UK
Royal Mint unveils 50p Pride coin to celebrate 50 years of LGBTQ+ legacy

Kalila Sangster
Wed, May 18, 2022

The new 50p marks the first time Britain’s LGBTQ+ community has been recognised on official UK coinage. Photo: Royal Mint

The Royal Mint has revealed a commemorative 50p coin celebrating the 50th anniversary of Pride UK.

The new 50p features a design of Pride in London’s values of protest, visibility, unity, and equality in rainbows.

The coin was designed by east London artist, writer, and LGBTQ+ activist Dominique Holmes and will be made using state-of-the-art colour printing technology to create the iconic colours of the Pride progression flag on special-edition colour versions of the coins.

This is the first time Britain’s LGBTQ+ community has been recognised on official UK coinage.

The 50p will not enter general circulation but will be available to buy through The Royal Mint website this summer. The coin will be available in gold, silver, and brilliant uncirculated versions.

Representatives from Pride in London visited The Royal Mint to strike their own coins as part of the launch.

Asad Shaykh, director of M=marketing and communications at Pride in London said, “It was a privilege to visit The Royal Mint as part of our partnership and see our coin being made.

“It humbles me greatly that the words that I coined for the brand, PROTEST, VISIBILITY, UNITY & EQUALITY – will be on an actual coin, opposite the Queen.

“This queer brown immigrant has come a long way, powered by hope, love and this city. Nowhere in the world had this been possible, except the UK. Pride in London feels very proud today.”

Clare Maclennan, director of commemorative coin at The Royal Mint said, “The 50th Anniversary of Pride UK is a milestone celebration, and it is a privilege to mark 50 years of progress with this 50p coin. This is the first ever UK coin dedicated to Britain’s LGBTQ+ community, with colour printing technology capturing the spirit of Pride UK with its iconic rainbow colours.

The Royal Mint will also make a financial contribution to London LGBT Community Pride as part of the launch of the new coin.

The Royal Mint said: "The new LGBTQ+ coin forms part of The Royal Mint’s wider commitment to equality, diversity, and inclusion."

Disney labels rainbow merchandise 'Pride Collection' for the first time: 'This is how it's done!'

Hugo Martín
Wed, May 18, 2022

For years, Walt Disney Co. has courted LGBTQ+ visitors to its theme parks, selling rainbow-colored souvenirs and hosting groups that organize annual "Gay Days" celebrations.

But Disney this week started marketing and promoting merchandise under the name Pride Collection for the first time, a big branding move for a company that has become a conservative target for its support of LGBTQ+ rights.

Profits from sales of T-shirts, Mickey Mouse ears, plush toys and other souvenirs in the newly branded collection will be donated to a select group of LGBTQ+ advocacy organizations through the end of June, the company said.

The move comes as Disney faces mounting criticism and scorn from conservative lawmakers and others who say the company has oversize influence on children, and American culture at large, and is pushing a progressive agenda they oppose.


"The Disney Pride Collection was created by LGBTQIA+ employees and allies at The Walt Disney Company and is a reflection of their incredible contributions and place at the heart of the company," the company said on its website. "We stand in solidarity with our LGBTQIA+ community everywhere."

Disney began to feel the wrath of conservative lawmakers several months ago when Chief Executive Bob Chapek voiced opposition to Florida's Parental Rights in Education law, legislation more commonly known by critics as the “Don’t Say Gay” law. It has since been cast by conservatives as a cultural force to be stopped.

A Disney representative said the decision to market the Pride Collection did not come in response to the recent outcry from conservative critics. The manufacture of Disney merchandise takes months to design, produce and ship, and the Pride Collection was conceived months ago, as part of the company's "ongoing evolution," the representative said.

In 1985, Disneyland quietly reversed a long-held policy of prohibiting partners of the same sex from dancing together at the "Happiest Place on Earth." Ten years later, Disney began offering health benefits to same-sex couples, after many other Hollywood companies took the step.

The company began to sell rainbow-themed merchandise in 2018.

Disney executives declined to comment publicly about the Pride Collection but referred to a blog post published Monday by Lisa Becket, senior vice president for global marketing, who described herself as a member of the LGBTQIA+ community.

In the post titled "Share Your Pride," Becket said she is proud to work for a "company that supports inclusion as a core value and provides a welcoming environment which allows me to bring my true authentic self to work."

She said the collection was "dreamed up and designed by members and allies of the community, for members and allies of the community," adding that the Pride Collection shows the company is "further deepening our support" for the LGBTQIA+ community.

Disney employees Carlos Lopez Estrada, left, and Juan Pablo Reyes hold a rainbow Mickey Mouse doll during a walkout in March in Burbank as part of a protest against the company's initial response to Florida's Parental Rights in Education legislation. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

People who commented on the public post were enthusiastic. "THIS IS HOW IT’S DONE! And the merch is FIERCE! Bravo, Disney. Legacy is [on] your side. Thank you," one comment reads.

On social media, news of the Pride Collection drew praise and scorn.

A Twitter post on an account described as a Disneyland food blog that showed a picture of a Pride Collection marketing sign generated a range of responses, from "Step in the right direction Disney" to "Sorry, but we will be no longer supporting WOKE Disney world. Disney should stick to entertainment and out of politics. We traditional families MATTER, too."

One of Disney's largest sources of revenue is merchandise licensing and retail sales, which generated about $4.2 billion in 2021, according to the company's latest annual report.

And there may be a business case in supporting LGBTQ+ park visitors, according to the findings of a recent survey of Grindr dating app users that said LGBTQ+ travelers spend $100 billion a year in the U.S. alone. A 2019 survey of LGBTQ travelers found that 11% visited theme parks in the previous 12 months.

Other theme parks have moved in recent years to publicly support their LGBTQ+ visitors.

Universal Studios Hollywood is the annual site of a gay pride celebration known as "Pride Is Universal." It's not listed on the park's calendar, but in 2019 the park posted its first Twitter announcement about the event.

That year, the park also sold for the first time T-shirts and other merchandise emblazoned with the “Love Is Universal” logo during the event. Proceeds from ticket sales helped support housing programs for people with AIDS and scholarships for students studying LGBTQ+ issues.

For years, Disneyland and Walt Disney World in Florida have been the site of "Gay Days" celebrations that have drawn thousands of members of the LGBTQ+ community.

