US woman Elizabeth Line jokingly thanks Queen for attending Crossrail ceremony in her place


A US businesswoman named Elizabeth Line has jokingly thanked the Queen for attending the unveiling of the new London transport link in her place.

© PA Crossrail

After discovering her name had been trending on Twitter, the CEO of Digital Citizen spoke of her “disappointment” at not being able to attend the opening ceremony this week.

In a tweet, she said: “Obviously disappointed I couldn’t attend in person but Her Majesty always comes through in a pinch. Thanks again TfL.”

While at Paddington station, the Queen unveiled a plaque to commemorate the day and was given a special Elizabeth line Oyster card.

In 2016, when the roundel was unveiled, she said she was delighted to share her name with the capital’s £20billion transport alink.

However, this isn’t the first time Ms Line has inadvertently been caught up in the online interest surrounding the Crossrail line.

Speaking to the Standard at the time, she said: “I’m thrilled about it. Nothing like waking up to a little insta-celebrity.

“When I found out I was trending on Twitter this morning, there were a few moments of ‘what did I do last night’ panic but now I’m just having fun with it."

When asked about the chosen colour, Ms Line said she “loved the purple”.

The service will operate for passengers on Tuesday and comes over three and a half years since it was meant to open.

The new line includes 41 stations between Reading and Heathrow in the west, through central London, to Shenfield and Abbey Wood in the east.

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Beam me up, Priti! The sci-fi about teleporting refugees that feels very real

Alex Rayner 

Five months ago, a pretty important envelope dropped into the mailbox of Meriem Bennani’s lawyer. The Moroccan-born, New York-based artist had been granted a green card, and was now a lawful, permanent resident of the US. “It’s weird,” she says over a glass of sparkling water in a bar close to Nottingham Contemporary, the gallery where she is installing Life on the Caps, her new video exhibition. “Of course, I’m grateful. My whole life has been lived from visa to visa.” She expresses ambivalence towards her new home, before adding that she doesn’t want to focus too much on herself, “because, you know, I’m OK”.

This puts Bennani in dramatic contrast to the characters in Party on the Caps and Life on the Caps, her two half-hour videos set in a futuristic sci-fi detention camp called Caps (short for “capsule”), situated on an island in the middle of the Atlantic. In the films, teleportation has replaced air travel. Would-be illegal immigrants to the US are intercepted as they attempt to zap across the Atlantic, and interned in the camp, which has developed from an insular holding pen to a sprawling migrant settlement and Latin quarter.

The animation in Mary Poppins blew me away! I was like: How do they do that?

We’re introduced to the camp by Fiona, an animated crocodile, cereal box character and unofficial camp mascot (Bennani has a master’s degree in animation from the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, as well as a bachelor’s in fine art from the Cooper Union in New York). Then we meet the human inhabitants of the Moroccan neighbourhoods, who party, protest, play music, undergo strange age-reversal procedures, create memes, flip off the American “troopers” who oversee the island, and sometimes address the camera directly, in this strange mix of pseudo-documentary and sci-fi cartoon.

Bennani loved Disney movies as a child growing up in Rabat, the Moroccan capital, and was particularly taken with the ones that mixed live action with animation, such as the 1964 musical Mary Poppins. “That blew me away!” she says. “I was like, ‘How do they do that?’”

The artist is familiar with postcolonial politics, understanding now how two staples of her childhood – Disney videos and the Cartoon Network channel – may have served veiled, neocolonial ends. She regards Fantasia, the 1940 Mickey Mouse movie, as Disney’s biggest imperialistic “flex”. She says: “It’s the pure awesomeness of animation, plus the addition of European classical music. It’s like ‘empire!’ but it’s still beautiful and magical.” A third Caps film, not showing in Nottingham, pays tribute to Fantasia, while twisting the story to address the multitudes who lie beyond America’s borders.

Moroccan rappers and social media stars perform alongside Bennani’s friends and family in her Caps films, each acting the part of an islander. This addition of north African pop, as well as computer-generated animation, means the films stay pacy, and never shade into boring polemics.

It all sounds like an odd mix for a film-maker, but for Bennani it’s a pretty well-established formula. In Fly, an animated fruit fly guides viewers around the private lives of citizens in Rabat and Fez. In Mission Teens, Bennani appeared as a CGI donkey, shooting footage of real-life, snotty teens at elite, French-speaking schools in Rabat. And in 2 Lizards, Bennani and her flatmate – fellow animator Orian Barki – cast themselves as languid talking reptiles, trying to make the best of life in lockdown Manhattan.

