TWO FEMALE CEO'S COLLABORATE

California pilot program turns GM's EVs into roving battery packs


Mike Blake / reuters

Andrew Tarantola
·Senior Editor
Tue, March 8, 2022

While not nearly as much of a mess as Texas' energy infrastructure, California's power grid has seen its fair share of brownouts, rolling blackouts, and power outages caused by wildfires caused by PG&E. To help mitigate the economic impact of those disruptions, this summer General Motors and Northern California's energy provider will team up to test out using the automaker's electric vehicles as roving, backup battery packs for the state's power grid.

The pilot program announced by GM CEO Mary Barra on CNBC Tuesday morning is premised on birectional charging technology, wherein power can both flow from the grid to a vehicle (G2V charging) and from a vehicle back to the grid (V2G), allowing the vehicle to act as an on-demand power source. GM plans to offer this capability as part of its Ultium battery platform on more than a million of its EVs by 2025. Currently the Nissan Leaf and the Nissan e-NV200 offer V2G charging, though Volkswagen announced in 2021 that its ID line will offer it later this year and the the Ford F-150 Lightning will as well.

This summer's pilot will initially investigate, "the use of bidirectional hardware coupled with software-defined communications protocols that will enable power to flow from a charged EV into a customer’s home, automatically coordinating between the EV, home and PG&E’s electric supply," according to a statement from the companies. Should the initial tests prove fruitful, the program will expand first to a small group of PG&E customers before scaling up to "larger customer trials" by the end of 2022.

"Imagine a future in which there's an EV in every garage that functions as a backup power source whenever it's needed," GM spokesperson Rick Spina said during a press call on Monday.

"We see this expansion as being the catalyst for what could be the most transformative time for for two industries, both utilities and the auto automotive industry" PG&E spokesperson Aaron August added. "This is a huge shift in the way we're thinking about electric vehicles, and personal vehicles overall. Really, it's not just about getting from point A to point B anymore. It's about getting from point A to point B with the ability to provide power."

Technically, like from a hardware standpoint, GM vehicles can provide bidirectional charging as they are currently being sold, Spina noted during the call. The current challenge, and what this pilot program is designed to address, is developing the software and UX infrastructure needed to ensure that PG&E customers can easily use the system day-to-day. "The good news there is, it's nothing different from what's already industry standard for connectors, software protocols," August said. "The industry is moving towards ISO 15118-20."

The length of time that an EV will be able to run the household it's tethered to will depend on a number of factors — from the size of the vehicle's battery to the home's power consumption to the prevailing weather — but August estimates that for an average California home using 20 kWh daily, a fully-charged Chevy Bolt would have enough juice to power the house for around 3 days. This pilot program comes as automakers and utilities alike work out how to most effectively respond to the state's recent directive banning the sale of internal combustion vehicles starting in 2035.

General Motors, PG&E pilot EVs as backup power sources for homes



Rebecca Bellan
Tue, March 8, 2022, 

General Motors and Pacific Gas and Electric Company are launching a pilot that will let EV owners use their vehicles as a backup power source for their homes during an outage.

The companies plan to test the bidirectional charging technology — which includes a vehicle-to-home (V2H) capable EV and charger — starting this summer at the PG&E Applied Technology Services facility in San Ramon, California. The pilot will involve collaborating on both the bidirectional hardware and the software that can manage flows of energy between the EV, the home and the grid.

Following lab testing, the companies will test in a field demonstration at a small subset of customers' homes in PG&E's service area, according to the companies.

As more automakers like GM pursue aggressive electrification plans over the next few years, finding ways to store and reallocate energy supplies will become necessary to avoid over-stressing the grid. That's especially true in states like California where utilities providers like PG&E have had to cut off power for hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses to prevent power lines from sparking wildfires during high-risk weather conditions.

"We've got the most registered electric vehicles in our service territory in the country, and so as we looked at that resource, and it continued to evolve, the genesis of it all was how do we make power outages invisible?" said Aaron August, PG&E's VP of business development, during a press briefing on Monday. "You start to look at all these mobile batteries. How do we get them to really help contribute to some of the different impacts that we're seeing via climate change and other weather-driven events?"