The events take place in the parks but are organized by outside groups. "Gay Days" events attract about 30,000 visitors each year to Anaheim’s Disneyland Resort, according to organizers. This year the event is scheduled for Sept. 16-18 at Disneyland.

Eddie Shapiro, who launched "Gay Days Anaheim" with his friend Jeffrey Epstein, called the Pride Collection a "step in the right direction" and said he expects to see Disney continue to support the LGBTQ+ community and stop contributing to the campaign coffers of conservatives who demonize the acceptance of gay and lesbian couples.

"The world has evolved and so too has the Walt Disney Co.," Shapiro said.

Daan Colijn, who runs a gay travel blog with his partner, Karl Krause, applauded Disney's move, calling the company an LGBTQ+ ally.

"With rebranding the rainbow merchandise into the new Disney Pride Collection, and donating 100% of the profits during Pride Month, Disney is sending out a clearer message about supporting the LGBTQ+ community which we take as a win," he said.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Chevron, Schlumberger withdraw request for California carbon-capture permit



Wed, May 18, 2022
By Liz Hampton and Sabrina Valle

(Reuters) - Top U.S. energy companies Chevron and Schlumberger have withdrawn an application to capture carbon dioxide emissions and store them deep underground in central California, spokespeople said on Wednesday, putting the clean-energy project on hold after U.S. environmental regulators questioned it.

Burying industrial gases has become a focus for energy companies seeking to show investors they are willing to reduce emissions and help fight climate change. Their permit was one of more than a dozen filed with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which requested the application be withdrawn.

In a March 25 letter, the EPA said the application was "substantially incomplete," citing changes to the application and the failure to supply financial assurances.

The companies had formed a venture to revive an idled biomass-fueled power plant and generate "carbon negative power" in Mendota, near Fresno, California. The project included an underground carbon sequestration site and would remove about 300,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year.

“The EPA did the right thing by hitting the brakes on the Mendota carbon capture project," said Victoria Bogdan Tejeda, an attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity. "Carbon capture is risky, expensive, and incompatible with environmental justice."

Chevron and Schlumberger said they elected to withdraw the permit application and the group would continue "to gather and evaluate project information."

"The team remains committed to developing lower carbon solutions and doing so in an environmentally and socially responsible manner," spokespeople said.

Separately, Chevron on Wednesday said it was launching a carbon-capture and storage project in the San Joaquin Valley aimed at reducing emissions from its own operations in California.

(Reporting by Liz Hampton in Denver and Sabrina Valle in Houston; Editing by David Gregorio)

Captive medic’s bodycam shows firsthand horror of Mariupol



Yuliia Paievska, known as Taira, and her driver Serhiy sit in a vehicle in Mariupol, Ukraine on March 9, 2022. She last appeared on March 21 on Russian television as a captive, handcuffed and with bruises on her face. Using a body camera, she recorded her team's frantic efforts to bring people back from the brink of death. (Yuliia Paievska via AP)

VASILISA STEPANENKO and LORI HINNANT
Thu, May 19, 2022

KHARKIV, Ukraine (AP) — A celebrated Ukrainian medic recorded her time in Mariupol on a data card no bigger than a thumbnail, smuggled out to the world in a tampon. Now she is in Russian hands, at a time when Mariupol itself is on the verge of falling.

Yuliia Paievska is known in Ukraine as Taira, a moniker from the nickname she chose in the World of Warcraft video game. Using a body camera, she recorded 256 gigabytes of her team’s frantic efforts over two weeks to bring people back from the brink of death. She got the harrowing clips to an Associated Press team, the last international journalists in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, as they left in a rare humanitarian convoy.

Russian soldiers captured Taira and her driver the next day, March 16, one of many forced disappearances in areas of Ukraine now held by Russia. Russia has portrayed Taira as working for the nationalist Azov Battalion, in line with Moscow's narrative that it is attempting to “denazify” Ukraine. But the AP found no such evidence, and friends and colleagues said she had no links to Azov.

The military hospital where she led evacuations of the wounded is not affiliated with the battalion, whose members have spent weeks defending a sprawling steel plant in Mariupol. The footage Taira recorded itself testifies to the fact that she tried to save wounded Russian soldiers as well as Ukrainian civilians.

A clip recorded on March 10 shows two Russian soldiers taken roughly out of an ambulance by a Ukrainian soldier. One is in a wheelchair. The other is on his knees, hands bound behind his back, with an obvious leg injury. Their eyes are covered by winter hats, and they wear white armbands.

A Ukrainian soldier curses at one of them. “Calm down, calm down,” Taira tells him.

A woman asks her, “Are you going to treat the Russians?”

“They will not be as kind to us,” she replies. “But I couldn’t do otherwise. They are prisoners of war.”

Taira is now a prisoner of the Russians, one of hundreds of prominent Ukrainians who have been kidnapped or captured, including local officials, journalists, activists and human rights defenders.

The U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine has recorded 204 cases of enforced disappearances. It said some victims may have been tortured, and five were later found dead. The office of Ukraine’s ombudswoman said it had received reports of thousands of missing people by late April, 528 of whom had probably been captured.

The Russians also are targeting medics and hospitals even though the Geneva Conventions single out both military and civilian medics for protection “in all circumstance.” The World Health Organization has verified more than 100 attacks on health care since the war began, a number likely to rise.

More recently, Russian soldiers pulled a woman off a convoy from Mariupol on May 8, accused her of being a military medic and forced her to choose between letting her 4-year-old daughter accompany her to an unknown fate or continuing on to Ukrainian-controlled territory. The mother and child ended up separated, and the little girl made it to the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, U.N. officials said.

“This is not about saving one particular woman,” said Oleksandra Chudna, who volunteered as a medic with Taira in 2014. “Taira will represent those medics and women who went to the front.”

Taira’s situation takes on a new significance as the last defenders in Mariupol are evacuated into Russian territories, in what Russia calls a mass surrender and Ukraine calls a mission accomplished. Russia says more than 1,700 Ukrainian fighters have surrendered this week in Mariupol, bringing new attention to the treatment of prisoners. Ukraine has expressed hope that the fighters can be exchanged for Russian prisoners of war, but a Russian official has said without evidence that they should be not exchanged but put on trial.

