Fire-ravaged New Mexico villages cling to faith, ‘querencia’


 

FELICIA FONSECA
Fri, May 6, 2022, 12:30 PM·5 min read


Eileen Celestina Garcia raced down the mountain that overlooks her parents’ ranch home in northern New Mexico where friends and family have gathered for decades and where she has sat countless times among the stillness of the Ponderosa pines.

A wildfire was raging and Garcia knew she had just minutes to reach her parents and ensure they evacuated in time. Her hands grazed the trees as she spoke to them, thinking the least she could do is offer them gratitude and prayer in case they weren't there when she returned.

“You're trying not to panic — maybe it's not real — just asking for miracles, asking for it not to affect our valley and stop," she said.

Like many New Mexico families, Garcia's is deep-rooted not only in the land but in their Catholic faith. As the largest wildfire burning in the U.S. marches across the high alpine forests and grasslands of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, many in its path have pleaded with God for intervention in the form of rain and calm winds, and protection for their neighbors and beloved landscape.


They've invoked St. Florian, the patron saint of firefighters, the Virgin Mary as the blessed mother and the various patron saints of scattered villages. The fire has marched for several weeks across more than 262 square miles (678 square kilometers), destroying dozens of homes and forcing thousands of families to evacuate.

Favorable winds recently helped firefighters, but conditions are expected to worsen over the weekend, with consecutive days of red flag warnings. Forecasters warned of potentially historic conditions.

“There's not going to be any letup in these winds,” said John Pendergrast, an air resource adviser on the fire.

During trying times, the largely Hispanic working-class neighborhoods here also rely on community and the lessons of those who came before them. Simply put, it’s querencia — a love of home or attachment to a place.

Some described fleeing the wildfire and imagining the faces of their neighbors in the lush valleys who they've helped with baling hay, fixing cars or harvesting firewood.

“One of my neighbors described it as seeing the mountains around us burn is really like seeing a loved one burn,” said Fidel Trujillo, whose family evacuated from the tiny town of Mora. “And I don’t think that’s any kind of exaggeration.”

Religion is infused in homes across the mountains, where crosses hang above many doors. Elected officials and fire managers frequently credited prayer when winds calmed enough to allow firefighters to get a better handle on the blaze. They prayed even more when things got tough. Some started novenas, or nine-day prayers, and encouraged family and friends to join in.

The preservation of faith in this region was somewhat out of necessity. The Spanish settled the area centuries ago, but the Catholic Church as an institution was far away. Even now, deacons and priests rotate among the mission churches for Mass or to perform sacraments. People like Trujillo and his wife serve as mayordomos, or caretakers of those churches.

Also layered on the landscape are historic Spanish land grants, large ranches, traditional irrigation systems known as acequias, and moradas, which are meeting spaces for a religious brotherhood known as penitentes.

Prayer is intertwined in everything, Trujillo says, something that was passed down through generations. His dad has marked spots along hiking trails with crosses as a reminder to “pause, pray and give thanks," Trujillo said.

By the grace of God, he said, his father-in-law's ranch house in El Carmen survived the fire, and so did his childhood home in Ledoux. He's unsure about his current residence in Mora amid a valley prized for its Christmas trees.

“Sometimes when things are beyond your control, you have to lean on that faith,” Trujillo said. “That’s what faith is.”

For many New Mexicans, regardless of where they live, the pull back home is strong.

Felicia Ortiz, president of the Nevada board of education, recently bought 36 acres (14.5 hectares) behind one of the mission churches to maintain roots in New Mexico. The land burned, but she's hopeful some trees remain.

Nearby at her childhood home in Rociada, she remembers stomping on the dirt to make adobe bricks and peeling logs her family harvested to build a barn. She and her sister skated on a frozen pond in the yard and sledded down the hills. They watched the full moon rise over a tree next to their playhouse as her dad played “Bad Moon Rising” on vinyl.

Flames destroyed the house.

“I look at the pictures, and it looks like something out of a horror movie,” Ortiz said. “The tree that I had a swing on, it’s just a stick. The big piñon tree where we picked piñon, it’s like palitos (little sticks) now.”

Las Vegas Mayor Louie Trujillo called northern New Mexicans physically, emotionally and spiritually strong — “a breed of our own.” Many residents invoked the teachings and resilient spirits of their ancestors when offering up their homes to evacuees, feeding them, rescuing animals and starting fundraisers.

Garcia and her 9-year-old son, Leoncio, took refuge during the coronavirus pandemic at her parents' ranch in Sapello and haven't left. It's where her family milked cows and made cheese to sell to neighbors. It's where she sat among the trees overlooking the valley and dreamt about going to college and helping her family.

More recently, the trees gave her the solace she needed to write a chapter in a book about female trailblazers.

When fleeing, she grabbed pictures of relatives and a bag with religious items that she carried on a 100-mile (160-kilometer) pilgrimage she organized and walked for 10 years.

“If our ranch and our trees are still there, what I keep seeing is an opportunity to offer space for healing for folks to come and sit with the trees that they've lost," she said.

___

Fonseca is a member of the AP's Race and Ethnicity team. Follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/FonsecaAP

This April 2, 2021, photo provided by Fidel Trujillo shows the exterior of the San Isidro morada, a meeting space for a Catholic brotherhood, in Holman, New Mexico. Residents of the community were forced to evacuate because of a wildfire that has marched across 258 square miles of high alpine forest and grasslands at the southern tip of the Rocky Mountains.