Other companies are investigating ways to give power back to the grid or home via EV batteries, as well. Tesla's Powerwall, for example, uses the same batteries in Tesla vehicles to store solar energy for backup protection, and Ford's new F-150 Lightning electric pickup will also be able to power homes in the event of an outage.

"I can’t speak for our competitors, but I can tell you that GM’s pilot with PG&E is comprehensive, focusing not just on physical charging hardware alone, but the software and grid integration and AC-to-DC power conversion capabilities required to ensure that bidirectional charging actually works automatically and provides our customers with a consistent experience when needed," Phil Lienert, a GM spokesperson, told TechCrunch.

Transforming alternating current (AC) into a direct current (DC) voltage, which can then be used to power electrical devices, is the industry standard today, which means the technology that GM and PG&E come up with will be more easily integrated into the way today's grid powers batteries.

GM wouldn't share which vehicles in its lineup would be used to test this technology, saying only that it would start off with the EV models it already has in production and ultimately intends to use everything in its fleet. While GM has many EVs lined up for the next few years, there are only a couple of electric vehicles in its portfolio today, including the GMC Hummer EV and the Chevrolet Bolt.

GM is expected to restart production on Chevrolet Bolt EVs, which had halted production as the automaker replaces batteries in existing Bolts under recall.

The pilot is in its earliest stages, so neither GM nor PG&E could share specifics about what the planned testing at customers' homes would look like. For example, the utility company wouldn't say if it would selectively turn off power for certain customers, allowing them to use their EVs as a backup generator.

The teams are working to scale the pilot quickly with the goal of opening larger customer trials by the end of the year, GM said.

In the future, PG&E will use the learnings from the GM pilot to advance vehicle-to-grid technology, said August, particularly as relying on renewable energy might sometimes lead to situations in which there is more demand than supply.

"Imagine a future where everyone is driving an electric vehicle – and where that EV serves as a backup power option at home and more broadly as a resource for the grid," said PG&E CEO Patti Poppe, in a statement. "Not only is this a huge advancement for electric reliability and climate resiliency, it’s yet another advantage of clean-powered EVs, which are so important in our collective battle against climate change."

UN rights boss to visit China in May, including Xinjiang, but activists demand report


UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Bachelet attends a news conference in Geneva

Tue, March 8, 2022
By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) -U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet said on Tuesday that she has reached an agreement with China for a visit, "foreseen" in May, and that she had raised with Beijing the arrests of activists to support their freedom of expression.

Her visit would include a stop in the remote western region of Xinjiang, where activists say some 1 million Uyghurs have been held in mass detention, she told the Human Rights Council.

China rejects accusations of abuse, describing the camps as vocational centres designed to combat extremism, and in late 2019 it said all people in the camps had "graduated".

Bachelet, speaking by video message to the Geneva forum, made no reference to her long-awaited report on alleged abuses against Uyghurs. Her office began gathering evidence 3-1/2 years ago and in December her spokesperson had promised its release within weeks.

Her advance team would leave in April to prepare the visit - the first to China by a U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights since Louise Arbour in 2005.

Chen Xu, China's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, told the forum that freedom of expression was fully protected in his country, but added: "Freedom of expression can never be a pretext to make (put) anyone above the law."

'RELATIVE SILENCE'

Chen said: "We welcome the High Commissioner's visit to Xinjiang in this May. And China will work together with (her office) to make good preparation for this visit."

Nearly 200 activist groups swiftly issued an open letter demanding that Bachelet publish her findings "to send a message to victims and perpetrators alike that no state, no matter how powerful, is above international law or the robust independent scrutiny of your Office".

"We have been concerned by the relative silence of your Office in the face of these grave violations," said the groups including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Chinese Human Rights Defenders.

Ken Roth, executive-director of Human Rights Watch, told the Council: "Many of our organisations have documented the Chinese authorities' systematic mass detention, torture and persecution targeting Uyghurs and other Turkic communities in Xinjiang.

