Indonesia bans coal exports in January over domestic supply worries

Indonesia's economic recovery is stoking demand for thermal coal in the world's biggest producer of the fuel (AFP/BAY ISMOYO)


Sat, January 1, 2022, 3:43 AM·2 min read

Indonesia, the world's biggest exporter of coal used in electricity generation, on Saturday said it has banned January exports of the fuel in a move aimed at safeguarding its domestic power supply.

Rising demand for electricity in the country risks widespread blackouts unless more supplies are diverted to power stations, the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources said in a statement.

Indonesia exports the majority of its coal but mandates that producers must set aside minimum amounts to supply the nation's power plants.

The decision comes against a backdrop of surging demand, as post-pandemic economic growth across the world drives electricity needs that cannot be met from less-polluting alternatives.

The International Energy Agency last month said global demand for coal, the world's biggest source of greenhouse gases, hit a record in 2021 and would be sustained into 2022, threatening plans set out at last year's COP26 climate change conference to cut emissions.

Last January, Indonesia exported almost 30 million tonnes of coal, according to the Central Statistics Bureau.

The export ban was imposed after coal miners failed to meet the so-called Domestic Market Obligation, under which they are obliged to supply at least 25 percent of a mine's approved production plan at a maximum sales price of US$70 per metric tonne -- less than half the global benchmark price.

The temporary export ban would prevent almost 20 power plants providing a total of 10.9 gigawatts of power from shutting down, a senior official at the ministry, Ridwan Jamaludin, said in a statement Saturday.

The government would re-evaluate the policy after January 5, he said.

"We can't let the companies' disobedience to comply with the DMO disrupt the investment climate and the national economy," he said.

Indonesia has pledged to stop building new coal-fired power plants from 2023 and to be carbon neutral by 2060.

However, despite an outcry from environmental activists, the current development of the Suralaya coal plant on Java island is still ongoing.

The enormous plant is one of the biggest in Southeast Asia and can power about 14 million homes a year.

dsa/pbr/reb

China to scrap subsidies for electric vehicles

A busy street in Shanghai (AFP/GREG BAKER)

Sat, January 1, 2022, 

China will end subsidies for electric and hybrid cars at the end of the year, authorities have announced, saying the strength of sales in the sector meant state support was no longer needed.

In a statement published Friday, the Ministry of Finance said purchase subsidies would be reduced by 30 percent from the beginning of 2022 before being scrapped completely by the end of the year.

"Given the growth of the industry for vehicles with new energy, the sales trends and the smooth transition of manufacturers, the subsidies... will end on December 31," the ministry said.

"Vehicles registered after December 31, 2022 will not be subsidised."

Sales of electric and hybrid cars have boomed in China, with increases of more than 100 percent year-on-year in recent months.

The cars are set to represent 18 percent of all vehicle sales in 2022, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) estimated last week. In 2019, they accounted for only five percent.

Of the 27.5 million vehicles set to be sold this year, according to CAAM, five million will be electric and hybrids.

Overall growth in the world's largest market for vehicles will likely come in at 3.1 percent for 2021, according to CAAM -- the first year of sales growth since 2018.

China, the world's largest polluter, has set ambitious goals for the widespread adoption of electric and hybrid vehicles, and aims to have the majority of cars powered with clean energy by 2035.

bar/cco/oho/axn

NAT GAS = BLUE H2

EU plans to class nuclear power and natural gas as green energy sources

The EU is planning to label energy from nuclear power and natural gas as "green" sources for investment despite internal disagreement over whether they truly qualify as sustainable options.

© Virginia Mayo, AP

The proposal, seen by AFP on Saturday, aims to support the 27-nation bloc's shift towards a carbon-neutral future and gild its credentials as a global standard-setter for fighting climate change.

But the fact the European Commission quietly distributed the text to member states late Friday, in the final hours of 2021 after the much-delayed document had been twice promised earlier in the year, highlighted the rocky road to draft it.

If a majority of member states back it, it will become EU law, coming into effect from 2023.

France has led the charge for nuclear power -- its main energy source -- to be included, despite robust opposition from Austria and scepticism from Germany, which is in the process of shutting all its nuclear plants.



Fossil-reliant countries in the EU's east and south have also defended the use of natural gas, at least as a transitional source, even though it still produces significant greenhouse emissions.

"It is necessary to recognise that the fossil gas and nuclear energy sectors can contribute to the decarbonisation of the Union's economy," the commission proposal says.