 (Fidel Trujillo via AP)

Safecracker with a link to Houdini opens mystery safe for the town of Bristol




Donita Naylor, The Providence Journal
Sat, May 7, 2022, 6:55 PM·3 min read

BRISTOL — For a few hours Tuesday, Bristol put on a Facebook Live version of Geraldo Rivera's opening of Al Capone's secret vault on live TV in 1986.

In Bristol's case, the mystery involved a locked safe that had been forgotten for decades in the basement of the old Oliver School on State Street. For as far back as anyone remembers, the combination has been lost, and no one had any idea what was inside.

The town's Facebook page was open for wisecracks Monday after Town Administrator Steven Contente used it to announce that the town had hired a safecracking specialist, and the opening of the safe would be on Facebook Live on Tuesday.

What he didn't say was that the safecracker was trained by descendants of Harry Houdini's locksmith, the man who adjusted handcuffs, padlocks and other keyed mechanisms to make sure Houdini made his impossible escapes just in time every time.

So Houdini's act was rigged?

"I cannot divulge that, but let us say, I have knowledge," said Francesco Therisod, the vault-opening expert behind Castle Vault & Lock, where Contente was advised to seek the specialty service of breaking into a safe.

At 76, Therisod is semiretired. He has worked for the feds, opening seized assets and changing the combinations. He was hired to re-combo safes all over the state in 1999 when corporations feared losses from Y2K. When Gov. Bruce Sundlun shut down financial institutions to prevent collapses during the 1991 credit union crisis, Therisod was called in. He takes jobs like Bristol's, he said, because "I still have the rush when I turn the handle and open the safe."

He honed the specialty skill he learned from his wife's family. She is the former Linda J. Clark, the granddaughter of Herbert Clark, Houdini's behind-the-scenes locksmith. Herbert Clark moved to Rhode Island in 1901 when Houdini established his New England base in Providence.

Therisod prefers the term "safe technician" to safecracker, he said. He became a master at opening a safe by listening to the lock mechanism as he slowly turns the dial.

That's what he did in the Oliver School basement. He figured out the combination, but the bolts were rusty and wouldn't release.

His assistant drilled just under the lock and through the insulation, but even after "lots of banging" with a mallet, it still wouldn't budge.

Facebook commenters offered their takes on what was inside: milk money, little blue lunch tokens and Mount Hope Bridge tokens, Jimmy Hoffa, gold bars, dust, report cards, confiscated squirt guns and a whoopee cushion, the legendary "permanent record."

Contente wore a fedora for the Facebook Live reveal, to evoke the Al Capone era. He kept announcing delays and asking the Facebook Live audience to stand by.

"We were at the end of the second hour," Therisod said. He decided, "I'd like to go another way," and he was ready to stop and come back with the huge cutters.

Assistant Cesar Lecaros wanted to give it one last good whack with the mallet.
This time the bolts fell away

The door opened to reveal ... another locked door. Eventually Superintendent Ana Riley led viewers through the cubbies and drawers, pulling out annual reports from 1838, bus contracts, handwritten minutes of School Committee meetings, but nothing after 1976.

The safe will be moved to a Bristol administration building, and the Oliver School will be sold. Therisod gave it a new combination before he left, and he'll return to repair the drill hole and touch up the paint.

"A professional never ruins a safe," he explained. Bristol had bought a good one from a company that no longer exists. It was sold as a "double-door insulated fire safe," and he considers it a museum piece now.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Safecracker with a link to Houdini opens mystery safe in Oliver School

Coral reefs provide stunning images of a world under assault
 

    

CURT ANDERSON and CODY JACKSON
Sun, May 8, 2022, 

MIAMI (AP) — Humans don't know what they're missing under the surface of a busy shipping channel in the “cruise capital of the world.” Just below the keels of massive ships, an underwater camera provides a live feed from another world, showing marine life that's trying its best to resist global warming.

That camera in Miami's Government Cut is just one of the many ventures of a marine biologist and a musician who've been on a 15-year mission to raise awareness about dying coral reefs by combining science and art to bring undersea life into pop culture.

Their company — Coral Morphologic — is surfacing stunning images, putting gorgeous closeups of underwater creatures on social media, setting time-lapsed video of swaying, glowing coral to music and projecting it onto buildings, even selling a coral-themed beachwear line.

“We aren’t all art. We aren’t all science. We aren’t all tech. We are an alchemy,” said Colin Foord, who defies the looks of a typical scientist, with blue hair so spiky that it seems electrically charged. He and his business partner J.D. McKay sat down with The Associated Press to show off their work.

One of their most popular projects is the Coral City Camera, which recently passed 2 million views and usually has about 100 viewers online at any given time each day.

“We’re going to actually be able to document one year of coral growth, which has never been done before in situ on a coral reef, and that’s only possible because we have this technological connection right here at the port of Miami that allows us to have power and internet,” Foord said.

The livestream has already revealed that staghorn and other corals can adapt and thrive even in a highly urbanized undersea environment, along with 177 species of fish, dolphins, manatees and other sea life, Foord said.

“We have these very resilient corals growing here. The primary goal of us getting it underwater was to show people there is so much marine life right here in our city,” Foord said.

McKay, meanwhile, sounds like a Broadway producer as he describes how he also films the creatures in their Miami lab, growing coral in tanks to get them ready for closeups in glorious color.