Ukraine’s government has said it tried to add Taira’s name to a prisoner exchange weeks ago. However, Russia denies holding her, despite her appearance on television networks in the separatist Donetsk region of Ukraine and on the Russian NTV network, handcuffed and with her face bruised. The Ukrainian government declined to speak about the case when asked by the AP.

Taira, 53, is known in Ukraine as a star athlete and the person who trained the country’s volunteer medic force. What comes across in her video and in descriptions from her friends is a big, exuberant personality with a telegenic presence, the kind of person to revel in swimming with dolphins.

The video is an intimate record from Feb. 6 to March 10 of a city under siege that has now become a worldwide symbol of the Russian invasion and Ukrainian resistance. In it, Taira is a whirlwind of energy and grief, recording the death of a child and the treatment of wounded soldiers from both sides.

On Feb. 24, the first day of the war, Taira chronicled efforts to bandage a Ukrainian soldier’s open head wound.

Two days later, she ordered colleagues to wrap an injured Russian soldier in a blanket. “Cover him because he is shaking,” she says in the video. She calls the young man “Sunshine” — a favorite nickname for the many soldiers who passed through her hands — and asks why he came to Ukraine.

“You’re taking care of me,” he tells her, almost in wonder. Her response: “We treat everyone equally.”

Later that night, two children — a brother and sister — arrive gravely wounded from a shootout at a checkpoint. Their parents are dead. By the end of the night, despite Taira's entreaties to “stay with me, little one,” so is the little boy.

Taira turns away from his lifeless body and cries. “I hate (this),” she says. She closes his eyes.

Talking to someone in the dark outside as she smokes, she says, “The boy is gone. The boy has died. They are still giving CPR to the girl. Maybe she will survive.”

At one point, she stares into a bathroom mirror, a shock of blond hair falling over her forehead in stark contrast to the shaved sides of her head. She cuts the camera.

Throughout the video, she complains about chronic pain from back and hip injuries that left her partially disabled. She embraces doctors. She cracks jokes to cheer up discouraged ambulance drivers and patients alike. And always, she wears a stuffed animal attached to her vest to hand to any children she might treat.

With a husband and teenage daughter, she knew what war can do to a family. At one point, an injured Ukrainian soldier asks her to call his mother. She tells him he’ll be able to call her himself, “so don’t make her nervous.”

On March 15, a police officer handed over the small data card to a team of Associated Press journalists who had been documenting atrocities in Mariupol, including a Russian airstrike on a maternity hospital. The office contacted Taira on a walkie-talkie, and she asked the journalists to take the card safely out of the city. The card was hidden inside a tampon, and the team passed through 15 Russian checkpoints before reaching Ukrainian-controlled territory.

The next day, Taira disappeared with her driver Serhiy. On the same day, a Russian airstrike shattered the Mariupol theater and killed close to 600 people.

A video aired during a March 21 Russian news broadcast announced her capture, accusing her of trying to flee the city in disguise. Taira looks groggy and haggard as she reads a statement positioned below the camera, calling for an end to the fighting. As she talks, a voiceover derides her colleagues as Nazis, using language echoed this week by Russia as it described the fighters from Mariupol.

The broadcast was the last time she was seen.

Both the Russian and Ukrainian governments have publicized interviews with prisoners of war, despite international humanitarian law that describes the practice as inhumane and degrading treatment.

Taira’s husband, Vadim Puzanov, said he has received little news about his wife since her disappearance. Choosing his words carefully, he described a constant worry as well as outrage at how she has been portrayed by Russia.

“Accusing a volunteer medic of all mortal sins, including organ trafficking, is already outrageous propaganda — I don’t even know who it’s for,” he said.

Raed Saleh, the head of Syria’s White Helmets, compared Taira’s situation to what volunteers with his group faced and continue to face in Syria. He said his group also has been accused of organ trafficking and dealing with terrorist groups.

“Tomorrow, they may ask her to make statements and pressure her to say things,” Saleh said.

Taira has outsize importance in Ukraine because of her reputation. She taught aikido martial arts and worked as a medic as a sideline.

She took on her name in 2013, when she joined first aid volunteers at the Euromaidan protests in Ukraine that drove out a Russia-backed government. In 2014, Russia seized the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine.

Taira went to the eastern Donbas region, where Moscow-backed separatists fought Ukrainian forces. There, she taught tactical medicine and started a group of medics called Taira’s Angels. She also worked as a liaison between the military and civilians in front-line towns where few doctors and hospitals dared operate. In 2019, she left for the Mariupol region, and her medical unit was based there.

Taira was a member of the Ukraine Invictus Games for military veterans, where she was set to compete in archery and swimming. Invictus said she was a military medic from 2018 to 2020 but had since been demobilized.

She received the body camera in 2021 to film for a Netflix documentary series on inspirational figures being produced by Britain's Prince Harry, who founded the Invictus Games. But when Russian forces invaded, she used it to shoot scenes of injured civilians and soldiers instead.

That footage is now especially poignant, with Mariupol on the brink. In one of the last videos Taira shot, she is seated next to the driver who would disappear with her. It is March 9.

“Two weeks of war. Besieged Mariupol,” she says quietly. Then she curses at no one in particular, and the screen goes dark.

___

Associated Press writers Sarah El Deeb contributed from Beirut, Mstyslav Chernov from Kharkiv, Inna Varenytsia from Kyiv; Elena Becatoros from Zaporizhzhia; and Erika Kinetz from Brussels. Lori Hinnant reported from Paris.

Alberta premier says Canada could boost oil export to U.S., calls for major new pipeline


Alberta Premier Kenney addresses delegates at the annual

 UPC convention in Calgary

Tue, May 17, 2022,
By Nia Williams

(Reuters) -Canada could add over a million barrels per day (bpd) of oil export capacity to the United States over the next two years, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney told a U.S. Senate committee on Tuesday, while also calling for a new cross-border oil pipeline.

However, federal Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said there was little discussion in Ottawa or Washington about a new oil pipeline, and warned that narrowly focusing on fossil fuel security risked hindering climate goals.

Kenney and Wilkinson were in Washington addressing a Senate energy and natural resources committee on the issue of energy security, as countries around the world face rising crude prices and tight supply following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Their contrasting remarks illustrate how the federal Liberal government is often at odds with conservative politicians like Kenney over how best to manage Canada's vast oil and gas wealth while also reducing climate-warming carbon emissions.

