Tuesday, May 10, 2022

Shanghai lockdown: The hard life of a homeless deliveryman


Image caption,
Delivery riders have been essential in ensuring Shanghai residents receive food and other supplies

Weeks into a strict lockdown, most of Shanghai's 25 million population continue to rely on delivery riders to bring them food and supplies. But this largely invisible workforce of 20,000 faces a lack of shelter and safety. Two delivery riders tell the BBC their stories.

I've been so busy. So many people need supplies. I make deliveries all day long, then when it's approaching midnight, I look for a place to sleep.

I left my apartment on 8 April and haven't been back since. The Shanghai government allows delivery riders to leave and enter their residential compounds. But the compounds insist on enforcing their own policies, and most don't allow riders to return to their own homes. There are hotels that are open, but not many are open to us.

There was a tent in front of my compound. You know, those blue ones set up for Covid testing. When I left home, the compound managers asked me to help them buy supplies and in exchange they offered me the blue tent to sleep at night. I left all my stuff in there.

But one day the tent was gone. I couldn't find my stuff. The managers said it wasn't their business. Security guards there said they didn't know where my stuff went.

So I had to look for a new place to sleep. Sleeping under a bridge just comes naturally to us delivery riders - it can block out the wind and rain. I usually fall asleep immediately after lying down - I feel so tired by then!

One day I forgot to pay attention to the weather forecast. It was raining heavily and all the space under the bridge had been taken. I found an ATM room to sleep. It was quite a good place, no-one else was around. My only hope was that the police wouldn't show up and kick me out.

But after two nights there, around 2am, policemen on patrol saw me and chased me away. They said I should go to a homeless shelter. But I've tried and it's not open. Nobody was there, not even security guards.

IMAGE SOURCE,SUPPLIED TO THE BBC
Image caption,
One deliveryman the BBC spoke to sought refuge in this ATM room

In the beginning I survived on dry instant noodles. Later a group of delivery riders found a restaurant that opened secretly and now we go there to buy takeaways. The police usually just ignore it. We do need a place to eat, right? Some shops also have an outdoor space where there are electrical sockets. We sneak over to charge our phones.

There was a story going round that a delivery rider died on the streets after getting into a crash. Of course I worry that will happen to me too. But I've been very careful. I always go very slow. If I get into an accident in a remote area, it would be extremely dangerous. The biggest problem is if your scooter breaks down and there is no place to fix it. You can't work any more.

Many people saw news reports saying delivery riders can earn up to 10,000 yuan per day ($1,500; £1,200). Since then many have asked me how to become one. My advice is usually: "Don't become a rider."

In Shanghai, the pay we earn as riders is quite all right. But most riders only earn a few hundred yuan a day. And I don't think everyone can put up with such hardship, such living and working conditions.

But you know, if we weren't doing this, we wouldn't have any income either while under lockdown. That's stressful.

IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES
Image caption,
The streets of Shanghai have been mostly empty during the lockdown, apart from delivery riders

I was born in 1999 in Anhui province. When I graduated from high school, I couldn't get into a good university. The tuition fees were too expensive for my family. I was so young and had no idea what I could do. My mum suggested I join my cousin in Shanghai. At least I wouldn't be left with no place to sleep and no food to eat.

So I came to Shanghai and worked with my cousin to sell computers. That lasted about two years. Business went down during Covid so I started to look for a new job. I had no place to live back then. I found a shared rental with another rider. It seemed like he was earning a lot. I said: "Brother, could you help me become a rider, too?" So about half a year ago I became one.

People told me Shanghai is a developed city, better than my hometown. Now even my family is asking me to go home. They've all heard about the situation here. It's unimaginable that people can starve in Shanghai nowadays.

But it's not like I'm starving or anything. I'm from the countryside, I slept in a cowshed when I was a child. I'll be fine.

I used to earn on average 4.5 yuan per order. But I don't take these orders anymore, nobody does, it's too low. These days I take orders privately from my clients, through chat groups. I can earn around 1,000 yuan a day.

I see larger residential compounds doing group buys of food, but smaller compounds with just a dozen residents have nothing. It's so hard to get people to deliver things to them, it's also hard to order supplies in the first place. Many elderly people also don't know how to do group buys.

Orders with small quantities of food won't get delivered now. Fruit shops won't sell individual pieces of fruit any more - you have to buy in bulk now. If someone wants 20 yuan worth of vegetables, I'll end up spending half a day looking for that and get nothing, as only bulk vegetable packages are available and each costs over 100 yuan.

IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES
Image caption,
Many Shanghai residents have been doing group purchases of food in bulk, which they then split among themselves

Now we have no food and no water, and sleep on the streets. I know at least 40 riders in the same situation as me. There are delivery riders who work for companies which provide hotel rooms for them. But there are those who take online orders from customers, like us, and the local government has done nothing to help us find a place to stay.