“We essentially create a set with one of these aquariums, and then obviously there's actors — coral or shrimp or whatever — and then we film it, and then I get a vibe, whatever might be happening in the scene, and then I soundtrack it with some ambient like sounds, something very oceanic," McKay explained.

Their latest production, “ Coral City Flourotour, ” will be shown on the New World Center Wallscape this week as the Aspen Institute hosts a major climate conference in Miami Beach. Foord is speaking on a panel about how the ocean’s natural systems can help humans learn to combat impacts of climate change. The talk’s title? “The Ocean is a Superhero.”

"I think when we can recognize that we're all this one family of life and everything is interconnected, that hopefully we can make meaningful changes now, so that future generations don't have to live in a world of wildfires and melted ice caps and dead oceans," Foord told the AP.

Their mission is urgent: After 500 million years on Earth, these species are under assault from climate change. The warming oceans prompt coral bleaching and raise the risk of infectious diseases that can cause mass die-offs in coral, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Stronger storms and changes in water chemistry can destroy reef structures, while altered currents sweep away food and larvae.

“Climate change is the greatest global threat to coral reef ecosystems,” NOAA said in a recent report.

That gets at the second part of Coral Morphologic's name. “What does it mean to be morphologic? It really means having to adapt because the environment is always changing,” Foord said.

The staghorn, elkhorn and brain coral living in Government Cut provide a real-world example of how coral communities can adapt to such things as rising heat and polluted runoff, even in such an unlikely setting as the port of Miami. Their video has documented fluorescence in some of the coral, an unusual response in offshore waters that Foord said could be protecting them from solar rays.

“The port is a priceless place for coral research," Foord said. “We have to be realistic. You won't be able to return the ecosystems to the way they were 200 years ago. The options we are left with are more radical.”

Beyond the science, there's the clothes. Coral Morphologic sells a line of surf and swimwear that takes designs from flower anemones and brain coral and uses environmentally sustainable materials such as a type of nylon recycled from old fishing nets.

“We see the power of tech connecting people with nature. We are lucky as artists, and corals are benefitting,” Foord said.

 

 

Musician J.D. McKay, left, and marine biologist Colin Foord, right, pose for a photograph at their Coral Morphologic lab, Wednesday, March 2, 2022, in Miami. They have been on a 15-year mission to raise awareness about dying coral reefs with a company that presents the issue through science and art.

 (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)

—-

Jackson reported from Miami and Anderson from St. Petersburg, Florida.

Kicking the China habit: South Korea hunts tungsten treasure





Tungsten is illuminated with mineral light at an Almonty office

 near a mine in Gangwon Province


Sun, May 8, 2022
By Ju-min Park and Joe Brock

SANGDONG, South Korea (Reuters) -Blue tungsten winking from the walls of abandoned mine shafts, in a town that's seen better days, could be a catalyst for South Korea's bid to break China's dominance of critical minerals and stake its claim to the raw materials of the future.

The mine in Sangdong, 180 km southeast of Seoul, is being brought back from the dead to extract the rare metal that's found fresh value in the digital age in technologies ranging from phones and chips to electric vehicles and missiles.

"Why reopen it now after 30 years? Because it means sovereignty over natural resources," said Lee Dong-seob, vice president of mine owner Almonty Korea Tungsten Corp.

"Resources have become weapons and strategic assets."

Sangdong is one of at least 30 critical mineral mines or processing plants globally that have been launched or reopened outside China over the last four years, according to a Reuters review of projects announced by governments and companies. These include projects developing lithium in Australia, rare earths in the United States and tungsten in Britain.

The scale of the plans illustrates the pressure felt by countries across the world to secure supplies of critical minerals regarded as essential for the green energy transition, from lithium in EV batteries to magnesium in laptops and neodymium found in wind turbines.

Overall demand for such rare minerals is expected to increase four-fold by 2040, the International Energy Agency said last year. For those used in electric vehicles and battery storage, demand is projected to grow 30-fold, it added.

Many countries view their minerals drive as a matter of national security because China controls the mining, processing or refining of many of these resources.

The Asian powerhouse is the largest supplier of critical minerals to the United States and Europe, according to a study by the China Geological Survey in 2019. Of the 35 minerals the United States has classified as critical, China is the largest supplier of 13, including rare earth elements essential for clean-energy technologies, the study found. China is the largest source of 21 key minerals for the European Union, such as antimony used in batteries, it said.

"In the critical raw material restaurant, China is sitting eating its dessert, and the rest of the world is in the taxi reading the menu," said Julian Kettle, senior vice president for metals and mining at consultancy Wood MacKenzie.

'HAVE TO HAVE A PLAN B'

The stakes are particularly high for South Korea, home of major chipmakers like Samsung Electronics. The country is the world's largest consumer of tungsten per capita and relies on China for 95% of its imports of the metal, which is prized for its unrivalled strength and its resistance to heat.

China controls over 80% of global tungsten supplies, according to CRU Group, London-based commodity analysts.

The mine at Sangdong, a once bustling town of 30,000 residents that's now home to just 1,000, holds one of the world's largest tungsten deposits and could produce 10% of global supply when it opens next year, according to its owner.

Lewis Black, CEO of Almonty Korea's Canadian-based parent Almonty Industries, told Reuters that it planned to offer about half of the operation's processed output to the domestic market in South Korea as an alternative to Chinese supply.