It added that, for nuclear power, appropriate measures should be put in place for radioactive waste management and disposal.

And for gas, carbon-emission limits should be set to well below those produced by coal-burning plants, it said.

The EU's internal market commissioner Thierry Breton said last month that the European Union needed to be "pragmatic".

He said the bloc will need to double its overall electricity production over the next three decades and that "is simply not possible without nuclear power".

(AFP)

West Virginia approves permit for pipeline construction
By Adam Schrader


Construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline is seen in a promotional video from Equitrans Midstream, the company which will be operating the pipeline.

 Photo courtesy Equitrans Midstream/Vimeo

Dec. 31 (UPI) -- West Virginia regulators granted a crucial permit for the construction of a controversial natural gas pipeline Thursday.

The state's Department of Environmental Protection approved the Mountain Valley Pipeline's water quality certification, signaling that the pipeline has met state standards.

Construction on the pipeline, which will run for 303 miles from northwestern West Virginia to southern Virginia, began in 2018 and about 94% of the work on it has already been completed with about 20 linear miles left to be constructed, according to the company.

The water quality permit was required before the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers could approve further dredge-and-fill permits needed to complete construction. The pipeline is expected to begin service in summer 2022.

The approval from the West Virginia regulators comes after Virginia approved a water quality permit for the pipeline earlier this month.

The Mountain Valley Pipeline has received significant opposition from environmental groups such as Appalachian Voices, an organization that has launched numerous campaigns to protect the air, water, and land in the AppalachianMountains region.

Appalachian Voices filed a legal action, being challenged in the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, with several other environmental groups to oppose the approval of the water quality permit by Virginia's State Water Control Board.

The environmental groups alleged in the legal action, which seeks to have the federal court review the granting of the permit, that the Mountain Valley Pipeline has already been fined $2 million for more than 35 0water quality-related violations in Virginia and West Virginia.

"Contrary to robust evidence that the MVP cannot be built without violating state water quality standards," Peter Anderson, policy director for Appalachian Voices Virginia, said in a statement. "Despite the company's wretched environmental track record, the West Virginia's DEP has regrettably granted MVP new permission to pollute."

According to the West Virginia News, the pipeline is projected to permanently impact 1,276 feet of streams and less than a half-acre of wetlands while temporarily impacting more than 20,000 feet of streams and about 12 acres of wetlands.

Anderson added an appeal to the Biden administration, hoping that the president would intervene.

"We hope the Biden Administration listens to the thousands of members of the public who oppose this project and finds that more water pollution in service of an unneeded project is not in the public interest," he said.

Rio's low-key New Year generates 50% less trash


Fireworks go off on Copacabana beach to mark the New Year in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on January 1, 2022 (AFP/DANIEL RAMALHO)

Sat, January 1, 2022, 

Between the pandemic and the rainy weather, it was a muted New Year's celebration on Rio de Janeiro's famed Copacabana beach, but there was a silver lining Saturday: 50 percent less garbage to collect.

The iconic Brazilian beach city's sanitation service, COMLURB, said it had picked up 320 tonnes of trash from New Year's Eve celebrations, less than half the annual average of 724.2 tonnes from 2018 to 2020.

That included 167 tonnes in Copacabana following a 16-minute fireworks display over the beach, down from a pre-pandemic average of 340.6 tonnes, it said.


"We're going to have the beaches and seaside clean much earlier than usual," said COMLURB head Flavio Lopes, as nearly 5,000 trash collectors finished the clean-up job by 9:00 am.

After canceling its world-famous New Year's Eve festivities last year because of Covid-19, Rio resumed a low-key version this year, encouraging revelers to stay close to home and scrapping concerts and public transportation.

The festivities in Copacabana drew just a fraction of the record three million people from two years ago, as rainy weather added to the dampened atmosphere created by the Omicron variant.

Brazil has registered nearly 620,000 deaths in the pandemic, second only to the United States.

jhb/dw

Haiti's traditional joumou soup: a tasty reminder of freedom




Haiti's joumou soup has been placed on UNESCO's list of intangible cultural heritage (AFP/Richard Pierrin)

Amélie BARON
Sat, January 1, 2022

A mix of meat, vegetables, pasta and the squash for which it is named, Haitians enjoy joumou soup every January 1 to celebrate the new year and their country's independence.

Before it became a symbol of Haiti's freedom, the soup was one of oppression.