This work, which the animators posted on Instagram, became a pandemic hit, and led to more commercial inquiries. “We developed a TV show, but it didn’t work out,” Bennani explains. “It was too mainstream for the art world, but too weird for Hollywood.”

I’m quite bored by the art world. That’s not who I make the work for

She and Barki are working on a new script, but while that’s in development she’s happy to be opening her show at a free-to-visit gallery in the centre of a significant British city, which draws in visitors from many walks of life. “That’s really important to me,” Bennani says, adding that she’s included an indoor playground-style space for younger gallery-goers. “I’m quite bored by the art audience, the art world,” she says. “That’s not who I make the work for.”

Nottingham is, of course, the setting for one of Disney’s better-known films, Robin Hood. “It wasn’t one I watched a lot,” she says. “But ethically, it’s not bad.”). And British politics is providing Bennani’s show with a fitting backdrop, the government having recently announced its plans to send asylum-seekers to Rwanda. The artist sighs as I mention this. Science fiction, for her, isn’t about craftily predicting the future, but more about finding ways to think about our lives today. The Home Office’s overseas processing plans place her imaginary island in perspective. “It is,” she says, with a brisk, almost cartoonish sense of despair, “barely a dystopia.”

Meriem Bennani: Life on the Caps is at Nottingham Contemporary until 4 September.

Time to act is now as UN expert suggests fossil fuels are "dead end"

Neil Ever Osborne - Saturday

The Weather Network

Extreme weather has become the day-to-day “face” of the climate crisis, stated experts from the UN upon the release of their new State of the Global Climate report.

Ringing yet another alarm about global disruptions — made worse by heat trapping emissions — the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) agency highlighted the “vulnerability of populations to current weather and climate events” and reported “loss and damages of more than US$100 billion, as well as severe impacts on food security and humanitarian aspects due to high-impact weather and climate events.”

This sentiment surrounding the relevance of extreme weather is supported by many Canadians who in recent surveys shared an understanding of climate change through their direct experiences with weather events, such as when a heat dome and subsequent flood devastated parts of Western Canada in 2021.

According to WMO Secretary General Dr. Petteri Taalas, “Our climate is changing before our eyes. The heat trapped by human-induced greenhouse gases will warm the planet for many generations to come.”

The new UN report found 2015 to 2021 are the seven warmest years on record and notable key climate indicators set new records in 2021.A wind turbine farm in Ontario, Canada. (Neil Ever Osborne)

Greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere reached a new high of 413.2 ppm — a 149 per cent increase from the pre-industrial era. As a consequence of melting ice and glaciers, along with thermal expansion, the global mean sea level reached a new high after averaging a 4.5 mm rise per year from 2013 to 2021.

Ocean heat content in 2021 was also the highest on record, and the report noted this warming trend will only continue. The report also stated ocean acidification was measured to be at its lowest in 26,000 years, a result of the ocean absorbing almost 25 per cent of human-induced emitted carbon.

Additionally in 2021, the State of the Global Climate report noted the Antarctic ozone reached a maximum area, Greenland had its first-ever rainfall at its highest point, and heatwaves shattered records across the globe, notably in Death Valley with a temperature of 54.4°C.

The WMO further concluded the “compounded effects of conflict, extreme weather events, and economic shocks, further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, undermined decades of progress towards improving food security globally.”

On the report’s findings, the UN Secretary General António Guterres stated, “The climate report is a dismal litany of humanity’s failure to tackle climate disruption.” Guterres singled out the impact of oil and gas in particular.

“Fossil fuels are a dead end — environmentally and economically,” he said.


© Provided by The Weather Network

Time to act is now as UN expert suggests fossil fuels are "dead end"An Indian firefighter cools hot coal at a stockyard at a coal-fired thermal power plant belonging to Essar Power in Salaya, some 400 km from Ahmedabad, on Oct. 4, 2016. Essar Power Ltd. is one of India's largest private sector power producers and owns power plants in India and Canada. (Sam Panthaky / AFP / Getty Images)

On the matter of the UN agency’s report, Canada’s Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault stated, “From devastating wildfires to floods, extreme weather in 2021 drove home the urgency of climate action and ambition. Not only do we need to cut the emissions that cause climate change, we need to ensure our communities and our economy are prepared for this new reality.”

Guilbeault continued, “As we address the human drivers of extreme weather,” the WMO “reminds us that it’s critical to build communities and an economy that are resilient.”

For its part in seeking a solution to the climate crisis, along with the nationwide adoption of renewable energy strategies, Canada launched the 2030 Emissions Reduction Plan this past March.