"With political will from Washington we could also get another major pipeline built that would forever allow the United States to free itself from imports from hostile regimes," Kenney told the committee, adding Alberta is the largest source of U.S. energy imports.

The Canadian government has previously said Canada could increase oil pipeline exports by 300,000 bpd this year.

Kenney said an extra 200,000 bpd could be shipped south by rail, while technical improvements from midstream companies could add as much as 400,000 bpd of pipeline capacity by next year. The Canadian government-owned Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project is expected to be finished late next year, and will add another 600,000 bpd, he said.

Wilkinson told Reuters after the Senate hearing that this was the first he had heard of a potential increase in rail capacity or technical improvements, and any increase in oil exports to help offset lost Russian supply would need to be consistent with Canada's climate goals.

"The discussions I was having with White House were more forward-looking, about hydrogen, about critical minerals, about clean technologies," he said.

Canada exports around 3.8 million bpd of oil to the United States and until recently faced pipeline constraints that left crude bottlenecked in Alberta. U.S. President Joe Biden revoked a key permit for the Keystone XL pipeline in early 2021, infuriating the Canadian energy industry.

However with the start-up of Enbridge's Line 3 replacement project last year, Canadian export capacity is now broadly in line with production.

Energy analyst Rory Johnston, founder of the Commodity Context newsletter, said oil production is expected to only grow about 100,000 bpd a year going forward, meaning more export capacity would not necessarily mean more barrels crossing the border.

(Reporting by Nia WilliamsEditing by Bernadette Baum, Marguerita Choy and Nick Zieminski)

Roll Up Your Sleeves, Canada: The World Needs Our Energy

Speaking at the Canadian Club Toronto, Enbridge’s Al Monaco calls for a ‘fresh look’ at how Canada can lead the global energy transition

Wed, May 18, 2022
Northampton, MA --News Direct-- Enbridge


The post-pandemic “return to normal” many imagined did not include an incomprehensible conflict in Ukraine and global energy crisis.

Yet here we are. Decades-high inflation, major supply-chain issues, pain at the pump and rising home heating and electricity costs, and all the while questions about what it all means for climate objectives and the pace of the energy transition.

These remarkable energy challenges now in play were the focus of a “fireside chat” discussion today for an audience at the Canadian Club Toronto. Principals having the conversation were Al Monaco, President and CEO of Enbridge Inc., and Brian Tobin, the former premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, federal cabinet minister and currently Vice-Chair of BMO Financial Group.

Mr. Monaco and Mr. Tobin examined energy security, reliability and affordability, and the important roles that Canada—and North America overall—need to play moving forward.

“We have just crossed a major inflection point for energy markets and we are for sure in an energy crisis—and even if the war ends tomorrow, this is going to be a different energy market going forward,” said Mr. Monaco, who leads North America’s leading energy infrastructure company. “We’re going to need more energy than we thought, pre-Ukraine . . . to manage that security risk issue.”

Mr. Monaco called for a “fresh look” at the opportunity and responsibility Canada has in leading the energy transition globally. To be a true global leader, the country must reduce the 1.5% of global emissions created within its borders—“and we’re focused on that”—but also set its sights higher towards the 98.5 per cent of global emissions created outside of Canada. “The opportunity and responsibility are right in front of us.”

It will mean continued emphasis on natural gas and renewables.

“The single biggest factor in the U.S. reducing its emissions by 20% since 2005 has been natural gas. It’s a similar story here in Ontario—where we’ve replaced coal-fired generation with renewables and hydro,” Mr. Monaco said.

“This formula can be replicated with success in China, where there are 1,100 coal plants.”

Click here to listen to the full discussion between the two prominent Canadian business leaders.

AG Perarivalan: India top court frees killer of ex-PM Rajiv Gandhi

Wed, May 18, 2022

AG Perarivalan was in prison for more than 30 years

India's Supreme Court has ordered the release of one of the men convicted of involvement in the 1991 murder of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.

AG Perarivalan had spent over 30 years in jail. In 1998, he was given a death sentence, but it was later commuted.

Arrested aged 19, Perarivalan was convicted of procuring batteries that were used in the bomb to kill Gandhi.

The ex-PM was assassinated by a female suicide bomber as he addressed an election rally in Tamil Nadu state.

Gandhi's killing was widely seen as retaliation for his having sent Indian peacekeepers to Sri Lanka in 1987 when he was prime minister.

Perarivalan was a supporter of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a rebel group fighting for a separate Tamil state in Sri Lanka. The rebels were finally defeated by Sri Lankan troops in 2009.



On Wednesday, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court invoked a section of the Indian constitution that grants it extraordinary powers "for doing complete justice in any cause" to release Perarivalan, one of seven people convicted in the case, considering that he had been in jail for more than 30 years.

Over the years, governments in Tamil Nadu state had asked for those found guilty over the killing to be released.

In 2000, the state governor had commuted the death sentence of Nalini, the only woman convicted in the case, and in 2014, the Supreme Court had commuted the death sentences of all the others on account of an 11-year delay in deciding their mercy petitions.

Israel Is in All-Out Crisis Mode After Terrible Handling of Reporter’s Death

Noga Tarnopolsky
Wed, May 18, 2022, 
The Daily Beast.

Hazem Bader/AFP via Getty

The death of Shireen Abu Akleh, Al Jazeera’s celebrated Palestine correspondent—who was shot in the head while covering a gun battle between Israeli army forces and Palestinian fighters in the West Bank city of Jenin last Wednesday—has spiraled from tragedy into a full-blown diplomatic crisis for Israel.

A series of clumsy reactions to the journalist’s death, and the police’s catastrophic handling of her funeral on Friday, where officers beat pallbearers with batons and dispersed the crowds with stun grenades, have left Israel exposed to a diplomatic maelstrom, with criticism coming from even the country’s strongest allies.

Israeli police has not responded to queries about its deployment of anti-terror police at the funeral, or its methods of riot control.

Videos of Abu Akleh’s coffin tipping over, slipping from the pallbearers’ hands and almost hitting the ground drew a rare rebuke from Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who personally called Abu Akleh’s family to express condolences over the death of the renowned Palestinian American journalist.

The United States was “deeply troubled to see the images of Israeli police intruding into her funeral procession,” Blinken said, in a statement. “We remain in close contact with our Israeli and Palestinian counterparts and call on all to maintain calm and avoid any actions that could further escalate tensions.”