The enslaved Haitians who grew the 'giraumon' or turban squash, the key ingredient, were forbidden from eating the dish. It was reserved solely for the French plantation masters.

But on January 1, 1804, when the first black-led republic was born, Marie-Claire Heureuse Felicite -- the wife of Jean-Jacques Dessalines, a leader of Haiti's revolution and the independent nation's first ruler -- chose to serve the soup.

Cooking joumou soup "was a way to mark those years of deprivation and oppression, and to claim victory over the colonizers," says Port-au-Prince resident Nathalie Cardichon as she buys ingredients for the national dish at the market.

"That's the meaning of this soup," she adds.

Traditionally, serving the dish is also a time of reunion for families. But for many, 2022 will be different.

- Rise of gangs -

In 2021, not long after Haiti's president was assassinated, the country suffered a devastating earthquake. Political turmoil and poverty have intensified, as have violence and kidnappings by gangs that have become all-powerful.

A lack of security and inability to travel on roads guarded by armed gangs have forced many Haitians to spend the symbolic day far from their loved ones.

"I have friends at university whose parents don't live in Port-au-Prince and who can't go home to the provinces because of the security situation, so I invited them" to my house, says Stephanie Smith, a student in the Haitian capital.

Her mother, Rosemene Dorceus, often makes joumou soup for their family. But for the national holiday, she makes whole pots of it.

It's enough to feed "about 20 people," the 54-year-old estimates modestly -- but her daughter thinks it all could easily feed at least 30.

"We are eight in my family but unfortunately, in the neighborhood, there are people who can't afford to make the soup, so we think of them," explains the 27-year-old Smith.

   

Rosemene Dorceus (began cooking her joumou soup on December 31, 2021 -- she finished the dish the next day (AFP/Richard Pierrin)

Relatives gather for a traditional lunch on January 01, 2022 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti (AFP/Richard Pierrin)

The work in the kitchen starts on December 31.

Before the sun has even risen on January 1, the women in the family are busy around the stove.

Dorceus recalls a time when she and her husband would make the soup together, when the children were small.

"Now that my daughters are grown, they help me," she says.

Delighted with the family time spent preparing the feast, Smith says her younger brothers do help a little, "but they mostly come by to eat, especially the meat."

- 'Tradition of our ancestors' -

The richly historied soup has just received international recognition, with UNESCO designating it as part of the "intangible cultural heritage of humanity."

"Haiti's struggle and its voice have been made invisible, and this is now a way to record it," said Dominique Dupuy, Haiti's ambassador to the UN cultural agency.

She noted Haiti's "fundamental and crucial role in humanity's history," as the first country to have abolished slavery.

The designation of joumou soup constitutes a "just historical rectification," according to Dupuy.

Her delegation did everything possible to obtain the listing, requesting accelerated processing for the request in August. On December 16, the designation was granted.

With 2021 having been an "exceptionally painful year," it was necessary to have "systems to help us keep our heads high," said Dupuy, a native of Cap-Haitien, which suffered a tragedy on December 14 when a gas truck exploded, killing dozens.

In Haiti, cooking joumou soup, a custom that dates back more than two centuries, is a way to honor the country and its past.

For Cardichon, the market-goer, it's a way of inviting the world to "discover Haiti's history" -- and a way to show "how proud we are as a people, that we take and continue the tradition of our ancestors."

amb/led/to/dw

C. L. R. James and the Black Jacobins of Haiti
https://jacobinmag.com/2021/07/clr-james-black-jacobins-haiti-cricket...
2021-07-20 · C. L. R. James and the Black Jacobins of Haiti An interview with Paul Buhle C. L. R. James was one of the twentieth century’s intellectual giants. During a life of intense political engagement, he wrote classic books about the struggle against slavery and the social history of sport, never flinching in his socialist commitment.


CLR James and the Black Jacobins • International …
https://isj.org.uk/clr-james-and-the-black-jacobins

The only Successful Slave Revolt in History

Writing A Revolutionary History

Reflecting on the writing of The Black Jacobins in 1980, CLR James noted, “My West Indian experiences and my study of Marxism had made me see what had eluded many previous writers, that it was the slaves who had made the revolution”.34

How C. L. R. James Wrote the Definitive History ... - Jacobin
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2021/01/cljr-james-haitian-revolution-black...
2021-01-04 · His landmark text, The Black Jacobins, is a majestic account of the Haitian Revolution and is still the authoritative history of a heroic struggle for freedom and dignity.


