BETTER THAN SOME STATES IN USA

Colombia’s highest court legalizes abortion up to 24 weeks
By MANUEL RUEDA

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Abortion-rights activists celebrate after the Constitutional Court approved the decriminalization of abortion, lifting all limitations on the procedure until the 24th week of pregnancy, in Bogota, Colombia, Monday, Feb. 21, 2022. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Colombia became the latest country in Latin America to expand access to abortion Monday as the nation’s Constitutional Court voted to legalize the procedure until the 24th week of pregnancy.

The decision by the tribunal of nine judges fell short of the expectations of pro-choice groups that had been pushing for abortion to be completely decriminalized in Colombia. But it was nevertheless described as a historic event by women’s rights groups, which estimate 400,000 women get clandestine abortions in the country each year.

Before the ruling, Colombia allowed abortions only when a woman’s life was in danger, a fetus had malformations or a pregnancy resulted from rape.

Now women in Colombia will be able to get abortions until the 24th week of their pregnancy without having to provide any justification. After the 24th week of pregnancy, abortion will still face restrictions.

“We were trying to get the complete decriminalization of abortion ... but this is still a historic step,” said Cristina Rosero, a lawyer for the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights, an advocacy group that was one of five organizations that filed a lawsuit in 2020 to get the high court to review Colombia’s abortions laws.

The lawsuit argued that restrictions on abortion discriminated against women from low income areas for whom it was harder to get legal abortions, because they had less access to doctors, lawyers or psychologists who could help them to prove that carrying out pregnancies would put their health at risk.

Rosero said the changes made to Colombian law will now make it easier for people of lower income levels to access safe abortions.

“Our challenge now is to ensure that this ruling is implemented” she said.

Elsewhere in Latin America, Argentina, Uruguay and Cuba also allow abortions without restrictions until certain stages of pregnancy, while in Mexico a supreme court ruling recently said that women cannot cannot be tried in court for terminating their pregnancies.

Latin America is also a region where some countries prohibit the termination of pregnancy without exception, like in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras and the Dominican Republic.

In Colombia, where a majority of the population identifies as Roman Catholic abortion has long been a controversial issue. Judges met several times to review the lawsuit filed by women’s rights groups without voting on it. Meanwhile pro-choice groups waving green flags, faced off against pro-life protesters dressed in blue.

Jonathan Silva, an activist for the pro-life group United for Life, said he was surprised by Monday’s decision. “We don’t understand how this happened” he said. “But we will have to stage protests, and call on members of congress to regulate abortion.”

A poll conducted last year in Colombia said that 25% of people considered abortion a crime, while 42% disagreed with that statement. In Colombia, women who get illegal abortions can face up to three years in prison.

REST IN POWER

Dr. Paul Farmer, global humanitarian leader, dies at 62

By STEVE LeBLANC and DÁNICA COTO

In this picture taken Jan. 10, 2012, Partners in Health's co-founder, Dr. Paul Farmer, gestures during the inauguration of national referral and teaching hospital in Mirebalais, 30 miles (48 kilometers) north of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Dr. Paul Farmer, a physician, humanitarian and author renowned for providing health care to millions of impoverished people, has died. He was 62. Farmer co-founded the global nonprofit Partners in Health, which confirmed his death Monday, Feb. 21, 2022. 

(AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery, file)


BOSTON (AP) — Dr. Paul Farmer, a U.S. physician, humanitarian and author renowned for providing health care to millions of impoverished people worldwide and who co-founded the global nonprofit Partners in Health, has died. He was 62.

The Boston-based organization confirmed Farmer’s death on Monday, calling it “devastating” and noting he unexpectedly passed away in his sleep from an acute cardiac event while in Rwanda, where he had been teaching.

Farmer was a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and chief of the division of global health equity at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He wrote extensively on health, human rights and social inequality, according to Partners in Health.

“A compassionate physician and infectious disease specialist, a brilliant and influential medical anthropologist, and among the greatest humanitarians of our time — perhaps all time — Paul dedicated his life to improving human health and advocating for health equity and social justice on a global scale,” wrote George Q. Daley, dean of Harvard University’s Faculty of Medicine, in a statement.

Partners in Health, founded in 1987, said its mission is “to provide a preferential option for the poor in health care.” The organization began its work in Cange, a rural village in Haiti’s central plateau, and later expanded its operations to regions including Africa, Eastern Europe and Latin America.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tracy Kidder, who wrote the nonfiction book, “Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World,” told The Associated Press the two traveled together for a month as Farmer treated prisoners and impoverished people in Haiti, Moscow and Paris.

“He was an important figure in the world,” Kidder said. “He had a way of looking around corners and of connecting things. He couldn’t obviously go and cure the whole world all by himself, but he could, with help of his friends, give proof of possibility.”

One of Kidder’s strongest memories of Farmer occurred in Peru, where the doctor was treating patients with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis. Kidder recalled a woman wearing a Mickey Mouse shirt who followed them to their car, looking very shy.

With her head down, she said, “Thank you,” to Farmer in Spanish. Kidder recalled: “Paul turned, took each of her hands in his and said, ‘For me, it is a privilege,’ in Spanish.”

He added that Farmer was instrumental in getting AIDS treatments, and created various health systems around the world.

“It really humiliates the nay-sayers, who think it’s somehow OK for some people to get health care and others not,” Kidder said. “It just drove him nuts.”

Michelle Karshan, vice president of a nonprofit prison health care system in Haiti who worked closely with Farmer, said he was determined, innovative and always knew how to get around obstacles and bureaucracy.

“He didn’t take no for an answer,” she said. “He didn’t think anybody was too poor or too illiterate to be entitled to receive health care.”

