the payment of a small fine," it said in a recent report.

The mother, who refuses to be identified, said her daughter Israa had been "raped" and that the girl's father kidnapped her.

But a department of the interior ministry dealing with violence against women said in a statement that it had met with Israa, her father and husband, seen the religious contract, and said she had assured them she had not been coerced.

Child marriage is not uncommon in conservative and rural areas of Iraq, as well as in other Arab countries.

© 2021 AFP

8 years old and sold for marriage: Desperate Afghan families sell their daughters for cash

Richard Engel and Gabe Joselow and Ahmed Mengli and Yuliya Talmazan
Sun, November 21, 2021, 3:36 PM·5 min read

SHAIDAI, Afghanistan — Bashful, with long locks of rust-colored hair dyed with henna, Benazir fidgets with a handful of gravel when the topic of her marriage comes up.

She looks down at the ground and buries her head in her knees when she is asked whether she knows she has been promised to another family to marry one of their sons.

Her father says he will receive the equivalent of $2,000 for Benazir, but he hasn’t explained the details to her or what’s expected of her. She’s too young to understand, he says.

Benazir is 8 years old.

It is traditional for families here to pay dowries to brides’ families for marriages, but it is extreme to arrange a marriage for a child so young. And the economic collapse after the Taliban’s takeover in August has forced already poor families to make desperate choices.

Benazir, 8, second right, walks with a group in Herat, Afghanistan. (NBC News)

The days are filled with hardships for children here in Shaidai, a desert community on the mountainous edge of Herat in western Afghanistan.

Children like Benazir and her siblings beg on the streets or collect garbage to heat their simple mud homes because they don’t have enough money for wood.

Her father, Murad Khan, a day laborer who hasn’t found work in months and has eight children to feed, looks much older than his 55 years — his face is worn with worry. His decision to sell Benazir to marriage at such a young age comes down to a cold calculation.

“We are 10 people in the family. I’m trying to keep 10 alive by sacrificing one,” he said in Pashto.

Khan said the arrangement is for Benazir to be married to a boy from a family in Iran when she reaches puberty. He hasn’t received the money yet for her dowry, and he said that as soon as he does, Benazir will be taken away by the man who bought her.

“He will just take her hand and take her away from me,” he said. “He will take her away and say, ‘She’s ours now.’”

A combination of a severe drought that decreased livestock and farmers’ yields and the freezing of foreign aid by governments that don’t recognize the new Taliban government has pushed poor Afghans over the edge.

Promising their daughters early for marriage in exchange for cash is seen as a lifeline for families that barely have a scrap of bread to eat.

Benazir, right, lights a fire with discarded paper to cook bread with a group of children in Herat. (NBC News)

The U.N. Population Fund has warned that it is “deeply concerned” by reports that child marriage is on the rise in Afghanistan.

Henrietta Fore, the executive director of UNICEF, said in a statement: “We have received credible reports of families offering daughters as young as 20 days old up for future marriage in return for a dowry.”
‘A piece of your heart’

Benazir’s best friend, Saliha, who is just 7, has been sold for marriage for the same price, $2,000, to someone in the family of her father-in-law in Faryab province in the north.

Benazir and Saliha already have responsibilities in the community. They go to a local mosque together to collect water, a scarcity in the desert, and haul the hefty jugs together back to their homes.

Like her older neighbors, Saliha also spins yarn — pulling at a matted cloud of wool brought by traders and twisting it into neat spools of string. It takes four days to refine 8 pounds of the material, which earns her a dollar.

But the family is in debt. Saliha’s father, Muhammed Khan, says he took out loans from store owners in town.

Farzana is 8 months old but weighs just 6½ pounds. (NBC News)

“I’ve been telling the shopkeepers I’ve sold my daughter and I will be paying them back, so they have given me some food as a loan,” he said.

The money he makes from selling Saliha will help pay it all back and feed her four siblings.

It was a soul-wrenching decision, he says.

“Your children are a piece of your heart. If I wasn’t forced to do this, why would I do it?” he says.

Afghanistan was a poor country before the Taliban took over, propped up by foreign aid. According to the World Bank, about 75 percent of public finances were supplied by grants from the U.S. and other countries.

When the U.S. military withdrew and the hard-line Islamist Taliban government took over, a lot of that aid money was frozen. Salaries dried up and the flow of cash came to an abrupt halt, creating a humanitarian crisis.

And things look likely to get worse as the crisis spirals, with more than half the population facing hunger and 3.2 million children suffering from malnutrition, according to the U.N. World Food Program.

The agency said it has never seen so many people facing emergency levels of food insecurity in Afghanistan, where all 34 provinces are affected.

In the relatively wealthy province of Herat in western Afghanistan, an emergency feeding center is running out of beds.

The Doctors Without Borders-run facility at Herat Regional Hospital treats the most severely malnourished babies, like tiny Farzana, who at 8 months old weighs just 6 ½ pounds. She is one of 75 babies being cared for here.

Her father is a butcher. His business has collapsed so badly that he couldn’t keep feeding his family.

Farzana lies without making a sound, a tiny, pale, bone-thin arm sticking out, and her wide eyes don’t blink.

“What we are seeing is very small kids, which are not well breastfed by the mothers because the mothers are all so malnourished they can’t produce enough breast milk to feed them,” said Gaia Giletta, Doctors Without Borders’ head nurse for pediatrics at the feeding center.

