DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM
Gabriel Boric’s triumph puts wind in the sails of Latin America’s resurgent left

Laurence Blair in Santiago

THE GUARDIAN
Mon, December 20, 2021,

Photograph: Claudio Reyes/AFP/Getty Images

At the age of 14, Gabriel Boric – the great-grandson of a Croatian migrant and an avid reader of Marx and Hegel – formed a city-wide student union in the Chilean city of Punta Arenas.

At 21, and by then a law student, he led a campus sit-in for 44 days in Santiago, Chile’s capital, to oust a senior professor accused of plagiarism and corruption. Two years later, in 2011, he was elected figurehead of a massive student rebellion against profiteering private universities, and in 2013 became a congressman for his remote home region.

After protests over meagre pensions, living costs and police brutality brought millions more on to the streets from October 2019, Gabriel Boric helped channel public rage into a peaceful outlet: the redrafting of Chile’s dictatorship-era constitution.

And on Sunday, Boric, 35, trounced José Antonio Kast – a Catholic law-and-order candidate nostalgic for the bloody dictatorship of Gen Augusto Pinochet – by a 12 percentage-point margin to become the youngest president in Chilean history.

Turnout on Sunday was the highest – at nearly 56 percent – since voting became voluntary in 2012. When he takes office on 11 March, Boric will be Chile’s most leftwing leader since Salvador Allende was overthrown in 1973 – and the first from outside the centrist blocs that have swapped the presidential sash since the return of democracy in 1989.

The triumph of the avowed feminist and environmentalist has also been hailed as historic by his progressive counterparts across Latin America, who after nearly a decade in the doldrums have won a string of electoral victories in the past year – and are set to notch up even more in 2022.

Brazil’s former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva – who pollsters predict will deal a thumping defeat to another far-right dictatorship-apologist, Jair Bolsonaro, in late 2022 – shared a grinning picture of himself wearing a Boric-branded baseball cap, and said he felt “happy for another victory of a democratic and progressive candidate in our Latin America”.

As Chile went to the polls, Gustavo Petro, a Colombian former guerrilla who is currently leading in polls ahead of presidential elections in May, favourably compared Boric as a “social democrat” against Kast, the son of a card-carrying Nazi.

The Peronist president of neighbouring Argentina, Alberto Fernández, invited Boric to “work together to end inequality in Latin America”. Luis Arce of Bolivia’s Movement towards Socialism (MAS), which returned to power a year ago with an even greater electoral margin after dislodging a rightwing caretaker government, also praised Boric’s win fulsomely, calling it “the triumph of the Chilean people”.

In Peru, the leftist teacher turned president Pedro Castillo – who narrowly avoided impeachment earlier this December after a chaotic four months in office – tweeted: “Your victory is shared by all Latin American peoples who want to live with liberty, peace, justice and dignity.” Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s authoritarian leftist ruler, praised Chileans “for their resounding victory against fascism”.

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Mexico’s old-school leftwing president, spoke of his “joy” at Boric’s victory, adding that “the people of Chile had “given an example to Latin America and the world”.

But some responses to Boric’s win – or the absence thereof – hinted at dividing lines of a generational and philosophical nature within Latin America’s left.

The Cuban leader Miguel Díaz Canel expressed his wish to improve ties with the Chilean public and the incoming government – perhaps a nod to Boric’s remarks in July that his “solidarity” was with Cuban protesters and not the country’s Communist government.

Daniel Ortega, Nicaragua’s Sandinista strongman, made no comment – perhaps reflecting Boric’s recent comments – soon after Ortega was elected to a fourth consecutive term after first jailing most of the opposition – that the Central American country “needs democracy, not fraudulent elections nor persecution of opponents”.

Xiomara Castro, the progressive incoming president of Honduras has also made no comment so far.

This reluctance to immediately jump on the Boric bandwagon perhaps reflects not only geographical distance but the gulf between what Javier Rebolledo, a journalist and writer, described as the traditional “Marxist” left and the softer, more Scandinavian cut of Boric’s politics.

But few Chileans see themselves as locked in a continental battle between left and right, cautioned Rebolledo. Most are fed up with a threadbare welfare system and a society systematically stacked in favour of the rich, concerns to which Boric has spoken eloquently for a decade.

“Boric is part of the path that Chile has been walking for a long time,” he argued.

Fears of Venezuelan-style socialism and economic ruin pushed some voters into Kast’s arms. But conversely, the sobering example of racial hatred and mob violence stirred up by Donald Trump, and the deadly incompetence of Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro – on whose watch nearly 620,000 Brazilians have died from Covid-19 – may have helped inoculate Chileans against far-right populism.