Meanwhile, in Europe this past week, the European Commission launched the RePowerEu initiative, a swift response to the invasion of Ukraine that will reduce the EU’s natural gas imports from Russia by two-thirds before the end of this year and in full by 2027. The emergency package, as it has been described, seeks to bolster the move towards sourcing clean energy.

With a similar action in mind, four European Union countries including Belgium, Denmark, Germany, and Netherlands recently signed an agreement to increase offshore wind capacity tenfold by 2050. With a 150 GW potential capacity, the offshore energy source dubbed the “Green Power Plant” of the North Sea could power as many as 230 million European households, a number well above the current number of homes that rests at 195 million.


Thumbnail Image: Two boys struggle to push up their bike loaded with coal thats been collected at the Jharia coal fields. According to the World Economic Forum, India was home to six out of 10 of the world's most polluted cities in 2020. A majority of India's energy production comes from fossil fuels.

 (Jonas Gratzer / LightRocket / Getty Images)

UK

Fossil fuel-funded climate thinktank reported to Charity Commission

The Global Warming Policy Foundation, a climate sceptic thinktank, has been reported to the Charity Commission by the Green MP Caroline Lucas and Extinction Rebellion.

© Provided by The Guardian Photograph: Matt Dunham/AP

Helena Horton

 Environment reporter 

The move comes after the Guardian revealed that the group received funding from fossil fuel interests.

The thinktank has charitable status, but climate campaigners say the questions about its funding mean it should be stripped of this.

In a letter to the Charity Commission, the signatories including the writers Irvine Welsh and Zadie Smith say the GWPF is “not a charity, but a fossil fuel lobby group”.

The GWPF, set up in 2009 by the former Tory chancellor Lord Lawson, has enjoyed a recent revival in its influence in parliament. It has MP Steve Baker as a trustee and has its research promoted by the Net Zero Scrutiny Group of Conservative MPs.

The letter also claims that the thinktank flouts the rules that charities must be run for the public good. The commission states that “a purpose must be beneficial – this must be in a way that is identifiable and capable of being proved by evidence where necessary and which is not based on personal views”.

It also says “any detriment or harm that results from the purpose (to people, property or the environment) must not outweigh the benefit – this is also based on evidence and not on personal views.”

The signatories say that the GWPF does not abide by this as it “works against the public need to prepare, mitigate and adapt to the unfolding climate emergency” and therefore does not serve or benefit society.

They argue that the group’s funding could show a conflict of interest, and that it is not working for the public good.

Through its American arm, the group received $210,525 in 2018 and 2020 from the Sarah Scaife Foundation – set up by the billionaire libertarian heir to an oil and banking dynasty. The US-based foundation has $30m of shares in 22 energy companies including $9m in Exxon and $5.7m in Chevron, according to its financial filings.

Between 2016 and 2020, the American Friends of the GWPF received $620,259 from the Donors Trust, which is funded by the Koch brothers, who inherited their father’s oil empire and have spent hundreds of millions of dollars funding the climate denial movement.

The letter concludes: “We look to the Charity Commission’s own guidance that a charity must make sure ‘protecting people from harm is central to its culture.’ We contend that the ongoing global harm caused by climate change is exacerbated by the vested interests that use the GWPF’s undeserved charitable status as a front for their interests.”

A spokesperson for the GWPF declined to comment on the letter to the Charity Commission. The thinktank did respond to previous revelations about its funding, saying the companies it receives money from do not count as oil and gas interests, owing to the wealth created from fossil fuels being historic.

100 scientists and academics urge UN to drop sustainable development targets after ‘failure’

Ethan Freedman 

THE INDEPENDENT UK

It’s time for the United Nations to drop their current model for tackling the world’s crises, according to a letter from 100 scientists, teachers and experts, shared exclusively with The Independent.

The experts are calling for the United Nations to abandon the “Sustainable Development Goals” — a group of 17 targets adopted in 2015 to tackle global social and environmental issues from hunger to climate change to economic growth.

The letter, released as the UN begins a summit on disaster risks in Bali, Indonesia on Monday, argues that the world’s problems cannot be solved through the same ideology that created them.

“If the way modern societies operate cause the problems that the SDGs seek to address, can we be surprised that those same systems are incapable of fixing them?” the letter reads.

The letter has been signed by researchers from 27 countries, all in a personal capacity and not as representatives of any institution.