Family and friends carry the coffin of Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh, who was killed during an Israeli raid in Jenin in the West Bank, as clashes erupted with Israeli security forces during her funeral in Jerusalem on May 13.
Ammar Awad/Reuters

More forcefully, the European Union said it was “appalled” by the scenes unfolding during Abu Akleh’s funeral and condemned “the disproportionate use of force and the disrespectful behavior by the Israeli police against the participants of the mourning procession.”

Cops and Mourners Clash at Reporter’s Funeral

An Israel police statement released at midnight on Friday, the day of the funeral, claimed that a “mob” had threatened the driver of the hearse carrying Abu Akleh’s coffin, disrupting plans “coordinated in advance by the Israel Police together with the Abu Akleh family.”

“Israeli police intervened to disperse the mob and prevent them from taking the coffin, so that the funeral could proceed as planned in accordance with the wishes of the family,” police said, in a statement that was ripped to shreds by the journalist’s brother, Tony Abu Akleh, who told CNN that the police’s actions amounted to an “intentional and brutal” attack.

Towards the end of one video, a commander appears to be reprimanding some of the officers.

On Monday, east Jerusalem’s Saint Joseph’s Hospital, where Abu Akleh’s body was prepared for burial, released a video of about a dozen Israeli police officers raiding its wards for no apparent reason.

Israel police have announced an investigation into the incident, which saw officers ripping Palestinian flags from the hands of mourners and, in one case, preventing a mourner from approaching the procession because her headdress was in the colors of the flag, which is legal to display in Israel.

Palestinian artists paint a mural in honor of slain veteran Al-Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in Gaza City on May 12.
Mohammed Abed/AFP via Getty

Over the weekend, it emerged that Jerusalem District Commander Doron Turgeman had ordered his officers to confiscate Palestinian flags from Germany, where he was a member of a police delegation.

Turgeman has gained notoriety in recent years for the rough policing of his officers, which included attacks on foreign journalists covering protests against former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

On Monday, Israeli media reported that the police were investigating whether officers assigned to secure the funeral had even been authorized to use batons.

The police’s definition of mourners as a “mob,” which drew worldwide attention, appeared to be a mistranslation of the words “lawbreakers and agitators,” which appeared in the Hebrew version of the police statement.

In a radio interview, former Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Jonathan Conricus slammed the police for not employing any English-speaking communications professionals before describing the incident as “a Palestinian ambush” which should have been foreseen, and included the willing cooperation of the foreign media stationed in Israel.

Conricus declined to explain his terminology when approached by The Daily Beast.

A unanimous United Nations Security Council resolution demanding an independent investigation into how the trailblazing reporter was killed, on the job, and a growing chorus of calls from the White House for an “immediate and thorough” examination do not appear to be bearing fruit.

Almost a week after Abu Akleh’s death, the investigation into its cause appears to be stagnant. A Palestinian coroner who performed an autopsy and examined the bullet that passed through her helmet said results were “inconclusive.”

Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said that the Israeli army’s was firm in its decision “to have a full-scale investigation of this process,” but admitted not having arrived at any results.

“We are in the middle of the investigation, and I do not want to rule out any scenario at the moment,” he said, underscoring the importance he attributes to “safeguarding human life and freedom of the press,” and requesting forensic data from the Palestinian government.

But a rapid analysis of open source data undertaken by Bellingcat, the independent investigations organization, supports witness testimony that the shots that hit Abu Akleh were fired by the Israeli army.

A report entitled “Unraveling the Killing of Shireen Abu Akleh” concludes that it is most likely that Abu Akleh was shot by an Israeli soldier.

Israel has not made a good name for itself in probing the deaths of reporters killed in action. The Israeli army claims that the death of 30-year-old photojournalist Yasser Murtaja remains under investigation four years after he succumbed to his wounds on April 6, 2018. Murtaja was shot in broad daylight while covering protests on the border between Gaza and Israel. Like Abu Akleh, he was wearing a flak jacket emblazoned with the word “PRESS”.

Diaspora Minister Nachman Shai, also a former IDF spokesperson, admitted as much, telling an Israeli radio station that based on past experience, “Israel’s credibility is not very high in such events.”

Courage seeking truth: Shireen’s lesson for younger journalists

Fatima AbdulKarim
Wed, May 18, 2022

I can never forget Shireen Abu Akleh’s lesson in courage.

It is a lesson I was reminded of when I learned that my mentor and friend had been shot and killed last week, reportedly by Israeli forces, while covering an Israeli military raid in the northern West Bank for Al Jazeera.

There was no point in putting ourselves in danger, Shireen constantly told us younger journalists. Courage in journalism came only through asking for the truth, not in anything else.

She was shot and killed seeking the truth, wearing her press vest and helmet.

According to the journalists who were at her side – as well as Palestinian officials, Al Jazeera, and independent researchers using material from Palestinian and Israeli military sources – she was killed by Israeli military fire during a shootout with Palestinian militants in Jenin, in a raid that followed a string of deadly attacks in Israel.

As I, other journalists, and Palestinians across the political spectrum mourn her killing, I am reminded of the bloody days of the second intifada that began more than two decades of insecurity and turmoil for the Palestinian people that continue to this day. It was an era that catapulted Shireen’s career, making her a trusted voice for Palestinians and Arabs around the world.

Shireen was a pioneer, part of a new generation of female field reporters in the Arab world at the turn of the 21st century. While women were commonly seen as anchors behind a desk, to see a woman reporting from the middle of the action broke stereotypes and led the way for dozens more Arab women to follow.

These past two decades were nevertheless also years in which my friend and colleague guided me and others through the uncertain and dangerous times with warmth.
Her voice was my chaperone

In the early days of the second intifada, which began in late 2000, I attended Birzeit University near Ramallah, studying English literature but harboring dreams of becoming a journalist. The violence between Israelis and Palestinians and the growing number of Israeli military checkpoints made my 5-mile commute dangerous.

Our main live news sources at the time were satellite channels, like Al Arabiya and Al Jazeera. Specifically, we all relied on the tenacious work of Al Jazeera’s Palestinian American correspondent, Jerusalem’s own Shireen Abu Akleh.

