THINKS FOR ITSELF

Tesla faces another US investigation: unexpected braking

By TOM KRISHER

FILE - The logo for the Tesla Supercharger station is seen in Buford, Ga, April 22, 2021,. Tesla is recalling nearly 579,000 vehicles in the U.S. because sounds played over an external speaker can obscure audible warnings for pedestrians. The recall is the fourth made public in the last two weeks as U.S. safety regulators increase scrutiny of the nation’s largest electric vehicle maker. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson, File)


DETROIT (AP) — U.S. auto safety regulators have launched another investigation of Tesla, this time tied to complaints that its cars can stop on roads for no apparent reason.

The government says it has 354 complaints from owners during the past nine months about “phantom braking” in Tesla Models 3 and Y. The probe covers an estimated 416,000 vehicles from the 2021 and 2022 model years.

No crashes or injuries were reported.

The vehicles are equipped with partially automated driver-assist features such as adaptive cruise control and “Autopilot,” which allows them to automatically brake and steer within their lanes.

Documents posted Thursday by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration say the vehicles can unexpectedly brake at highway speeds.

“Complainants report that the rapid deceleration can occur without warning, and often repeatedly during a single drive cycle,” the agency says.

Many owners in the complaints say they feared a rear-end crash on a freeway.

The probe is another in a string of enforcement efforts by the agency that include Autopilot and “Full Self-Driving” software. Despite their names, neither feature can drive the vehicles without people supervising.

Messages were left Thursday seeking comment from Tesla.

It’s the fourth formal investigation of the Texas automaker in the past three years, and NHTSA is supervising 15 Tesla recalls since January of 2021. In addition, the agency has sent investigators to at least 33 crashes involving Teslas using driver-assist systems since 2016 in which 11 people were killed.

In one of the complaints, a Tesla owner from Austin, Texas, reported that a Model Y on Autopilot brakes repeatedly for no reason on two-lane roads and freeways.

“The phantom braking varies from a minor throttle response to decrease speed to full emergency braking that drastically reduces the speed at a rapid pace, resulting in unsafe driving conditions for occupants of my vehicle as well as those who might be following behind me,” the owner wrote in a complaint filed Feb. 2. People who file complaints are not identified in NHTSA’s public database.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been fighting with U.S. and California government agencies for years, sparring with NHTSA and most notably with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Early Thursday, lawyers for Musk sent a letter to a federal judge in Manhattan accusing the SEC of harassing him with investigations and subpoenas over his Twitter posts. In 2018, Musk and Tesla each agreed to pay $20 million in civil fines over Musk’s tweets about having the money to take the company private at $420 per share. The funding was far from secured and the company remains public. The settlement specified governance changes, including Musk’s ouster as board chairman, as well approval of Musk’s tweets.

The letter from attorney Alex Spiro accuses the SEC of trying to “muzzle” Musk, largely because he’s an outspoken government critic. “The SEC’s outsized efforts seem calculated to chill his exercise of First Amendment rights rather than to enforce generally applicable laws in an even-handed fashion,” the letter states.

Shapiro questions why the SEC hasn’t distributed the $40 million in fines to Tesla shareholders more than three years after the settlement.

A message was left Thursday seeking comment from the SEC.

Just last week, NHTSA made Tesla recall nearly 579,000 vehicles in the U.S. because a “Boombox” function can play sounds over an external speaker and obscure audible warnings for pedestrians of an approaching vehicle. Tesla CEO Elon Musk, when asked on Twitter why the company agreed to the recall, responded: “The fun police made us do it (sigh).”

Michael Brooks, acting executive director of the nonprofit Center for Auto Safety, said it’s encouraging to see NHTSA’s enforcement actions “after years of turning the other way,” with Tesla. But he said the company keeps releasing software onto U.S. roads that isn’t tested to make sure it’s safe. “A piecemeal investigative approach to each problem that raises its head does not address the larger issue in Tesla’s safety culture — the company’s continued willingness to beta test its technology on the American public while misrepresenting the capabilities of its vehicles,” Brooks wrote in an email Thursday.

The Washington Post reported about a surge in phantom braking complaints from Tesla owners on Feb. 2.

Other recent recalls by Tesla were for “Full Self-Driving” equipped vehicles that were programmed to run stop signs at slow speeds, heating systems that don’t clear windshields quickly enough, seat belt chimes that don’t sound to warn drivers who aren’t buckled up, and to fix a feature that allows movies to play on touch screens while cars are being driven. Those issues were to be fixed with online software updates.

In August, NHTSA announced a probe of Teslas on Autopilot failing to stop for emergency vehicles parked on roadways. That investigation covers a dozen crashes that killed one person and injured 17 others.

Thursday’s investigation comes after Tesla recalled nearly 12,000 vehicles back in October for a similar phantom braking problem. The company sent out an online software update to fix a glitch with its more sophisticated “Full Self-Driving” software.