Among the notable experts who have put their names to the letter are Peter Kalmus, a climate scientist at Nasa who was arrested last month in a climate protest; Yves Cochet, France’s former Minister of Environment and Regional Planning; and Britt Wray, author of the recent climate anxiety book, Generation Dread.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are based on an ideology that values material and technological progress and prioritizes corporate interests - where “humanity will balance social, economic and environmental issues to progress materially,” Jem Bendell, a sustainability researcher at the University of Cumbria, told The Independent via email, citing a recent non-peer reviewed paper that he authored on the subject.

Dr Bendell called the SDGs a “systemic greenwash” that undermines “challenges to structural power.”

“Before now, it may have been convenient for politicians, bureaucrats and people in the organisations they fund, to maintain an upbeat message that more technology, capital and management will solve both poverty and environmental destruction,” the letter reads.

“However, the evidence from the UN’s own reports show clearly that is merely a convenient myth, and that billions of people would be better served by more sober analysis of the worsening situation,” it adds.

According to the UN, the SDGs were developed to end “poverty and other deprivations” while improving health and education, reducing inequality, spurring economic growth, tackling climate change and protecting natural habitats.

The letter calls on the UN to “drop the redundant and unhelpful ideology of Sustainable Development,” and move towards plans of local resilience and “de-growth of wealthy economies”.

© Provided by The Independent A satire of the SDG logos, created by Dr Jem Bendell (Jem Bendell)

The world can’t separate resource use and pollution from economic growth enough to stave off catastrophic environmental disaster, Dr Bendell stated. He used the example of electrifying global infrastructure, a goal of many climate activists in order to reduce reliance on fossil fuels.

Doing so would require a lot of natural resources — resources that we may not have, Dr Bendell stated. The implication, then, is that wealthy countries and individuals need to reduce their consumption, he added.

“Clearly that idea isn’t super appealing to the folks at Davos,” Dr Bendell added, referencing the annual meeting of high-powered business and political leaders at the World Economic Forum, which got underway on Sunday.

Other signatories to the letter shared similar sentiments.

"If governments keep heedlessly pursuing exponential economic growth at any cost - which empirically clearly requires growth in resources and pollution, including greenhouse gases - we will eventually collapse just like any other species,” said Dr Kalmus in a statement emailed to The Independent.
Lead signatories on the letter, all in a personal capacity:

Professor William Rees (University of British Columbia, Ecological Economics)

Dr Malika Virah-Sawhmy (IASS, Climate Adaptation)

Dr Peter Kalmus (NASA, Climate Science)

Dr Yves Cochet (Former Minister of the Environment, France)

Dr Stella Nyambura Mbau (LOABOWA, Climate Adaptation)

Dr Ye Tao (MEER Framework, Climate Adaptation)

Dr Sonja Kaiser (TUBAF, Earth System Modelling)

Professor Jem Bendell (University of Cumbria, climate adaptation)

Dr Clelia Sirami (INRAE, Ecology)

Dr Jeremy Jimenez (State University of New York, Education)

Dr Britt Wray (Stanford University, Psychology)

Dr Rupert Read (UEA, Philosophy)

The full list of signatories and text of the letter can be found here

California oil regulator confirms methane leak at idle oil wells in Bakersfield


Nathan Solis
Sun, May 22, 2022

The leak was discovered near a residential neighborhood in Bakersfield. 

(Lisa Mascaro / Associated Press)

State regulators have confirmed a methane gas leak at a pair of idle oil wells near a residential neighborhood in Bakersfield, raising the concerns of local environmental groups who fear the problem might be more widespread.

It's unclear how long the leaks described as "pinhole-sized" went undetected, but state regulators said they were sealed by Friday evening.

Earlier this month, researcher Clark Williams-Derry from Washington state walked onto the Kern Bluff oil field in northeast Bakersfield and discovered an audible hiss coming from two oil wells. The wells sit approximately 400 feet from a home in a suburban housing development and were previously managed by Sunray Petroleum Inc.

Williams-Derry said the oil wells look like spouts jutting from the ground and are covered by blue barrels, but are exposed to the open air. He said there are many more blue barrels in the oil field like the one he found.

"I was not out looking for things that were leaking when I walked into the oil field," said Williams-Derry, who works with the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis and was visiting Bakersfield last week. "I wonder what this means for people in the community, because if someone can just wander by there's no telling what this means."

Methane is a colorless, odorless, highly flammable gas. High levels of methane can reduce the amount of oxygen breathed from the air and can result in vision problems, memory loss, nausea, vomiting, facial flushing and headache.