Shireen’s hour-by-hour updates allowed me and tens of thousands of others to know how to navigate Israeli military checkpoints, which areas were witnessing violence, and what roads were unsafe that day.

With her voice, Shireen was my chaperone to university.

Shireen’s calm presence, persistence, confidence, and professionalism brought her close to viewers, who trusted her accurate reporting. For many, their lives depended on it.

Her iconic signoff – “Shireen Abu Akleh, Al Jazeera, Ramallah” – became so well known, I would hear Israeli forces occasionally repeat it when announcing a curfew through loudspeakers on Ramallah’s streets.

It may have been meant to mock her, but it solidified her as a pillar of Palestinians’ daily lives.

I knew that if I pursued journalism, I would seek to follow in her footsteps.
Emphasis on safety

Years later, when I finally did become a journalist, I would see her in the field for every event, every incident, every crisis. She took me and many other younger journalists under her wing, and shared her stories of survival and constant lessons on safety and vigilance.

She told us how she utilized fear as an instinct to keep her safe. She drilled into all of us the importance of being alert and in the right place at the right time, of avoiding violence and being safe.

It was a mentorship that continued to her very last moments on earth; when she was shot she was working alongside journalists Shatha Hanaysha and Mujahid Al-Saadi, both in their 20s.

Off-air and away from the cameras, Shireen was a kind and generous soul. Her voice had a Zen-like quality that calmed people around her, and her account of the news was factual and direct. She was always there to lean on.

Shireen also preached the importance of the press holding those in power to account.

Over Shireen’s career, Palestinians saw violence sprawling from within and without. Rounds of peace talks started, sputtered, and collapsed, opportunities missed. Israeli settlements spread across the West Bank. Fatah-Hamas infighting divided the West Bank and Gaza. Elections were postponed, and an undemocratic leadership dug in.

Frustration grew for an entire generation that has grown up in instability, unable to choose their own leaders or their futures.

Shireen was there through it all, reporting it, helping us make sense of it. Until she was not.

Outpouring of gratitude

Her three-day funeral procession from Jenin to Nablus, then Ramallah and Jerusalem, brought people to the streets in a message of gratitude for a woman welcomed into every household like a daily meal.

As if in a state funeral, masses of mourners accompanied her body. People who had never met her stood in the streets and wept, expressing both their anger and sorrow.

In her birthplace and hometown of Jerusalem, a city of the three Abrahamic faiths, thousands of people across all backgrounds, political factions, and religions united behind her on Friday. It was an enormous emotional outpouring, but it was marred by an Israeli police crackdown and the clubbing of mourners carrying her coffin, an event caught on the lenses of the world media.

I followed the ugly scene, emotionally torn, from Jenin, where I was trying to reconstruct the story of her killing. I hadn’t slept in days, but dealing with Shireen’s death as a news story may have given me the distance I needed to focus on my job.

Even in death, Shireen cast light onto the harsh realities of Palestinians’ lives under occupation. The bullet that struck her and the turmoil of her funeral renewed Palestinians’ awareness of their urgent need: to tell their narrative, our narrative.

We shall tell it the way Shireen did, factually and unapologetically.

Vatican slams Israel for attacking funeral of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh

Peter Weber, Senior editor
Tue, May 17, 2022

The top Catholic officials in Jerusalem strongly criticized Israel on Monday for Friday's attack on the funeral procession of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. Israeli riot police stormed the courtyard of St. Joseph Hospital, where Abu Akleh's funeral procession was starting, and kicked and beat the pallbearers, causing them to nearly drop the coffin.

"The Israel Police's invasion and disproportionate use of force — attacking mourners, striking them with batons, using smoke grenades, shooting rubber bullets, frightening the hospital patients — is a severe violation of international norms and regulations, including the fundamental human right of freedom of religion," Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin patriarch of the Holy Land, said at Monday's press conference.

Monsignor Tomasz Grysa, the Vatican's representative in Jerusalem, said Israel's "violent intrusion" into Abu Akleh's funeral "brutally violated" a 1993 agreement between the Roman Catholic Church and Israel that "upholds and observes the human right of freedom of religion." Jamil Koussa, St. Joseph Hospital's director, said the target of the raid was Abu Akleh's coffin itself and declared it an attempt to "horrify people in the building."

Israel's police force defended its conduct on Friday, saying it had "intervened to disperse the mob and prevent them from taking the coffin," instead of putting it in a hearse, as Abu Akleh's family had planned. Abu Akleh's brother Anton disputed that rationale, saying he "never gave any promises to the Israeli police."

Abu Akleh, who was Catholic, was shot dead Wednesday while covering an Israeli raid on the Jenin refugee camp. Witnesses said Israeli forces shot Abu Akleh, who was wearing a blue protective vest clearly marked "Press." Israel, after first suggesting a Palestinian gunman had fired the fatal shot, said it will investigate whether she was hit by Israeli fire.

Dutch open-source research consortium Bellingcat said that based on evidence from Palestinian and Israeli military sources, Israeli soldiers "were in the closest position and had the clearest line of sight to Abu Akleh," suggesting she was killed by Israeli fire.

Israel's ruling coalition becomes minority after lawmaker quits


Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett attends a cabinet meeting at the Prime Minister's office in Jerusalem

Thu, May 19, 2022

JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Israel's ruling coalition on Thursday became a minority in parliament when an Arab lawmaker from a left-wing party quit, leaving Prime Minister Naftali Bennett with a more precarious grip on power.

The defection by Ghaida Rinawie Zoabi, who in a letter circulated in Israeli media said she was pulling her support for the government on ideological grounds, leaves Bennett controlling 59 of the 120 seats in the Knesset.

Bennett heads a collection of left-wing, centrist, right-wing and Arab parties that was sworn in a year ago, ending Benjamin Netanyahu's record 12-year run as prime minister.

It lost its slight majority last month when a lawmaker from Bennett's own right-wing party quit the coaltion.

The government is now more vulnerable and would need to find external support should the opposition bring a no-confidence vote in parliament.

In her letter to Bennett informing him she was quitting, Zoabi, a legislator from the Meretz party, referenced an escalation in violence at a Jerusalem holy site as well as hard-handed tactics by Israeli police at the funeral last week of a Palestinian journalist.

"I cannot keep supporting the existence of a coaltion that shamefully harrasses the society I came from," she said.