"The scale and nature of these violations amount to crimes against humanity... These are ongoing crimes that demand an immediate response," Roth said.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss and Turkish Deputy Foreign Minister Faruk Kaymakci last week voiced concern about the treatment of Uyghurs in Xinjiang.

Blinken said at the time: "In China, the government continues to commit genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang against predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and other minority groups, and we urge the High Commissioner to release without delay her report on the situation there."

Britain's ambassador Simon Manley told Reuters on Tuesday: "We welcome any effort to shed light on the systemic violations of human rights in Xinjiang. As we have consistently made clear, the High Commissioner must be granted fully unfettered access to the region that allows her to conduct an accurate assessment of the facts on the ground. We look forward to her report into the situation."

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky and Jonathan Oatis)

ROFLMAO

China says protects free speech within limits, welcomes Bachelet visit to Xinjiang in May


Ambassador of China to the UN Xu attends a news conference on coronavirus in Geneva


Tue, March 8, 2022

GENEVA (Reuters) - Freedom of expression is protected in China but cannot be an excuse to put anyone above the law, a Chinese envoy to the U.N. said on Tuesday after the U.N. rights chief Michelle Bachelet voiced concern at arrests and prison terms for critics there.

Chen Xu, China's ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, told the Human Rights Council: "Our people's freedom of expression is fully protected in our law. China is a country with rule of law. Freedom of expression can never be a pretext to make (put) anyone above the law."

Referring to Bachelet's announcement that she had agreed a visit to China in May, including Xinjiang region, where activists say some 1 million Uyghurs have been held in mass detention, Chen said: "We welcome the High Commissioner's visit to Xinjiang this May. And China will work together with the OHCHR to make good preparation for this visit."

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Catherine Evans)

USA

Indian Health Service head nominated amid tough challenges


This photo provided by Jared Touchin shows Navajo Nation health director Jill Jim, left, Navajo-area Indian Health Service director Roselyn Tso and Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez in Albuquerque, N.M., on July 29, 2019. President Joe Biden announced Wednesday, March 9, 2022, that he will nominate Tso to oversee the Indian Health Service.

 (Jared Touchin via AP) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

FELICIA FONSECA
Wed, March 9, 2022, 

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — President Joe Biden announced Wednesday he is nominating veteran health administrator Roselyn Tso to oversee the federal agency that delivers health care to more than 2.5 million Native Americans and Alaska Natives.

The selection of Tso to lead the Indian Health Services comes amid a push from tribal health advocates for stability in the agency. Acting directors have filled the role for years at the agency that's chronically underfunded and struggles to meet the needs of Indian Country.

Tso, an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation, most recently served as director of the agency's Navajo region, which stretches across parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. She began her career with the Indian Health Service in 1984 and held various roles in the agency's Portland, Oregon, area and at its headquarters in Maryland, the White House said.

Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez said Tso is “exceptionally qualified” to lead the agency and pointed specifically to her work during the coronavirus pandemic, when the Navajo Nation had one of the highest per capita infection rates in the U.S.

“Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, her leadership, expertise and compassion have helped to reduce the spread of this modern-day monster and save lives,” Nez said in a statement.

Tso's nomination is subject to confirmation from the U.S. Senate. She holds a bachelor’s degree in interdisciplinary studies from Marylhurst University in Oregon and a master’s degree in organizational management from the University of Phoenix.

The Indian Health Service repeatedly has been the focus of congressional hearings and scathing government reports that seek reform. The agency runs two dozen hospitals and about 90 other health care facilities around the country, most of which are small and on or near Native American reservations.

Other hospitals and health care facilities are run by tribes or tribal organizations under contract with the agency.

The National Indian Health Board wrote to Biden last November, saying it was disappointed he had not made the nomination of an Indian Health Service director a higher priority, particularly because the coronavirus pandemic has disproportionately sickened and killed Native Americans.

