It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Tuesday, January 11, 2022
Palestinians summon Dutch envoy over NGO aid cutoff
Mon, January 10, 2022
JERUSALEM (AP) — The Palestinian Authority summoned the Dutch representative on Monday to object to the Netherlands' decision to halt funding to a Palestinian civil society group that Israel controversially outlawed as a terrorist organization.
In a statement, the PA decried the “unjust and biased” decision to cut off funding to the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, one of six groups that Israel outlawed in October in what critics said was as an assault on Palestinian civil society.
The Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the occupied West Bank and coordinates security with Israel, said UAWC provides vital aid to Palestinian farmers struggling to remain on their land in the face of Israeli settlement expansion.
The Dutch government based its decision on an independent audit of the UAWC that found no evidence the organization was involved in terrorism. It said the audit did however find a “worrisome” number of UAWC board members were linked to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a left-wing militant group. Two former UAWC employees were arrested in connection with a bombing that killed an Israeli teenager in the West Bank in 2019.
The UAWC rejected the findings, saying it does not concern itself with the private political activities of its board members or employees. The PFLP has a political party as well as charities and an armed wing. Israel and Western countries consider the PFLP a terrorist organization because of attacks going back decades that have killed civilians.
Israel says the six groups are fronts for the PFLP but has provided little evidence to substantiate the allegations. The terror designation paves the way for the Israeli military to shut down the groups and arrest their members, but it has yet to do so.
The rights groups deny the Israeli allegations, which they say are aimed at stifling civil society and pressuring Western donors to cut off funding.
The six civil society groups are based in the occupied West Bank, which Israel captured in the 1967 war. The Palestinians want the West Bank to form the main part of their future state. The peace process ground to a halt more than a decade ago.
IOC major sponsors mostly muted in runup to Beijing Olympics A worker labors to assemble the Olympic Rings onto of a tower on the outskirts of Beijing, China on Jan. 5, 2022. The Beijing Winter Olympics are fraught with potential hazards for major sponsors, who are trying to remain quiet about China's human rights record while protecting at least $1 billion they've paid to the IOC.
(AP Photo/Ng Han Guan, File)More STEPHEN WADE Mon, January 10, 2022, 10:11 PM·7 min read
The Beijing Winter Olympics are fraught with potential hazards for major sponsors, who are trying to remain quiet about China's human rights record while protecting at least $1 billion they've collectively paid to the IOC.
That could reach $2 billion when new figures are expected this year. Sponsors include big household names like Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble, Visa, Toyota, Airbnb, and Panasonic.
The International Olympic Committee's so-called TOP sponsors are being squeezed by a diplomatic boycott led by the United States, the economic power of 1.4 billion Chinese — and the fear of retaliation by China's authoritarian government.
China, itself, was part of a full-fledged boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics.
“They (sponsors) are trying to walk a fine line between trying to get the best exposure, but also not trying to be perceived as too close to the actions of the Chinese government,” Mark Conrad, who teaches sports law and ethics at Fordham University’s Gabelli School of Business, said in an email.
The IOC created the strain by returning to a country whose rights abuses were well documented in the runup to the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. They now rival the pandemic for attention with the Winter Games opening on Feb. 4.
The rights violations committed against Muslim Uyghurs and other minorities clash with the lofty principles in the Olympic Charter. The Charter speaks of putting “sport at the service of the harmonious development of humankind, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity.”
It further adds: “The enjoyment of the rights and freedoms set forth in this Olympic Charter shall be secured without discrimination of any kind, such as race, color, sex, sexual orientation, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.”
The Associated Press contacted most of the major Olympic sponsors, but was met largely with silence about their plans, or told the focus was on the athletes. One sponsor that replied, German financial services company Allianz, said it was “in regular contact with the IOC” and stood behind ideals of the Games.
One person in touch with sponsors, who was not authorized to speak and asked not to be named, said the general mood, especially for those focused outside the China market, was to avoid mentioning Beijing and to work around the edges.
“I would not be surprised that the sponsors would remain silent,” said Dae Hee Kawk, director of the Center for Sports Marketing at the University of Michigan. “You could potentially lose business.”
Retaliation is a concern. The NBA experienced it in 2019 when a Houston Rockets executive sided in a tweet with democracy protests in Hong Kong, Last month, Olympic sponsor Intel had to apologize after publishing a letter on its website that asked suppliers to avoid sourcing from China's Xinjiang region.
Sponsors usually saturate the space around the Olympics. Less so now with lucrative hospitality programs also shelved by the pandemic.
“The sponsors’ silence speaks volumes — more than any news release can,” wrote Conrad, the sports law professor at Fordham.
The pandemic-delayed Tokyo Olympics stymied sponsors. Fans were banned, officials shuttered an enclosure brimming with sponsor marquees, and Toyota, one of Japan's three major Olympic sponsors, pulled its ads off local TV to avoid being linked to the Olympics. This raised the question of sponsors seeking compensation from the IOC.
The Games were unpopular in Japan when they opened, but polls showed they were seen as successful once they closed.
Asked about its planning for Beijing, Toyota spokeswoman Rina Naruke offered the following to the AP in a brief statement.
"We are unable to provide any specific details at this time. We will update you once we have more information.”
Terrence Burns, who has worked for the IOC in marketing and branding but is better known as an independent consultant who helped land five successful Olympic bids, disputed a suggestion that the Beijing Olympics were very different, or that sponsors were treading lightly.
“The marketing opportunity for Beijing 2022 has always been the ability to promote a Chinese Games in the Chinese market; just as it was for the 2008 Games,” Burns wrote in an email to AP.
“The biggest commercial impact of the Beijing Games for TOP partners will be in the Chinese market. And realistically, that's not too different from any past Games.”