(Reporting by Ari Rabinovitch; editing by John Stonestreet and Angus MacSwan)

Portuguese angered at influx of Californians who import their problems with them: report


Andrew Miller

FOX NEWS
Wed, May 18, 2022

California residents are fleeing to the country of Portugal and in many cases bringing problems that have made life more difficult for natives, according to the Los Angeles Times report.

A story titled "Welcome to Portugal, the new expat haven. Californians, please go home," reports that the number of Americans living in Portugal has risen by 45% in the past year with many of those Americans moving from California in order to escape high housing costs, pandemic lockdowns, and "Trumpian politics" in the United States.

The article explains that "resentment of newcomers is growing" in Portugal as California expats have become the "root of questions over gentrification, income disparities and immigration."

Portuguese activists have reportedly taken to the streets to protest the gentrification caused by Americans, many of them Californians, who have moved into the neighborhood and caused skyrocketing rent and evictions.

"You cannot deny that places like Lisbon have become much more appealing for young, creative people with money to spend. The effect on the economy and the way the buildings look — no longer empty — is astronomical," Luis Mendes, a geographer at the University of Lisbon, told the Los Angeles Times. "But the average Portuguese person can no longer afford to live in the center of Lisbon. Rents have gone up five times over a few years. Even the basic things, such as buying groceries, take longer trips outside the city center than they used to."

The Portuguese government has responded to the housing crisis by suspending its "golden visa" program in large cities that offered residency to foreigners who purchased homes that cost more than $500,000 euros which was a program "dominated" by Americans.

In Lisbon, the capital city of Portugal, evictions have doubled over the last few years with many blaming the influx of foreigners willing to pay more than locals with bank accounts backed by dollars and pounds.

California’s population decreased in both 2020 and 2021 which cost the state a seat in Congress for the first time after the U.S. Census found California's population growth fell behind other states.

"Things were just becoming too much back home, but I didn’t want to leave everything about L.A. behind," California expat Jamie Dixon explained. "With Portugal," Dixon added, "we could keep the parts we liked and leave the rest."

The Door to Fusion Energy Might Have Just Been Unlocked

Tony Ho Tran
Wed, May 18, 2022

dani3315

In the world of renewable energy, there’s perhaps no more ambitious goal than fusion power. This involves fusing hydrogen atoms to create helium—a process that generates an incredible amount of energy. It’s a reaction that occurs every single moment in the sun, but replicating it on Earth is a much more arduous process. If we succeed, however, we’ll have a clean source of renewable electricity that meets our ever-growing energy needs.

To that end, researchers are chasing after a phenomenon called “ignition,” which is when a fusion reactor generates more energy than was needed to create the initial reaction. A few major attempts are underway to achieve this goal, including the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) in France. That effort utilizes powerful magnets in a machine called a tokamak to create superheated plasma created using hydrogen fuel.

But therein lies an issue: There’s only so much hydrogen fuel you can put into a tokamak before everything starts going horribly wrong.

“One of the limitations in making plasma inside a tokamak is the amount of hydrogen fuel you can inject into it,” Paolo Ricci, a researcher at the Swiss Plasma Center, said in a press release. “Since the early days of fusion, we've known that if you try to increase the fuel density, at some point there would be what we call a ‘disruption’—basically you totally lose the confinement, and plasma goes wherever.”

The Holy Grail of Energy Generation Might Finally Be Within Our Grasp

To solve this issue, scientists began to research different equations to measure the maximum amount of hydrogen you can put inside of a tokamak before disruption. One law that eventually caught hold and became a mainstay in the fusion research world is known as the “Greenwald limit,” which says that the amount of fuel that can be used in a tokamak is directly correlated to the radius of the machine. The researchers behind ITER have even built their machine based on this law.

But even the Greenwald limit wasn’t perfect.

“The Greenwald limit is what we call an ‘empirical’ limit or law, which basically means that it’s like a rule-of-thumb based on observations made on past experiments,” Alex Zylstra, an experimental physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, told The Daily Beast in an email. “These are very useful, but we always need to be cautious when applying them outside conditions where we have data from experiments.”

That’s why Ricci and his team have challenged this long-held belief in a new paper published on May 6 in the journal Physical Review Letters. In it, they posit that Greenwald’s limit can actually be raised—nearly doubling the amount of hydrogen fuel that can go into a tokamak in order to produce plasma. Their findings could lay the groundwork for future fusion reactors such as DEMO—a successor to ITER that’s currently in development—to finally reach ignition.

This Fusion Technology Could Make Clean Energy Drastically Cheaper

“This is important because it shows that the density that you can achieve in a tokamak increases with the power you need to run it,” Ricci said. “Actually, DEMO will operate at a much higher power than present tokamaks and ITER, which means that you can add more fuel density without limiting the output, in contrast to the Greenwald law. And that is very good news.”

Zylstra believes that the team’s finding is significant because it sheds light on why exactly fusion reactors have such a limit as well. It also shows that the designs for tokamaks like ITER or DEMO could be “less constrained than previously thought.” With the fuel density being increased two-fold, it could result in a vast improvement in their power output by tokamaks—and finally get us to ignition.

“Fusion is an extremely challenging problem—both scientifically and technologically, and making fusion power a reality requires many advances made one step at a time,” Zylstra added. “If this study is further validated, especially on machines like ITER, it will certainly help the magnetic fusion community credibly design and optimize future designs for experimental and power-generating facilities.”

Sri Lanka Falls Into Default, Sending Warning Across Emerging World

Wed, May 18, 2022
By Geoffrey Smith

Investing.com -- Sri Lanka formally defaulted on its foreign debt on Thursday, as a succession of external shocks and economic mismanagement left it without the money to pay even for fuel imports.

The South Asian island nation is the first country in two years to formally default on its debt and threatens to set a precedent for the rest of the world grappling with an increasingly severe inflation problem.

Severe shocks to food and energy prices are causing economic distress in more and more countries, aggravating already existing problems caused by the pandemic and the world's policy response to it.

Central Bank Governor Nandalal Weerasinghe told a briefing that the country hadn't been able to find the money to pay $78 million in interest on a dollar bond and $105 million in interest on a loan from Chinese state-backed entities within the 30-day grace period allowed under the terms of those debts.