She noted that when the World Health Organization resisted giving HIV medication to people who were illiterate in Haiti for fear they would not know when or how to take it, Farmer set up his own program and created a chart that relied on the sun’s position. He also hired people known as “accompaniers,” who would hike through Haiti’s rough mountainous terrain to make sure patients had water, food and were taking their medications.

“I’m so sad for all the people who are not going to have him in their lives. He was there for everybody,” Karshan said.

Haiti’s Prime Minister Ariel Henry praised Farmer’s work, as did former U.S. President Bill Clinton.

“Paul Farmer changed the way health care is delivered in the most impoverished places on Earth. He saw every day as a new opportunity to teach, learn, give, and serve — and it was impossible to spend any time with him and not feel the same,” Clinton said in a statement.

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, with thousands of cases reported daily in Massachusetts, local health departments were overwhelmed by the task of contact tracing to help slow the spread of the disease.

The state launched a contact tracing collaborative in April 2020, and asked Partners in Health to lead the initiative, which made more than 2.7 million calls to residents at a total cost of about $158 million, according to the state.

Farmer is survived by his Haitian wife, Didi Bertrand Farmer, and their three children.

___

Coto reported from San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Global health champion Paul Farmer dies at 62


Physician and medical anthropologist Paul Farmer is seen addressing a Haiti fundraising event in Los Angeles on January 7, 2017 

(AFP/Michael Kovac)

Mon, February 21, 2022

Paul Farmer, an American physician and medical anthropologist renowned for his innovative work in providing health care to poorer countries, died Monday at age 62, his Partners in Health group said.

The Boston-based organization said he "unexpectedly passed away today in his sleep while in Rwanda."

Farmer's work on providing healthcare solutions to poorer countries brought him wide acclaim. A 2003 book profiling him, "Mountains Beyond Mountains," called him "the man who would cure the world."

Samantha Power, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, tweeted that Farmer was "a giant" in his field.

"Devastating news," she posted. "Paul Farmer gave everything -- everything -- to others. He saw the worst, and yet did all he could to bring out the best in everyone he encountered."

Pulmonologist and medical analyst Dr Vin Gupta tweeted: "It is hard to overstate the impact Dr Paul Farmer had on the medical profession."

And actor Edward Norton, a social and environmental activist, called Farmer "one of the most loving, funny, generous & inspiring people to grace humanity with his soul in our lifetimes."

Working in Haiti in 1987, Farmer co-founded Partners in Health to help devise and deliver better healthcare in poor and badly underserved countries.

A co-founder and close longtime associate was Jim Yong Kim, who went on to lead the World Bank from 2012 to 2019.

In 2009, Farmer succeeded Kim as chair of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

The same year he was named a UN deputy special envoy to Haiti, working with Bill Clinton.

Farmer held that position at the time of the island's devastating 2010 earthquake, and soon was headed to Haiti on an airplane full of physicians.

Farmer, a lifelong advocate for the poor Caribbean nation, co-founded the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti.

He was editor in chief of the journal Health and Human Rights, and wrote extensively on the juncture of those two fields.

Farmer was also chief of the division of Global Health Equity at Brigham and Women's Hospital, in Boston, Massachusetts.

He, Kim and another Partners in Health co-founder, Ophelia Dahl -- daughter of British writer Roald Dahl and American actress Patricia Neal -- are featured in a 2017 documentary, "Bending the Arc."

In addition to Rwanda and Haiti, Partners in Health works in Kazakhstan, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Mexico, Peru, Russia and Sierra Leone, as well as in Navajo communities in the United States.

Farmer was married to Didi Bertrand Farmer, a Haitian medical anthropologist.

bbk/mlm

Gold mining site blast reportedly kills 59 in Burkina Faso


OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso (AP) — A strong explosion near a gold mining site in southwestern Burkina Faso killed 59 people and injured more than 100 others Monday, the national broadcaster and witnesses reported.

The provisional toll was provided by regional authorities following the blast in the village of Gbomblora, RTB reported. The explosion was believed to have been caused by chemicals used to treat gold that were stocked at the site.

“I saw bodies everywhere. It was horrible,” Sansan Kambou, a forest ranger who was at the site during the explosion, told The Associated Press by phone.

The first blast happened around 2 p.m., with more explosions following as people ran for their lives, he said.

Burkina Faso is the fastest-growing gold producer in Africa and currently the fifth largest on the continent, with gold being the country’s most important export. The industry employs about 1.5 million people and was worth about $2 billion in 2019.

Small gold mines like Gbomblora have grown in recent years, with some 800 across the country. Much of the gold is being smuggled into neighboring Togo, Benin, Niger and Ghana, according to the South Africa-based Institute for Security Studies.

The small-scale mines are also reportedly used by jihadis linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State, which have staged attacks in the country since 2016. The groups reportedly raise funds by taxing miners, and also use the mine sites for recruiting fighters and seeking refuge.

Mining experts say the small-scale mines have fewer regulations than industrial ones and thus can be more dangerous.

“The limited regulation of the artisanal and small-scale mining sector contributes to increased risks that can be very dangerous, including the use of explosives which are often smuggled into the country and used illegally,” said Marcena Hunter, senior analyst at Global Initiative, a Swiss-based think tank.

As Kuwait cracks down, a battle erupts over women’s rights
By ISABEL DEBRE and MALAK HARB

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Mashael al-Shuwaihan, who sits on the board of Kuwait's Women's Cultural Society, speaks during an interview, at a protest outside Kuwait's National Assembly, in Kuwait City, Monday, Feb. 7, 2022. Her placard reads: "Freedom and equality for women are constitutional pillars." Women might be progressing across the Arab world, but in Kuwait, the guardians of conservative morals have increasingly cracked down on their rights in recent months, prompting activists to take to the streets last week. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)


KUWAIT CITY (AP) — It all started over yoga.