Burns said the IOC's sponsors were in it for the long haul. Coca-Cola has been associated with the Olympics since 1928, and the next few Games look financially promising.
“I see zero commercial evidence of a consumer backlash or concern against any TOP partner. None,” Burns wrote.
Upcoming Olympics are 2024 in Paris, followed by Milan-Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, and Los Angeles. The IOC has also announced Brisbane, Australia, for the 2032 Summer Olympics, and Sapporo, Japan, is a top contender for the 2030 Winter Games.
Host cities are no longer selected in a bid process, which was subject to well-reported corruption by some rank-and-file IOC members. The IOC leadership now picks the venues with rubber-stamp approval from members.
IOC sponsors have come under pressure from human rights advocates and some members of the U.S. Congress, who have called for moving the Olympics or a full-fledged boycott. Last month an unofficial body set up in Britain concluded that the Chinese government committed genocide and crimes against humanity.
China has called this the “lie of the century” and says the interment camps in northwestern Xinjiang are used for job training.
The five U.S.-based sponsors — Coca-Cola, Intel, Airbnb, Procter & Gamble, and Visa — were grilled in a bi-partisan hearing in July by the Congressional Executive Committee on China.
Most dodged pointed questions, said they had to follow Chinese law, had nothing to do with choosing Beijing as the venue, and focused on the athletes no matter the Games.
Intel's Steven Rodgers, an executive vice president and general counsel, was the only one of five to say he believed the conclusions of the U.S. State Department that China was "committing genocide against the Uyghur people.”
Olympic sponsors and NBCUniversal, the broadcast rights holder for the United States, were asked in a letter from Human Rights Watch to be aware of the rights climate in China, and to scrutinize supply chains.
President Joe Biden signed a bill last month that bans goods made in northwestern China's Xinjiang region, unless companies can show forced labor was not involved.
NBC has paid $7.75 billion for the next six Olympics (2022 through 2032) and the network accounts for almost 40% of all IOC income, serving as its main partner. It has begun promoting the Olympics in the United States but minimizes references to Beijing.
IOC President Thomas Bach has repeatedly said the Olympics must be “politically neutral." But they seldom are. Four years ago in the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, Bach aggressively promoted his bid to drive talks between the two Koreas.
Late last year, the United Nations General Assembly approved the Olympic Truce Resolution by a consensus of the 193 member states; 173 co-sponsored the resolution.
However, 20 nations did not sign up as co-sponsors including the United States, Britain, Japan, Canada, Australia, India and North Korea. The United States and Australia are future Olympic hosts, Japan just held the Summer Olympics and is a candidate for 2030, and North Korea is China's staunchest ally.
Bach has declined to condemn the alleged genocide or speak out on human rights in China. He seldom mentions the Uyghurs by name.
“We have our full focus on the athletes,” Bach said. ”We welcome that they can participate, that they are supported by their national governments. The rest is politics.”
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Tali Arbel contributed from New York and Yuri Kageyama contributed from Tokyo.
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More AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/winter-olympics and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
Vale Halts Mine Production in Brazilian State Due To Heavy Rain
NOT MOUNTAINS BUT MOUNDS OF IRON ORE SLAG
Mariana Durao Tue, January 11, 2022
(Bloomberg) -- Vale SA, the world’s second-largest iron ore producer, halted some mine production because of heavy rainfall in the southeastern Brazilian state of Minas Gerais.
The mining giant has partially suspended train services on the Estrada de Ferro Vitoria a Minas railway and production in its southeastern and southern systems “to guarantee the safety of its employees and communities,” it said in a statement.
The mines in the regions represented 40% of Vale’s output of the steelmaking ingredient in the nine months ended in September. In the statement Monday, the company reiterated its production guidance of 320 million to 335 million tons of iron ore in 2022.
The halt offers another boost to iron ore prices in the short term. Futures in Singapore advanced as much as 2.8% on Tuesday, bringing the rally to about 50% since November. Shipments from both Brazil and Australia have each declined almost 20% in the latest week, and coupled with mill restocking, that’s supporting prices, said Huatai Futures Co. analyst Wang Haitao.
The northern system, where Vale produces high-grade ore, continues to operate in line with the production plan, which the company says considers the impact of the rainy season on operations. Last week, Vale reported a landslide in copper project Salobo III, in Para State, also because of the rain.
CSN Mineracao SA said extraction and movement operations at the Casa de Pedra mine were temporarily suspended due to heavy rains in Brazil’s southeast region recently, according to a filing.
Rainfall hit Minas Gerais hard during the weekend, blocking highways. A Brazilian mining dike owned by France’s Vallourec SA overflowed Saturday near the city of Belo Horizonte, and operations at Usiminas’s mining subsidiary Musa were temporarily suspended due to rains significantly higher than average.
Minas Gerais is the same region where a dam broke in Brumadinho in 2019, leaving 270 dead and leading to the indictment of Vale for environmental crimes. The state was also affected by the dam collapse of Vale and BHP Group’s venture Samarco in 2015.
Iron ore futures in Singapore were up 2.1% at $127.65 a ton by 3:21 p.m. Prices in China gained 3.4%.
China Is The Only Winner In This Huge Iraqi Oil Field
Editor OilPrice.com Mon, January 10, 2022
The statement last week from Iraq’s Oil Minister, Ihsan Abdul Jabbar, that the newly resurrected Iraqi National Oil Company (INOC) has been given government approval to acquire ExxonMobil’s 32.7 percent stake in the supergiant West Qurna 1 oil field for up to US$350 million is likely to leave China delighted, the U.S. irritated, and Iraq’s oil industry still unable to achieve any of its key oil output goals.