Tesla did a software update in late September that was intended to improve detection of emergency vehicle lights in low-light conditions.

Selected Tesla drivers have been beta testing the “Full Self-Driving” software on public roads. NHTSA also has asked the company for information about the testing, including a Tesla requirement that testers not disclose information.

With fast-track passports, Russia extends clout in Ukraine

By DASHA LITVINOVA and YURAS KARMANAU

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FILE - People show their Russian passports sitting on a a bus to Russia at a bus stop in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine, Saturday, June 27, 2020, before travelling to vote on constitutional amendments in the neighboring Rostov region in Russia. Since 2019, some 720,000 residents of areas in eastern Ukraine controlled by Russia-backed rebels have received Russian passports in a fast-track procedure widely seen as an attempt to underscore Russia’s influence in the region. (AP Photo/Alexei Alexandrov, File)

MOSCOW (AP) — Ivan Malyuta, a resident of Donetsk, a city in eastern Ukraine controlled by Moscow-backed separatists, applied for Russian citizenship this month and said he, his wife and three children will soon be getting Russian passports.

“I want to be a citizen of the Russian Federation. We are moving towards this, aren’t we?” he said at a Donetsk migration service office.

Malyuta and his family will join more than 720,000 residents of rebel-held areas in eastern Ukraine who have received Russian citizenship and passports in a fast-track procedure widely seen as an attempt to underscore Russia’s influence in the region.

Russia threw its weight behind a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine in 2014, shortly after annexing Crimea in response to a popular uprising in Kyiv ousting a Kremlin-friendly president.

Moscow has denied deploying troops or weapons to the rebel-held areas, with government officials repeatedly stressing that Russia is not a party to the conflict, which has killed over 14,000 people.

Besides the quick path to citizenship, Russia has offered residents of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk republics membership in the Kremlin’s ruling party and other perks, such as its COVID-19 vaccines or trade preferences for local manufacturers.

Ukraine has been appalled by the efforts amid rising tensions and fears of a new invasion. Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba urged the European Union last week to impose sanctions on Russia for “its illegal mass issuing of Russian passports to Ukrainian citizens.”

On Tuesday, Russian lawmakers appealed to President Vladimir Putin to recognize the independence of the two self-proclaimed republics, eliciting even more outrage in Kyiv, with both the Foreign Ministry and parliament releasing statements condemning the move.

Putin hasn’t said how he will act on the request, but signaled he wasn’t inclined to support the idea, which would violate a 2015 agreement about their status.

Political analysts agree the Kremlin is unlikely to back independence for Donetsk and Luhansk any time soon, but will continue to reap political benefits from its involvement in eastern Ukraine.

“It’s a form of keeping the pressure on Kyiv, destabilizing it and hindering Ukraine’s movement towards European values, towards NATO,” said Moscow-based political analyst Dmitry Oreshkin.

Putin signed a decree simplifying the procedure for obtaining Russian citizenship for residents of Donetsk and Luhansk in April 2019 – the day after Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s presidential victory was officially proclaimed.

Since then, more than 720,000 residents of the rebel-held areas – about 18% of the population – have received Russian passports.

Olga Matvienko, an official of the migration service in Donetsk, told The Associated Press the number of people applying for Russian passports has increased in recent weeks as tensions around Ukraine soared. She said the procedure has been “extremely simplified,” and takes just one to three months.

Donetsk residents who have applied say having Russian citizenship gives them a sense of protection from a powerful neighboring state.

“Relatives (in Russia) tell us that Putin won’t abandon us and everything will be fine,” said 62-year-old retiree Nelya Dzyuba.

Many also say it will allow them to travel to Russia and enjoy benefits Russian citizens are entitled to, such as free health care. For that, however, a passport holder must go through additional red tape, though Putin last month tasked the government with making access to benefits easier.

Ukrainian officials have charged that handing Russian passports to residents of the rebel-held areas violates a 2015 peace deal for eastern Ukraine brokered by France and Germany, a claim Moscow denies.

The deal, widely known as the Minsk agreements, put a stop to large-scale hostilities, but failed to bring about a political settlement of the conflict. It envisioned Donetsk and Luhansk as part of Ukraine, but with broad autonomy from Kyiv, which has said that implementing the agreements would hurt Ukraine. The Kremlin, on the other hand, has insisted the Minsk deal is the only way to settle the conflict, and has repeatedly accused Ukraine of sabotaging its implementation.

Kuleba, the Ukrainian foreign minister, said last week that issuing Russian passports to residents of rebel-held areas on a mass scale violates the Minsk agreements.

In an interview with the AP, Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, echoed his sentiment. “They have issued a crazy amount of Russian passports,” he said, adding that “they’re involving these people in their political structure.”