When an instructor in Kuwait this month advertised a desert wellness yoga retreat, conservatives declared it an assault on Islam. Lawmakers and clerics thundered about the “danger” and depravity of women doing the lotus position and downward dog in public, ultimately persuading authorities to ban the trip.

The yoga ruckus represented just the latest flashpoint in a long-running culture war over women’s behavior in the sheikhdom, where tribes and Islamists wield growing power over a divided society. Increasingly, conservative politicians push back against a burgeoning feminist movement and what they see as an unraveling of Kuwait’s traditional values amid deep governmental dysfunction on major issues.

“Our state is backsliding and regressing at a rate that we haven’t seen before,” feminist activist Najeeba Hayat recently told The Associated Press from the grassy sit-in area outside Kuwait’s parliament. Women were pouring into the park along the palm-studded strand, chanting into the chilly night air for freedoms they say authorities have steadily stifled.

For Kuwaitis, it’s an unsettling trend in a country that once prided itself on its progressivism compared to its Gulf Arab neighbors.

In recent years, however, women have made strides across the conservative Arabian Peninsula. In long-insular Saudi Arabia, women have won greater freedoms under de-facto leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Saudi Arabia even hosted its first open-air yoga festival last month, something Kuwaitis noted with irony on social media.

“The hostile movement against women in Kuwait was always insidious and invisible but now it’s risen to the surface,” said Alanoud Alsharekh, a women’s rights activist who founded Abolish 153, a group that aims to eliminate an article of the country’s penal code that sets out lax punishments for the so-called honor killings of women. “It’s spilled into our personal freedoms.”

Just in the past few months, Kuwaiti authorities shut down a popular gym hosting belly dance classes. Clerics demanded police apprehend the organizers of a different women’s retreat called “The Divine Feminine,” citing blasphemy. Kuwait’s top court will soon hear a case arguing the government should ban Netflix amid an uproar over the first Arabic-language film the platform produced.

Hamdan al-Azmi, a conservative Islamist, has led the tirade against yoga, accusing outsiders of trampling on Arab heritage and bemoaning the aerobic exercise as a cultural travesty.

“If defending the daughters of Kuwait is backward, I am honored to be called it,” he said.

The string of religiously motivated decisions has touched off sustained outrage among Kuwaiti women at a time in which not a single one sits in the elected parliament and gruesome cases of so-called honor killings have gripped the public.

In one such case, a Kuwaiti woman named Farah Akbar was dragged from her car last spring and stabbed to death by a man released on bail against whom she had lodged multiple police complaints.

The outcry over Akbar’s killing pushed parliament to draft a law that would, after years of campaigning, eliminate Article 153. The article says that a man who catches his wife committing adultery or his female relative engaged in any sort of “illicit” sex and kills her faces at most three years in prison. There also can be just a $46 fine.

But when it came time to consider the article’s abolition, Kuwait’s all-male parliamentary committee on women’s issues took an unprecedented step. It turned to the state’s Islamic clerics for a fatwa, or non-binding religious ruling, about the article.

The clerics ruled last month that the law be upheld.

“Most of these members of parliament come from a system in which honor killings are normal,” said Sundus Hussain, another founding member of the Abolish 153 group.

After Kuwait’s 2020 elections, there was a marked increase in the influence of conservative Islamists and tribal members, Hussein added.

Before activists could absorb the blow, authorities called on clerics to answer a new query: Should women be allowed to join the army?

The Defense Ministry had declared they could enlist last fall, fulfilling a long-standing demand.

But clerics disagreed. Women, they decreed last month, may only join in non-combat roles if they wear an Islamic headscarf and get permission from a male guardian.

The decision shocked and appalled Kuwaitis accustomed to government indifference to whether women cover their hair.



“Why would the government consult religious authorities? It’s clearly one way in which the government is trying to appease conservatives and please parliament,” said Dalal al-Fares, a gender studies expert at Kuwait University. “Clamping down on women’s issues is the easiest way to say they’re defending national honor.”

Apart from the defense of what social conservatives consider women’s honor, there is little on which Kuwait’s emir-appointed Cabinet and elected parliament can agree. An anguished stalemate has paralyzed all efforts to fix a record budget deficit and pass badly needed economic reforms.

Nearly two years after parliament passed a domestic violence protection law, there are no government women’s shelters or services for abuse victims. Violence against women has only increased during the pandemic lockdown.

“We need a complete overhaul to address the flaws of our legal system when it comes to the protection of women,” said lawmaker Abdulaziz al-Saqabi, who’s now drafting Kuwait’s first gender-based violence law. “We are dealing with an irresponsible — and unstable — system that makes any reform almost impossible.”

Some advocates attribute the conservative backlash to a sense of panic that society is changing. A year ago, activists launched a groundbreaking #MeToo movement to denounce harassment and violence against women. Hundreds of reports poured into the campaign’s Instagram account with harrowing accusations of assault, creating a profound shift in Kuwaiti discourse.

Organizers in recent months have struggled to sustain the momentum as they themselves have faced rape and death threats.

“The toll it took was massive. We became immediate clickbait. We couldn’t go out in public without being constantly stopped and constantly harassed,” said Hayat, who helped create the movement last year.

Hayat has little faith in the government to change anything for Kuwait’s women. But she said that’s no reason to give up.

“If there’s a protest, I’m going to show up. If there’s someone who needs convincing, I’m going to try,” she said, while women around her pumped their fists and held signs aloft.