“Chile today demonstrated that we can choose for ourselves,” said Daniela Pardo, a midfielder for a Santiago football club. She had donned a crown of paper flowers to join the jubilant Boric supporters in the emblematic plaza called Dignity Square by anti-inequality protesters. “In the United States and Brazil, far-right governments terrified the public. It was good to learn that lesson.”

No, Joe Manchin, Americans aren’t using the child tax credit to buy drugs

The Advanced Child Tax Credit program isn't fueling drug benders, Joe.

REUTERS/ELIZABETH FRANTZ/FILE PHOTO

By Camille Squires
Cities reporter

QUARTZ
Published December 20, 2021

US president Joe Biden’s proposed $1.75 trillion climate and social spending bill, known as Build Back Better, is effectively dead after West Virginia senator Joe Manchin said he would not vote for it in its current form. The bill, which allocates billions of federal dollars to expand access to things like affordable housing, medicare, and childcare, together with the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, was the centerpiece of Biden’s policy agenda.

Manchin said publicly that he “cannot” support the legislation because of its size; he worried it would worsen inflation and add substantially to the US national debt. But in private conversations with other senators, however, he appeared to take issue with how people might use some of its benefits. As HuffPost reports, Manchin allegedly shared concerns with his fellow Democratic senators that people would abuse an expanded paid sick leave policy included in the bill to go on hunting trips and that parents would use monthly child tax credit payments to buy drugs.

But on at least one of those counts, Manchin’s alleged fears are unfounded. Monthly child tax credit payments have already been reaching 35 million American families since July when, as part of emergency pandemic legislation, the Internal Revenue Service temporarily expanded the amount of child tax credits and began sending out half the money—up to $3,600 for children up to age six, and $3,000 for ages six to 16—as cash payments to all but the wealthiest families. (The remaining half stayed a lump sum for families to claim on annual taxes).
How Americans spend child tax credit payments

The monthly payments of $250 or $300 per child (depending on their age) were intended to help alleviate child poverty by giving families a consistent source of income to spend on food and other household expenses, or address other financial needs. As it turns out, they have done just that. Between July and October, the US Census Bureau collected weekly survey data on how people used child tax credit payments and found that families tended to spend, save, or use the money to pay off debt almost equally.

When people spent the money, they most often put it towards housing, food, and school expenses like tuition and books, according to the survey. On the whole, this extra income has made a difference for families; even in the first few months of the program, it reduced the number of families experiencing hunger.

Of course, “drugs” was not among the categories of expenses families were asked about in the survey, but study after study on cash transfer programs shows that this fear about people misusing benefits on vices does not bear out. A 2014 World Bank metastudy of cash transfer programs from around the world found no evidence that beneficiaries spend significant portions of the money on alcohol or tobacco. A March 2021 study (pdf) of a pilot cash transfer program in Stockton, California, found that recipients used less than 1% of the funds on alcohol or tobacco.

The end of a lifeline for families

The existing child tax credit payments are temporary, and the last payments of the year went out on Dec. 15. Already, families are worried about what they will do without the extra income. The Build Back Better act would extend the payments for another year, bringing the US into the ranks of more than 100 other countries with a cash benefit program for children and families.

Democrats expect to go back to the negotiating table next year to renegotiate a smaller version of the deal. If the child tax credit expansion is left out, millions of families could once again find themselves struggling to make ends meet.

Goldman Sachs says Joe Manchin's rejection of Biden's $2 trillion spending plan is bad for the US economy

hrobertson@businessinsider.com (Harry Robertson) 

Senator Joe Manchin all but killed Biden's spending bill Sunday. 

Samuel Corum/Getty Images

Sen. Joe Manchin's move to torpedo the Build Back Better plan will likely weigh on US growth, Goldman Sachs said.

The Wall Street Bank on Monday cut its US economic forecasts for the first, second and third quarters of 2022.

Manchin told Fox News Sunday that he couldn't go along with the $2 trillion social and climate legislation.

Sen. Joe Manchin's rejection of the Biden administration's $2 trillion "Build Back Better" spending plan will likely tank the legislation and lead to slower economic growth, Goldman Sachs has said.

The Wall Street bank cut its forecasts for US gross domestic product late Sunday after the West Virginia Democrat told Fox News: "I cannot vote to continue with this piece of legislation."

Goldman's analysts, led by chief economist Jan Hatzius, think the Build Back Better bill is now unlikely to pass. A much smaller set of measures is the most likely outcome, they said.

Hatzius and team now expect the US economy to grow:
2% in the first quarter, compared with a previous estimate for 3%.
3% in the second quarter, down from 3.5% earlier.
2.75% in the third quarter, versus 3% before.

The roughly $2 trillion Build Back Better plan aims to expand the social safety net in the US, with a focus on children and childcare, and to tackle climate change.