My residential compound won't let me back in, they say it's likely I'll bring the virus back. I can't go home even if I test negative for Covid. I've been going to hospitals to get tested every day. I'm afraid of getting Covid - all the riders are afraid of it.

So I just find a place to sleep outside. My feet stink so bad you can smell them from a distance! I'll shower eventually, maybe after the lockdown lifts.

IMAGE SOURCE,SUPPLIED TO THE BBC
Image caption,
A deliveryman sent the BBC this image of the place he was sleeping that night

What's the point of resting at home anyway? The first week of the lockdown, I only got two cabbages. The second week I only received a box of medicine. Who can survive on that? What do I eat? It's better to be outside - at least I can still find some food.

Delivering food is better than working in a factory. I've worked in a few in Shenzhen, earning only 200 yuan per day, working 12 hours a day. Delivery riders have better income and more freedom. How much you earn depends on how much effort you put in.

My family has been asking me to come back. But how can I get out now? People even got chased back into the city after driving out to the highway.

I'm just waiting for the lockdown to be lifted. I'll leave then. I don't know how much longer I can hold on for.

I'm so done with Shanghai. Once I leave, I'll never come back.

Interviews edited by Tessa Wong.

Former Spymaster Pulls the Strings of Turkey's Far-Rght MHP, an Ally of the ErdoÄŸan Government

Putin Referenda In All Russian Speaking Parts Of Ukraine To Create Peoples Republics Loyal To Moscow – OpEd


By Paul Goble

Many are asking what and how Vladimir Putin hopes to achieve in Ukraine, Mikhail Rostovsky says; but the answers are clear from his actions in 2014, his own comments as long ago as 2018, and the statements of some of his political loyalists in recent days, Mikhail Rostovsky says.
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The Kremlin leader wants to create peoples republics as he did in 2014, he sees this as a way of destroying a united Ukrainian state that the West could use against Russia, and he wants to organize referenda as soon as the guns fall silent in particular regions to achieve that end, the Moskovsky komsomolets commentator says (mk.ru/politics/2022/04/21/s-planov-putina-spolzla-zavesa-tayny-ukrainu-pokroshat-referendumami.html).

As a result of this policy, Rostovsky says, “the number of ‘peoples republics’ can be significantly increased,” although there is a limit, he suggests. “No one in Moscow will want to make a second attempt to ‘re-educate’” Ukrainian speakers in the western oblasts of Ukraine who have shown themselves recalcitrant to all such attempts.

Rostovsky says that at present, of course, this is only one possible scenario for Putin’s actions; but a survey of what the Russian military authorities and the other agencies of Russian power following behind them are doing in areas where the Ukrainian army has been forced out at least for the present provides strong support for his contention.

The Chief Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry reports that “the Russian military are preparing a number of pseudo-referenda” to attempt to legitimize their occupation

According to the ministry, propaganda materials and ballots for such a pseudo-referendum are already being prepared in Kherson. Residents there are convinced that no real voting will occur. The Russian occupiers will limit themselves, they believe, to staged voting in order to make points in Russia and in the international community.
AFRICA
Family of 'Hotel Rwanda' hero sues Rwandan government for kidnapping and torture



DUSTIN JONES
NPR

Paul Rusesabagina, pictured in 2012, was sentenced to 25 years in prison on terrorism charges last September in Rwanda. His family is suing Rwanda for $400 million for kidnapping, torture and unlawful imprisonment.
Timothy Hiatt/Getty Images

Paul Rusesabagina, the man portrayed in the film Hotel Rwanda who saved more than 1,200 people during the nation's 1994 genocide, has been detained in Rwanda for 20 months on terrorism charges that human rights groups call a sham. Now his family is suing the government of Rwanda for $400 million, saying he has been abducted, tortured and illegally imprisoned.

The Rwandan government abducted Rusesabagina, 67, in August 2020 in Dubai. This past September, a Rwandan court sentenced him to 25 years in prison. Rusesabagina is a U.S. permanent resident and holds Belgian citizenship.

"The Rwandan government has openly admitted that it planned an elaborate operation inside the United States to track Paul Rusesabagina and use its agents to trick him into traveling — with false promises of contractual work in Burundi— from his home in the United States to Rwanda," lawyers for the family say in court documents. "He was drugged and taken to Rwanda where President Paul Kagame's security agents forcibly abducted him, tortured him, and forced him into illegal imprisonment."

Rusesabagina has been a harsh critic of Rwandan President Paul Kagame, accusing the president of war crimes and human rights violations. The family says the government targeted him in response.