Donetsk and Luhansk residents with Russian passports were allowed to vote in last year’s Russian parliamentary elections and in the 2020 plebiscite on constitutional reform that permits Putin to run for two additional terms. They were bussed into the neighboring Rostov region in Russia to cast their ballots.

In December, the Kremlin’s ruling United Russia party also accepted top officials of the self-proclaimed governments in Donetsk and Luhansk into its ranks, along with some 200 ordinary residents of the rebel-held areas.

Analyst Oreshkin also noted the political benefit to the Kremlin, saying it could potentially lead to “almost a million additional votes for Vladimir Putin” and his United Russia party.

Amid warnings that Russia might invade Ukraine, some fear that Moscow might use the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of Russian citizens in Donbas as a pretext for military action to defend them.

Russian officials have repeatedly accused Kyiv of plans to retake the rebel-held areas by force and have promised to respond if that happens. Commenting on the lawmakers’ appeal to Putin to recognize the self-proclaimed republics, State Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said Tuesday that “our citizens and compatriots living in Donbas are in need of help and support.”

Mykola Sunhurovskyi, a military expert at the Kyiv-based Razumkov Center think tank, said that Russia “could use defending the interests of Russian citizens in Donetsk and Luhansk as pretext ... for starting the war.”

Sunhurovskyi noted that Russia used a similar pretext in 2008 during its war with Georgia after handing out Russian passports to residents of the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Analyst Oreshkin said, however, that the Kremlin is much more interested in keeping the status of the rebel-held areas in limbo and showing that it has a number of options on the table — be it recognizing their independence or deploying forces to protect Russian citizens there.

“There is no political interest so far. Rather, there is political interest in scaremongering, both in Ukraine and its NATO neighbors, with such a rhetoric,” Oreshkin said.

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Karmanau reported from Kyiv, Ukraine. AP reporters Alexei Alexandrov in Donetsk, Ukraine, and Kirill Zarubin in Moscow contributed to this report.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the tensions between Russia and Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

EXPLAINER: Russia-backed rebels a thorn in Ukraine’s side

By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV

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A huge red star rises over a street in Donetsk, the territory controlled by pro-Russian militants, eastern Ukraine, Monday, Feb. 14, 2022. Amid fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, tensions have also soared in the country’s east, where Ukrainian forces are locked in a nearly eight-year conflict with Russia-backed separatists. A sharp increase in skirmishes on Thursday raised fears that Moscow could use the situation as a pretext for an incursion. (AP Photo/Alexei Alexandrov)

MOSCOW (AP) — Amid fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, tensions have also soared in the country’s east, where Ukrainian forces are locked in a long conflict with Russia-backed separatists.

More than 14,000 people have been killed in nearly eight years of fighting, and a sharp increase in skirmishes Thursday raised concern that Moscow could use the situation as a pretext for an incursion.

Here is a look at the state of affairs in the rebel-controlled territories in eastern Ukraine:

SEPARATIST REBELLION

When Ukraine’s Moscow-friendly president was driven from office by mass protests in February 2014, Russia responded by annexing Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula. It then threw its weight behind an insurgency in the mostly Russian-speaking east, known as Donbas.

In April 2014, Russia-backed rebels seized government buildings in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, proclaimed the creation of “people’s republics” there and battled Ukrainian troops and volunteer battalions.

The following month, the separatist regions held a popular vote to declare independence and make a bid to become part of Russia. Moscow hasn’t accepted the motion, in the hope of using the regions as a tool to keep Ukraine in its orbit and prevent it from joining NATO.

Ukraine and the West accused Russia of backing the rebels with troops and weapons. Moscow denied that, saying any Russians who fought in the east were volunteers.

Amid ferocious battles involving tanks, heavy artillery and warplanes, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, killing all 298 people aboard. An international probe concluded that the passenger jet was downed by a Russia-supplied missile from the rebel-controlled territory, but Moscow denied any involvement.

PEACE AGREEMENTS

After a massive defeat of Ukrainian troops in the battle of Ilovaisk in August 2014, envoys from Kyiv, the rebels and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe signed a truce in the Belarusian capital of Minsk in September 2014.

The document envisaged an OSCE-observed cease-fire, a pullback of all foreign fighters, an exchange of prisoners and hostages, an amnesty for the rebels and a promise that separatist regions could have a degree of self-rule.

The deal quickly collapsed and large-scale fighting resumed, leading to another major defeat for Ukrainian forces at Debaltseve in January-February of 2015.

France and Germany brokered another peace agreement, which was signed in Minsk in February 2015 by representatives of Ukraine, Russia and the rebels. It envisaged a new cease-fire, a pullback of heavy weapons and a series of moves toward a political settlement. A declaration in support of the deal was signed by the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany.