To pass in the 100-member Senate, all 50 Democrats there, including Manchin, must vote for it. But the West Virginia senator blindsided the White House when he said Sunday he could not vote for the bill, all but dooming the legislation.

"My Democratic colleagues in Washington are determined to dramatically reshape our society in a way that leaves our country even more vulnerable to the threats we face," he told Fox, voicing concerns about inflation and government debt.

The winding-down of pandemic-era support programmes was already set to weigh on the US economy in 2022, Goldman's analysts noted.

But they said "this fiscal impulse will [now] become somewhat more negative than we had expected," with the expiry of child tax credits acting as a particular drag.

Hatzius and colleagues said the current high rate of inflation in the US will make it more difficult for President Joe Biden and his administration to revive the spending plan. Goldman expects inflation to top 7% in early 2022, after it rose to a 39-year high of 6.8% year-on-year in November.

"The Omicron variant is also likely to shift political attention back to virus-related issues and away from long-term reforms," the bank said.

However, Goldman's analysts said there could be some benefits for financial markets, given that the bill also imposed higher taxes to pay for much of the spending.

Goldman said the odds of higher corporate taxes — which the bank had estimated would reduce S&P 500 profits by 3% — have now fallen. It also said pharma companies may no longer come under pressure to reduce prices.

The United Mine Workers of America is urging Sen. Manchin to rethink his opposition to Build Back Better

Cheryl Teh

Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia. 

Drew Angerer/Getty Images

The United Mine Workers of America asked Sen. Joe Manchin to rethink his stand on Build Back Better.

The UMWA asked Manchin to consider how the bill could help coal miners.

 
Manchin has had long-standing ties to both the union and the coal industry.

A coal miners' union with strong ties to Sen. Joe Manchin released a statement on Monday asking the senator to rethink his opposition to the beleaguered Build Back Better legislation.

The United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) asked Manchin to reconsider saying no to President Joe Biden's Build Back Better social and climate spending legislation, saying the bill had provisions for coal miners who suffer from black lung disease.

"The bill includes language that would extend the current fee paid by coal companies to fund benefits received by victims of coal workers' pneumoconiosis, or Black Lung. But now that fee will be cut in half, further shifting the burden of paying these benefits away from the coal companies and on to taxpayers," wrote UMWA leader Cecil E. Roberts in the statement.

Black lung disease happens after continued exposure to coal dust and is an occupational hazard for many coal miners. According to The New Republic, Build Back Better would help to extend an excise tax that funds the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund, a source of benefits for coal workers set to expire at the end of 2021.

Roberts added that the bill also includes provisions for tax incentives that might encourage manufacturers to build facilities in coalfields that could create thousands of jobs for coal miners.

"The bill includes language that will provide tax incentives to encourage manufacturers to build facilities in the coalfields that would employ thousands of coal miners who have lost their jobs," Roberts said in the statement. "We support that and are ready to help supply those plants with a trained, professional workforce. But now the potential for those jobs is significantly threatened."

"We urge Senator Manchin to revisit his opposition to this legislation and work with his colleagues to pass something that will help keep coal miners working, and have a meaningful impact on our members, their families, and their communities," Roberts added.

Build Back Betters had previously seen opposition from coal miners that complicated the bill's progress. Roberts previously penned an op-ed in November lauding Manchin for axing the Clean Electricity Performance Program from the bill. The CEPP advocated for the building of wind and solar generation plants over keeping fossil fuel plants running, an item in Build Back Better that Roberts strongly opposed.

The UMWA represents coal miners in Manchin's state of West Virginia, and has long-standing ties with the senator, having named him an honorary member in 2020. Manchin is also deeply invested in the coal industry and has millions of dollars in holdings in Enersystems, Inc., a coal brokerage firm he founded.

"If I can't go home and explain it to the people of West Virginia, I can't vote for it," Manchin said on Fox on Sunday, torpedoing a large part of the Biden administration's agenda by coming out against BBB. "I've tried everything humanly possible. I can't get there. This is a no."

However, there is a chance that Manchin might agree to vote on a scaled-down, $1.8 trillion counter-offer to Biden's plan, which includes provisions for universal pre-K and measures to combat the climate emergency. Politico also reported that Manchin and Biden had a phone conversation on Sunday night, which indicates there might be hope yet for Build Back Better.

So Many Ubisoft Employees Have Quit

That They're Calling It 'The Great Exodus'

Luke Plunkett
Mon, December 20, 2021

Assassin's Creed Valhalla

A report on Axios says that over the past 18 months so many Ubisoft employees have left the company that those remaining have begun to call it “the great exodus” and “the cut artery.”

The story says that over that time period—which coincides with both a global pandemic and a trend that’s become known as The Great Resignation—so many developers and staffers have quit that ”the departures have stalled or slowed projects”.