"It's easy to buy from China and China is the largest trading partner of South Korea but they know they're over-dependent," Black said. "You have to have a plan B right now."

Sangdong's tungsten, discovered in 1916 during the Japanese colonial era, was once a backbone of the South Korean economy, accounting for 70% of the country's export earnings in the 1960s when it was largely used in metal-cutting tools.

The mine was closed in 1994 due to cheaper supply of the mineral from China, which made it commercially unviable, but now Almonty is betting that demand, and prices will continue to rise driven by the digital and green revolutions as well as a growing desire by countries to diversify their supply sources.

European prices of 88.5% minimum paratungstate - the key raw material ingredient in tungsten products – are trading around $346 per tonne, up more than 25% from a year ago and close to their highest levels in five years, according to pricing agency Asian Metal.

The Sangdong mine is being modernised, with vast tunnels being dug underground, while work has also started on a tungsten crushing and grinding plant.

"We should keep running this kind of mine so that new technologies can be handed over to the next generations," said Kang Dong-hoon, a manager in Sangdong, where a "Pride of Korea" sign is displayed on a wall of the mine office.

"We have been lost in the mining industry for 30 years. If we lose this chance, then there will be no more."

Almonty Industries has signed a 15-year deal to sell tungsten to Pennsylvania-based Global Tungsten & Powders, a supplier to the U.S. military, which variously uses the metal in artillery shell tips, rockets and satellite antennae.

Yet there are no guarantees of long-term success for the mining group, which is investing about $100 million in the Sangdong project. Such ventures may still struggle to compete with China and there are concerns among some industry experts that developed countries will not follow through on commitments to diversify supply chains for critical minerals.

SUPPLY-CHAIN DIPLOMACY

Seoul set up an Economic Security Key Items Taskforce after a supply crisis last November when Beijing tightened exports of urea solution, which many South Korean diesel vehicles are required by law to use to cut emissions. Nearly 97% of South Korea's urea came from China at the time and shortages prompted panic-buying at filling stations across the country.

The Korean Mine Rehabilitation and Resources Corporation (KOMIR), a government agency responsible for national resource security, told Reuters it had committed to subsidise about 37% of Sangdong's tunnelling costs and would consider further support to mitigate any potential environmental damage.

Incoming President Yoon Seok-yeol pledged in January to reduce mineral dependence on "a certain country", and last month announced a new resource strategy that will allow the government to share stockpiling information with the private sector.

South Korea is not alone.

The United States, European Union and Japan have all launched or updated national critical mineral supply strategies over the last two years, laying out broad plans to invest in more diversified supply lines to reduce their reliance on China.

Mineral supply chains have also become a feature of diplomatic missions.

Last year, Canada and the European Union launched a strategic partnership on raw materials to reduce dependence on China, while South Korea recently signed collaboration deals with Australia and Indonesia on mineral supply chains.

"Supply-chain diplomacy will be prioritised by many governments in the coming years as accessing critical raw materials for the green and digital transition has become a top priority," said Henning Gloystein, director of energy and climate resources at the Eurasia Group consultancy.

In November, China's top economic planner said it would step up exploration of strategic mineral resources including rare earths, tungsten and copper.

ENVIRONMENTAL OPPOSITION

Investment globally of $200 billion in additional mining and smelter capacity is needed to meet critical mineral supply demand by 2030, 10 times what is being committed currently, Kettle said.

Yet projects have faced resistance from communities who don't want a mine or smelter near their homes.

In January, for example, pressure from environmentalists prompted Serbia to revoke Rio Tinto's lithium exploration licence while U.S. President Joe Biden's administration cancelled two leases for Antofagasta's copper and nickel mines in Minnesota.

In Sangdong, some residents are doubtful that the mine will improve their lives.

"Many of us in this town didn’t believe the mine would really come back," said Kim Kwang-gil, 75, who for decades lived off the tungsten he panned from a stream flowing down from the mine when it operated.

"The mine doesn't need as many people as before, because everything is done by machines."

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GRAPHIC-S.Korea's reliance on China for critical minerals (jpeg) https://tmsnrt.rs/3kSb2qN

GRAPHIC-S.Korea's reliance on China for critical minerals (interactive) https://tmsnrt.rs/3FuaNfm

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(Reporting by Ju-min Park and Joe Brock; Additional reporting by Beijing Newsroom and Gavin Maguire; Editing by Kevin Krolicki and Pravin Char)

This robot lives with an Antarctica penguin 

colony, monitoring their every move

Maria Jimenez Moya, USA TODAY

Sat, May 7, 2022

Thousands of emperor penguins waddling around Antarctica have a stalker: 

A yellow rover tracking their every move.

ECHO is a remote-controlled ground robot that silently spies on the emperor penguin colony in Atka Bay. The robot is being monitored by the Single Penguin Observation and Tracking observatory. Both the SPOT observatory, which is also remote-operated through a satellite link, and the ECHO robot capture photographs and videos of animal population in the Arctic.

The research is part of the Marine Animal Remote Sensing Lab (MARE), designed to measure the health of the Antarctic marine ecosystem.

The project, funded by the independent nonprofit Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, focuses on emperor penguins' place on the food chain. In the Antarctic the food chain is relatively small and any change to a species that is lower in the food chain could impact the health of the emperor penguin (a predator). The team is hoping to learn more about how climate change might be impacting the animals that live in the Antarctic.