FROZEN CONFLICT

The 2015 peace deal was a major diplomatic coup for the Kremlin, obliging Ukraine to grant special status to the separatist regions, allowing them to create their own police force and have a say in appointing local prosecutors and judges. It also envisaged that Ukraine could only regain control over the roughly 200-kilometer (125-mile) border with Russia in rebel regions after they get self-rule and hold OSCE-monitored local elections — balloting that would almost certainly keep pro-Moscow rebels in power there.

Many Ukrainians see it as a betrayal of national interests and its implementation has stalled.

The Minsk document helped end full-scale fighting, but the situation has remained tense and regular skirmishes have continued along the tense line of contact.

With the Minsk deal effectively stalled, Moscow’s hope to use rebel regions to directly influence Ukraine’s politics has failed, but the frozen conflict has drained Kyiv’s resources and effectively stymied its goal of joining NATO — which is enshrined in the Ukrainian constitution.

Moscow also has worked to secure its hold on the rebel regions by handing out more than 720,000 Russian passports to roughly one-fifth of their population of about 3.6 million. It has provided economic and financial assistance to the separatist territories, but the aid has been insufficient to alleviate the massive damage from fighting and shore up the economy. The Donbas region accounted for about 16% of Ukraine’s Gross Domestic Product before the conflict.

EFFORTS TO REVIVE PEACE DEAL

Amid soaring tensions over the Russian troop concentration near Ukraine, France and Germany have undertaken renewed efforts to encourage compliance with the 2015 deal, in the hope that it could help defuse the standoff.

Facing calls from Berlin and Paris for its implementation, Ukrainian officials have strengthened criticism of the Minsk deal and warned that it could lead to the country’s demise.

Two rounds of talks in Paris and Berlin between presidential envoys from Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany have yielded no progress.

Amid the deadlock in talks, the lower house of Russian parliament this week urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to recognize the independence of Donetsk and Luhansk. Putin signaled, however, that he wasn’t inclined to make the move that would effectively shatter the Minsk deal.

ESCALATION OF HOSTILITIES

Ukraine and the rebels accused each other Thursday of intensive shelling along the line of contact in Donetsk and Luhansk.

Separatist authorities claimed that Ukraine mounted a “large-scale provocation” and said they returned fire.

Ukraine denied opening fire and said the separatists were shelling government-controlled areas with heavy artillery and mortars. The Ukrainian military command charged that some shells hit a kindergarten in Stanytsia Luhanska, wounding two civilians, and cut power supply to half of the town.

Yasar Halit Cevik, head of the OSCE monitoring mission, said it reported 500 explosions along the contact line between Wednesday evening and 11:20 am Thursday. Cevik told the United Nations Security Council that the tension appeared to be easing after that with about 30 explosions reported, adding “it is critically important to de-escalate immediately.”

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Yuras Karmanau in Kyiv, Ukraine and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.

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More AP coverage of the Ukraine crisis: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

UN report expected to give the starkest warning yet of the devastating impacts in store if world fails to curb climate change

Corals become "bleached" when water temperatures rise too high and are sustained for too long, Fiji.

Cat Holloway / WWF

WWF

16 February 2022

WWF-Pacific’s Director urged Pacific Island leaders and conservation partners to commit conservation targets and hold global leaders accountable for stabilising global temperature under 1.5C.

Monday, the virtual approval session begins for the latest climate science report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The report is expected to outline the severe impacts of a warming world on natural and human systems and how adaptation can help reduce vulnerability and manage climate risks. It is expected to make the devastating consequences of climate change for people and nature clearer than ever.

The new report follows in the wake of the COP26 UN climate talks in Glasgow, where world leaders failed to close some significant gaps in the global response to the climate crisis.


Mangrove planting as part of the Nacula Coastal Rehabilitation project in the Yasawas, Fiji.

Dr Stephen Cornelius, WWF Global Lead for IPCC said: “The upcoming climate report from the IPCC is expected to lay bare the devastating impacts that delayed action and weak implementation of countries’ climate promises are having on people and nature.

“Over the past year, we’ve seen more examples of the ruin to lives and livelihoods caused by more frequent extreme events, from heatwaves to floods and wildfires. This offers a small glimpse of what a warmer world brings. We know that to help communities and ecosystems now and in the years to come, governments need to invest more to build climate resilience and to slash polluting carbon emissions to give adaptation a fighting chance.”

WWF-Pacific’s Director, Dr Mark Drew emphasises the urgency stated by Dr Cornelius regarding the findings of the report and the urgency for Pacific Island leaders and conservation partners to unite and set, implement and achieve committed conservation targets within the region and similarly hold global leaders accountable to stabilising global temperature under 1.5C.

“The IPCC Report is recognised as being the most scientifically robust and objective of its kind. There is no longer any dispute about whether our climate is changing and why. The Report’s findings are clear, extremely concerning and leave little doubt for continued naysayers. We as a global community need to join efforts to act now and change our approaches for the sake of our planet and humanity. WWF-Pacific stands committed to assist Pacific Island leaders, governments, CSO and communities to achieve commitments and pledges made under the Paris Agreement for lasting change.”