A look at LinkedIn departure statistics, which aren’t a perfect metric but are certainly useful, show that Ubisoft’s annual attrition rate is at 12% among its 20,000-strong workforce, which is significantly higher than competitors like EA (9%) and Epic (7%). That said, one company’s rate was even higher: Activision Blizzard, at 16%. I wonder why that could be.

There are multiple reasons for the departures. A significant one is simply the realities of the workforce situation in Montreal, where the company has a large presence and where “attrition at Ubisoft’s main studio doubled for a time”. Fierce competition from rivals and start-ups mean Ubisoft’s workers can make more money elsewhere, though to combat this Ubisoft recently announced payrises for its Canadian employees, which in turn “frustrated developers in other studios who wonder when they’re getting raises too.”

The company’s horrific track record with abuse allegations and other PR disasters—like its dabbling with NFTs—have also played a part, with one former employee telling Axios “The company’s reputation was too much to bear. It’s legitimately embarrassing.”

For a more practical example of how this is affecting the company’s series and games, “at least five of the top 25-credited people” from Far Cry 6—which was only released in October!—have already left Ubisoft, and 12 from 50 of those from 2020's Assassin’s Creed Valhalla have departed as well.

Oh, and to close this out: “One developer recently said a colleague currently at Ubisoft contacted them to solve an issue with a game, because no one was still there who knew the system”.

You can read the full report here.

Study: Water supplies threatened as Himalayan glaciers quickly melt


Himalayan glaciers are melting at an exceptional rate, threatening water sources for millions of people in Asia, according to a study published Monday. 

Photo by Duncan Quincey/University of Leeds

Dec. 20 (UPI) -- The melting of glaciers in the Himalayas has increased 10-fold over the past few decades, threatening water sources for millions of people in Asia, according to a study published Monday.

The study led by the University of Leeds in Britain found that Himalayan glaciers are shrinking at an "exceptional" pace, far exceeding the rate of loss of glaciers in other parts of the world.

"Our findings clearly show that ice is now being lost from Himalayan glaciers at a rate that is at least ten times higher than the average rate over past centuries," Dr. Jonathan Carrivick, the study's lead author, said. "This acceleration in the rate of loss has only emerged within the last few decades, and coincides with human-induced climate change."

The study compared today's glaciers to 14,798 Himalayan glaciers during the "Little Ice Age" period of expansion around 400-700 years ago. It found that the glaciers have lost about 40% of their area in the interim.

During that period, they've also lost about the equivalent of all the ice currently contained in the central European Alps, the Caucasus and Scandinavia combined.

Water released as a result of the melting has caused global sea levels to rise between 0.92 millimeters and 1.38 millimeters.

The Himalayan mountain range, commonly referred to as "the Third Pole," holds the world's third-largest concentration of glacier ice following Antarctica and the Arctic. Its meltwater serves as the headwaters for the Brahmaputra, Ganges and Indus river systems.

Study co-author Dr. Simon Cook said people in the region "are already seeing changes that are beyond anything witnessed for centuries" as the thinning of the glaciers produces concerns about the sustainability of the water supply.

"This research is just the latest confirmation that those changes are accelerating and that they will have a significant impact on entire nations and regions," Cook said.

Former general says Israel was involved in killing Iran commander Qassem Soleimani
By Simon Druker

Mourners hold posters of Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani during a funeral procession in Baghdad, Iraq, on January 4, 2020. 

File Photo by Ibrahim Jassam/UPI | License Photo

Dec. 20 (UPI) -- The Israeli government played a role in the assassination of Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani almost two years ago, according to the man who headed the country's military intelligence branch.

Retired Israeili Maj. Gen Tamir Hayman said in an interview with Malam magazine that the country, in fact, did play a role in Soleimani's January 2020 assassination
.
It's the first time a top Israeli official has confirmed the country's involvement in the killing. Soleimani was killed during a U.S. drone strike on Jan. 3, 2020, not far from Baghdad International Airport.

Iranians burn U.S. and Israeli flags as they mourn the death of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Commander Qassem Soleimani in Tehran, Iran, on January 3, 2020. 

File Photo by Maryam Rahmanian/UPI

Malam magazine is published by the Israeli Intelligence Heritage and Commemoration Center.

In his remarks, Hayman said that Israel supplied the United States with intelligence ahead of the drone strike.

At the time of his death, Soleimani was the longtime leader of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force, which is designated by the United States as foreign terrorist organization.

The U.S. government has accused the group of conducting attacks in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of American and allied military personnel.

White House touts Bears Ears National Monument as conservation accomplishment


President Joe Biden and Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland participate in a signing ceremony to restore and protect the Bears Ears, Grand Staircase-Escalante, and the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts monuments on October 8. The White House touted the protections as part of its conservation efforts on Monday. File Photo by Shawn Thew/UPI | License Photo

Dec. 20 (UPI) -- The White House highlighted restored protections for national parks, including the controversial Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante monuments in Utah as conservation accomplishments in an update on Monday of its America the Beautiful Initiative.