The last iteration of the INOC – created in 1966, before it was effectively closed down in 1987, with its remnants incorporated into the Ministry of Oil (MoO) – was founded on a mandate that included elements that seemed geared towards enabling malpractice of one kind and another.
In particular, Article 12 of the law relating to the establishment of INOC contained, as highlighted by the former senior economist with Iraq’s MoO, and subsequently head of the Oslo-based Development Consultancy & Research, Ahmed Mousa Jiyad: “The most ridiculous, disintegrative, destructive and unconstitutional aspects of this law […providing] the legal cover for formalised corruption and kleptocracy by assigning the three funds [‘Citizens Fund’, ‘Generations Fund’, ‘Reconstruction Fund’] at least 10 per cent of the revenues of the oil exports at the discretion of the INOC’s board of directors.”
The power of the INOC board of directors, though, could extend further, he added at the time, as under the 2018 version of the law, revenues generated from the export and sale of oil and gas ‘will be considered as financial revenues for INOC’. “This is a flagrant violation of the Constitution, which states that oil and gas belong to the Iraqi people and not a financial return to one public company,” said Jiyad. The full scope of the powers of this new version of the INOC has not yet been fully laid out, which means that no constraints are in place.
Even without a centralised institution such as the INOC to concentrate and control all of the key elements pertaining to by far Iraq’s most lucrative business sector (oil still accounts for around 90 percent of the government’s total revenues), the independent risk analysis firm, Transparency International in its ‘Corruption Perceptions Index’, in which Iraq is always ranked at or near the bottom, perennially notes that the country demonstrates: “Massive embezzlement, procurement scams, money laundering, oil smuggling and widespread bureaucratic bribery have led the country to the bottom of international corruption rankings…and political interference in anti-corruption bodies and politicisation of corruption issues, weak civil society, insecurity, lack of resources and incomplete legal provisions severely limit the government’s capacity to efficiently curb soaring corruption.”
According to a statement made in 2015 by Iraq’s own Oil Minister – and later Prime Minister of Iraq – Adil Abdul Mahdi, Iraq “lost US$14,448,146,000” (that is over 14 ‘billion’, not ‘million’) from the beginning of 2011 up to the end of 2014 in cash “compensation” payments, supposedly to international oil companies and other related entities but in reality, as fully analysed by OilPrice.com here, basically related to the way in which gross remuneration fees, income tax and the share of the State partner was deducted and accounted for in the compensation paid out relating to reduced oil production levels.
This ‘accounting factor used in calculations’ solely related to ‘expenses of various kinds’ that have never been disclosed or in any way clarified by the MoO but is key to the merging of public funds with private ones. It saw its true genesis in 2009 when IOCs in many cases were asked to make large upfront payments as part of their bid, which would supposedly be repaid at a later date.
As highlighted exclusively by OilPrice.com back in 2019, ExxonMobil had been desperate to get out of the key project vital to Iraq’s plans to dramatically increase its crude oil output – the Common Seawater Supply Project (CSSP) – for years in order avoid any reputational damage either to it or to the U.S. that its involvement may have led to.
Once it was clear that Iraq was not going to address the risk/reward matrix by allowing U.S. or E.U. lawyers and accountants to be brought in to look over the legal agreements pertaining to the Project or to be involved in the accounts, then ExxonMobil made it clear to the Iraqis that it did not want to continue its involvement in the CSSP and it also lost its interest in continuing with its stake in West Qurna 1.
The breadth and depth of Iraq’s endemic culture of corruption is evidenced even on the crucial issue of its own security, as highlighted by local news reports. This resulted in a situation that hundreds of millions of dollars over the years given to Iraq by the West specifically to maintain its F-16 fighter plane fleet instead ended up in the bank accounts of all layers of management involved in the program locally. So much money was stolen that by the middle of 2020 only seven jets out of the fleet – just 20 percent of the total – were still able to fly without serious risk of crashing.
This is precisely the chaotic environment into which China and Russia see opportunity to project their influence, and so it has been with Iraq’s oil sector, which - with an average lifting cost per barrel of crude oil of around US$1-2 (operating cost excluding capital expenditure) - offers the lowest development costs in the world, along with Iran and Saudi Arabia.
West Qurna 1, located around 65 kilometres from southern Iraq’s principal oil and export hub of Basra, holds a considerable portion of the estimated 43 billion barrels of recoverable reserves held in the entire supergiant West Qurna field. Originally West Qurna 1 was thought to have around 9 billion barrels of these reserves, but earlier last year Iraq’s Oil Ministry said it has plans to boost the field’s crude oil production capacity to more than 700,000 barrels per day (bpd) over the next five years, from the current 450,000-500,000 bpd, on the basis that it has recoverable reserves of more than 20 billion barrels.
This opportunity led China, in the shape of PetroChina - the listed arm of the China National Petroleum Corporation – to buy a 32.7 percent stake itself in the field at around the same time as ExxonMobil took its stake and to establish itself as the dominant force on the site even before ExxonMobil decided to pull out of the oil field and of the CSSP.
As analysed in depth in my new book on the global oil markets, the strategy employed to effectively sideline ExxonMobil is one that China has repeatedly used in similar situations across the Middle East, with a key element being the often surreptitious and gradual acquisition of a range of huge ‘contract-only’ awards made to Chinese companies.
The most notable of these - exclusively reported by OilPrice.com in November 2019 – was the US$121 million engineering contract to upgrade the facilities that are used to extract gas during crude oil production to the China Petroleum Engineering & Construction Corp. Similar ‘contract-only’ deals have been done by China across Iraq, including for its supergiant Majnoon oil field, to another hitherto unheard-of Chinese firm - the Hilong Oil Service & Engineering Company. These deals done with lesser-known Chinese companies, in addition to the official production exploration and development deals done by the big Chinese oil firms, mean that whichever Western company was also involved on a site, it was China that was in charge.