Old tree trunks and roots, partially hidden in the sand, bear witness of where once no seawater reached. Nowadays, these trees are more than 24 meters away from the shoreline. Raviravi, Vanua Levu, Fiji.

1. The IPCC Working Group II report – Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability Summary for Policymakers (‘SPM’) will be discussed line-by-line by governments at a two-week virtual approval session starting 14 February. If approved, the SPM and the several-thousand-page scientific assessment report will be released on 28 February 2022 at 10 am CET.

2. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the UN body for assessing the science related to climate change. It was established by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) in 1988 to provide political leaders with periodic scientific assessments concerning climate change, its implications and risks, as well as to put forward adaptation and mitigation strategies.

3. The Working Group II report is the second of four parts of the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report (AR6). The Working Group I report (physical science of climate change) was released in August 2021, while the Working Group III report (mitigation of climate change) will be released in April 2022. The Synthesis Report which brings together information from all three working group reports will be released in October 2022.

This story was originally published at WWF Pacific on 14 February 2022, reposted via PACNEWS.

Taliban crack down against Valentine’s Day in Kabul

Online News EditorFebruary 14, 2022

 

Kabul, Feb 14 (EFE).- The Taliban security forces on Monday forced markets in Kabul to shut down and destroyed some shops which had been decorated to mark the Valentine’s day, which the regime considers to be against Islam and Afghan traditions.

“Today we prepared our shops inside the market for Valentine’s Day to attract customers and the day started with a rush of couples and youth, but the Taliban security forces came and closed the main gate our market,” Naseeb, a shopkeeper at the capital’s Park shopping mall, told EFE.

Several members of the all-powerful ministry of propagation of virtue and prevention of vice also visited Koche Golfroshi, the main market selling gifts, artificial flowers and Afghan clothes in Kabul, to warn the traders to not mark Valentine’s Day.

“Today morning a member of the ministry of propagation of virtue and prevention of vice visited all the shops and told us to not follow this prohibited culture which is imposed by foreign countries,” a shopkeeper at the market told EFE on the condition of anonymity.

The security forces of the Taliban government also destroyed some decorated shops in the Kart-e-Se area, and blocked access to it for Afghan citizens who wanted to buy presents or do special shopping for the day of love.

A Taliban security official was deployed to keep the main door of the Park mall, who told EFE that “In the morning a lot of rash girls come without veils for celebrating this haram and banned day,” so “we come here to not allow people inside the market.”

However, some youth argued that Valentine’s Day was an occasion to celebrate the happiness in life and express mutual love between lovers, and did not go against Islamic values or Afghan culture.

“This is only a motive to celebrate the happiness of life, and show our love to each other and make ourselves happy, which does not mean we are adding something to our religious and culture”, Pari, a young Afghan woman, told EFE outside the closed door of the Park shopping complex.

Although Valentine’s Day is not part of the Islamic calendar or Afghan culture, during the rule of the recently-ousted government it was celebrated normally in Afghanistan.

This year, the first day of love since the Taliban seized power in mid-August was celebrated in Kabul despite being disrupted in parts. EFE

lk-mvg/ia

Pakistani Islamists hold ‘modesty day’ to counter Valentine’s celebrations

Online News Editor February 14, 2022

 

Islamabad, Feb 14 (EFE).- Pakistani Islamist groups on Monday celebrated a conservative “Modesty Day” to counter Valentine’s Day, a festival which they oppose as a “western propaganda,” although it refuses to go away in a country whose name literally means “land of the pure.”

The largest religious political group on the country, Jamaat-e-Islami, and its unofficial student wing Islami Jamiat Talaba (students’ unions are banned in the country), held events in schools and universities across the country to dissuade the youth from celebrating the day of love.

“Islam is the religion of Haya (modesty) and we, being Muslims, reject all other ideas that contradict the idea,” Niaz Ahmed, a spokesperson of the IJT, told EFE.

He said that thousands of students participated in programs ranging from marches to seminars in different cities across Pakistan.

Ahmed said that other students’ groups had also joined events linked to the Modesty Day, created by the IJT years ago, adding that elders also needed to come together to stop “western propaganda like the Valentine’s Day.”

“Muslim students must be conscious and proactive to preserve the tenets of Islam, and alien ideas of liberality of the West must be thwarted,” he added.

The spokesperson said that Modesty Day participants paid tribute to the Indian Muslim student, Muskan Khan, who recently faced off a mob of Hindu students opposing her for wearing the hijab by shouting “Allah-o-akbar” (Allah is great), amid a controversy over wearing the Islamic veil in Indian educational institutions which has ended up in courts.