SOCIALISM 
Maine policy makers make bold push for publicly owned power

USSA 

UNITED SOCIALIST STATES OF AMERICA

Experts and elected officials in Maine, among other parts of the United States, say that investor-owned electric companies are slowing, if not blocking, the transition to a greener, smarter electric grid. 

Photo by Terry Schmitt/UPI | License Photo

LONG READ 

BANGOR, Maine, Feb. 21 (UPI) -- According to energy experts, the challenges posed by climate change warrant a greener, smarter, decentralized electrical grid -- a grid better able to accommodate a diversity of renewable energy sources.

In Maine, public power advocates agree. But the key to a modern, sustainable and resilient electrical grid, they argue, isn't a regulatory tweak or leadership change -- it's a structural overhaul and consumer control.

That's the end game for Our Power, a group of lawmakers, conservationists and business leaders aiming to transfer control of Maine's two largest shareholder-owned utilities, Central Maine Power and Versant Power, to a consumer-owned non-profit.

Buoyed by the referendum result last year that saw Maine voters nix Central Maine Power's planned power line corridor through part of the state's North Woods, public power advocates aim to put public seizure of Maine's two largest utilities to a popular vote.

RELATED Power line corridor through Maine in jeopardy after rebuke by voters

Though it's not yet clear whether One Power will get the signatures they need in time for a referendum vote in 2022, or if they'll wait until 2023, the group says they're making progress.

"We're about two-thirds of the way there and we're finding that there is incredible bipartisan and nonpartisan support for this initiative," Maine state Rep. Nicole Grohoski, of Ellsworth, told UPI.

"We're very optimistic from the polling and just being out in the streets that people recognize the problems with foreign government control of our grid and a lack of commitment to our local needs."

RELATED Maine's North Woods offers glimpse of future fights for 'green energy'

Keith Plume of PayneCrest Electric Company in September 2014 checks that solar panels are lined up correctly at the Ameren O'Fallon Renewable Energy Center in O'Fallon, Mo., which has more than 19,000 solar panels and generates nearly 8 million kilowatt-hours of energy per year. File Photo by Bill Greenblatt/UPI | License Photo

Inspired by the climate

Reports from climate scientists -- at the United Nations and elsewhere -- on the world's progress at kicking its fossil fuels addiction have grown increasingly dour in the last few years.

As such, the call to ditch coal, oil and gas in favor of renewable energy sources, like wind and solar, in addition to demands for a more adaptable, multidirectional power grid, have become louder and more urgent in Maine and several other states.

The nation's electric grid, capable of delivering on-demand energy to millions of Americans, is a wholly 20th century machine, experts say, optimized for one-way flow from large power sources to centralized transmission hubs and on into homes.

Policymakers say that new technologies and management strategies are needed to create a power grid of renewables, batteries and other eco-friendly energy solutions

That grid, they say, should be able to move energy in multiple directions, bringing in excess power from rooftop solar installations, even as it offloads electricity to charge the iPhones next door.

RELATED  Experts: Polar vortex may expose electric grid vulnerabilities in Maine

"The grid is going to have to be more accommodating to small-scale energy assets and resources," Maine state Sen. Rick Bennett, a Republican who also opposed the CMP Corridor, told UPI. "The old model is the electrons all moving in one direction, but the new model will be electrons moving all directions."

Public power advocates in the Pine Tree State say investor-owned utilities are standing in the way of increased renewable energy generation -- like that produced at Revision Energy in Rockland, Maine -- they want Maine voters to bless a public takeover of the state's two largest private utilities. Photo by Crispins C. Crispian/Wikimedia Com

More green energy

Public power advocates insist a grid owned by Mainers -- and "governed by an independent Board of Directors made-up of Mainers elected to staggered terms by the people of Maine," according to Our Power -- will embrace, not constrain, renewable energy projects.

Last year, a group of solar industry leaders complained that Central Maine Power was sabotaging renewable projects by slow-walking interconnection studies, which are reviews required by the non-profit regional transmission organization ISO-New England, and asked Maine's Public Utilities Commission to investigate.

Under pressure from regulators, CMP admitted it had "failed to meet its obligations."

For their part, Central Maine Power says it is working to bring major renewable projects online.

"CMP has brought nearly 600 MW of solar power onto the grid -- 100MW just last year. Enough to power about 82,000 homes," Catharine Hartnett, manager of corporate communications at Avangrid, told UPI in an email.

CMP's parent company, Avangrid, is a major investor in renewable energy projects around the world. That's an asset CMP claims can help them accelerate the decarbonization process in Maine.

"While there is no market overlap, the corporate industry expertise and experience that can be shared between practices helps utility companies plan and prepare to bring renewables of all kinds onto our systems," Hartnett said.

Currently, shareholders cover the costs of investing in green technologies. Should Mainers assume ownership of the state's utilities, she said taxpayers will shoulder that risk.

"Significant grid and substation upgrades and improvements, energy storage solutions and other novel investments are made by shareholders -- so any risk falls to them," Hartnett said. "A consumer-owned utility would have to bond or distill this kind of investment into rates and customers assume all the risk."

Our Power and its allies counter that the ability to borrow at low rates and redirect profits currently flowing to foreign shareholders will allow a consumer-owned utility to invest more aggressively in grid modernization and green technologies.

Our Power's takeover plan calls for a non-profit company, Pine Tree Power, to purchase the infrastructure of Central Maine Power and Versant using tax-exempt revenue bonds at 2% to 3% interest rates.

Windmills spin on a wind farm near Charles City, Iowa in February 2009 after the Obama administration's stimulus plan boosted the U.S. wind-power industry by paying for new transmission lines. File Photo by Brian Kersey/UPI | License Photo

Monopoly profits

Electric utilities don't make money like most businesses.