By Simon Watkins for Oilprice.com
ULTRA HIGH EXPLOSIVES NOT NUKES Analysis-N.Korea looks to risky pre-fuelled missiles to reduce launch time A view of what state news agency KCNA reports is the test firing of a hypersonic missile at an undisclosed location
Mon, January 10, 2022, 10:59 PM·3 min read By Josh Smith
SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea's recent claims of testing hypersonic weapons overshadowed its pursuit of a potentially risky rocket fuel system that analysts say could allow the nuclear-armed state to deploy and launch its missiles faster during a war.
Most of the country's largest ballistic missiles use liquid fuel, which typically requires them to be loaded with propellant at their launch site before they can be fired - a time-consuming step that makes them easier to spot and destroy.
Pyongyang has also pursued solid-fuel technology, but so far most of those engines have been used on smaller, short-range missiles.
Recent tests suggest North Korean military scientists are pursuing a third option: a "missile fuel ampoule" system to seal the liquid propellant and oxidizer tanks within the missile's airframe, allowing them to be fuelled at the factory and ready to use.
"This would obviate the need for in-field fuelling, which could increase the responsiveness of North Korean liquid propellant missiles," said Ankit Panda, a senior fellow at the U.S.-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "They are still quite a ways off from switching to an all-solid force so this could be a useful interim pursuit."
North Korea said it first used such ampoules in September, when it claimed to have tested its first hypersonic missile, capable of carrying a warhead that can glide at more than five times the speed of sound.
At the time, state media quoted a top official discussing the significance of "turning all missile fuel systems into ampoules."
That suggests North Korea "intends to continue to retain and improve its liquid-propellant ballistic missile force for the long term rather than shift to an all-solid force," said 38 North, a Washington-based organisation that monitors North Korea.
The same type of rocket booster with an ampoule system may have been used last week in a second hypersonic test. North Korea launched another missile on Tuesday, but technical details on the type of rocket involved were not immediately available. 'DRIVING AROUND WITH A BOMB'
The volatility of the fuel-storage system the North Koreans are pursuing casts doubt on its military usefulness, said Markus Schiller, a missile expert based in Europe.
Those rocket engines use nitrogen tetroxide (NTO) as an oxidizer and unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine (UDMH) as fuel. Both are highly toxic as well as "hypergolic," which means they react violently when in contact with each other.
That explosion is channelled through a nozzle to power the rocket. But the chemicals can be highly vulnerable to shocks and temperature.
"You are driving around with a bomb," Schiller said. "The moment the missile tanks rupture because you hit a pothole, or because someone shoots at the missile, all will be gone in a thick red cloud."
NTO, meanwhile, freezes at -11°C (12.2°F) and starts boiling at +21°C.
"If you are sitting in the woods on a Korean winter night... waiting for launch command, the NTO will freeze in your pipes, and start freezing in your tanks. Your missile will blow up at launch," Schiller said. "Also, you don't want to risk launching a missile on hot summer days, with the oxidizer boiling in the tank."
North Korea said the Wednesday test verified the "reliability of fuel ampoule system under the winter weather conditions", suggesting it is seeking to ensure the stability of such systems.
Unlike most other countries that have used such a system, North Korea does not appear to be using canisters to protect and insulate the missiles.
"This seems to confirm that 'ampoulization' is not canisterization but akin to the Soviet/Russian practice of preloading submarine-launched ballistic missiles with propellants at the factory and maintaining the fuelled missile as a sealed unit for loading into the launcher," 38 North concluded in a report on Friday.
The report said that developing more stable propellants would allow missiles to remain fuelled on a day-to-day basis.
(Reporting by Josh Smith. Editing by Gerry Doyle)
No landlord: Mobile home community finds stability in self-government
Sarah Matusek Mon, January 10, 2022
One sunny, cold morning last January, John Egan joined fellow mobile home park residents on a neighbor’s front porch. They needed to organize. But how?
“I had to go to the restroom, and when I came back from the restroom, they said, ‘Hi! You’re president!’” recalls Mr. Egan.
The half-dozen folks had convened to think through how to buy their Durango, Colorado, park from the private landlord – a move Mr. Egan and others deemed a shot in the dark. But now they at least had a president for what would become an interim board. With guidance from a housing nonprofit and majority support from the community, residents succeeded in purchasing the roughly 15-acre property within five months. They celebrated with a picnic, as the new Animas View MHP Co-op joined some thousand other resident-owned communities countrywide.
Their achievement is unusual. The resident-owned market constitutes just 2.4% of manufactured housing communities nationwide. Bolstering the health and longevity of mobile home parks is important as they are a critical source of affordable housing, say industry experts. Recent legislation in Colorado offers some provisions for communities like Animas View that hope to secure their future by governing themselves.
“Everybody sleeps better at night,” says Steve Boardman, here for 20 years, as he takes out his recycling.
“We’re in control.”
Affordable homes with a view
River, mountains, grasses bleached blonde in autumn – the Durango mobile homes have a million-dollar view. Largely immobile and costly to move, these factory-built units have been commonly called “manufactured homes” since 1976. They house an estimated 18 million to 22 million people in the United States.
“This is one of our nation’s largest sources of deeply affordable housing, and it’s deeply affordable without any federal subsidy,” says associate professor of sociology Esther Sullivan at the University of Colorado Denver.
The median annual household income of these homeowners – $35,000 – is half that of site-built homeowners, according to Fannie Mae. Manufactured housing fills 6.3% of U.S. housing stock, with more than double that share in rural areas.
Many residents own their homes but not the underlying land, for which they pay “lot rent.” That model can spur financial precarity: These homeowners are “more likely to see their homes depreciate and have fewer protections if they fall behind on payments,” reports the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Media reports have increasingly shed light on private-sector purchases of these parks that often result in rent increases, which housing advocates deem predatory.