The initiative, announced in May, outlined work the federal government was doing collaboratively with local and state agencies to conserve and restore the lands, waters and wildlife.

President Joe Biden preserved 1.36 million acres in the Bear Ears monument and 1.87 million in Grand Staircase-Escalante in October through an executive order. Former President Donald Trump had reversed an order from former President Barack Obama that protected most of those monuments.

Biden's move earned praise from local Native American groups and conservationists but scorn from state officials, who said the land use should have been negotiated through legislation and included more of their concerns.

The White House said the administration also stopped oil and gas leasing in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge; commenced the process to reinstate protection of the Tongass National Forest under the Roadless Rule and proclaimed the Northern Bering Sea Climate Resilience Area.

It also touted the reinstatement process to protect Bristol Bay and its salmon fishery industry and kicked off public processes to consider further protection for the Boundary Waters in Minnesota and culturally significant Chaco Canyon in New Mexico.

The White House said the newly passed infrastructure law is also playing a part in conservation efforts.

"The new law provides the largest investment in the resilience of physical and natural systems in American history and will help communities be more prepared for drought and wildfire; address the legacy of pollution from orphan wells and abandoned mines; invest in clean drinking water; fund watershed rehabilitation and flood prevention projects; and improve coastal resilience efforts," the White House said.

Not all Pilgrims were white, historians say

PLYMOUTH, Mass. -- One of the leading citizens of historic Plymouth Colony may have been Abraham Pearce, a black man who historians say had voting rights, owned land and was a leading figure in the community.

Dispelling the notion that all Pilgrims were white, historians say they have enough evidence to suggest one of the first New England colonists was a 'blackamore.'

'We have decided -- and we are about as definite on this as we can be -- that hecame to Plymouth in 1623,' said Robert Marten, director of programs at Plimoth Plantation, a village recreating the early settlement.

'He was not there as a slave or that sort or thing,' Marten said, adding Pearce apparently owned land, voted and had equal standing in the community, spelled 'Plimoth' at the time.

Some historians have thought for years there was a black Pilgrim, but Marten said only recently have researchers compiled enough documentation to substantiate the claim.

'The presence of a black man in early Plimouth shatters the popular stereotype of the strictly European Pilgrim,' Marten said.

In June, plantation officials installed a black modern day Pilgrim to take part in the village's activities for tourists who visit the old colony, said Dr. Richard Ehrlich, director of education.

The decision to place a black Pilgrim in the village was made after the 'body of information' was re-evaluated, he said, noting historians in the past have disagreed over the issue.

By carefully examining the colony's records, researchers believe the black Pilgrim arrived at Plymouth -- about 40 miles south of Boston - three years after the first 100 settlers landed on the Mayflower at Plymouth Rock.

The only reference to Pearce's color is a colony record dated 1643, listing the names of men available to serve in the Plymouth militia. The list said: 'Abraham Pearce, blackamore.'

But records indicate Abraham Pearce -- or variations in the spelling - came to the colony on the windswept coast of Massachusetts as an indentured servant aboard the Anne, a ship that sailed from England.

Although researchers have no proof, they suspect Pearce was born in the West Indies and was brought to Jamestown, Va., as a slave in 1619. He apparently crossed the Atlantic before returning to the New World.

When Plymouth was incorporated in 1633, Pearce was listed as a freeholder and a voting member of the community. Between 1633 and 1637, Pearce received cattle under a community division system, bought land and then sold his house and garden, records show.

'He was also one of the leading figures in the community,' Marten said.

Marten said Pearce died in 1673 around the time racial attitudes began to change in New England with the advent of slavery, Marten said.

James W. Baker, head of research at Plimoth Plantation, said Pearce apparently was 'quite equal of everyone else.

'Plimoth was an equal kind of society, which isn't really what one thinks of the Puritans,' he said.

Ancestors of Abraham Pierce [1580] (bakerancestry.org)

Death toll from Super Typhoon Rai soars to 375 in Philippines

By Renee Duff & Robert Richards, Accuweather.com

Motorists maneuver next to a toppled electric post in the typhoon-hit city of Cebu, Philippines, on Sunday. Photo by Juanito Espinosa/EPA-EFE

Dec. 20 (UPI) -- Horrors continued to emerge over the weekend as the scope of the utter destruction left behind by Super Typhoon Rai in the Philippines came clearly into view.

The fierce storm, described as "one of the most powerful typhoons to ever hit the southern Philippines" by the chairman of the Philippine Red Cross, has left hundreds of people dead and has completely cut off some communities from the outside world

As of Monday, the death toll in the Philippines had risen to at least 375 people, with another 56 people missing and over 500 injured, according to The Washington Post.