THE BLACK JACOBINS - libcom.org
https://libcom.org/files/charles-forsdick-the-black-jacobins-reader-1.p… · PDF file
THE BLACK JACOBINS READER Original dustjacket from the first edition of The Black Jacobins, Secker and Warburg, 1938. Image of Toussaint Louverture by (William) Spencer (Millett) Edge


Lectures on the Black Jacobins
https://libcom.org/files/c-l-r-james-lectures-on-the-black-jacobins.pdf · PDF file
The Black jacobins -how I came to write this book and what is in the book, ... 1 C.L.R. James

US FUNDS WEAPONS FOR ISRAEL
Israel signs deal to buy $3.1 billion in U.S. helicopters, tankers


A photograph of a CH-53 helicopter is pictured at the booth of Sikorsky - Lockheed Martin company during preparation for the ILA Berlin Air Show in Schoenefeld

Fri, December 31, 2021
By Dan Williams

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel has signed a deal with the United States to buy 12 Lockheed Martin Corp CH-53K helicopters and two Boeing Co KC-46 refuelling planes, the Israeli Defence Ministry said on Friday, estimating the total price at around $3.1 billion.

The deal, signed on Thursday, is part of an upgrade of Israel's air force capabilities and includes an option to buy six additional helicopters, a ministry statement said.

It said the first helicopters were due to arrive in Israel in 2026. Brigadier-General Shimon Tsentsiper, chief of materiel for the air force, told Israel's Army Radio on Thursday that the refuelling planes on order would not be delivered before 2025.

He said Israel was trying to bring forward the delivery of the KC-46s, and eventually wanted a total of four of them.

Israeli media have speculated that the refuelling planes could be crucial for carrying out a long-threatened air strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. Tsentsiper said the air force's current refuelling capacities were sufficient for its missions.

(Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by Alex Richardson)

SEE LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for PERMANENT ARMS ECONOMY 

Military assistance to Israel has for years been a common sight within US defence budgets, and 2022 is no different.

The NDAA includes $108m that would go to Israel for purchasing parts for the Iron Dome short-range anti-missile system, which is co-produced by the US and Israel.

Another $62m will go to Israel for the Arrow 3 anti-ballistic missile system, and $30m for the David Sling Weapons System.

The budget also includes a $6m grant programme for "cybersecurity research and development". Last year's NDAA included a provision that cemented $3.3bn in annual aid to Israel until 2026.

While Washington's military aid to Israel has been met with increased scrutiny from progressive lawmakers, who have been calling for limits and restrictions, it continues to receive widespread bipartisan support in Congress.

Is Yemen's war moving to a 'grudging acceptance' of the Houthis?

Read More »

US funding for Israel's Iron Dome system particularly fell under the spotlight in September and October, when House Democrats moved to remove $1bn in funding for the aerial defence system from a stopgap spending bill.

The funds, however, were later approved in a separate bill that passed with an overwhelming majority, 420 votes to nine with two present votes.

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2021/12/key-middle-east-takeaways-from-us.html

Germany pulls honor for Israeli historian over Bosnia report
Fri, December 31, 2021, 12:56 PM·1 min read

BERLIN (AP) — The German government has dropped plans to give the country's highest honor to an Israeli historian amid criticism of his work on the genocide in Bosnia.

German news agency dpa reported Friday that the Foreign Ministry has withdrawn its nomination for Gideon Greif to receive Germany's Order of Merit. Bosnian news portal klix.ba first reported the decision, citing a letter German officials had sent to a Germany-based historian.

Greif, who has done extensive work on the Holocaust, was part of an international panel of historians who in June published a lengthy report that suggested the 1995 killing of thousands of Muslims in Srebrenica didn't constitute genocide.

The report, commissioned by hardline Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik, was widely dismissed by other historians.

More than 8,000 Bosniaks, most of them men and boys, were slaughtered around Srebrenica by Bosnian Serb forces toward the end of the 1992-95 war in Bosnia. The massacre has been declared a genocide by international and national courts, but Serb leaders in Bosnia and neighboring Serbia have downplayed and in some cases denied it, despite overwhelming evidence of what happened.

Greif couldn't immediately be reached for comment.

Once a Janitor, Now the Bar Mitzvah Photography King of Montreal

January 1, 2022

0

SHAR

Mr. Rocha suddenly found himself braving a Quebec winter, jobless, isolated and unable to speak French. After an initially rocky adjustment, he proposed to Sonia at a teahouse, hiding a $150 ring in a teacup. He said he found a sense of purpose after Sonia’s aunt, who worked in the Shaar’s kitchen, helped get him the janitor job.