“On this Day, we pay salute to Muskan Khan, who demonstrated that modesty is the ultimate strength of Muslims,” Niaz said.

Secular activists have opposed such religious campaigns, with counter-protests such as the one organized by human rights activist Sabeen Mahmud in 2013.

However, Mahmud was assassinated two years later precisely for this initiative, according to the confession of one of the accused. EFE

aa-daa/ia

TO COUNTER THIS SEE THE WRITINGS OF A SUFI MASTER

“Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough,
A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse - and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness -
And Wilderness is Paradise enow.”

― Omar Khayyám, Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

https://www.poetspress.org/archives/Roycroft-Omar-Khayyam.pdf

Flee animation documentary humanizes refugee crisis

Online News EditorFebruary 17, 2022

 

Madrid, Feb 17 (EFE).- Nine years ago, when Danish director Jonas Poher Rasmussen finally convinced his Afghan friend Amin Nawabi to make a record of his life in a documentary, he could never have imagined it would be nominated for three Oscars.

The animated documentary Flee, which delves deep into Nawabi’s personal life story, his past and his escape from Afghanistan, has been nominated for Best International Feature Film, Best Documentary Feature, and Best Animated Feature.

It is the first time a documentary of its kind has been nominated in all three categories.

“It’s crazy because it is really something that grew up from a conversation with a friend of mine nine years ago and at the beginning we thought it could be a short animated documentary and since it’s just been growing and growing and to suddenly stand here with three Oscar nominations, we had never seen that coming, it is really amazing and surprising and surreal,” Rasmussen tells Efe.

The director, who grew up in a small Danish town, met Amin when he first arrived in Denmark some 25 years ago.

“Already back then I was of course curious about how and why he came but he didn’t want to talk about it and I of course respected that,” says Rasmussen.

Amin had fled Afghanistan with his mother and brother to spend a few difficult years in Moscow, before being able to travel, by paying an illegal organization, to Scandinavia.

“Fifteen years ago I asked him if i could do a radio documentary, (…) he again said no but he said that he knew that he would have to share his story at some point and that when he would be ready to do it he would like to share it with me.”

It was only after attending a workshop on animated film and documentary that Rasmussen came up with the idea to tell his friend’s story through animation.

“He (Amin) was really intrigued by the fact that he could be anonymous behind animation because what you hear in the film and what you see is the very first time he talks about his story,” the director says.

Rasmussen said he wanted the film to be “as authentic as possible” while depicting Afghanistan in the 80s and Moscow in the 90s.

“It was really trying to find a style of animation that would support the testimony, (…) his voice telling the story.”

Through abstract visual realism, Flee portrays Amin’s journey, from fleeing Afghanistan to facing Russian police and his arrival to an unfamiliar country with a language completely foreign to him.

“At times when he would start to talk about things that were really hard for him to talk about, his way of talking would also change, (…) we need to see the visual side of this, it is not about what things look like but an emotion that he has inside and so with the animation it enables us to be much more expressive,” Rasmussen says.

For the director, this documentary goes beyond winning an Oscar.

“To me it is really about giving a human face to refugees. We call it a refugee crisis but really what it is is a humanitarian crisis, I think we need to treat it as such and see the human face to it and see that all these people at our borders are human beings like the rest of us with the same kind of complex stories, hopes, dreams and feelings.

“What I am really hoping for is to be able to humanize these stories.” EFE

agf/mp/jt

MEXICO

10 Migrants Sew Their Lips Closed in Protest Against Immigration

Rafael FigueroaFebruary 17, 2022

 

Ten Central American migrants in Chiapas took a two-week protest against immigration authorities to a new extreme on Tuesday: they sewed their lips together while demonstrating in Tapachula.

Some 400 undocumented migrants are demanding humanitarian visas which would legalize their status in Mexico.

Tuesday’s drastic action came after demonstrations by hundreds of migrants over 14 days. Some complained immigration authorities had mocked and deceived them, the newspaper El Orbe reported.

Illegal migrants crossing the southern border are generally arrested and sent to prison-like migrant detention centers for an indeterminate period, or are told to go to Tapachula’s Olympic Stadium, a refugee camp where they are provided no humanitarian services and there are no immigration officials.

The legal status of migrants in Tapachula is increasingly clouded: they have been banned from leaving while they await the outcome of their applications to the refugee agency COMAR and the INM. However, both agencies have collapsed under the pressure of migrant influxes, leaving undocumented migrants waiting for responses to applications without any reliable time frame.

Many opt to join migrant caravans, in defiance of the authorities. It can be their best bet: some who left in a caravan on October 18 are in the United States with asylum applications pending.

 

Mexico Daily News

Global trade growth in 2021 surpassed pre-pandemic levels: UN

Online News EditorFebruary 17, 2022

 

Geneva, Feb 17 (EFE).- Global trade in goods and services reached a record of $28.5 trillion in 2021, a year-on-year increase of 25 percent and a 13 percent jump over the figures for 2019, the year before the coronavirus pandemic struck, the United Nations said in a report Thursday.