Tribal members also have been hit hard as COVID-19 fueled America's drug crisis, and have some of the worst health disparities among other groups in the U.S.

The health board didn't specifically weigh in on Tso's nomination but recently outlined expectations for a new director. Among them are advocating for full and mandatory funding of the Indian Health Service, consulting with tribes in a meaningful way, investing long-term in public health infrastructure and keeping tribes up to date on agency actions and funding decisions.

This 34,000-Ton ‘Infinity Train’ Will Recharge Itself... With Gravity


Caroline Delbert
Wed, March 9, 2022

Photo credit: Fortescue Metals Group

An Australian-British partnership will build a renewable energy mine train.


Mine trains date back centuries and have controlled, specific applications.


Australia’s Fortescue bought a British F1 spinoff for their battery prowess.

An Australian mining company says it’s building a huge “Infinity Train” that will charge itself by moving downhill. It’ll carry heavy iron ore in one direction and use that weight and movement to charge the train for its return trip back to the mine.

“The Infinity Train has the capacity to be the world’s most efficient battery electric locomotive,” Fortescue CEO Elizabeth Gaines says in a March 1 press release. “The regeneration of electricity on the downhill loaded sections will remove the need for the installation of renewable energy generation and recharging infrastructure, making it a capital-efficient solution for eliminating diesel and emissions from our rail operations.”

Fortescue Metals Group, or FMG, is based in Western Australia with headquarters in Perth and enormous property holdings in the north of the state. It’s one of the largest producers of iron ore in the world. (Nearly 80 percent of Western Australia’s population lives in the Perth area, constituting about 8 percent of Australia’s total population; so only about 2 percent of Australia’s population inhabits the rest of the resource-rich state that occupies about 33 percent of the country’s total land area.)

FMG announced the Infinity Train as part of a joint project with recently acquired Williams Advanced Engineering (WAE), the Oxfordshire, England-based commercial arm of a well-known Formula One racing company. WAE builds batteries for electric vehicles, which FMG cites as one of the key reasons for the acquisition, as those batteries will power the Infinity Train. WAE has also worked on related projects, like designing the proprietary high-voltage battery system for a 290-ton hydrogen-powered mining truck, which will reportedly become the world’s largest electric vehicle once complete.

It’s hard to overstate how intertwined railroads and mining operations have become over the centuries. The first primitive rail transport in mines dates back to the 1500s, designed to carry ore, waste stone, and other materials out of the mines, while minimizing how much people had to work to push and control the carts. From there, the mine rail developed for hundreds of years as a specialized offshoot of other kinds of trains.

So how will FMG and WAE’s Infinity Train work? Like other rail transport innovators over the last 500 years, leadership at FMG has recognized that a mine train offers a unique situation that’s well-suited to new technology. That’s because a mine train only has to go back and forth over a relatively short distance, meaning its trips are very predictable, well-controlled, and use a specified amount of power every single time as long as the weight is about the same. It’s not like a passenger or freight train designed for use around the world.

Photo credit: Public Domain

The company’s founder, Andrew Forrest, cites gravitational energy as one piece of a global move away from fossil fuels and toward other sources of energy. That’s how the Infinity Train will work: the fully loaded 34,000-ton train will move slightly downhill on its own, and store this kinetic energy in batteries that will power the much lighter, emptied trains back up the incline to the mines. Forrest says the new train will also lower operating costs.

FMG says its current fleet has 16 total train sets that are each nearly two miles long with a capacity of over 34,000 tons each, per the press release. The trains use diesel and account for 11 percent of Fortescue’s total direct (or Scope 1) emissions. FMG’s stated public goal is to eliminate diesel from their operations and fully decarbonize by 2030. The Infinity Train is a key part of that plan.

Japanese firms say tanker pilot shows coal to hydrogen plan feasible


Tue, March 8, 2022, 6:04 AM·2 min read

TOKYO, March 8 (Reuters) - Kawasaki Heavy Industries (KHI) and other Japan-based firms said on Tuesday that a pilot project to transport hydrogen produced from brown coal in Australia to Japan in the world's first liquefied hydrogen tanker had proven technically feasible.