Across much of California, fossil fuel companies are leaving thousands of oil and gas wells unplugged and idle, potentially threatening the health of people living nearby and in many cases handing taxpayers the bill for the environmental cleanup.

From Kern County to Los Angeles, companies haven’t set aside anywhere near enough money to ensure these drilling sites are cleaned up and made safe, according to a 2020 data analysis and investigation by the Los Angeles Times and the Center for Public Integrity.

Of particular concern are about 35,000 wells sitting idle, with production suspended, half of them for more than a decade. Though California recently toughened its regulations to ensure more cleanup funds are available, those measures don’t go far enough, according to a recent state report and the Times/Public Integrity analysis.

Last Tuesday, an inspector from the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District confirmed the methane leak in Bakersfield and reported it to the California Geologic Energy Management Division, the state’s oil and gas regulator. CalGEM said the leaks were minor and not deemed an emergency by the air district and the Bakersfield Fire Department.

“CalGEM deployed inspectors [Thursday] to evaluate the methane emissions from two long-term idle wells operated by Sunray Petroleum,” CalGEM State Oil & Gas Supervisor Uduak-Joe Ntuk said in a statement. “We are coordinating with the operator to ensure the wells are repaired expeditiously. The pinhole-sized leaks have been determined to be minor in nature and do not pose an immediate threat to public health or safety.”

A group of environmental advocacy and social justice groups first called attention to the leaks last week. In a letter to CalGEM, the coalition said the readings recorded by the air district showed methane readings of at least 50,000 parts per million from one well and 20,000 parts per million from the second well.

“Methane leakage also indicates that the well may be emitting other harmful chemicals,” the group said. “Methane is a super-polluting greenhouse gas more than 80 times as potent as carbon dioxide. The methane spewing from these wells is contributing to the climate emergency and undercutting the state’s greenhouse gas reduction efforts.”

CalGEM spokesperson Jacob Roper said, "We have been coordinating with the operator and local first responders to determine the wells do not pose an immediate threat to public health or safety."

Democratic Assemblyman Rudy Salas Jr., who represents Bakersfield, said in a statement, "I am upset to learn that this dangerous leak is happening in our community. Let’s stop the leak and find out who is responsible to fix the problem."

The wells sit off Morningstar Street in northeast Bakersfield and according to state records were last used in the late 1980s and managed by Sunray Petroleum, Inc. The company filed for bankruptcy in 2011 and have more idle wells throughout Kern County. There was no answer at a phone number listed for Sunray Petroleum in Las Vegas.

Earlier this month, CalGEM ordered Sunray Petroleum to plug the wells at the oil field. The court order also required the operator to decommission the production facilities and restore the well sites for 28 idle wells, including the two wells with the methane leaks.

CalGEM says the order was issued because the operator did not pay its idle well fees and have not submitted to a testing compliance plan along with numerous other oilfield-related violations. Sunray Petroleum has appealed the order.

State and local agencies' failure to declare the methane leak an emergency has frustrated local advocacy groups.

Coordinator Kobi Naseck with Voices in Solidarity Against Oil in Neighborhoods slammed the state agency’s response and the harm he feels the surrounding communities face from the methane leak.

"Any designation of this massive, toxic methane leak as minor or unthreatening to public health is a dangerous mischaracterization of what's going on, puts frontline families in Kern County at risk, and reveals that the current CalGEM administration is unable to follow its new mission” as promised by the agency in the last few years, Naseck said in a statement.

Local residents on Friday said they saw engineers and other workers arrive at the oil field and they're expected to remain at the site over the weekend.

Organizer Cesar Aguirre with Central California Environmental Justice Network has canvassed the surrounding neighborhood to inform residents about the methane leak and said several residents complained about feeling ill in the last few weeks.

“When I told them there is a gas leak in the area, their faces just went white, like they were in shock, because at one home there was four kids running around in the background playing and they had their windows open,” Aguirre told the Times.

CalGEM is currently reviewing new statewide policies that would stop new oil wells from being built within 3,500 feet of areas from schools, homes, hospitals, parks and other places where people congregate.

Naseck wants to know why CalGEM doesn't push for setbacks to apply to existing well sites, like the one in Bakersfield.

"This massive methane leak is happening in a community right next to homes in close proximity to a school and a daycare center," Naseck said.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Economists Warn Banning Abortion Would Have Big Impact on Education, Economy

Susan Tebben
Sun, May 22, 2022


Nearly two dozen Ohio economists agreed that prohibiting abortion in Ohio would negatively impact labor force participation and educational attainment, according to a new survey.