They don't exactly sell a product, and usually don't compete -- there aren't rival power lines running down most city blocks. Instead, utilities make money by controlling the infrastructure that carries electricity from producers to consumers.

Without a competitive market dictating the price of this infrastructure, most places have public utility commissions that set guaranteed rates of return. While commissions have some discretion, they're significantly handcuffed by legal precedents guaranteeing regulated monopolies a sizable return on equity.

In the United States, regulated electrical monopolies earn an average of 10.1% return on equity.

Maine state Rep. Seth Berry see this legally bound economic arrangement as one of the major problems with investor-owned utilities.

"Investor-owned utilities really make their money by buying stuff," Berry told UPI. "More poles, more trucks, more computers."

"And because they have a total bias towards buying stuff, and not toward hiring people to do smart things, every time you come up with a problem that they need to solve, say like new technology that can save time and money and allow the grid to operatively smartly, their solution is always, rather than a smart grid, something really big, really dumb and really expensive."

"I'm not casting blame -- it is their fiduciary duty to prioritize profits," Berry said. "The incentives are fundamentally perverse and rigged against our interests."

Berry likens the power grid to a road system for electricity.

"If we were to turn over our road network to a foreign for-profit monopoly, would we have an efficient road network and would it work in the best interest of citizens?"

Though plenty of the utilities' revenue pays the salaries and wages of Mainers, the profits guaranteed to Central Maine Power and Versant don't stay in the Pine Tree State.

That's because the two utilities are owned by foreign companies: Versant by Emera, a Canadian Crown corporation; and Central Maine Power by Avangrid, a company in which Spain-based energy giant Iberdrola holds a majority stake.

Our Power wants to buy back the electric system's roads and keep Mainers' money in Maine.

"We want to own the infrastructure," said Grohoski. "It's like buying a house at an affordable interest rate instead of renting forever."

As wind energy projects across the U.S. increase, Dallas-based Tri Global Energy, whose wind turbines are pictured, says it is responsible for 28% of wind projects in Texas -- which leads the nation in wind-based energy capacity -- 24.5% of projects in Illinois and 43% of projects in Indiana. Photo courtesy of Tri Global Energy

Public power isn't a panacea

According to the American Public Power Association, of the 114 U.S. cities with the stated goal of going 100% renewable, six have already met their aim: Aspen, Colorado; Burlington, Vermont; Georgetown, Texas; Greensburg, Kansas; Kodiak Island, Alaska; and Rockport, Missouri.

Of those six, five are served by publicly owned and controlled utilities. That's not a coincidence, according to public power advocates.

"The bottom line is that public power communities can exercise local decision-making to drive the utility's priorities -- whether they are related to renewables, affordability, reliability/resilience, or anything else," Tobias Sellier, senior director of communications at the American Public Power Association, told UPI in an email.

But public control doesn't guarantee a greener, smarter grid, according to John Farrell, co-director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and director of the Energy Democracy Initiative.

"Institutional change is hard," Farrell told UPI. "Any institution, public or private, is generally resistant to change. We have crappy municipal-owned utilities, investor-owned utilities -- institutional change is hard."

In Nebraska, the only state serviced entirely by a publicly owned electrical utility, ratepayers enjoy relatively cheap energy, but not a particularly green grid. A majority of the state's electricity is still supplied by coal plants.

While Farrell, who advocates for a more democratic and decentralized power grid, said consumer-owned utilities are typically more respondent to the needs of citizens, he also said public utilities can have perverse incentives because they come to count on the revenues generated by captive consumers.

Efficiency programs, efforts to bring distributed energy resources online and other cost-saving strategies often translate to less money heading to a city's bank account.

"There are some 2,000 municipal utilities in the U.S., but still only a handful have gone 100% renewable," Farrell said. "Many more continue to drag their heels, even in cities like Los Angeles, where clean energy is really popular."

Unhappy customers are everywhere

For years, Maine's two largest utilities have been plagued by abysmal consumer satisfaction ratings, as well as regular and lengthy outages -- all while charging some of the highest rates in the country.

Last year, a survey of residential energy consumers across the country, conducted by J.D. Power, revealed Central Maine Power as the country's worst rated utility. Versant wasn't much more popular, receiving the fourth lowest consumer satisfaction rating.

What's more, Mainers fork over a premium for their dissatisfaction, paying the 11th highest electricity rates in the country, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

And with newly approved rate hikes, the average household can expect to see their electricity bill increase by roughly $30 a month in 2022.

The conditions for frustration are present across the country, with energy prices rising and the threat of climate change and extreme weather exposing unprepared utilities.

In Boulder, Co., where voters are more environmentally conscious than most, frustrations with the region's private utility -- and its reluctance to go green -- motivated citizens to vote for a public takeover of the local power grid.

Those plans were tabled after the pandemic constrained the city's budgets, and the city's government is once again working with the utility to shrink Boulder's carbon footprint.

The newest agreement between the city and Excel Energy is characterized by a stronger commitment to the renewable energy and energy efficiency programming.

"What we were able to build in were some guarantees in emissions reductions, in addition to some exit ramps that are built in to allow us out of the franchise if Excel isn't meeting emissions reductions or if the community decides that we are not getting what we want out of the partnership," Jonathan Koehn, director of Boulder's Climate Initiative, told UPI.

"The municipalization effort kind of gave us a seat at the table and allowed us to negotiate more effectively with the utility," Koehn said.

Elsewhere, state lawmakers and concerned citizens are considering taking up the fight for public power.

In New York, a pair of bills backed by labor and climate activists -- one already introduced and another on the way -- call for the expansion of green energy infrastructure by the New York Power Authority, as well as the elimination of for-profit utilities.