“The positive trend for international trade in 2021 was largely the result of increases in commodity prices, subsiding pandemic restrictions and a strong recovery in demand due to economic stimulus packages,” the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) said.

In the last quarter of 2021, trade in goods rose to a record $5.8 trillion while services, whose recovery has been slower, grew to $1.6 trillion, slightly above pre-pandemic levels.

UNCTAD expects international trade trends to normalize in 2022 but also predicts a lower-than-expected growth in trade amid continued pressure on global supply chains and record levels of global debt.

“A significant tightening of financial conditions would heighten pressure on the most highly indebted governments, amplifying vulnerabilities and negatively affecting investments and international trade flows,” the report warns.

Slower-than-expected economic growth – the International Monetary Fund has revised its world economic growth forecast downward by 0.5 points due to inflation in the United States and concerns related to China’s real estate sector – also likely to affect trade, according to UNCTAD’s report.

Another factor that is expected to impact trade trends in 2022 is increasing global demand for environmentally sustainable products amid a transition towards a greener world economy.

Among the trade figures for the world’s major economies, the UN agency highlighted the 43 percent rise in China’s exports compared to pre-pandemic levels, while in the United States, the European Union, and Japan the increase was more modest (12 percent, 10 percent, and 6 percent respectively).

Chinese exports between October and December continued to rise – 6 percent year-on-year – compared to the same quarter of the previous year, while those of Japan fell by 2 percent compared to the last quarter of 2020, and those of the US grew by 4 percent and of the European Union by 1 percent.

In general, the expansion of exports in the last quarter of 2021 was more notable in developing countries with a year-on-year increase of 35 percent compared to 2019 than in developed economies, where the increase was 19 percent.

Trade in the energy sector practically doubled in the last quarter of 2021 compared to the same period in 2020.

Compared to pre-pandemic figures, metal trade was up 59 percent, the biggest increase among all the sectors studied, while chemicals rose 43 percent and pharmaceuticals 35 percent. EFE

abc/pd/ssk

Ecuador congress backs limited right to abortion in case of rape

Online News EditorFebruary 17, 2022

 

Quito, Feb 17 (EFE).- Ecuador’s National Assembly voted Thursday to allow abortion when a pregnancy is the result of rape, but with restrictions opposed by feminists.

After the original text failed to garner the 70 votes needed to pass, the draft was modified to permit abortion up to the 12th week for most adult women, with an extension to the 18th week for minors and women in rural areas.

President Guillermo Lasso, a political conservative and member of the predominantly lay Catholic organization Opus Dei, has 30 days to either sign the measure into law or veto it.

Lawmakers acted on an April 2021 ruling from Ecuadorian Constitutional Court mandating decriminalization of abortion in cases of rape.

Lasso, who has held that life begins at conception, vowed to respect the court decision.

“Today the congress made a majority decision after a wide, participative, lay and democratic debate about a bill of great importance for the present and future of the girls, adolescents and women of this country,” Assembly speaker Guadalupe Llori said after the legislation passed.

Activists on both sides of the abortion issue gathered outside the capitol early Thursday ahead of the vote.

Some of the abortion-rights protesters sat partially undressed holding up signs describing the plight of women forced to bear children resulting from rape.

“Kelly should be playing with her friends, but she is taking care of her rapist’s son,” read one message. “Paty is 11 years old and needs an emergency caesarian after a pregnancy caused by rape. The doctors say her body is very small and she could die.”

Abortion opponents, meanwhile, insisted that termination should never be permitted.

“Whatever the circumstance of conception, it is a life!,” was the sentiment displayed on a poster carried by members of a group identifying themselves as pro-life residents of Quito.

Feminist campaigner Veronica Vera told Efe before the vote in congress that the National Assembly had already failed women.

Going forward, she said, activists will fill suits in “international and domestic courts for every death of a raped girl or woman, for every woman and girl forced into maternity.” EFE fgg-sm/dr

Rescued condors nurtured to health – and flight – in Chile’s Patagonia region

Online News EditorFebruary 17, 2022

By Maria M.Mur

Patagonia region, Chile, Feb 17 (EFE).- Pumalin, an Andean condor found as a baby with signs of frostbite and on the verge of death in southern Chile, is believed to have fallen out of his nest during a powerful storm.

Named after the Douglas Tompkins Pumalin National Park where he was discovered, he has been given a second chance and recently was freed from captivity along with Liquiñe, a female condor who was rescued in the country’s central region.

“Losing a condor is a tragedy. The species is vulnerable and could soon be in danger of extinction,” Cristian Saucedo, wildlife director at Fundacion Rewilding Chile, told Efe.