All aboard for Antarctica: Seeing penguins, whales, seals and icebergs on a cruise

Fact check: Warming varies across oceans and atmosphere, doesn't contradict climate change

Little is known about emperor penguins, largely because of how challenging it is for scientists to study them in Antarctica, lead scientist Daniel Zitterbart told USA TODAY.

ECHO serves as a very slow-moving, battery-powered robot that through its antennas is able to capture the tag of each penguin. So far, it's been capturing data for eight weeks, according to Zitterbart.

A four-month old emperor penguin chick is fed by its parent at Atka Bay in Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica.

An illustration of the remote-controlled ground robot, ECHO.

"It's supposed to drive around by itself in the Antarctic, knowing where the penguins are and very slowly try to scan individual penguins or scan groups of penguins. That is how we know where penguins are," Zitterbart said.

Tracking the penguins also allows scientists to study penguin behavior over time, and see how they adapt.

Penguins: Their poop is spotted from space – lots of it – revealing hidden colonies

Since 2017, researchers from MARE have been tagging 300 penguin chicks per year. They now have over 1,000 penguins tagged and the colony is composed of 26,000 penguins, according to Zitterbart.

The sun sets at the Atka Bay emperor penguin colony during a blizzard in Antarctica.

ECHO-Rover slowly travels back from the emperor penguin colony of Atka Bay at Dronning Maud land, Antarctica.

MARE plans to monitor the penguins for the next 30 years with the first set of data being complete in 2026. The data will be analyzed to help determine the overall health of the Arctic and how the penguins are adapting.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Robot among Antarctica emperor penguin colony monitors climate change

WHAT WOULD MAMA SAY

Trump released an insult-laden message wishing everyone a Happy Mother's Day, including 'Very Unfair Radical Left Democrat Judges'

Cheryl Teh

Sun, May 8, 2022, 

• Donald Trump went on the attack in his Mother's Day message this year.

• He sent his wishes to the "Very Unfair Radical Left Democrat Judges" among others.

• He sent a similar message on Father's Day in 2021, to "RINOs, and other Losers of the world."

Former President Trump issued an insult-laden message on Mother's Day this year, continuing his trend of releasing scathing statements on holidays.

Trump published a post on Truth Social on Sunday, which Insider independently verified, bidding a "Happy Mother's Day to all, including Racist, Vicious, Highly Partisan, Politically Motivated, and Very Unfair Radical Left Democrat Judges."

It wasn't just the judges Trump called out — he also highlighted the "prosecutors, district attorneys, and attorney general" who he said "campaign unrelentingly" against him "without knowing a thing" and who "endlessly promise" to take him down.

"After years of persecution," the message continues, "even the Fake News says there's no case or, at best, it would be very hard to bring. Someday soon they will start fighting RECORD SETTING violent crime."

After the series of insults, Trump ended his message with an "I love you all!"

At press time, Trump's post had been liked over 55,000 times and "ReTruthed" (the platform's version of a retweet) over 15,600 times.

The statement appeared to be alluding to Trump's legal troubles; he's currently fighting a probe of the Trump Organization from New York Attorney General Letitia James.

The former president has been fined $10,000 a day since April 26 after New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron held Trump in contempt of court for not complying with James' subpoenas for his records and documents. Trump now owes James more than $100,000 in fines and is appealing the contempt order.

Trump has made a habit of sending out statements on such occasions that contain backhanded comments and insults. Last June, Trump issued a statement wishing a "Happy Father's Day to all, including the Radical Left, RINOs, and other Losers of the world."

And in 2019, the then-president sent a tweet hitting out at his opponents on his way to golf with Sen. Lindsey Graham, per a report by The Hill,

"Happy Father's Day to all, including my worst and most vicious critics, of which there are fewer and fewer. This is a FANTASTIC time to be an American! KEEP AMERICA GREAT!" read Trump's tweet, dated June 16, 2019.

Lebanon's descent into turmoil: assassinations, war, financial collapse


A man walks past posters depicting Lebanon's former Prime Minister Saad Al-Hariri in Beirut

Sun, May 8, 2022, 

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanon holds an election on May 15 that could see a shift of power that sends shockwaves far beyond this small country squeezed between Syria and Israel.

Here is a timeline of the nation's recent history, from assassinations and war to a devastating explosion and economic meltdown.

2005

Lebanon's billionaire former premier Rafik al-Hariri is killed on Feb. 14 when a huge bomb explodes as his motorcade travels through Beirut; 21 others also die.

Mass demonstrations erupt blaming the assassination on Syria, which had deployed troops during Lebanon's 15-year civil war and kept them there after it ended in 1990.


Shi'ite allies of Damascus stage their own big rallies in support of Syria, but international pressure forces the troops to withdraw.

2006

In July, armed movement Hezbollah crosses the border into Israel, kidnaps two Israeli soldiers and kills others, sparking a five-week war. At least 1,200 people in Lebanon and 158 Israelis are killed.

After the war, tensions in Lebanon simmer over Hezbollah's arsenal. In November, Hezbollah and its allies quit the cabinet led by Western-backed Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and organise street protests against it.

Anti-Syria politician Pierre Gemayel is assassinated in November.

2007

Hezbollah and its allies maintain a sit-in protest in central Beirut against the Siniora government for the entire year. Their stated demand is veto power in the government.