The Ohio Economic Experts Panel answered a survey conducted by Scioto Analysis. The survey asked whether the economists agreed that prohibition of abortion in Ohio would reduce “women’s educational attainment in the state,” would “reduce women’s labor force participation in the state,” and would reduce “women’s earnings in the state.”

The survey comes as Ohio awaits a decision from the U.S. Supreme Court on an abortion ban case, after a draft opinion was leaked indicating the court is poised to strike down Roe v. Wade and with it, national abortion rights.

It also comes as legislation that would ban abortion if the 1973 abortion legalization court case is overturned sits in the General Assembly awaiting committee meetings and possible passage.

In the survey, 22 of 24 economists in the state agreed that abortion bans would cause decreases in education and economic abilities.

“Of the 22 who agreed abortion prohibition would decrease wages, economists commented on the tradeoff women have between working and parenting,” Scioto Analysis stated in their survey summary.

Of all the responses received, “strongly agree” overwhelmingly surpassed any other response.

Individual responses came mostly from those that agreed with the statements.

“The empirical evidence is very clear about the negative impact of unplanned pregnancies on women’s educational attainment, especially when support services are unavailable or unaffordable,” said Dr. Fadhel Kaboub, of Denison University.

Those that entered “strongly disagree” responses didn’t include elaboration through individual responses.

Dr. Jonathan Andreas, of Bluffton University, agreed that abortion prohibitions would reduce women’s earnings in the state, but he said abortion “will have a small effect on average income and education statistics” because those most affected by prohibition are “the poorest women who have the least opportunities.”

“Middle-class and wealthy women just pay more money and get out-of-state abortions or pay illegal providers in the state,” Andreas wrote.

Many of the comments focused on low-income communities and people of color as disparately impacted by an abortion ban in Ohio.

“Economic research overwhelmingly indicates that abortion rights greatly affect the educational level, career opportunities, earning and wealth enhancement potential for women,” said Dr. Diane Monaco, of Heidelberg University. “Abortion rights advantages are especially profound for historically marginalized women as well.”

Ohio Capital Journal is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Ohio Capital Journal maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor David DeWitt for questions: info@ohiocapitaljournal.com.

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EMBASSY IS SOVERIGN TERRITORY
Indonesia summons Britain's envoy after furore over rainbow flag

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia summoned Britain's ambassador on Monday to explain the raising of a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) flag at its embassy, and urged foreign missions to respect local "sensitivities" following a backlash among conservatives.

A participant holds rainbow flags at the international Rainbow Memorial Run during the inauguration of the Gay Games village at the Hotel de Ville city hall in Paris

Barring the sharia-ruled province of Aceh, homosexuality is not illegal in Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim-majority country, although it is generally considered taboo.

The rainbow LGBT flag was flown alongside the British flag at the country's embassy in Jakarta on May 17 to mark the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia, according an Instagram by the embassy.

Alumni 212 Brotherhood, an influential conservative Islamic movement, in a statement said the flag sullied the "sacred values of Indonesia".

Teuku Faizasyah, foreign ministry spokesperson, confirmed British ambassador Owen Jenkins had been summoned.

"The foreign ministry reminds foreign representatives to be respectful of the sensitivities among Indonesians on matters relevant with their culture, religion and belief," he said.

A British embassy spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Faizasyah said that though an embassy is sovereign territory, the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations stipulates only that nation's flag can be flown.

Indonesia is becoming less tolerant of its LGBT community as some politicians become more vocal about Islam playing a larger role in the state, according to activists and human rights groups.

A 2020 survey by the Pew Research Center also showed that 80% of Indonesians believe homosexuality "should not be accepted by society".

Last week, Indonesia's chief security minister said a revision of the criminal code being deliberated by parliament included some articles aimed at the LGBT community, a move backed by some conservative lawmakers.

His remarks followed a backlash over a popular podcast that was forced to scrap an episode this month in which a gay couple was interviewed.

(Reporting by Stanley Widianto; Editing by Martin Petty)

Priceless seeds, sprouts key to US West’s post-fire future

By SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN

1 of 10

This May 18, 2022 image shows nursery manager Tammy Parsons thinning aspen seedlings at a greenhouse in Santa Fe, N.M. Parsons and her colleagues evacuated an invaluable collection of seeds and tens of thousands of seedlings from the New Mexico State University's Forestry Research Center in Mora, New Mexico, as the largest fire burning in the U.S. approached the facility. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)

A New Mexico facility where researchers work to restore forests devastated by fires faced an almost cruelly ironic threat: The largest wildfire burning in the U.S. was fast approaching.