While hydrogen is widely touted as a fuel of the future with zero carbon emissions, it requires intensive energy input, with renewables to produce "green hydrogen". Critics say emissions from brown coal derived hydrogen are twice that of natural gas.

The A$500 million ($364 million) project, led by KHI and backed by the governments of Japan and Australia in an effort to cut carbon emissions, was originally due to ship its first cargo a year ago but was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Electric Power Development (J-Power), which is in charge of producing the project's hydrogen, said it has tested using biomass with coal to help offset CO2 emissions while it aims to implement carbon capture utilization and storage (CCUS) in the future to make hydrogen that is completely CO2-free.

The KHI-built Suiso Frontier tanker eventually left Australia this year on Jan. 25 and arrived in Kobe, western Japan, a month later, the consortium said, adding it had unloaded its cargo of hydrogen by the end of February.

"The demonstration covered from production and transport to loading and storage proved that the technological foundations have been laid for the future use of hydrogen as an energy source in the same way as liquefied natural gas (LNG)," Motohiko Nishimura, KHI's executive officer, told reporters.

KHI aims to replicate its success as a major LNG tanker producer with hydrogen, which is seen as critical by Japan to decarbonise industries that rely on coal, gas and oil and to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, while Australia aims to become a major exporter of the fuel.

"Equipment and facilities that can be operated safely is also a game-changing technology for the clean energy business," KHI's Nishimura said.

In addition to KHI and J-Power, the consortium includes Shell's Japanese unit, Iwatani Corp, Marubeni , Eneos Holdings and Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha .

The partners did not disclose a cost structure for the project, saying it was aimed at proving feasibility and safety. KHI said it aims to build a much larger hydrogen vessel in mid-2020s and to commercialize the business in the early 2030s. ($1 = 1.3727 Australian dollars) (Reporting by Yuka Obayashi; Editing by Alexander Smith)

If U.S. reached a deal with Venezuela on oil, would it have an impact on gas prices?

Michael Wilner, Antonio Maria Delgado
Tue, March 8, 2022,

The United States is exploring a deal with Venezuela for oil amid soaring energy prices after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But that doesn’t mean Americans will see an immediate impact on gas prices at the pump, experts say.

Even if President Joe Biden chooses to ease sanctions on its oil sector, Venezuela won’t be able to turn the spigots back on overnight.

Biden announced on Tuesday that the United States would ban the import of all Russian oil and gas over its war in Ukraine. Last year, the United States imported roughly 675,000 barrels of Russian oil a day — the equivalent of Venezuela’s entire production capacity.

And of the 600,000 barrels that Caracas is exporting already, almost all of it is committed to China, with about 10% going to Cuba, experts say. Venezuela produced closer to 800,000 barrels a day last year.

A team of U.S. officials visited Venezuela last weekend to discuss energy and other issues in the first diplomatic talks between the two countries in years.

A U.S.-led effort to pressure Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro through economic sanctions — particularly on the oil sector — has severely disrupted the country’s ability to ramp up production, experts said.

Venezuela is already producing near its maximum capacity, experts said, making it unlikely that a deal with Caracas would immediately help lower the price of gas at the pump for U.S. consumers. Oil prices are determined by global supply, not by the supply of one nation.

“If the sanctions are lifted — which I don’t think they will, but rather there will probably be licenses or some specific agreements granted — certainly Venezuela can redirect part of what it currently sends to China,” said Francisco Monaldi, an expert on Venezuelan energy at Rice University in Houston.

“There is little that it can increase further because its production capacity is almost at its limit. Perhaps it could supply another 100,000 barrels more,” Monaldi said. “But that is not going to alter oil prices, nor at the world level, because Venezuela is not going to add barrels, it can simply redirect.”

Guillermo Zubillaga, head of the Venezuelan working group at the Americas Society/Council of the Americas, said in an interview that it will take time to reverse a 20-year effort to dismantle Venezuela’s production capacity.