In New Mexico, regulators recently rejected Avangrid's proposed multi-billion-dollar acquisition of the state's largest electric provider, with commissioners claiming the energy giant was not the right partner to help the state shift toward more renewable energy production.

Now, the state's Public Regulation Commission, at the request of legislators, is preparing to assess the pros and cons of publicly owned electric power.

The fight ahead

One in seven Americans gets their power from a publicly owned utility, but most public utilities have always been public. Public takeovers are rare, and most successful ones have involved modestly sized municipalities.

The largest public takeover occurred in the 1980s, when New York's state government turned a bankrupt Long Island power company into a consumer-owned utility.

Despite the dearth of precedents, One Power say they're committed to public ownership of Maine's power grid.

"We have looked at other options, but this is the only real remedy," said Berry. "We've done the math here in Maine, and both through the blended economics study and subsequent review of it, we know this makes the most sense and that rate payers will save money."

Stunning sea of 'snow monsters' take over volcanic mountainside in Japan
By Zachary Rosenthal, Accuweather.com

Visitors walk before illuminated "Juhyo," trees covered with frozen snow, during a night event at the Zao hot springs ski resort in Yamagata Prefecture, Japan. Also called "snow monsters," the Juhyo phenomenon happens when small particles of crystallized ice and snow strike coniferous trees under the strong winter winds. File Photo by Franck Robichon/EPA-EFE

Feb 21 -- At an elevation of more than 6,000 feet near the top of a volcano exists a land of snow monsters, a mountainside that is home to fleeting figures that come each winter and then fade along with the cold weather as spring approaches.

It might sound like material for a scary children's book, but these monsters are nothing to fear -- they're just one of nature's quirky and unique creations that materialize in wintertime.

On the summit of the volcanic Mount Zao in Japan, about 220 miles north of Tokyo, an unusual natural phenomenon gives birth to snowy, monster-like figures every year.

The strange occurrence, which the Japanese call "Juhyo," leads to the creation of thousands of "snow monsters" that rest on the mountain during the winter.

Those who come to see the monsters can safely walk near them, ski or snowboard alongside the creatures, or view them from the comfort of a cable car while enjoying stunning views of Japan.

The snow monsters can look even cooler at night, as some of the monsters are illuminated in a variety of flashy colors. Drone footage captured recently from above shows a frozen sea of snow monsters festooning the mountainside.

According to reporting from The Atlantic, the seemingly mystical occurrence can be explained by the unique mechanics of a few different weather conditions that all come together in just the right way.

The snow monsters are created through the repeated process of high winds blowing snow onto rime ice that then binds to trees and tree branches, creating snow clumps that appear monster-like.

Strong high winds also blow water from a nearby lake toward the mountainside, and the water droplets freeze on the branches. Also, fresh snow can fall and also bind to the ice. This process happens over and over throughout the winter.

Much like a snowflake itself, the chaotic process that forms the monsters ensures that no two snow monsters are entirely identical.

The unusual snow creatures are considered by many to be one of Japan's best winter attractions. Thousands of tourists travel across Japan each year to see the so-called snow monsters, which typically are around from the end of January through mid-March.

TOURIST HAVEN 

Dominican Republic starts building border wall with Haiti

Mon, February 21, 2022

The Dominican Republic on Sunday began constructing a wall that will cover about half of its 244-mile border with Haiti.

The wall is an effort to stop the smuggling of goods, weapons and drugs as well as illegal migration from Haiti, according to Reuters.

"The benefit for both nations will be of great importance," Dominican President Luis Abinader said of the wall before officially beginning the construction efforts, Reuters reported.

The president started the project just before the anniversary of the Dominican Republic's independence from Haiti on Feb. 27, 1844. He noted that the first part of the wall should be finished within nine months, the news service added.

Haiti, one of the poorest nations in the Americas and the Dominican Republic's only land neighbor, has been riddled with crime and scandal following the assassination of former President Jovenel Moïse.

Earlier this month, investigators and a judge alleged that Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry was involved in the assassination.

Meanwhile, the Dominican Republic has seen recent success as a Caribbean tourist destination. Given the contrast of the two countries, many Haitians have traveled to the Dominican Republic seeking work.

As of the most recent immigration survey, which took place in 2018, 500,000 Haitians along with tens of thousands of their descendents lived in the Dominican Republic, which has a total population of around 11 million people, Reuters noted.

‘It’s a powerful feeling’: the Indigenous American tribe helping to bring back buffalo

Matt Krupnick in Wolakota Buffalo Range, South Dakota
Sun, February 20, 2022, 4:00 AM·6 min read

A trio of bison has gathered around a fourth animal’s carcass, and Jimmy Doyle is worried.

“I really hope we’re not on the brink of some disease outbreak,” said Doyle, who manages the Wolakota Buffalo Range here in a remote corner of south-western South Dakota in one of the country’s poorest counties. The living bison sidle away as Doyle inspects the carcass, which is little more than skin and bones after coyotes have scavenged it.

“If you don’t catch them immediately after they’ve died, it’s pretty hard to say what happened,” he said.

Related: Native American tribes reclaim California redwood land for preservation

So far, at least, the Wolakota herd has avoided outbreaks as it pursues its aim of becoming the largest Indigenous American-owned bison herd. In the two years since the Rosebud Sioux tribe started collecting the animals on the 28,000-acre range in the South Dakota hills, the herd has swelled to 750 bison. The tribe plans to reach its goal of 1,200 within the year.

“I thought we had an aggressive timeline on it, but the thing’s gotten a lot of support,” said Clay Colombe, CEO of the Rosebud tribe’s economic development agency. “It’s been a snowball in a good way.”