Pumalin and Liquiñe spent the first stage of their rehabilitation at a raptor center in Santiago before being transferred to a large cage in the heart of Chile’s portion of southern South America’s Patagonia region, a section of Patagonian steppe near the Argentine border and in the shadow of Monte San Lorenzo.

Since their arrival, they have become accustomed to the Patagonian winds and low temperatures, learned to dismember the carcass of a guanaco (close cousin of the llama) and even received visits from other condors that perched for hours on the roof of their cage.

The most emblematic species of the Andes region, the condor is “very social and gregarious, and its survival depends on its ability to interact with its peers. They need the group to find flight paths or places to rest,” Saucedo said.

Last weekend, the condors’ handlers decided the time had come for them to “fly the nest.”

They had reached the necessary weight of between eight and 10 kilograms (18-22 pounds), had a wingspan of nearly 2.7 meters (nine feet), their plumage was in good condition and they showed fear of humans, a sign they had not become domesticated.

The doors of the cage were opened, and surprisingly Liquiñe was the first to venture out. Pumalin was hesitant for a while.

“This was her second attempt. We released her a few months ago, but we had to rescue her shortly afterward because she wasn’t used to being free,” Proyecto Manku Director Dominique Duran, whose organization has worked with Rewilding and Fundacion Meri on this condor conservation project since its inception in 2021, told Efe.

“The condor signified the connection between the sky and the earth” for pre-Columbian cultures, Mateo Barrenengoa, a videographer who filmed the condor release for a documentary he is preparing on that Andean scavenger, the world’s largest flying bird, told Efe.

“It’s an animal that gives you amazing moments. Sometimes it passes very close by, and you can even hear the movement of its wings,” he added.

Chile accounts for South America’s largest Andean condor population, and some 70 percent of those raptors are found in Patagonia, a frigid, rugged region that is shared by Chile and Argentina and also is home to other emblematic Andean species like guanacos, huemuls (an endangered deer species) and rheas (a large flightless bird).

The condors in the northern extent of their range, particularly those in Ecuador and Colombia, are the most vulnerable, Saucedo explained, adding that the plan is to bolster the population in Patagonia before carrying out reinsertion programs elsewhere.

Duran said the release of the birds into the wild is “only the beginning of a long reinsertion process,” noting that two radio and satellite transmitters implanted in the condors will allow their movements to be studied and expand knowledge about this very vulnerable species.

Illegal hunting, poorly managed landfills, a lack of guanacos to eat and “toxic carrion” – animal carcasses that livestock producers deliberately poison to kill foxes and pumas – are the biggest threats to the Andean condor’s survival.

“These condors have returned to nature post-captivity, and we should learn from them and return to nature, to our roots, become more connected,” Barrenengoa said. EFE

mmm/mc

Argentine environmentalists sound the alarm on climate change

Online News EditorFebruary 17, 2022

 

By Augusto Morel

Buenos Aires, Feb 17 (EFE).- Pointing to the wildfires, drought and heat waves that have marked the start of 2022 in Argentina, environmental organizations call for adaptation, mitigation and effective laws to protect the ecosystem.

Eighty percent of the tree-cutting that destroyed 110,180 hectares (272,049 acres) of forest last year was illegal, according to a report from Greenpeace Argentina.

“There is a law that protects the forests, but it doesn’t work is each (provincial) governor permits changes in the demarcation of zones that should not be deforested,” the group’s climate campaign coordinator, Bruno Giambelluca, told Efe.

Indiscriminate destruction of flora deprives the atmosphere of the humidity needed to form rain clouds and dries out the soil, creating the conditions to transform any random spark into a conflagration.

Data from the National Institute of Agricultural Technology show that as of Feb. 7, wildfires had consumed 519,000 hectares in Corrientes province.

And all but two of Argentina’s 23 provinces have been enduring temperatures of 40 C (104 F) for days on end.

Greenpeace and other environmental groups have shifted the emphasis of their campaigning from preventing climate change to dealing with its effects.

“There has to be adaptation because we are already living it,” Giambelluca said. “If a city floods every time it rains, more infrastructure is necessary.”

“The government must stop emissions. It’s a gradual situation where we have to convert dirty energy to renewables,” he said.

Environmentalists’ chief demand is that Argentina live up to its commitments under the 2015 Paris Accord on climate change, which have been largely set aside in pursuit of an economic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.

President Alberto Fernandez’s administration is appealing a court decision that blocked plans for oil exploration in the Argentine Sea just 300 km (186 mi) off the coast of Mar del Plata, a city that subsists on tourism and fishing.

Andres Napoli, an attorney who runs the Environment and National Resources Foundation (FARN), wants to see a greater sense of urgency from the government.

“The weather wasn’t perceived as a threat, but the climate question is increasingly bearing down on us. We don’t have decades to convince people and we will have to accelerate,” he told Efe.

EFE

aam/dr