Mobile home park investor Frank Rolfe counters: “When we buy these properties, they’re often in terrible condition, and [we] bring them back to life. … You can’t bring old properties back to life without raising rents.”
Mr. Rolfe estimates that he and a partner are the fifth largest owners of U.S. mobile home parks. “There is this conception I think out there that park owners are in some way hostile to residents buying their own communities, and that is completely off base,” says Mr. Rolfe, co-founder of Colorado-based Mobile Home University, which trains investors to purchase parks. Three parks he co-owned have been sold to residents. No more landlords
Mr. Egan and his wife, Cate Smock, bought their trailer here in 2012 – an affordable move to Durango so their son could attend a better school. But afterward, they saw their lot rent, which includes utilities, increase annually, if not twice a year.
“You would dread the piece of paper with the black electrical tape on your door,” she says. Animas View residents also complained of the previous owner’s lack of attention to their needs and delayed repairs.
Shortly before Christmas 2020, residents learned that the latest landlord, Strive Communities, intended to sell. Residents began to organize almost immediately. (The Monitor could not reach Strive for comment.)
“We don’t tell people that it’s easy” to become resident-owned, says Mike Bullard, communications and marketing manager for ROC USA, a New Hampshire nonprofit that, along with its affiliates, reports having helped nearly 300 manufactured housing communities become resident-owned. (ROC stands for resident-owned communities.)
With 430 households, the Halifax Mobile Home Estates Association in rural Massachusetts is the largest in the ROC USA network, resident owned since 2017. The budget is tight due to the community’s size, says board president Deborah Winiewicz, but at least members have a say in how those funds are spent by voting at an annual meeting.
“We’ve found, too, that people take more pride in the community because it is theirs,” she adds, noting that their sales office is run by resident volunteers.
In Colorado, the network affiliate Thistle ROC helped the Durango cooperative patch together funding for their purchase. But to afford the financing, the co-op increased lot rent by $80 this fall (rent ranges between $755 and $825). While the uptick may seem counterintuitive, it’s not uncommon, says Mr. Bullard.
“These groups are buying not just the real estate, but the business,” he says, adding that lot rent for new resident-owned communities will typically drop down to market rate or below within five years.
The sale, first reported by The Durango Herald, closed in June for a purchase price of around $15 million, according to Dan Hunt, a former Animas View board member who now serves on the operations and finance committees.
Learning about the community’s grassroots organizing helped convince Kevin Miller to rent land there for his RV. Now board president, Mr. Miller, who moved in last year, says he likes the idea of keeping money within a community.
“I’m proud to tell people where I live now,” he says.
Progress from failure
Among legislation aimed at strengthening protections for mobile home dwellers, Democratic Gov. Jared Polis signed a bill into law in 2020 that requires landlords to provide residents at least 12 months’ notice of a potential change in use of the land. It also gives residents 90 days after being notified by the landlord of a potential sale of the park to pitch an offer to purchase and organize financing. Landlords must respect this “opportunity to purchase” window before selling to anyone else.
But the resident-owned model is still the exception, not the rule. Animas View is one of three parks to become resident owned in Colorado in 2021, out of a few dozen that changed ownership.
Still, the new legislation “gives [residents] the opportunity to be able to compete with an offer that they previously wouldn’t have known about,” says Andy Kadlec, program director at Thistle ROC.
Advocates say this legislative momentum grew out of the activism and unsuccessful attempt by residents of another Colorado mobile home community, Denver Meadows, to purchase their park ahead of its expected closure as the owner eyed redevelopment. Despite help from advocacy group 9to5 Colorado and Thistle ROC, the Aurora-based community’s purchase offer in 2017 was reportedly rejected. Though some homeowners received relocation assistance, many ended up paying double rent elsewhere, says Cesiah Guadarrama Trejo, 9to5 associate state director.
The Denver Meadows saga was featured in the 2021 mobile home documentary “A Decent Home” by filmmaker Sara Terry, a former Monitor journalist. Her team arranged an event in Colorado this November that connected manufactured housing homeowners from across the country with activists, policy experts, and former Denver Meadows residents.
Reflecting on when she started the film six years or so ago, Ms. Terry notes, “I had to say the ‘underreported’ affordable housing crisis. … [Now] people are paying attention. I think grassroots activism is flourishing, and that makes me hopeful.”
Mr. Hunt, one of a few Animas View residents who attended the gathering, says he went up to a displaced Denver Meadows man and thanked him. No threat of eviction
Just beyond the limits of the Durango park, a train slices through the mountain view with a harmonic huff. Current and former board members are keen to keep this community intact, and, so far, residents report no one has moved out since the sale.
“One of the first things that we decided when we met as a board was that we would not allow anybody to be forced out of the park because of an inability to pay the rent,” says former board president Mr. Egan in his home, where Christmas stockings hang above an electric fireplace.
To ensure folks can afford to stay, the community is developing a rental assistance fund. In addition to seeking outside funding, some residents plan to donate spare dollars themselves. Lindie Hunt, board treasurer and Mr. Hunt’s wife, recently jump-started the fund with a check for $60 – a sum she’d been given for checking on a neighbor’s home while they were away.
“It wasn’t my money in the first place,” she reasons in her kitchen, preparing to leave for work one morning.
Beyond paying off the five initial loans, the 120-lot community faces infrastructure projects, such as a wholesale water and sewer system replacement. To help keep maintenance costs down, several residents volunteer their time and skills. Mr. Boardman wields a weed wacker sometimes.