Owen Burney and his team knew they had to save what they could. Atop their list was a priceless bank of millions of ponderosa pine, spruce and other conifer seeds meant to help restore fire-ravaged landscapes across the American West.

Next were tens of thousands of tree sprouts, many of which were sown to make them more drought tolerant, that were loaded onto trailers and trucked to a greenhouse about 100 miles (161 kilometers) away.

New Mexico State University’s Forestry Research Center in the mountain community of Mora is one of only a few such nurseries in the country and stands at the forefront of a major undertaking to rebuild more resilient forests as wildfires burn hotter, faster and more often.

Firefighters have managed to keep the flames from reaching the center’s greenhouses and there’s a chance some of the seedlings left behind could be salvaged. But Burney, superintendent of the center, said the massive fire still churning through New Mexico highlights how far behind land managers are when it comes to preventing such fires through thinning and planned burns.


“The sad truth is we’re not going to be able to do that overnight, so we’re going to see these catastrophic fires for a decade, two decades, three decades — it depends on how quickly we make this turn,” he said, while stuck at home watching live updates of the fire’s progression as road blocks remained in place.

This year is the worst start to the wildfire season in the past decade. More than 3,737 square miles (9,679 square kilometers) have burned across the U.S., almost triple the 10-year average.

With no shortage of burn scars around the West, researchers and private groups such as The Nature Conservancy have been tapping New Mexico State University’s center for seedlings to learn how best to restore forests after the flames are extinguished.

The center has provided sprouts for projects in New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Utah, Texas and California, but experts said its capacity for turning out as many as 300,000 seedlings annually isn’t enough now and certainly won’t be in the future as climate change and drought persist.

The newly formed New Mexico Reforestation Center, made up of a number of universities and the state’s Forestry Division, submitted a nearly $80 million proposal to the federal government just last month to jump start a reforestation pipeline that encompasses everything from seed collection to how seedlings are sown in nurseries and where they’re ultimately planted.

Matt Hurteau, a biology professor at the University of New Mexico, and his team have been building models to better predict the sweet spot where seedlings will have the best chance of survival as researchers and land managers try to reestablish pockets of forest around the West.

About 10,000 seedlings rescued from the forestry center in Mora will be used for a project focused on growing ponderosa pine at higher elevations. The trouble, Hurteau said, is that past fire footprints chosen for the research are in the line of fire again this year.

He also noted that modeling done last year on the upper Rio Grande watershed that spans Colorado and New Mexico suggested higher elevation forests would see the biggest impacts from wildfire and climate change through the end of the century.

“Here we have the Calf Canyon (Hermits Peak Fire) and it’s ripping through those high elevation forests like it’s no problem at all,” he said of the fire currently burning. “I think we’re consistently seeing actual conditions happening sooner than our models would suggest.”

Many areas are going to need some attention, said Anne Bradley, the forest program director for The Nature Conservancy in New Mexico. The group has worked with Santa Clara Pueblo to collect seeds and plant thousands of tiny trees sown at the research center over the last few years in hopes of boosting the emerging science of reforestation.

But at this pace, she acknowledges the work will take centuries. Part of the goal, she said, is to find ways to do it cost-effectively.

Researchers also are looking at how the forest naturally regenerates after fire. Experts say mimicking nature by focusing on tree islands rather than dense swaths of timber could act as a hedge against the next wave of wildfires.

“The genetics really matter; it matters how you raise them in the nursery; it matters where you put that hole in the ground, how you harden those trees as seedlings,” Bradley said. “Everything we do is an attempt to learn more and to see what our options might be.”

Similar work is happening in Colorado, with thousands of seedlings from the center in Mora earmarked for reforestation projects there.

Larissa Yocom, an assistant professor at Utah State University’s Wildland Resources Department, has plans for thousands of aspen seedlings that were rescued from the center. She and her team have worked in the footprint of a 2020 wildfire in southwest Utah. She’s holding out hope that the large New Mexico fire won’t dash plans for the latest experiment in an older burn scar just north of the fire line.

If the West wants to keep its forests, policymakers need to think about it in economic terms that would have significant benefits for water supplies, recreation and the rural and tribal communities that hold these mountain landscapes sacred, said Collin Haffey, forest and watershed health coordinator with the New Mexico Forestry Division.

Haffey said he can see, feel and smell the dryness that’s overtaking the mountains.

He has been part of big project to replant areas of the Jemez Mountains in northern New Mexico, where several large blazes have burned over the last two decades, taking hundreds of homes with them. The latest fire still is creeping through some of the old burn scars.