With their eyes on solving food shortages and financial shortfalls, restoring ecosystems and bringing back an important cultural component, dozens of indigenous tribes have been growing bison herds. Tribes manage at least 55 herds across 19 states, said Troy Heinert, executive director of the InterTribal Buffalo Council.

The pandemic, which has hit tribes particularly hard, added to the urgency of bison restoration, said Heinert, who is also the minority leader in the South Dakota state senate. The first animal harvested by Wolakota helped feed homeless residents of the Rosebud Sioux reservation.

“It did highlight the fact that many of our areas on tribal lands do have some kind of food insecurity,” he said. “When trucks stopped coming in, it was rural and reservation communities that got hit hardest. Our people don’t have the ability to travel long distances to find new food sources.”

Millions of bison, also referred to as the buffalo although they are different animals, once roamed the US. Photograph: CampPhoto/Getty Images

Although the words are used interchangeably, bison and buffalo are different animals. Bison – named the US’s national mammal in 2016 – are found in North America and Europe, while buffalo are native to Asia and Africa.

“I used to be a stickler for calling them bison, but I’ve heard them called buffalo a lot around here,” said Doyle, who is also a wildlife biologist. “I feel like it rolls off the tongue more easily, and it’s just fun to say.”

Millions of bison once roamed the US, but they were hunted nearly to extinction in the 19th century, partly to suppress Indigenous Americans as they were forced on to reservations. In many areas, bison were replaced by cattle, which overgrazed the western US and killed off native vegetation.

Indigenous American leaders are hoping Congress will help tribes bring back the bison. The Indian Buffalo Management Act, modeled after a bill that provided federal help to fishing tribes, was passed by the House in December and is awaiting Senate approval.

“For Indian tribes, the restoration of buffalo to tribal lands signifies much more than simply conservation of the national mammal,” said Ervin Carlson, president of the InterTribal Buffalo Council, at a House hearing last year. “Tribes enter buffalo restoration efforts to counteract the near extinction of buffalo that was analogous to the tragic history of American Indians in this country.”

Not all the tribes that would benefit from the federal funds are in places where buffalo previously roamed. The Alutiiq tribe on Alaska’s Kodiak Island has been raising bison since 2017 to combat food insecurity. The tribe has nearly 90 animals – including three bulls from Yellowstone national park that were sent part of the way via a specially outfitted FedEx plane – and expects to reach at least 150 this year, said herd manager Melissa Berns.

“People are excited to be able to harvest right in our own back yard,” she said. “It’s clean meat and we know exactly where it came from.”

While food security is most often cited as the reason for the recent interest in bison, tribes also hope that returning bison to the land will restore ecological balance. At Wolakota, for instance, bison have been eating the yucca plants that became plentiful after native grasses disappeared, tearing them up by the roots and allowing grasses to return. The grass regeneration increases carbon capture.

The bison also is tightly connected to the culture of Great Plains tribes such as the Sioux. The animals provided food, tools and shelter for indigenous people, and some tribes consider them to be family.

“It’s a powerful feeling bringing our relatives home,” said TJ Heinert, Troy’s 27-year-old son who lives on the Wolakota range with his family and helps manage it. On a recent winter morning he was dressed in camouflage as he prepared to hunt coyotes as part of a tribal benefit for his mother, who is recovering from cancer surgery.

“If our buffalo nation is healthy, we’re healthy,” he said.

It takes a lot of work to keep that buffalo nation healthy. Doyle and TJ spend hours each day crawling over dirt roads that test the suspension on their trucks.

“It’s bumpy out here,” Doyle said as he navigated his truck through rolling hills dotted with running coyotes. “It will really rattle your kidneys if you spend a full day bumping around.”

Much of the past two years has included replacing 40 miles of fences to keep neighboring cattle ranchers happy. Another 40 miles will be replaced or added this year. In the winter, employees must constantly chop up frozen watering holes with axes to keep the animals hydrated. About once a year the bison need to be vaccinated against an array of diseases and the females checked for pregnancy.

As with grass-fed cattle, the bison are herded from one pasture to another to prevent overgrazing. On a recent day, nearly all the animals were confined to a 2,000-acre pasture, except for a few “ornery” bulls that Doyle said had been reluctant to move with the rest of the herd and were left behind.

“We’re trying to strike a balance of letting the buffalo express their natural behaviors, making sure they have plenty of room to roam,” Doyle said as he drove toward a group of about two dozen bison, “and being able to manage where they’re grazing so we can make sure we’re still improving the range health and habitat quality for other wildlife.”

With millions of dollars donated to the project in the past two years, the Wolakota herd has grown quickly. That growth has been aided by donated animals from at least nine sources, most of them federal wildlife refuges and national parks. Doyle expected to bring in 60 additional bison from Montana in the coming days.

“I think the rapid growth of this project is a sign of how much support there is for projects like this,” said Dennis Jorgensen, who coordinates the World Wildlife Federation’s bison initiative and has helped Wolakota get off the ground. “I really think there’s an energy among the American people to return bison to the native people.”

Scientists study a 'hot Jupiter' exoplanet's dark side in detail for the first time



Jon Fingas
·Reporter
Mon, February 21, 2022, 

Astronomers have mapped the atmospheres of exoplanets for a while, but a good look at their night sides has proven elusive — until today. An MIT-led study has provided the first detailed look at a "hot Jupiter" exoplanet's dark side by mapping WASP-121b's altitude-based temperatures and water presence levels. As the distant planet (850 light-years away) is tidally locked to its host star, the differences from the bright side couldn't be starker.

The planet's dark side contributes to an extremely violent water cycle. Where the daytime side tears water apart with temperatures beyond 4,940F, the nighttime is cool enough ('just' 2,780F at most) to recombine them into water. The result flings water atoms around the planet at over 11,000MPH. That dark side is also cool enough to have clouds of iron and corundum (a mineral in rubies and sapphires), and you might see rain made of liquid gems and titanium as vapor from the day side cools down.