2008

Wissam Eid, a police intelligence officer investigating the Hariri assassination, is killed by a car bomb in January.

In May, the government outlaws Hezbollah's telecom network. Hezbollah calls the government's move a declaration of war and takes control of mainly Muslim west Beirut in retaliation.

After mediation, rival leaders sign a deal in Qatar to end 18 months of political conflict.

2011

The government led by Hariri's son and political heir, Saad, is toppled when Hezbollah and its allies quit because of tensions over a U.N.-backed tribunal into the Rafik al-Hariri assassination.

2012

Hezbollah fighters deploy to Syria to aid President Bashar al-Assad's forces against a Sunni rebellion.

In October, a car bomb kills senior security official Wissam al-Hassan, whose intelligence service had arrested Michel Samaha, a pro-Syrian former minister charged with transporting Syrian-assembled bombs to wage attacks in Lebanon.

2017

Sunni regional superpower Saudi Arabia, increasingly frustrated with Hezbollah's expanding role in Lebanon, is accused of detaining Saad al-Hariri in Riyadh and forcing him to resign.

Both Riyadh and Hariri publicly deny this version of events, though French leader Emmanuel Macron later says Hariri was being held in Saudi Arabia.

2018

Lebanon holds its first parliamentary vote since 2009, after lawmakers repeatedly extended their four-year mandate, citing security concerns.

Hezbollah and allied groups and individuals win at least 69 of the 128 seats, consolidating their hold over the legislative branch.

2019

Despite a stagnant economy and slowing capital inflows, the government fails to enact reforms that might unlock foreign support, including cutting the state wage and pension bill.

In October, a government move to tax internet calls ignites mass cross-sectarian protests accusing the ruling elite of corruption and mismanagement.

Hariri quits on Oct. 29. The financial crisis accelerates. Depositors are frozen out of their savings amid a hard currency liquidity crunch and crashing currency.

2020

Hassan Diab, a little-known academic, becomes prime minister in January with backing from Hezbollah and its allies.

Lebanon defaults on its sovereign debt in March, the currency loses up to 80% of its value and poverty rates soar.

Talks with the International Monetary Fund flounder as the main parties and influential banks resist a financial recovery plan.

On Aug. 4, a vast quantity of ammonium nitrate explodes at Beirut port, killing more than 200 people, wounding 6,000 and devastating swathes of Beirut.

The Diab cabinet quits and Hariri is designated to form a new government but the parties remain at odds over portfolios.

A U.N.-backed tribunal convicts a Hezbollah member of conspiring to kill Rafik al-Hariri 15 years after his death.

2021

The economic meltdown deepens. Hariri abandons his effort to form a government and trades blame with President Michel Aoun for the failure.

In August, the central bank declares it can no longer finance subsidies for fuel imports, prompting power outages and fuel shortages that lead to long queues and sporadic violence at filling stations.

A tanker explodes in the north, killing more than 20 people.

In September, after more than a year of rows over cabinet posts, a new cabinet is finally agreed led by Najib Mikati.

Its work is quickly derailed by tensions over the investigation into the Beirut port explosion. Hezbollah and its ally Amal demand the removal of investigating judge Tarek Bitar after he charges some of their allies.

The Shi'ite parties call a protest against the judge. Six of their followers are shot dead when violence erupts. Hezbollah blames the Lebanese Forces, a Christian party.

The probe into the port blast grinds to a halt, impeded by a flood of legal complaints against the judge by officials whom he has charged over the disaster.

Gulf states recall their ambassadors and Saudi Arabia bans all Lebanese imports in protest at comments by a pro-Hezbollah minister criticising Saudi Arabia over the war in Yemen.

2022

In January, the pound sinks to 34,000 against the dollar before being strengthened by central bank intervention.

The World Bank blasts the ruling class for "orchestrating" one of the world's worst national economic depressions due to their exploitative grip on resources.

In April, Lebanon reaches a draft agreement with the IMF for a possible $3 billion in support, dependent on Beirut enacting long-delayed reforms.

The ambassadors of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia return. Saudi Arabia and France announce a joint 30 million euro ($32 million) fund to boost health and other services in Lebanon.

Hariri announces he and his Future Movement will not run in a May parliamentary election.

($1 = 0.9471 euros)

(Writing by Tom Perry and William Maclean; Editing by Maya Gebeily, Mike Collett-White and Pravin Char)

Video shows workers at an Apple and Tesla

plant in Shanghai clashing with security 

guards over fears of an onsite COVID 

lockdown

Weilun Soon

Sun, May 8, 2022, 

Workers at an Apple supplier in Shanghai are operating under a "closed loop" system where they work, live, eat, and sleep onsite.Qilai Shen/In Pictures via Getty Images Images

• Videos show workers at an Apple and Tesla plant in Shanghai clashing with quarantine officials.

• The workers were said to be frustrated with onsite COVID-19 measures.

• The clash underscores the frailty of Shanghai's plans to reopen its factories amid strict lockdowns.

More than a hundred workers at a major Apple and Tesla production plant in Shanghai clashed with quarantine officials and security guards in a stunning altercation on Thursday, videos on Twitter and YouTube show.

Workers at Quanta Shanghai Manufacturing City were filmed jumping over turnstiles, as officials in white protective gear tried to prevent them from breaching the building.