While Sri Lanka's foreign debt, at $12.6 billion, is small in relative terms, the economic crisis unfolding there has similarities with various other parts of the emerging world. Revenue from tourism, its biggest generator of foreign currency, fell by over 80% in the first year of the pandemic, according to World Bank data, under the impact of travel bans.

Without that revenue, and almost entirely dependent on imports for fossil fuels, it has been brutally exposed to the near-doubling of oil prices over the last year.

The country's ability to feed its population of 22 million has, meanwhile, been undermined by a ban on the import of fertilizers and pesticides, which have led to an estimated 30% drop in agricultural yields this year.

The government has since watered down that ban, but too late to stop widespread shortages this year, which have boiled over into violent protests against the ruling Rajapaksa clan.

The collapse of tourism revenue has forced the central bank this year to abandon its initial attempts to defend the value of the Sri Lankan rupee. It has now lost over 50% of its value against the dollar since the start of 2020, although - like the country's stock market - it has stabilized at a low level since the central bank admitted last week that default would be hard to avoid.

The dollar rose a relatively modest 1.4% against the rupee in response to the news on Thursday, while the MSCI Sri Lanka stock index edged up 0.8%.

The country has begun talks with the International Monetary Fund on a restructuring process, which Weerasinghe suggested on Thursday could take around six months to complete. That will depend largely on the attitude of its biggest foreign creditor, China, which has lent lavishly to a succession of Rajapaksa governments to finance projects of questionable economic value in the last two decades. That has made Sri Lanka a central figure in arguments over what critics call China's 'debt trap diplomacy', a process by which Beijing leverages the economic distress of its debtors to gain strategic assets across the world. The accusations are routinely rejected by China and disputed by many economists.

Sri Lanka Default Hints at Trouble Ahead for Developing Nations







Sri Lanka Default Hints at Trouble Ahead for Developing Nations

Sydney Maki and Amelia Pollard
Wed, May 18, 2022

(Bloomberg) -- Sri Lanka’s impending default on $12.6 billion of overseas bonds is flashing a warning sign to investors in other developing nations that surging inflation is set to take a painful toll.

The South Asian nation is set to blow through the grace period on $78 million of payments Wednesday, marking its first sovereign debt default since it gained independence from Britain in 1948. Its bonds already trade deep in distressed territory, with holders bracing for losses approaching 60 cents on the dollar. The government said last month it would halt payments on foreign debt.

Sri Lanka’s situation is unique in the way all debt crises are -- the particulars here involve an unpopular government run by an all-powerful family, the unresolved aftermath of a 30-year civil war and violent street protests. But the island’s saga is starting to be seen as a bellwether for emerging markets where shortages exacerbated by inflation, including record-high food costs globally, have the potential to roil national economies.

“The Sri Lanka default is an ominous sign for emerging markets,” said Guido Chamorro, the co-head of emerging-market hard-currency debt at Pictet Asset Management, which holds Sri Lankan bonds. “We expect the good times to stop. Slowing growth and more difficult funding conditions will increase default risk particularly for frontier countries.”

Sri Lanka, an $81 billion economy located off India’s southern coast, has been mired in turmoil for weeks amid annual inflation running at 30%, a plummeting currency and an economic crisis that has left the country short of the hard currency it needs to import food and fuel. Anger over the situation -- brought about by years of excessive borrowing to fund bloated state companies and generous social benefits -- has boiled over into violent protests.

Widespread arson and clashes were reported from several parts of the country while homes and properties of several government lawmakers were set on fire. At least nine people, including one member of parliament, were killed in the violence. And the country has also struggled with petrol shortages in recent days, with the government asking citizens to not line up for gasoline.

Sri Lanka is currently without a finance minister, which could complicate efforts to get through the crisis as the government struggles to restore security and get a bailout from the International Monetary Fund. At the same time, it needs to negotiate a restructuring with creditors including BlackRock Inc. and Ashmore Group.

The nation’s dollar bonds are among the worst performers in the world this year, with only Ukraine, Belarus and El Salvador’s Bitcoin-busted notes faring worse. The government on April 18 failed to transfer about $78 million in coupons to holders of debt maturing in 2023 and 2028, leading S&P Global Ratings to declare a selective default. Fitch Ratings and Moody’s Investors Service have yet to declare official defaults, despite issuing their own warnings.

After the grace period on those payments ends Wednesday, negotiations with creditors can begin in earnest, a process that will be key to winning aid from the IMF. The country has previously said it needs between $3 billion and $4 billion this year to pull itself out of crisis.

The nation’s $1 billion dollar debt due this July was indicated 0.24 cents higher at 42.73 cents on Wednesday, near the record low of 42.5 cents reached last week, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

But getting such a deal done quickly won’t be easy. While President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has already called on one of his political opponents to take over as prime minister after the resignation of his brother, Mahinda Rajapaksa, instability lingers. Divides remain deep after a 30-year civil war that ended in 2009, and the central bank governor has threatened to quit if political stability doesn’t return soon.

“We are in a fluid situation that is very perilous for Sri Lanka,” said Matthew Vogel, London-based portfolio manager and head of sovereign research at FIM Partners.

Risk of Replication

As Sri Lanka struggles with the turmoil, its problems provide a warning for other emerging markets where heavy debt loads are converging with economic issues and social unease. The challenge is made more difficult as the Federal Reserve and other major central banks raise interest rates in a bid to quell inflation, leading to higher borrowing costs.

“They are now forced to face their debt burdens amid tightening financial conditions,” said Trang Nguyen, executive director of emerging markets strategy at JPMorgan Chase & Co.

At least 14 developing economies tracked in a Bloomberg gauge have debt yields at an excess of 1,000 basis points over US Treasuries, a threshold for bonds to be considered distressed.

The added pressures of rising food and energy prices has already started to bubble up in other countries, including Egypt, Tunisia and Peru. It risks turning into a broader debt debacle and yet another threat to the world economy’s fragile recovery from the pandemic. Pakistan, Ethiopia and Ghana are also in danger of following suit, Bloomberg Economics said last month.

“Sri Lanka could be the start of a trend across the frontier and emerging markets where governments experience debt crises -- and possibly default on their obligations,” said Brendan McKenna, a strategist at Wells Fargo in New York who says Pakistan and Egypt look particularly vulnerable. “As rates move higher, a lot of the fundamentally weaker countries with dollar-denominated debt may struggle to repay bonds.”

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