The researchers collected the data using spectroscopy from the Hubble Space Telescope for two orbits in 2018 and 2019. Many scientists have used this method to study the bright sides of exoplanets, but the dark side observations required detecting minuscule changes in the spectral line indicating water vapor. That line helped the scientists create temperature maps, and the team sent those maps through models to help identify likely chemicals.

This represents the first detailed study of an exoplanet's global atmosphere, according to MIT. That comprehensive look should help explain where hot Jupiters like WASP-121b can form. And while a jovian world such as this is clearly too dangerous for humans, more thorough examinations of exoplanet atmospheres could help when looking for truly habitable planets.

CURISOR AND CURISOR ... 
China denies rocket set for moon crash was from 2014 Chinese mission


The moon is seen during a partial lunar eclipse in Shanghai


Mon, February 21, 2022,

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's foreign ministry on Monday denied a U.S. report that a spent rocket booster forecast to crash on the far side of the moon next month was debris from a Chinese lunar mission in 2014.

The rocket booster, expected to crash on the moon on March 4, was initially identified by an independent researcher as a used Falcon rocket stage from Elon Musk's SpaceX.

However, earlier this month the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) said its analysis showed that the object was likely to be the booster rocket from China's Chang'e 5-T1 mission launched in 2014.

China launched the uncrewed Chang'e 5-T1 spacecraft to the moon in October 2014 on a Long March 3C rocket, which has three stages.

The mission was to test the ability of the spacecraft's capsule to re-enter Earth's atmosphere. The capsule landed back on Earth that same month.

"According to China's monitoring, the Chang'e 5 (rocket) has safely entered Earth's atmosphere, and has completely burned," said Wang Wenbin, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, when asked by reporters if the object was from the Chinese mission.

The near decade-long voyage of the suspected rocket booster has re-ignited discussion about space debris and who is legally responsible for tracking junk floating outside the Earth's atmosphere.

"China follows international law for development of space affairs, and will safeguard the long-term development of outer space activities and conduct wider consultations with relevant sides," Wang said.

(Reporting by Emily Chow and Ryan Woo, Editing by William Maclean)

Ahead of lunar rocket crash, astronomers call for better space debris tracking

China launches the Chang'e-5 T1 in October 2014 on a Long March rocket. 

Photo by CNSA

ORLANDO, Fla., Feb. 21 (UPI) -- A mixup among leading astronomers about a rocket that will crash into the moon on March 4 has led to calls for better debris tracking of Deep Space manufactured objects.

Independent astronomer Bill Gray, of Maine, one of few astronomers who track human-made objects in Deep Space, discovered in January that a section of a discarded rocket would crash into the moon.

Due to earlier miscalculations and a general lack of data available, he thought the object was a SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage that launched the U.S.'s Deep Space Climate Observatory, in early 2015.

But later, he and others in the astronomy community realized the accidental moon collider is part of a Chinese Long March rocket that sent the Chang'e-5 T1 lunar test probe into space in 2014.

A Chinese Long March 3 rocket launches from China in 2019. Photo courtesy of CNSA

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"As far as I know, I'm the only one keeping track of these objects, using observations made by the asteroid tracking community," Gray told UPI in an interview.

Most satellites orbit the Earth in a low orbit about 600 miles up, including the International Space Station. Many others orbit within about 22,000 miles from Earth, known as geostationary.

But Gray tracks a few dozen pieces of space trash that fly in very high orbits, closer to the moon, which is 238,900 miles from Earth.

RELATED China, Russia to start building lunar research station by 2026

"In the past, everyone has been rather careless about where high-orbiting debris went," Gray said. He wrote software known as Project Pluto to track such objects, which astronomers use as part of their hunt for near-Earth asteroids that could pose a threat.

But Gray said new Deep Space missions to the moon and Mars make it more important to know where such items are headed.

Gray's initial suggestion that SpaceX was the originator prompted media around the world to report on his finding. Students at the University of Arizona studied the composition of the object, and confirmed it matched Chinese rockets, not Falcon 9.

RELATED NASA, private space industry may reach new heights in 2022

After he corrected himself, some accused him and the media of being unfair to SpaceX.

Gray suggests a new organization be established to track such debris, and that nations agree to require accurate data for any Deep Space launches -- if not requiring such missions ensure that space debris is disposed of safely somehow.

As it is, Gray said the object probably won't cause significant damage on the moon, but it may create a crater about the size of a tractor-trailer truck in diameter when it hits around 7:25 a.m. EST on March 4.

The impact won't be visible from Earth due to the curvature of the moon, but satellites may observe the impact crater afterward.

Other astronomers have followed the moon collision predictions as they unfolded with interest, including Harvard astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell.

"Really, we should know where our space junk is, right? There's a due diligence factor here that should apply," McDowell, who studies satellite tracking data and works at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Massachusetts, told UPI in an interview.

But like others, McDowell focuses mostly on low-Earth orbit where the vast majority of satellites are. He said Deep Space is like the Wild West of space tracking, and no one is really funded to track such objects. Radar on Earth isn't strong enough to track such debris, so telescopes are required.

Debris close to the moon is even harder to track because calculations of how lunar gravity influences an orbit aren't certain to be accurate without radio telemetry, and most debris isn't sending signals, he said.

"Someone should do it, particularly with astronauts heading to the moon again," he said. "I think it would be better if NASA were given the job, rather than the Space Force, because it will be important for civil and military missions in the future."


The International Space Station is pictured from the SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour during a flyaround of the orbiting lab