He felt immediately at home at the synagogue, he said, and was particularly drawn by the spiritual meaning of a bar or bat mitzvah, the rite of passage in which a boy or girl affirms a commitment to Judaism. He would sometimes pause from vacuuming to sit in the pews and listen, entranced, to Cantor Zelermyer’s haunting voice singing prayers.

“I am a baptized Catholic, but in a synagogue I feel a very strong connection, something talks to me,” he said.

It was while dusting the pews and observing bar mitzvah photographers at work that the idea first entered his head that photographing bar mitzvahs was his “destiny.”

“I would see the photographers standing too close to the bar mitzvah boy, and the voice in my head would be saying: ‘No, no, no, it’s all wrong. You have God giving you this light, and you aren’t doing anything with it,’” he recalled. “But I was the janitor, so I kept dusting.”

Then came the bris epiphany.

The grandmother was so delighted with the resulting moody, cinematic photos that she paid him $130 for the job, an improvement on his $10-an-hour janitor salary.

Emboldened, Mr. Rocha asked the synagogue’s management if he could shoot other events. Within two years, he was photographing weddings and bar mitzvahs, for as much as $8,000, and, for a while, changing afterward into his janitor’s uniform to scrub toilets. Sometimes he worked such long days he slept on a synagogue pew.

Austrian Holocaust survivor “Mrs. Gertrude” dies at 94
By KIRSTEN GRIESHABER

A light illuminates names at the Shoah Wall of Names Memorial during the inauguration ceremony, in Vienna, Austria, Nov. 9, 2021. Vienna born Holocaust survivor Gertrude Pressburger, who became famous during the 2016 presidential campaign in Austria with a video message in which as "Mrs. Gertrude" she warned of hatred and exclusion triggered by the far right, has died at age 94. 

(AP Photo/Lisa Leutner, File)

BERLIN (AP) — The Holocaust survivor Gertrude Pressburger, who became famous during Austria’s 2016 presidential campaign with a video message in which “Mrs. Gertrude” warned of hatred and exclusion triggered by the far right, has died at 94.

Pressburger died Friday after a long illness, her family told the Austrian press agency APA on Saturday.

Pressburger was born and raised in Vienna, the daughter of a carpenter. Her Jewish family converted to Catholicism in the early 1930s, but that did not keep them from being prosecuted by the Nazis after Austria was annexed by Germany in 1938.

After her father was arrested and tortured by the Nazis’ Gestapo secret police for alleged political activity, the family was able to escape to Yugoslavia and later to Italy, APA reported.

In 1944, the family was captured and deported to the Nazis’ Auschwitz death camp in Germany-occupied Poland, where her mother and two younger brothers were murdered. Her father was also killed by the Nazis.

Pressburger returned to Vienna after the war, but initially did not talk about her horrific sufferings during the Holocaust. Eventually, she decided to open up about the Holocaust and about the antisemitic experiences she suffered in post-war Austria.

“I did not come back to Vienna to be oppressed again. I swear to myself that I will not put up with anything anymore. I’m going to fight with my mouth,” APA quoted her as saying.

Pressburger also published a memoir that she co-wrote with author Marlene Groihofer.

In the book “Gelebt, Erlebt, Ueberlebt” or “Lived, Experienced, Survived” she described her family’s arrival in Auschwitz in 1944.

Her mother and the two brothers were sent away on a truck. Gertrude herself was sent in another direction and she quickly lost sight of her father too. Pressburger constantly looked for her family members in the death camp until a stranger approached her, pointed to the smoke coming out of the chimneys behind the barracks and told her that all the people driven away on the truck were gassed and burned already. That, Pressburger, wrote, was the moment when she understood that they had been murdered.

In 2016, Pressburger addressed Austria’s younger generation in an online video, warning against the humiliations and exclusion of minorities amid the far-right rhetoric in the country’s presidential election. She called on young Austrians to go out and vote. The video was watched and shared several million times.

“I just said what I thought. That’s it. And that hit home. I never understood why,” she told APA afterwards.

Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen from the Green Party later said he was sure her video appeal had some influence on the election result, which saw him narrowly win only after a re-run against the far-right Freedom Party’s candidate Norbert Hofer.

“We will never know for sure, but that it had an impact, that is to say an effect, and especially on young and very young people, I am convinced of that,” Van der Bellen said.