Because of disruptions to health care and aid agencies across the region, Giletta said, many kids get no primary care. For many who arrive, it is already too late — a child dies nearly every day here.

Another baby at the center, Ali, is small and pale, barely mustering up energy to cry. His mother, Smita Umar, was herself malnourished, so Ali was born too weak to suckle. At 4 months old, he has already spent three months at the center.

“My husband is a house painter,” Umar said. “But he sold his tools so we could feed the baby. Things have got worse since the Taliban came. What little we had went to zero.”

Richard Engel, Gabe Joselow and Ahmed Mengli reported from Herat. Yuliya Talmazan reported from London.

Almost 30,000 children killed, 181 tortured to death in Syria since 2011

November 21, 2021 

Syrians students attend a class in Idlib on 28 September 2021 

[Muhamed Said/Anadolu Agency]

November 21, 2021 

At least 29,661 children have been killed in Syria since the beginning of the Syrian revolution and conflict in 2011, with 181 tortured to death and 5,036 still detained and forcibly disappeared, the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) has revealed.

In its tenth annual report on violations against children in Syria, released today on International Children's Day, it was revealed that the vast majority of all killings, torture, and disappearances of children in the country have been committed by the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad over the past decade.

Out of the 29,661 children killed, the report stated that "22,930 [were] at the hands of the Syrian regime forces, 2,032 by Russian forces, 958 by ISIS, and 71 others by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham." That makes Damascus responsible for 78 per cent of extrajudicial killings of children in Syria, with 2013 reportedly being the worst year.

Syria: most refugee children would not return, report reveals

Out of the 181 children tortured to death in the country, 174 of those deaths were in the extensive network of detention centres run by the Syrian regime. That number makes up part of the overall amount of at least 14,400 tortured to death throughout the conflict.

As for those 5,036 children still in detained or disappeared, 3,649 are at the hands of the regime, 667 are at the hands of the Kurdish militia the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), 42 are at the hands of the militia Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), and other armed opposition groups are responsible for the remaining 359.

The report's account of the number of those children killed marks a much higher amount than was previously reported in March this year, when UNICEF asserted that around 12,000 were killed or injured so far throughout the course of the decade-long ongoing civil war.

Syria's conflict has made a 10-year-old his family's only breadwinner

Malaysia sees little impact from EU's deforestation curbs

Malaysia is the world's second-biggest palm oil producer.

PHOTO: REUTERS

KUALA LUMPUR (BLOOMBERG) - The European Union's new rulings to curb food and wood products that are linked to deforestation will have limited impact on Malaysian shipments of palm oil and timber into the bloc, according to a government official in the Asian country.

While the new ruling will most likely affect exports to the EU as there will be more requirements to fulfil, it only applies to new planted areas, according to Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Zuraida Kamaruddin.

Malaysia is focusing on "increasing productivity of the existing planted area rather than expansion," she said in response to a query from Bloomberg.

Malaysia is not worried about the new ruling as it has taken proactive measures to address issues on sustainable forest management, Datuk Zuraida said.

The South-east Asian country, which is the world's second-biggest palm oil producer, is committed to keeping at least 50 per cent of its forest cover.

The EU wants to regulate imports of soy, beef, palm oil, wood, cocoa and coffee, as well as some derived products such as chocolate, leather and furniture, in a bid to curb global deforestation.

Malaysia is home to the world's oldest rainforest.

The country will maintain good trade relations with the EU and will continue working with the bloc to ensure that Malaysian-produced agri-commodities meet sustainability requirements, "as long as these new rules imposed by the EU does not go against" UN Sustainable Development Goals or create trade barriers, Ms Zuraida said.

"Producing countries that have made efforts towards conservation and sustainability should not be unfairly penalised just to progress the protectionism efforts of the EU," she said.

Malaysia has previously retaliated against the EU's plan to curb palm-based biofuels, calling it discriminatory toward the tropical oil that's used in every from cooking oil to chocolate and detergent.

Its case at the WTO in relation to the treatment of palm oil as a biofuel feedstock in the EU's Renewable Energy Directive II (RED II) is expected to be heard in January 2022.

Demonstrators on Poland-Belarus border demand more help for migrants

By Philip Andrew Churm • Updated: 21/11/2021 - 10:30

Copyright Czarek Sokolowski/Associated Press

Dozens of people gathered in the eastern Polish town of Hajnówka to show solidarity for migrants stuck at the Belarusian border.

They want the Polish Government to let NGOs work freely and help the migrants.

Among them was Kaja Jasienko, a lawyer from Wroclaw.

"What we demand for the moment from the Polish government is - please open a corridor, let the humanitarian organisations, let the medical organisations into the forest, into the closed zone," she said.

Volunteer from Warsaw, Agnieszka Jusis, also joined with the protesters. "I want to help these people, these kids," she said.

"I think we should do something. Even if just protesting, but we should show to our government, our president, our prime minister that we are here, we don't agree with what they're doing."

Meanwhile, Polish Police released pictures of the area along the border with Belarus (close to Kuźnica ) , now entirely cleared of migrant encampments.

Belarus has moved around 2,000 migrants who were living in freezing conditions to a nearby warehouse.

Poland's defence minister, Mariusz Błaszczak, accuses Belarus of "changing tactics" and "directing smaller groups of people to multiple points along the European Union’s eastern frontier."