Venezuela’s oil sector is also rife with corruption, Zubillaga noted.

“The challenges for Venezuela to increase production are huge,” he said. “It is very hard to reverse that in a couple of months for people to be able to see an impact at the gas pump.”

Chevron and Repsol, two large international oil companies, currently operate in the country.

Some U.S. refineries in the Gulf of Mexico were specifically designed to process the heavier oil that Venezuela produces, experts say.

Simon Henderson, director of the Bernstein Program on Gulf and Energy Policy at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said that renewed imports of Venezuelan oil to the United States would likely make an incremental, rather than significant difference in meeting U.S. demand.

“The answers are far from clear,” Henderson said. “Venezuela has the advantage of proximity – short and quick voyages – and our Gulf refineries like its otherwise unpopular heavy crude.”

A delegation of top U.S. officials visited Caracas over the weekend to discuss what the administration described as a range of matters – “including, certainly, energy security,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Monday.

Any deal to ease sanctions with the Maduro regime will take time, Psaki said.

“I think that’s leaping several stages ahead in any process,” she said. “There was a discussion that was had by members of the administration over the course of the last several days. Those discussions are also ongoing.”

Venezuela's Maduro says work agenda agreed with U.S. delegation


 Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro and Russian 

Deputy Prime Minister Yury Borisov meet in Caracas

Mon, March 7, 2022, 

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro on Monday said he agreed an agenda for future talks with a U.S. delegation that he met on Saturday, the first high-level meeting between the two countries in years.

Officials from the two countries discussed easing oil sanctions on the South American country but made little progress towards reaching a deal, five sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Sunday, part of U.S. efforts to separate Russia from one of its key allies.

"Last Saturday night a delegation from the government of the United States of America arrived in Venezuela, I received it here at the presidential palace," Maduro said in a broadcast on state media.

"We had a meeting, I could describe it as respectful, cordial, very diplomatic," he said.

The meeting lasted two hours, he said, without specifying the topics discussed or who the U.S. delegates were.

Sources previously told Reuters the U.S. delegation was led by Juan Gonzalez, the White House's top adviser on Latin America, U.S. Ambassador James Story, as well as Roger Carstens, the United States' presidential special envoy for hostage affairs.

Earlier, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said the purpose of the trip was to discuss a number of issues, including "energy security" and the cases of nine U.S. citizens who are in prison in Venezuela.

The talks will continue, Maduro said, without offering a date.

"As I said to the (U.S.) delegation, I reiterate all our will so that from diplomacy, from respect and from the hope of a better world, we can advance in an agenda that allows well-being and peace," Maduro said.

(Reporting by Vivian Sequera and Mayela Armas; writing by Oliver Griffin; editing by Richard Pullin)

French far-right presidential candidate offers limited welcome to Ukrainians, says Arab refugees still unwelcome


 French far-right presidential candidate Zemmour at the 58th International Agriculture Fair in Paris  

 HE IS OF BOTH JEWISH AND ARAB ORIGIN

HE IS BOTH AN ANTI-SEMITE AND AN ISLAMOPHOBE

FRENCH NATIONALIST ISOLATIONIST

Tue, March 8, 2022,


PARIS (Reuters) - A French far-right presidential contender, on the back foot over past support for Russian President Vladimir Putin, said Ukrainians with family links to France should be given visas, unlike those fleeing conflicts in Arab Muslim nations.

Zemmour warned an "emotional response" risked unleashing a flood of refugees across Europe after the European Union agreed to give Ukrainians who flee the war the right to stay and work in the 27-nation bloc for up to three years.

The United Nations says more than 2 million Ukrainians have already fled the country.

Zemmour applauded Britain's more stringent approach. Britain on Monday rejected calls to ease visa requirements for Ukrainian refugees.

"If they have ties to France, if they have family in France...let's give them visas," Zemmour told BFM TV.

A writer and polemicist who has previous convictions for inciting racial hate, said it was acceptable to have different rules for would-be asylum seekers from Europe and those from Arab Muslim nations.