Needing to collaborate, residents have also begun to get to know their neighbors better. Surrounded by sawdust and screws, Kirby MacLaurin and Doug Harris are voluntarily tearing up a duplex that the co-op hopes to renovate into a rental.
Though they’ve overlapped at Animas View for a few years, the men just met.
“Ever since we made the co-op, we are meeting each other for the first time. Isn’t that amazing?” says Mr. Harris.
“It’s true,” says Mr. MacLaurin, hammer in hand. “Best buds … what a find.”
NINETIES CGI A giant asteroid that’s 3,500 feet wide is hurtling toward Earth right now
Joshua Hawkins Mon, January 10, 2022
A giant asteroid over 3,500 feet wide is flying through space towards the Earth. Don’t worry, though, it isn’t going to hit us, but it will pass close by on January 18, 2022. Astronomers named it Asteroid 7498 (1994 PC1). The asteroid is roughly 2.5 times the height of New York’s Empire State Building. NASA considers it a potentially hazardous asteroid because of its size, and how close it flies close to the planet.
This giant asteroid will pass by the Earth
Large planetoid in empty space
While massive, Asteroid 7498 (1994 PC1) isn’t an impact concern right now. That means we shouldn’t have to worry about its path changing and bringing it any closer to the Earth. In fact, 7498 is only expected to pass within 1.2 million miles of the Earth. That’s over five times the distance between the Earth and the Moon. It is also the closest that it will come for the next 200 years.
Because it will pass so far from the Earth, the chance of seeing this giant asteroid with the naked eye is slim. Viewers will need a small telescope, at the least. They’ll also need to have that telescope pointed at the exact place the asteroid will pass at the exact time that it passes.
Those interested in seeing the asteroid will want to make use of a telescope in their backyard. Try to set up in darker areas, as the speed of the asteroid makes it difficult to see. You'll be able to see it best on January 18, after it starts making its closest approach. EarthSky breaks down the course of the asteroid very well, if you're interested in finding out more details about when to see it. The discovery of Asteroid 7482 (1994 PC1) Comet, asteroid, meteorite flying to the planet Earth
This giant asteroid was first discovered by Robert McNaught in August of 1994. McNaught is credited with the find, but other astronomers previously observed the asteroid.
The astronomers found that the object travels at around 43,754 miles per hour relative to the Earth. They were then able to use data gathered over 47 years to determine its exact orbit. As mentioned above, Asteroid 7482 will pass closely by the Earth later this month.
However, it won’t come nearly as close in the next few hundred years. As such, any budding astronomers that want to get a look take the opportunity to observe it as it flashes through the night sky on January 18 and 19, depending on your timezone. Of course, this isn't the first (or last) time an asteroid has come close to Earth, so young astronomers should have other chances in the future, too.
ANOTHER SEVENTIES MOVIE Leaning San Francisco skyscraper is tilting 3 inches per year as engineers rush to implement fix Tim Fitzsimons Mon, January 10, 2022
Structural engineer Ronald O. Hamburger made the comments Thursday at a city hearing in which he pitched an updated fix for the building's foundation, NBC Bay Area reported.
The 58-story, 645-foot tall tower — opened to residents in 2009 — is now tilting 26 inches north and west at Fremont and Mission Streets in the heart of San Francisco’s financial district, according to NBC Bay Area.
Residents were informed that the building is settling unevenly and more than anticipated in 2016. The tower sits beside the Salesforce Transit Center, a bus terminal and potential future rail terminus for California’s high speed rail network currently under construction.
But efforts to stabilize the sinking and leaning skyscraper seemed to worsen matters. Engineers halted construction on the fix in summer 2021 so they could “determine why increased foundation movement was occurring and how this could be mitigated.”
To relaunch the stabilization, Hamburger on Thursday proposed slashing the number of support piles beneath the tower from 52 to 18 to "minimize additional building settlement."
A letter to the Millennium Tower’s general manager last month said the new, quicker fix was needed after engineers identified two potential causes for apparent worsening of the building’s settlement: “vibration of the soils associated with pile installation activity, and unintentional removal of excessive soil as the piles were installed.”
Hamburger said the 18 steel piles will be anchored into bedrock 250 feet under the tower, cutting through rapidly compressing clay and sand soil that the building's foundation sits upon today.
In a question and answer document, the engineer said if more than 18 piles are installed, "the construction schedule will be extended, and the building will settle and tilt a little more during this period."
"We judge that the 18-pile solution offers an optimal solution between additional settlement and benefit gained."
In an exclusive investigation, NBC Bay Area reported Wednesday that an expert review of the perimeter pile upgrade plan found there was a one- to four-day-long delay in summer 2021 between excavating the soil for the existing six pilings and injecting grout to minimize soil collapse.
That gap between excavating and injecting grout went against protocol and "could very well explain the comparatively rapid settlement and tilting that occurred during pile installation in August."
In an email, Douglas Elmets, spokesperson for the Millennium Tower Homeowners Association, said the perimeter pile plan won't stop the building's sinking "until the piles are driven into bedrock and attached to the foundation, which will occur later this year."
In a Thursday letter to the Millennium Tower Association, the San Francisco Department of Building Inspection said it had approved the new 18-pile plan, writing that it is "satisfied that the associated settlement and tilt remain within safe ranges and support [Hamburger's] proposal to continue the retrofit using the modified installation procedures."
SFDBI said they would inspect between each pile installation to ensure work was proceeding as expected.
In 1973, 'Soylent Green' envisioned the world in 2022. It got a lot right.
A poster for the 1973 film “Soylent Green.” (LMPC/LMPC via Getty Images) George Bass Sun, January 9, 2022,
The year is 2022. Our overpopulated planet is experiencing catastrophic climate change, megacorporations have excessive power over the government, and clean living is a luxury only the 1 percent can afford.