Some workers exchanged physical blows with the guards. At one point, a female worker appeared to smack someone in protective gear so that a male worker, who was locked in a struggle with the person in protective gear, could get away.

The skirmish happened when officials prevented workers from heading back to their dormitories after completing their shifts, Bloomberg and Reuters reported. Anonymous interviewees said the workers were frustrated with onsite Covid restrictions, per Bloomberg.

Some said that they were concerned about getting infected by workers who returned from quarantine centers, according to told Taiwanese news outlets USTV and UDN. They also feared that a spread of the virus on the factory floor would result in the campus going into a strict lockdown again, per the Taiwanese news reports.

Quanta, Apple, and Tesla did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comments.

The altercation underscores the fragility of Shanghai's attempts to get its factories up and running, even as large swathes of the 25-million-strong city have remained under strict lockdown for more than a month.

In an attempt to minimize the lockdown's impact on Shanghai's economy, authorities have allowed some factories, including Tesla's gigafactory, to continue operating under a "closed loop" system where workers work, live, eat, and sleep onsite and at nearby dormitories.

Taiwanese-owned Quanta produces three-quarters of Apple's MacBooks globally and assembles computer circuit boards for Tesla's cars. The Shanghai factory accounts for about 20% of Quanta's output for Apple, USTV reported. It also produces computer circuit boards for Tesla.

On April 13, Quanta temporarily suspended operations in Shanghai to comply with local COVID-19 prevention measures. That prompted TF International Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo to say that delivery of MacBook Pros would be delayed by three to five weeks.

The factory gradually resumed operations starting April 18, with about 2,000 of its 40,000-person workforce returning to the plant, China's state media Xinhua reported.

While news of the clash at Quanta's Shanghai factory spread on Twitter and YouTube, and was widely reported by Taiwanese media outlets, there was barely any mention of it on Chinese social media platforms and in Chinese media.

According to the Shanghai Municipal Health Commission, the city reported 3,625 asymptomatic Covid cases, 322 symptomatic cases, and 11 deaths on Sunday. Some of these patients worked at factories operating under a closed-loop system

What Pushed Apple Factory Workers to Riot?

Workers at a Shanghai technology factory crashed through barriers erected to keep them from leaving the plant and struggled with guards trying to keep them inside.

KIRK O’NEIL
MAY 7, 2022

A resurgence of a Covid-19 outbreak in China in March led to a lockdown in the nation's largest city Shanghai, disrupting work at technology and electric vehicle plants and other industries' factories, causing major supply chain, logistics and production issues.

Tesla on March 28 shut its Shanghai Gigafactory, but was allowed to reopen its plant on April 19. Volkswagen shut its Shanghai-area factory on April 1, but General Motors decided not to shut its plant and instead was allowed to remain open under so-called "closed loop" operations.

Closed-loop measures require employees to live, work and sleep at the plant while it continues to operate, but they are not allowed to leave the plant to ensure they do not transmit the Covid- 19 virus to the community outside of the factory or bring it into the plant from outside during the lockdown.


Closed-Loop Measures Keep Plant Open

Taiwan-based Quanta Computer, which assembles MacBooks and other products for Apple in Shanghai, adopted the closed-loop system in April for its employees to enable the company to remain open during the region's lockdown.

The Covid-19 lockdown in China, which began in March, finally reached a boiling point with frustrated technology workers at Quanta's Shanghai factory, Bloomberg reported on May 6. One worker said that employees were worried about further tightening of measures as a result of positive Covid cases inside the factory's campus, according to the report.

Quanta did not comment on the riot, Bloomberg said, but an employee at the factory said that the Chinese government was taking a central role in managing the factory's operations. On the evening of May 5, Quanta workers battled with factory guards and crashed through isolation barriers after being locked down at the factory for many weeks.

Tensions at the factory in the Songjiang district of Shanghai sparked the conflict after workers tried to return to dormitories after their shifts, according to Taiwan media outlet UDN, Bloomberg reported. Over 100 employees jumped over a barrier and ran past guards, ignoring their warnings. Employees had become tired and frustrated by the controlled environment at the plant, a worker said.

The factory resumed normal operations by the morning of May 6, the report said.

Shanghai's lockdowns have led to protests and complaints that culminated in the uprising at the Quanta plant. The implementation of closed-loop measures had also resulted in more than 70% of Shanghai's industrial manufacturing facilities restarting production. Officials said that 90% of 660 key industrial companies have resumed output, according to Bloomberg.

Quanta generates more than 50% of its revenue through its partnership with Apple, the report said. The company also does business with Hewlett Packard Inc. (HPQ) - Get HP Inc. Report, Dell Technologies (DELL) - Get Dell Technologies Inc Class C Report, and Microsoft (MSFT) - Get Microsoft Corporation Report.
Other Apple Factories Shut Down

Foxconn Technology Group on March 14 shut down its factories in Shenzhen in southern China near Hong Kong after city officials implemented a Covid-19 lockdown. Foxconn also on April 15 announced a Covid-19 lockdown in the Zhengzhou Airport Economy Zone where Apple's largest iPhone factory is located. The lockdown has led the company to require its employees to have mandatory Covid testing.

The China Covid-19 lockdowns could result in a loss in production of 6 million to 10 million iPhone units analysts said, according to 9to5Mac. Other Apple products affected by the lockdowns include MacBook Pro and iPad Air.