He describes France as a once-great nation now in decline, its Christian civilisation hollowed out by the growing influence of Islam and immigration.

"It's a question of assimilation," Zemmour said. "There are people who are like us and people who unlike us. Everybody now understands that Arab or Muslim immigrants are too unlike us and that it is harder and harder to integrate them."

"We are closer to Christian Europeans."

In September 2020, Zemmour tweeted that he favoured a "Russian alliance" and that Moscow was "the most reliable ally, even more than the United States, Germany or Britain." He has condemned Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Russia's assault on Ukraine -- which Moscow describes as a 'special operation to de-Nazify its neighbour -- and public disgust over the cross-border exodus of Ukrainian citizens has hurt Zemmour in the polls.

Zemmour's support has fallen by 3 to 4 points to about 12% in voter surveys taken since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Europe's open-arm welcome to fleeing Ukrainians contrasts with the reluctance to accept large numbers of refugees from conflicts in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, with some Arab refugees complaining of double standards.

(Reporting by Richard Lough in Paris and Alexandre Minguez in Perpignan; Editing by Jon Boyle)

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
Samsung may face investigation in Korea over Galaxy S22 performance claims


Cherlynn Low/Engadget

Jon Fingas
·Reporter
Tue, March 8, 2022

Samsung may be in legal trouble following worries that it's throttling app performance. Sources for The Korea Herald claim South Korea's Fair Trade Commission is "expected" to investigate Samsung over allegations it violated advertising law when marketing the Galaxy S22 phone series. While the company claims the S22 has the "best performance ever," its Game Optimizing Service limits speed to both preserve battery life and prevent overheating — and you can't currently override it.

The regulatory crackdown might not be Samsung's only problem. Yonhap News Agency claims Galaxy S22 owners in South Korea are preparing a class action lawsuit against the company for distorting the phone's capabilities. They feel "cheated" and are asking for 300,000 won (about $243) in compensation per person, according to the news outlet.

Recently, Samsung promised a GOS update that will give users control over throttling. However, the tech firm has denied reports it's slowing down general apps like Netflix and TikTok, not just games. Some also say it's removing speed caps for benchmarks like 3DMark and GeekBench, providing an unrealistic view of the Galaxy S22 in synthetic tests.

We've asked Samsung for comment. Performance throttling is a common practice for smartphones, as mobile processors can't always run at full speed for sustained periods. The concern, however, is that Samsung is throttling more aggressively while giving users no say in the matter, much like Apple did during its "batterygate" scandal. There's no guarantee Samsung will face penalties or do more than release its planned update, but the story is a familiar one so far.

Massive meteor crater discovered beneath Greenland's ice much older than thought

By Katie Hunt, CNN - Yesterday 
© Pierre Beck/University of Copenhagen

The age of a 31-kilometer (19-mile) wide meteorite crater discovered under a kilometer of Greenland ice had long puzzled scientists.

The Hiawatha crater was exceptionally well preserved despite glacier ice being incredibly effective at erosion. Its state fueled talk that the meteorite might have hit as recently as 13,000 years ago.

However, the crater, which is one of the world's largest, has now been definitively dated -- and it is much, much older. In fact, it slammed into the Earth just a few million years after dinosaurs went extinct, about 58 million years ago.

"Dating the crater has been a particularly tough nut to crack, so it's very satisfying that two laboratories in Denmark and Sweden, using different dating methods arrived at the same conclusion. As such, I'm convinced that we've determined the crater's actual age, which is much older than many people once thought," said Michael Storey, head of geology at the Natural History Museum of Denmark, in a news release.

When the asteroid hit, the Arctic was covered in balmy rainforest with temperatures of around 68 degrees Fahrenheit (20 degrees Celsius). Local inhabitants would have included crocodiles, turtles and primitive hippo-like animals, said Storey, who was an author of a new paper on the crater published in the journal Science Advances.

The Hiawatha impact crater could swallow up Washington DC and is larger than about 90% of the roughly 200 previously known impact craters on Earth.