Government officials were having difficultly assessing the full scope of the damage due to the extensive loss of telecommunications in the affected provinces, Al Jazeera reported. Flooded roadways and extensive debris are adding more challenges to rescuers attempting to reach the hardest-hit areas

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) called Rai "a terrible surprise for the festive season" as it severely flooded cities and towns, tore homes and businesses to shreds and littered the ground with downed power lines, snapped trees and other debris.

"The full picture is only just starting to emerge, but it is clear there is widespread devastation. It is heartbreaking to see homes, Red Cross offices and even a hospital ripped apart. We hold grave fears for people in areas, including Siargao and other islands that still have no communication and contact with the outside world," Alberto Bocanegra, IFRC Head of the Philippine Country Office, said in a statement.

The Philippine Coast Guard released aerial pictures on Friday of homes that were leveled and left unrecognizable by the fury of Rai

Siargao Island sustained significant damage as the typhoon first roared ashore Thursday afternoon, local time, with the equivalent strength of a Category 5 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale (maximum sustained winds of at least 156 mph) in the Atlantic or East Pacific basins.

In total, Rai made eight landfalls as it weaved through the various islands that make up the south-central Philippines, according to the country's National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council.

The islands of Mindanao and Nonoc also sustained significant devastation.

Authorities flag 455 social media accounts linked to illegal border crossings at Belarus

By UPI Staff

A handout photo made available by Belta news agency shows people receiving humanitarian aid at the Belarusian-Polish border. Photo by Leonid Scheglov/EPA-EFE

Dec. 20 (UPI) -- Europol agents targeted 455 social media accounts for encouraging illegal immigration from Belarus to Europe as a result of a large-scale referral action, the agency announced Monday.

The misuse of online platforms has contributed to a growing crisis of migrants fleeing from the Middle East and Asia through Belarus to enter Poland, Europol said.

The accounts advertised the sale of counterfeit ID documents and visas, along with illegal transportation services.

Europol's European Migrant Smuggling Center and the European Union Internet Referral Unit coordinated the referral action last week.

Law enforcement agencies in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Poland, and Germany were involved in collecting content.

"These accounts have been referred to the Online Service Providers with the request to review them against the terms of service," Europol said. "The misuse of these online platforms by facilitators led to a large increase of departures and irregular border crossings."

Earlier this month, Poland said it planned to build a wall along its border with Belarus to stop the flocks of migrants -- primarily from Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria -- from crossing into the country.

The United States and others enacted sanctions against Belarus over human rights abuses and inhumane exploitation of vulnerable people, targeting 20 individuals and 12 entities.

President Alexander Lukashenko faces accusations of perpetuating the crisis.

REFUGEES FROM NATO'S WARS

Freezing in the Alps, migrants find warm hearts and comfort

By JOHN LEICESTER

1 of 14

Migrants headed to France from Italy walk by a grafitti that reads "No Border" in a tunnel leading to the French-Italian border, Saturday, Dec. 11, 2021. As Europe erects ever more fearsome barriers against migration, volunteers along the Italy-France border are working to keep migrants from being killed or maimed by cold and mountain mishaps as they cross the high Alps. (AP Photo/Daniel Cole)


MONTGENEVRE, France (AP) — From the inky night, two women loomed. Police? The wary migrants, crossing the high-altitude Alpine border clandestinely from Italy to France, couldn’t be sure. They scattered and ran.

In fact, the women wanted to help the Moroccans evade border patrols, not detain them. They distributed hand-warmers to the shivering migrants, helped them hide in snowy woods until the coast was clear, and then steered them to waiting cars that whisked them from the frozen peaks to a warm shelter.

“They treated us like humans,” said Hamid Saous, among the rescued. “Not everyone does that.”

As Europe erects ever more fearsome barriers against migration, volunteers working along the Italy-France border to keep migrants from being killed or maimed by cold and mountain mishaps are driven by a simple creed: The exiles from conflict zones and oppression of all kinds who trek through the Alps and onward to European cities in search of brighter futures are people, first and foremost.

Armed with thermoses of hot tea and the belief that their own humanity would be diminished if they left pregnant women, children and men young and old to fend for themselves, the Alpine helpers are a counter-argument to populist politicians with large followings in Europe who say migrants, particularly Muslims and Africans, are threatening European livelihoods and liberal traditions.

In the Alps, on both sides of the border, the approach is essentially humanist and humanitarian, grounded in local traditions of not leaving people alone against the elements. Starting around 2016, when they first began encountering sneakered and thinly clothed migrants in trouble on Alpine passes, mountain workers refused to look the other way.