It may read like a scan of the front-page headlines, but these predictions were laid out half a century ago in the dystopian film "Soylent Green."
Hundreds of films have attempted to visualize the future; most didn't do a great job. "Freejack" (1992) imagined widespread time-traveling assassins by 2009, while box office bomb "The Postman" (1997) predicted 2013 would be post-apocalyptic.
But about 50 years ago, Hollywood's prognosticators seemed to hit on the truth.
In 1972, the "Planet of the Apes" franchise released its fourth film, "Conquest of the Planet of the Apes." It's set in the year 1991 and imagines Earth in the grip of a lethal pandemic. Draw your own AIDS/SARS/Zika/covid comparisons.
But "Soylent Green," released in 1973 and based on a novel by Harry Harrison, was even more eerily prescient. It's set in the then-far-off future of 2022. It stars Charlton Heston - known for playing Moses in "The Ten Commandments" (1956) and for being the five-time president of the National Rifle Association - as Thorn, a New York police detective. And the planet he inhabits looks a lot like ours.
The plot centers on a murder investigation. But let's examine which of the film's social predictions have come true now that we've reached the year of its setting.
- Synthetic food
As long ago as "The Jetsons" in 1962, TV shows and movies have depicted humans ditching meals for nutrition pills. In "Soylent Green," it's a switch we make out of necessity: Overconsumption has caused fresh produce to become scarce. A head of lettuce, two tomatoes and a leek retail for $279, and a sliver of beef is the ultimate luxury.
The general public is forced to live off products from the Soylent corporation, whose wares contain "high-energy vegetable concentrate" - and are dismissed by one elderly customer as "tasteless, odorless crud." Its latest artificial meal is Soylent Green, a "miracle food of high-energy plankton gathered from the oceans of the world." It proves popular enough to be rationed to a single day of sale per week, but as Thorn discovers, it's not what it seems to be. (We won't spoil the ending, though if you know anything about the film, it's probably the horrifying revelation about Soylent Green.)
That grisly denouement didn't deter crowdfunders from investing in software engineer Rob Rhinehart's real-life Soylent meal replacements in 2013. Soylent today is available in powder and bar form. It "meets the Food and Drug Administration's standards for a whole raft of healthy claims," Ars Technica reported in 2014. Soylent Nutrition did temporarily stop sales of its powders and bars in 2016 after reports of gastrointestinal illness were traced to the products' use of flour made from algae - not plankton, exactly, but close. Today, Soylent is available to purchase online and in chains including Walmart and 7-Eleven, but it has yet to spark the same frenzied feeding riot of its namesake in the movie.
- Overcrowding
"Soylent Green" opens with photographs showing how modern Americans evolved from frock-coated settlers to fishermen, farmers and early town-dwellers. The slide show then blurs into a rush of cities with heaving sidewalks, smog-cloaked traffic jams and even Tokyo-style "professional pushers" cramming commuters onto subway trains. A title card tells us the population of New York City is 40 million; an exasperated Thorn at one point remarks, "There are 2 million guys out of work in Manhattan alone - just waiting for my job!"
There are similarities between the movie's universe and life in the Big Apple today. Manhattan saw an influx of homeless residents last June when the city attempted to ease crowding in shelters. And as shown on screen, police can be efficient (or overzealous, depending on your perspective) when it comes to clearing protesters. (Predictions of rampant crime, mercifully, have not materialized: Thorn notes that the city logs 137 homicides per day, while NYPD's CompStat report lists five from Dec. 27, 2021, to Jan. 2.)
The super-rich, however, get a better deal in reality than in the film, where they're confined to living in the Chelsea West apartments if they want to keep away from the masses. Each door in the luxury tower block is automated, the penthouse butler is dressed in garish hunting pink, and the height of decadence is a fresh shower. Not exactly the private wine cellars and porte-cochere that you'll find today in buildings such as 15 Central Park West. - Climate change
Perhaps influenced by the 1972 heat wave in the Northeast and the first oil crisis of the early 1970s, "Soylent Green" imagines a sweltering future where the temperature never dips below 90. Margarine spoils in the fridge, and a sickly fog, similar to London's historical "pea-soupers," hangs in the air, forcing the city's last remaining trees to be shielded under a tent. Whether these calamities are the fault of humankind or a natural disaster isn't made clear, but in the source novel, it's implied to be the former.
To Thorn, a scorched existence is normal - he grew up in the sticky 21st century, after all - but he's still mesmerized when he discovers the wealthy murder victim's fresh soap and an air conditioner than can make the room "cold, like winter used to be."
In reality, of course, the climate catastrophe isn't limited to cities. Wildfires recently raged through Colorado, leaving hundreds homeless, while a huge swath of the West, from New Mexico to Idaho, is in the grips of a megadrought.
Britain just recorded its warmest New Year's Eve on record. Last November saw Delhi enter a temporary lockdown - not for covid but to mitigate the Indian capital's notorious air pollution.
- Assisted dying
Between the food shortages, staggering inequality, oppressive temperatures and stairwells lined with sleeping homeless people, life in "Soylent Green" isn't a picnic. Perhaps that's why authorities in the movie have legalized assisted dying.
One scene shows widows collecting "death benefits," implying that your family will be rewarded if you opt out. It's a moment that catches the eye of Sol Roth (Edward G. Robinson), who attends a clinic where he's welcomed by a glamorous assistant. He's asked to choose his favorite color and soundtrack, takes a mouthful of medicine and is placed in bed while an orderly pushes two buttons on a console. A wall-sized TV then plays a montage of pacifying imagery (grazing stag, golden dawns, rivers) as the character exchanges a tender "I love you" with Thorn. (Robinson himself would die 12 days after shooting wrapped.)