Rusesabagina is best known for his heroism in 1994 as the manager of the Hôtel des Mille Collines in Kigali, chronicled in the Hollywood film Hotel Rwanda. He gave safe haven to over 1,200 people during extermination efforts that claimed some 800,000 lives.

He received multiple humanitarian awards, including the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George W. Bush in 2005.


In the late 2000s, Rusesabagina and his wife, Taciana, moved to the United States, settling down as legal residents in San Antonio, Texas. But the Rwandan government spent years trailing, spying on and harassing Rusesabagina and his family, the family's lawyers say.

On Aug. 27, 2020, Rusesabagina was traveling from the U.S. to Burundi for contractual work. But his family said he went missing during a layover in the United Arab Emirates. The Rwanda Investigation Bureau announced four days later that they had captured Rusesabagina, who they accused of being involved in terrorism.

Rusesabagina co-founded the opposition Rwandan Movement for Democratic Change, which has an armed wing called the National Liberation Forces. The NLF has claimed responsibility for multiple deadly attacks in Rwanda's Southern Province in recent years, according to Human Rights Watch.

Rusesabagina was convincted on charges related to those attacks and was sentenced to 25 years in prison in September 2021.

Human Rights Watch called the trial "flawed" and "emblematic of the government's overreach and manipulation of the justice system." The U.S. State Department said it was "concerned" about Rusesabagina's "lack of confidential, unimpeded access to his lawyers and relevant case documents and his initial lack of access to counsel."

Booker blasts Vilsack’s food justice efforts

Sen. Cory Booker. Photo: Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images

Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) had a tense back-and-forth with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack during a closed-door lunch last Thursday over the Biden administration’s efforts to address nutrition in minority communities, people familiar with the matter tell Axios.

Why it matters: The heated exchange, which left some senators stunned, is an indication Booker — who, like Joe Biden, ran for president in 2020 — isn’t going to be shy about challenging Biden officials on issues about which he feels strongly.

  • The confrontation also reflects a level of frustration some Democrats have with the administration's efforts to address food deserts and the prevalence of junk food in inner cities, tribal lands and rural America.
  • "Sen. Booker appreciated the opportunity for a robust discussion with Secretary Vilsack and looks forward to continuing his work with the administration on these critical issues,” Maya Krishna-Rogers, Booker's press secretary, told Axios.
  • “Sen. Booker believes that access to affordable, nutritious food should not be dictated by your race, income or ZIP Code," she said. "He also knows that corporate agriculture consolidation is driving small farmers and ranchers out of business while pushing prices up for American families."
  • A Vilsack spokesperson didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Driving the news: Vilsack, a close Biden confidant and former Iowa governor, was invited to the weekly Democratic Policy and Communications Committee lunch.

The discussion was largely focused on corporate consolidation in the agriculture industry and how Democrats can improve their appeal in rural communities.

  • Booker, a passionate vegan, appeared to catch Vilsack off-guard when he questioned what the department was doing to reform agribusiness and help provide healthier food to poorer Americans.
  • Vilsack responded, in part, that consumers sometimes prefer unhealthier foods — triggering an even stronger response from Booker.
  • Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), who chairs the DPCC, tried to calm the tensions, but the meeting ended without Booker and Vilsack resolving their differences.

Go deeper: Booker, who chairs the Agriculture Subcommittee on Food and Nutrition, Specialty Crops, Organics and Research, has made access to quality food a signature issue.

  • “Too many Americans are overfed but undernourished,” he said during a subcommittee hearing last November.
  • “Despite being the wealthiest nation in the world, we have created a food system that relentlessly encourages the overeating of empty calories.”
  • “The risk of diabetes, for example, is 77% higher for Black people in America,” he said. “And, we are twice as likely to die from diabetes.”
Anger at remarks
Sports writers body ‘sorry’ after women’s walk-out

By a Daily Business reporter | May 9, 2022
Eilidh Barbour: felt unwelcome

An organisation representing sports writers in Scotland has apologised after a number of females walked out of an awards evening complaining they felt distressed by sexist, racist and homophobic remarks at the event.

Following their reaction, the Scottish Football Writers’ Association has pledged to review the format of its annual dinner.

Eilidh Barbour, who reports for Sky Sports News and BBC Sport, took to Twitter to say that she had “never felt so unwelcome in the industry I work in than sitting at the Scottish Football Writers Awards (SFWA).

“A huge reminder there is still so much to do in making our game an equal place #callitout #equalgame.”

Her comments did not identify the source of her discomfort but others, including Gabriella Bennett, co-chair of Women In Journalism Scotland (WIJS), complained of jokes in poor taste.