That assistance grew into networks of hundreds of volunteers who run migrant shelters, clothe those in need for the hazardous crossing and trek into the cold. They clear paths in the snow by day for migrants to follow and wait for them at night, to guide them past border police to safety and, if necessary, treatment for frostbite and other medical needs.

“Often, we say, ‘Welcome! How are you?’ We speak a bit of English because most people speak at least a bit,” said volunteer helper Paquerette Forest, a retired teacher.

Some refuse assistance, generally “men who are quite robust,” she said. “Exhausted people say, ‘Yes.’”

“We walk with them, discreetly. We try to avoid being spotted. We wait in the forest if needed. And we sort out vehicles to come and pick them up,” she said.

Migrants credit the volunteers for saving lives and limbs. The Alps aren’t as deadly for migrants as the Mediterranean Sea, where many hundreds have died or gone missing this year alone. And the mountains have so far been spared a tragedy on the scale of the boat sinking that killed 27 men, women and children, the majority Iraqi Kurds, in the English Channel in November.

“If not for them, we would have died of cold,” said Aymen Jarnane, 23, another Moroccan led to safety on a night when the thermometer dropped to minus-15 degrees Celsius (5 Fahrenheit).

But there have been deaths. Aid groups pleaded for French authorities to provide Alpine shelter to exiles and stop pushing them back into Italy after a Togolese man found hypothermic in freezing temperatures died during a night trek across the border in February 2019.

Iranian exile Bizhan Bamedi had a companion film him on the crossing, to show how punishing it is.

“Hi guys. I’m recording this for those who say, ‘Good for you, you went to Europe!’” he said, ankle-deep in snow in a clearing amid frosted pines. “Someone like me who has crossed through jungles and mountains from Turkey is now here. I have no place to lie, no place to sit. ... It’s a really difficult path.”

“The temperature is minus-10 degrees,” he continued. “I’m hungry and thirsty but can’t eat snow. Good luck!”

On top of the physical difficulty, a cruelty of the crossing is that Europeans pass through the border without even knowing it’s there. Crisscrossed by ski runs, the frontier is a playground for vacationers who don’t get stopped by police. But it is so inhospitable for migrants that some quickly give up, even equipped with donated cold-weather gear.

“When you are African or Arab with black hair you’re not getting through even if you dress up like that,” said Jarnane. “If you put on a hat or something, people can still see your brown or black eyes and that you’re not from around here.”

Health workers in a volunteer-run shelter for migrants on the French side, in the fortified town of Briançon, patch up those who get through.

“People arrive cold, dehydrated, thirsty, hungry,” said Isabelle Lorre of Doctors of the World, after taking care of an Iranian with an infected toe who trekked for 15 hours through snow he said was thigh-deep at times.

European opponents of migration argue that aiding exiles encourages others to follow. The view of those assisting them in the Alps is that not helping simply isn’t an option.

“Some of them have traveled 7,000 or 8,000 kilometers before getting here, so it’s not a mountainous barrier that will stop them,” said Jean Gaboriau, a mountain guide who helps run the Briançon shelter.

“Regardless of skin color, political or religious beliefs, everyone has the right to be saved or simply to be welcomed.”

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Follow AP’s global migration coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/migration

New Syrian migrants seek Europe, driven by post-war misery

By SARAH EL DEEB and CHRISTOPH NOELTING

Syrian Kurd Bushra, who only gave her first name, poses for a photograph in Minsk, Belarus, Sept. 22, 2021. Bushra set out on the perilous trip to Europe through Belarus. She didn't leave when Syrian government forces first withdrew from her areas at the start of the war, or when Islamic State militants ruled her town. She did it when she saw no end to the risks of staying home. After a harrowing journey, she has made it to Germany. (Bushra via AP)


GIESSEN, Germany (AP) — She had already walked for 60 hours through the wet, dark forests of Poland, trying to make her way to Germany, when the 29-year-old Syrian Kurd twisted her knee.

It wasn’t the first setback in Bushra’s journey.

Earlier, her road companion and best friend had fainted in a panic attack as Polish border guards chased them. They hid in ditches and behind trees as her friend tried to regain her breath, but it was no good. They turned themselves in and the guards dumped them back across the border into Belarus.

They quickly returned, bedraggled and wet, on the same trail. After twisting her knee, Bushra persevered. For two more days, she dragged her right foot behind her through the rain and freezing temperatures of the forests. Finally, they reached a Polish village where a car took them across the border into Germany — for a life she hopes will be free.

“I put up with the unbearable pain. Running away from something is sometimes the easiest thing,” Bushra said in the central German town of Giessen, where she applied for asylum as a refugee. “There is no future for us in Syria.”

Bushra, who asked that her last name be withheld for her own safety, is the face of the new Syrian migrant. More Syrians are leaving home, even though the 10-year-old civil war has wound down and conflict lines have been frozen for years.