A controversial subject at the time, assisted dying is legal today in Canada, Colombia, Australia and parts of Europe. In 2018, 142 people traveled from Germany, France and Britain to Switzerland's Dignitas facility to make use of the country's physician-assisted suicide policy that does not set a minimum age, diagnosis requirement or qualifying symptoms. - Screen time
While Thorn's leisure time is spent savoring the beans, lettuce and apples he has pilfered from his latest crime scene, the elite of "Soylent Green" have a more novel way to unwind: video games. In the luxury apartment of a Soylent board member, a sleek cabinet contains Computer Space, which in real-life 1971 had become the very first coin-operated arcade game.
Thank goodness the 2022 we find ourselves in today offers a wider array of high-tech escapism. But is our world as bleak as the film predicted 49 years ago?
"Soylent Green" might not be the most unnerving look at tomorrow - that honor will forever be held by Mick Jackson's "Threads" (1984) and its unflinching account of a nuclear holocaust - but it is one that guessed how ugly we might become if we continued to allow ourselves to be run by greed. Unlike in "Threads," we've avoided pushing the big red launch button. We're happy to keep pushing the buttons on our digital devices instead.
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George Bass is a feature writer based in Britain who has contributed to the Guardian, the New York Times, the New Scientist and the Financial Times.
One mystery of the labor shortage is the missing paycheck: How long can people choosing not to work last without an income?
Nobody’s sure, but clues are emerging. The economy continues to recover from the COVID wipeout, and hiring remains strong. Yet Americans are beginning to report more difficulty paying routine bills, not less, and it’s probably related to the end of federal relief measures that kept millions above water during the last 20 months.
In the Census Bureau’s “household pulse” survey last May, 46.7% of respondents said they had no difficulty paying usual household expenses. By December, that had fallen to 39.9%. During the same time period, the portion saying it’s a little, somewhat or very difficult to pay those bills rose from 45.9% to 49.9%. (The remaining 10% or so did not answer the question.)
Since the economy has been steadily improving, the deterioration in household finances isn’t due to worsening unemployment or falling incomes. But the last stimulus payments went out in the first half of 2021, and emergency federal jobless benefits ended in September. With inflation at 6.8%, buying power is also eroding at the same time aid is drying up.
“There are people who are running out of money," says Philippa Dunne of TLR Analytics. "It's getting harder for them to pay their bills. The expiration of expanded unemployment insurance benefits and stimulus payments have taken a toll on household finances."
There seem to be plenty of jobs for people who need to work. Employers report 10.6 million job openings, nearly the most ever. Unfilled jobs hit unprecedented levels in 2021, as COVID-related anomalies wrought havoc with the labor force. Some parents who want to work must now deal with unpredictable school schedules and an acute shortage of affordable child care. Several million potential workers may still be too concerned about catching COVID on the job to return. Federal aid money has given millions more a financial cushion that could delay a return to work or let them hold out for a better job longer than they may have been able to get before. A record-high quit rate—the portion of workers choosing to leave their jobs—suggests workers have newfound leverage, and they’re using it.
A hiring sign for McDonald's is displayed at Florham Park, New Jersey, U.S. September 10, 2021. Stimulus money may have made workers reluctant to take low-wage jobs. Picture taken September 10, 2021. REUTERS/Conway G. Gittens
If jobs are there for the taking, people starting to feel a financial pinch should have no trouble nabbing a paycheck or finding new work that pays more or offers better flexibility. But the door to work might not be as wide open as aggregate data suggests. Job-seekers say companies seem to post some listings just to see if they can lure a dream candidate, who never materializes, leaving those jobs open indefinitely. Not all employers are boosting pay and benefits. Some parents can’t find any job offering enough flexibility to let them care for kids or sick family members.
Financial strains could get worse. Another important element of federal relief—an expanded child tax credit—expired in December and it’s not clear Congress will renew it. The baseline child tax credit remains in place, but the expansion was worth hundreds or thousands of dollars extra to qualifying families. It also allowed those families to claim half the credit in advance, through a monthly bank-account direct deposit or check in the mailbox. The December Census survey showed 39% of child tax credit recipients—nearly 20 million households—spent the money, most likely on necessities. Thirty-eight percent said they used the money to pay down debt and just 26% said they saved it.
One surprise of the COVID pandemic was a broad improvement in household finances, when many economists expected soaring unemployment to make things much worse. Roughly $6 trillion in relief programs passed by Congress gets much of the credit. Consumers also became frenetic savers, since it was hard to spend money when businesses shut down or it felt unsafe to go out. The saving rate rocketed from 8.3% before the pandemic to a high of 33.8% in April 2020. It stayed elevated for the next 15 months, providing a financial cushion as businesses struggled to get back to normal.
That cushion is evaporating. The saving rate in November fell to 6.9%, and Census data shows that more people are now using credit cards to pay for routine expenses. A saving supercycle has now yielded to “dissaving,” when people spend down their surplus and start to borrow more.
None of this means the economy is in particular trouble in 2022, since growth remains solid and robust hiring should resume once the Omicron COVID variant begins to retreat. But tougher economic times for at least some Americans will shape political decisions in 2022 and probably impact the upcoming midterm elections.
There are murmurs in Washington about another round of aid for business and perhaps some consumers still struggling. If it happens, it won’t be nearly as big as last year’s $2 trillion package, but it would reignite disputes between liberal politicians who think Washington should do much more and conservatives who think it has already gone way too far.
Also lingering is President Biden’s “build back better” legislation, which Democrats are revamping in the hope it can pass by the end of February. One of the biggest issues is whether to reauthorize the expanded child tax credit for another year or longer, or revert permanently back to the baseline credit. That bill could also include child care assistance and other measures that might help sidelined workers get back in the action. The question for 2022 is how much help they actually need.