Ms Bennett told the Daily Record: “After the first couple of jokes I leant over to the person I was there with and said, ‘I really don’t like this.’ It wasn’t even funny. Just really poor taste.

“It’s passed off as banter, or we’re told it’s only a joke, and a lot of people were laughing last night, which was disappointing.

“My table stood up to leave, and I saw Eilidh Barbour and people on her table start to leave.”

In a joint statement, anti-racism group Kick It Out and Women in Football condemned the SFWA.

They said: “We have been made aware of sexist, racist and homophobic remarks made at the Scottish Football Writers’ Awards last night, during an after-dinner speech.

“Events that celebrate talent in our game should be a time to focus on the positives and all the people who have played their part in pushing football forward.

“It should not be used as a platform to share derogatory and discriminatory comments and make groups and communities feel excluded and insulted.

“We expect better and we demand better.”

In a statement, the SFWA said: “The Scottish Football Writers’ Association apologises to anyone offended or upset by material from one of our after-dinner speakers at last night’s annual awards dinner.

“We have agreed unanimously that this will act as a catalyst to review and improve the format of our future events to make it an enjoyable and inspirational event for all.”

A Women in Journalism Scotland spokesperson said: “Women in Journalism Scotland (WiJS) stands with all those who walked out in the middle of an offensive after-dinner speech at the Scottish Football Writers’ Association awards dinner last night.

“It is a matter of great concern to us that it is still deemed acceptable to behave and speak in such a disparaging manner towards women. This is not banter for the minority groups who are the butt of the jokes.

“Sports journalism appears to be among the last bastions of misogyny within journalism.

“In a recent survey carried out at the end of last year, WiJS discovered that of around 95 sports desk staff jobs at Scottish newspapers, just three were filled by women.

“There are no female sports editors, which shows the lack of career path available to women in this sector, especially when you consider that many of our current newspaper editors rose through the ranks via sports desks.

“Dark corners of our industry still exist, where outdated attitudes – which wouldn’t be acceptable elsewhere – are still condoned.

“Members tell us about derisory attitudes towards women who report on sport, all-male voices in morning news conferences, sexist jokes in actual and virtual rooms, an intimidating atmosphere in the football press box and more.

“Disturbingly, we also hear stories that when women are offered jobs writing about sport, it is often on lower salaries than male counterparts, with fewer promotions offered and little flexibility.

“As a result, fewer women are attracted to the sector and those who do go into it, leave because of what they find.

“It’s time to call time on the sexist shame of the beautiful game.”
6-year-old finds megalodon tooth on UK beach

The rare megalodon tooth was 4 inches long.


By Patrick Pester 
published about 5 hours ago
A computer-generated image of a megalodon with its mouth open. (Image credit: Gil Cohiba/Shutterstock)

A 6-year-old boy was looking for shells and fossils with his father on a U.K. beach when he picked up a rare tooth belonging to a megalodon — the biggest shark that has ever lived.

Sammy Shelton discovered the megalodon tooth on Bawdsey Beach in Suffolk on the east coast of England, as first reported by the Great Yarmouth Mercury, a news outlet covering Great Yarmouth in the neighboring county of Norfolk, where the boy is from. The tooth measured 4 inches (10 centimeters) long, according to The Mirror, a British news website.

"We knew what it was but not how rare it was," Peter Shelton, the boy's father, told the Great Yarmouth Mercury.

The beach is a popular site for fossil hunters, who told the Sheltons that finding a megalodon tooth there is rare.

Megalodon teeth are quite common in some places, including off the East Coast of North America and off the coast of Morocco. However, they are "extremely rare" in the U.K., according to the Natural History Museum in London.

Related: The megalodon spent tens of millions of years honing its lethal, knife-like teeth

Megalodon (Otodus megalodon) ruled the oceans at the top of the food chain, chomping down large prey such as whales and dolphins, until it disappeared from the fossil record by the end of the Pliocene epoch about 2.6 million years ago. Scientists are still debating megalodon's exact size, but the giant sharks likely reached at least 49 feet (15 meters) long and may have been as big as 65 feet (20 m) long, Live Science previously reported.

The largest megalodon teeth can reach more than 7 inches (17.8 cm) in length, which is more than twice as long as the teeth of the biggest great white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias), according to the Kentucky Geological Survey at the University of Kentucky.

Sharks shed and grow new teeth throughout their lifetimes, so shark teeth are continuously falling to the seafloor where they may become fossilized. The sheer number of shark teeth that have been shed throughout their history helps increase the chances that some are preserved and found by humans after millions of years.

The 2018 sci-fi movie "The Meg" pits a massive megalodon against actor Jason Statham, who coincidentally lived in Great Yarmouth when he was young, according to The Guardian

Originally published on Live Science.