They are fleeing not from the war’s horrors, which drove hundreds of thousands to Europe in the massive wave of 2015, but from the misery of the war’s aftermath. They have lost hope in a future at home amid abject poverty,  rampant corruption and wrecked infrastructure, as well as continued hostilities, government repression and revenge attacks by multiple armed groups.

More than 78,000 Syrians have applied for asylum in the European Union so far this year, a 70% increase from last year, according to EU records. After Afghans, Syrians are the largest single nationality among this year’s nearly 500,000 asylum applicants so far.

Nine out of 10 people live in poverty in Syria. Around 13 million need humanitarian assistance, a 20% increase from the year before. The government is unable to secure basic needs, and nearly 7 million are internally displaced.

Roads, telecommunications, hospitals and schools have been devastated by the war and widening economic sanctions are making reconstruction impossible.

The coronavirus pandemic compounded the worst economic crisis since the war began in 2011. Syria’s currency is collapsing, and minimum wage is barely enough to buy five pounds of meat a month, if meat is even available. Crime and drug production are on the rise while militias, backed by foreign powers, operate smuggling rackets and control entire villages and towns.

The numbers are far below the levels of 2015, but desperate Syrians are racing to get out. Social media groups are dedicated to helping them find a way.  Users ask where they can apply for work or scholarship visas. Others seek advice on the latest migration routes, cost of smugglers, and how risky it would be to use assumed identities to get out of Syria or enter other countries.

At the same time, Syria’s neighbors, grappling with their own economic crises, are calling for the refugees on their soil to be sent home.  Among the new migrants to the EU are Syrians leaving Turkey or Lebanon, where they had been refugees for years.

Belarus briefly opened its border with Poland to migrants this summer. That created a standoff with the EU, which accuses Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko of orchestrating illegal migration in retaliation for European sanctions against him.

Bushra was one of only several thousand who managed to get through from Belarus, where 15 died trying to make the trek.

She left for Minsk from Irbil, Iraq, in late September.

It was the start of a harrowing journey. Bushra recounted how they survived on biscuits and water for days and how six of them slept sitting up on a single dry mat. Her friend broke a tooth shivering from the cold.

After the forest ordeal, they had to hide in a ditch at one point when a police patrol with sniffer dogs came to check their car. Riding along the highway, Bushra removed her head scarf to avoid suspicion at checkpoints. She reached Giessen on Oct. 12.

“I surprised myself by how I put up with all this,” Bushra said.

It was all worth it, she said. “When you lose hope, you follow a path more dangerous than where you started.”

Bushra’s life in Syria had been in upheaval for years. She was at university in the eastern city of Deir el-Zour when the war broke out in 2011 and anti-government protests spread in the city. She quickly moved to another university farther north. Soon Deir el-Zour and the rest of the east were taken over by the Islamic State group.

Bushra and her parents were outside IS rule in the Kurdish-held northeast but still lived in fear of violence. She hardly left the house for two years.

Eventually, she found a job with an international aid group. Ever since, she saved up to leave, checking into routes out of Syria.

Syria’s oil-rich northeast, which already suffered from years of neglect, was devastated by the war. Drought wrecked farmers’ livelihoods. The currency collapse gutted incomes. The salary of Bushra’s father, a government employee, is now worth $15 a month, down from $100 at the start of the war.

Moreover, the region was not secure. IS militants were defeated in 2019, but sleeper cells continue to target Kurdish-led security and civil administration.

Eight kidnappings were reported this summer in a town near her.

Threats were made against Bushra after she exposed a corruption case involving powerful local officials, causing her to fear for her life. She declined to give details because her family remains in Syria.

The harassment expedited her plans to leave and convinced her parents, who had been worried about a single woman going on such a journey alone.

The U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan this summer raised Bushra’s worries that the U.S. would also pull out its 900 troops in Syria’s Kurdish-administered northeast. The troops carry out anti-terrorism operations with local forces, and their presence also keeps rival forces at bay.

If they withdraw, she feared that Turkey, which considers the Kurdish-led forces in Syria as terrorists, could launch a military campaign against the Kurds. Syrian government forces would also move in, endangering Bushra because they consider those who work with international aid groups unregistered in Damascus as traitors.

“If I stay in Syria, I will be pursued by security all my life,” she said.

Gaining asylum and residency in Germany is her gateway to freedom.

She hopes to study political science to understand the news, which she boycotted since the war started to avoid scenes of the atrocities she was already living. She wants to have freedom to travel. “I am done with restrictions,” she said.

Going back to Syria is impossible, she said. If she doesn’t get her papers in Germany, Bushra says she will keep trying.

 “If I can’t get to where I want to go, I will go to where I can live.”

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El Deeb reported from Beirut.