© Joe MacGregor/University of CopenhagenThe researchers collected sand and rock samples in Greeland to determine when the meteor hit.

It's not yet known whether the meteor that struck Greenland disrupted the global climate in the same way the 200-kilometer wide asteroid that created the Chicxulub crater in Mexico -- that doomed the dinosaurs -- did some 8 million years earlier. But the Greenland meteorite would have devastated plant and animal life in the immediate region.

To date the glacier, researchers collected sand and rocks from rivers flowing from the glacier. Those samples would have been heated by the meteor impact. They were dated using techniques that detect the natural decay of long-lived natural radioisotopes contained in the rock.

Crystals of the mineral zircon contained in the rock were dated using uranium-lead dating. The uranium isotopes start decaying as zircon crystallizes, transforming into lead isotopes at a steady and predictable rate. The technique pointed to a date of about 58 million years ago.

The grains of sand were heated with a laser, and the researchers measured the release of argon gas, which is produced from the decay of the rare but naturally occurring radioactive isotope of potassium, known as K-40.

"The half-life of K-40 is exceptionally long (1,250 million years) which makes it ideal for dating deep-time geological events like the age of the Hiawatha asteroid," Storey said.

The technique suggested a similar time frame for the meteor strike.

"It is fantastic to now know its age. We've been working hard to find a way to date the crater since we discovered it seven years ago," said coauthor Nicolaj Krog Larsen, a professor at the GLOBE Institute at the University of Copenhagen, who first discovered the crater.


© NASA/John SonntagThe Hiawatha impact crater is covered by the Greenland Ice Sheet, which flows just beyond the crater rim, forming a semi-circular edge. Part of this edge, seen in the top of the photograph, and a tongue of ice that breaches the crater's rim are shown in this photo taken during a NASA flight in April.

Union matchmakers a turn-off, say Chinese web users as birth rate debate heats up


National People's Congress (NPC) second plenary session in Beijing

Wed, March 9, 2022, 
By Brenda Goh and Albee Zhang

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Proposals for matchmaking committees within unions and a drive to encourage more graduate students to have babies triggered a frosty reception on social media, as officials brainstormed ways to raise China's plunging birth rate.

In all, delegates to China's annual meeting of parliament submitted more than 20 suggestions for ways to produce more children in a country that did not scrap a decades-long policy restricting couples to a single offspring until 2016.

The plan from a Communist Party secretary at a pharmaceutical firm in Hubei province for "marriage committees" within trade unions to provide matchmaking services, was widely criticised on Weibo, China's equivalent of Twitter.

"Marriage is for happiness, not to meet goals," said one critic.

Also panned was another suggestion that masters and doctoral students should be encouraged to marry and reproduce.

"So I'm studying a masters to birth a baby for you? Why not establish a school (for this), where people can graduate once they've given birth to enough," wrote one user in a post that got about 5,000 likes.

The steep decline in China's birth rate to last year's record low, fuelled in part by the high cost of raising children in cities, has been met with growing alarm by officials.

Last year, China announced that couples could have up to three children, in a major shift, but the decision was met with doubts over whether it would make much difference and questions on what supportive measures would be rolled out.

Other proposals submitted to the National People's Congress, which started on Saturday and finishes on Friday, focused on ways of alleviating pressures facing families and working women.

They included preferential tax policies, waiving kindergarten fees for a third child, and penalties for employers who discriminate against parents with multiple children.

Although proposals submitted by ordinary delegates at the rubber-stamp parliament are largely symbolic, they allow matters of public concern to be discussed and in theory will also be considered by policy-making committees.

Many Weibo users took the opportunity to criticise the historic tactics China had taken to control population growth.

"This is crazy, when it was the time of family planning there was forced sterilisation and abortion," said one user whose comment received over 2,000 likes. "Now they want three children. Are women just machines?"

(Reporting by Brenda Goh in Shanghai and Albee Zhang in Beijing; Additional reporting by Shanghai Newsroom; Editing by Tony Munroe and John Stonestreet)