Chaos at Apple supplier Quanta shows strains of Shanghai COVID lockdown

Sat, May 7, 2022, 

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Quanta Shanghai Manufacturing City would seem like an ideal site to implement China's "closed-loop" management system to prevent the spread of COVID that requires staff to live and work on-site in a secure bubble.

Sprawled over land the size of 20 football fields, the campus houses factories, living quarters for 40,000 workers, some living 12 per room, and even a supermarket.

But as COVID-19 breeched Quanta's defences, the system broke down into chaos on Thursday.

Videos posted online showed more than a hundred Quanta workers physically overwhelming security guards in hazmat suits and vaulting over factory gates to escape being trapped inside the factory amid rumours that workers on the floor that day tested positive for COVID.

The turmoil at Quanta underscores the struggles Shanghai faces to get its factories, many of them key links in global supply chains, back up to speed even as much of the city of 25 million remains locked down under China's "dynamic-zero" COVID policy.

Taiwan-based Quanta puts together about three-quarters of Apple's global MacBook production and also manufactures computer circuit boards for Tesla.

Quanta did not respond to a request for comment on the videos, which appeared on Chinese social media platforms before being taken down. Apple declined to comment and Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.

Quanta set up its closed-loop to restart work at the factory on April 18 with about 5% of its workforce, or 2,000 employees, with plans to triple that by April 22. Chinese state media touted the restart as an example of how Shanghai was keeping business open in the country's biggest economic hub, while adhering to stringent COVID measures.

DAILY CASES

But cases have been reported daily at an address belonging to the campus from March 26 to May 4, according to Shanghai government data. Quanta has not disclosed the number of cases among its workers.

Calls seeking help to bring attention to positive cases which were not being isolated at Quanta began appearing on Weibo from April 6, five days after Shanghai implemented a city-wide lockdown.

More appeared throughout the month and employees began posting photos and accounts on Douyin, the Chinese equivalent of TikTok, that showed dozens of workers queuing for buses to be taken to central quarantine facilities.

They also took videos of themselves resting in Shanghai's National Exhibition and Convention Center, one of the city's largest quarantine centres, as well as at a facility purpose-built to house Quanta workers.

Reuters was not able to independently verify the footage, but two employees and a person with direct knowledge of the campus's operations said there were multiple infections there.

"Each dormitory reported a few positive cases a day, and eventually everyone became positive," said one of the two workers, who gave his surname as Li, adding that there were eight cases in his room, including him.

Employees said that cases were often not isolated for days after testing positive and the person with direct knowledge of the campus's operations said there were not enough isolation spaces, resulting in continued infections.

That was a trigger for Thursday night's chaos, employees said, as rumours spread that positive cases had been found among those working in the factories.

The workers were spooked by an order telling them not to return to their dormitories, raising fears that they could be locked down inside the plant.

While the videos of the fray were taken down by this weekend, discussion continued on Weibo and Douyin, with one user simply saying, "What a mess".

(Reporting by Brenda Goh and Zhang Yan; Additional reporting by Sarah Wu in Taipei; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)

Protests in New Delhi halt demolition in Muslim neighborhood

Residents of Shaheen Bagh watch as officials and policemen arrive for a demolition drive in New Delhi, Monday, May 9, 2022. Authorities in New Delhi stopped a demolition drive in a Muslim-dominated neighborhood after hundreds of residents and a number of opposition party workers gathered in protest Monday. No buildings were razed down before the bulldozers retreated. 

(AP Photo/Manish Swarup)

NEW DELHI
Mon, May 9, 2022, 4:00 AM·2 min read

Authorities in New Delhi stopped a demolition drive in a Muslim-dominated neighborhood after hundreds of residents and a number of opposition party workers gathered in protest Monday.

No buildings were razed down before the bulldozers retreated.

Anti-Muslim sentiment and attacks have risen across India in the past month, including stone throwing between Hindu and Muslim groups during religious processions, followed by demolition drives in a few states where many Muslim-owned properties were razed down by local authorities.

This was most recently seen last month in a northwest neighborhood in New Delhi where bulldozers destroyed several Muslim properties before the Supreme Court halted the drive. The demolitions were carried out days after communal violence there left several injured and sparked arrests.

Amid heavy police presence Monday, bulldozers arrived in Shaheen Bagh, a neighborhood that in 2020 became a site of intense protest after the Parliament passed a controversial bill the previous year that amended the country's citizenship law. The new law would fast-track naturalization for persecuted religious minorities from some neighboring Islamic countries, but excludes Muslims, sparking many to call it discriminatory.

It unleashed months of demonstrations from across India and Shaheen Bagh quickly became a symbol of the resistance, with the protests there led by a peaceful sit-in by Muslim women along a highway that passed through the neighborhood.

Officials have said these demolition drives target illegal buildings and not any particular religious group. But critics argue such moves are the latest attempt to harass and marginalize Muslims, who are 14% of India’s 1.4 billion population, and point to a pattern of rising religious polarization under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party.

As the bulldozers drove away, Mohammed Niyaz, a 47-year-old resident in the neighborhood, called it “vote-bank politics” intended to divide the Hindu and Muslim communities.

Residents in Shaheen Bagh also questioned the timing of the move to bring in bulldozers, saying many buildings in the neighborhood have existed for decades with no interference from local authorities. Previously, officials termed the recent demolition drives as “routine exercises” to bring down illegal properties.