“That’s part of why the reforestation component is important to me because it does allow us — us being our communities — to find ways to start the healing and the recovery process,” he said. “It will take generations after these fires. But planting trees is one small thing we can do to potentially have a large impact further down the road.”

USA

Court ruling extends uneven treatment for asylum-seekers

By ELLIOT SPAGAT

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Migrants from Cuba rest after crossing the Rio Grande river in Eagle Pass, Texas, Sunday May 22, 2022. Little has changed in what has quickly become one of the busiest corridors for illegal border crossings since a federal judge blocked pandemic-related limits on seeking asylum from ending Monday. (AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills)


EAGLE PASS, Texas (AP) — As the sun set over the Rio Grande, about 120 Cubans, Colombians and Venezuelans who waded through waist-deep water stepped into Border Patrol vehicles, soon to be released in the United States to pursue their immigration cases.

Across the border in the Mexican town of Piedras Negras, Honduran families banded together in a section of downtown with cracked sidewalks, narrow streets and few people, unsure where to spend the night because city’s only shelter was full.

The opposite fortunes illustrate the dual nature of U.S. border enforcement under pandemic rules, known as Title 42 and named for a 1944 public health law. President Joe Biden wanted to end those rules Monday, but a federal judge in Louisiana issued a nationwide injunction that keeps them intact.

The U.S. government has expelled migrants more than 1.9 million times under Title 42, denying them a chance to seek asylum as permitted under U.S. law and international treaty for purposes of preventing the spread of COVID-19.

But Title 42 is not applied evenly across nationalities. For example, Mexico agrees to take back migrants from Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Mexico. For other nationalities, however, high costs, poor diplomatic relations and other considerations make it difficult for the U.S. to fly migrants to their home countries under Title 42. Instead, they are typically freed in the U.S. to seek asylum or other forms of legal status.

Hondurans in Piedras Negras ask Cubans arriving at the bus station for money, knowing Cubans will have no use for pesos because they will go directly across the border. While Mexico agreed in April to take some Cubans and Nicaraguans expelled under Title 42, the vast majority are released in the U.S.

“It was in an out,” Javier Fuentes, 20, said of his one-night stay in a rented house in Piedras Negras. On Sunday morning, he and two other Cuban men walked across the Rio Grande and on a paved road for about an hour until they found a Border Patrol vehicle in Eagle Pass, a Texas town of 25,000 people where migrants cross the river to the edge of a public golf course.


Overnight rains raised water to about neck-level for most adults, a possible explanation for the absence of groups numbering in the dozens, even over 100, that frequent the area many days.

“Slow start to the morning,” a Border Patrol agent said as he greeted Guard troops watching four Peruvians, including a 7-month-old boy who crossed with his parents after several days crammed into a rented room in Piedras Negras with 17 migrants.

As the water dropped again to waist-level, about three dozen migrants gathered at a riverfront public park that also drew local residents in Piedras Negras, which considers itself the birthplace of nachos. Infants and young children joined a largely Honduran crowd to cross. One Honduran woman was eight months’ pregnant in obvious pain.

Eagle Pass, a sprawling town of warehouses and decaying houses that many major retailers have overlooked, is one of the busiest spots in the Border Patrol’s Del Rio sector, which includes about 250 miles (400 km) of sparsely populated riverfront. Last year, about 15,000 migrants, mostly Haitians, assembled in nearby Del Rio, which isn’t much larger than Eagle Pass. Grain fields are about all that separates either town from San Antonio, about a three-hour drive.

The relative ease of crossing — migrants walk across the river within a few minutes, often without paying a smuggler — and a perception that it is relatively safe on the Mexican side has made the remote region a major migration route.

Texas’ Rio Grande Valley has long been the busiest of nine Border Patrol sectors on the Mexican border, but Del Rio has surged to a close second this year. Yuma, Arizona, another spot known for relative safety and ease of crossing, has jumped to third-busiest.

Del Rio and Yuma rank sixth and seventh in the number of agents among the nine sectors, a reflection of how Border Patrol staffing has long lagged shifts migration flows.

Other parts of the border are less patrolled than Del Rio, a plus for migrants trying to elude capture, but are more rugged and remote, said Jon Anfinsen, president of the National Border Patrol Council’s Del Rio sector chapter.

Anfinsen calls the Del Rio sector “sort of a happy medium” for migrants seeking to balance the appeal of remote areas with safety.

Cristian Salgado, who sleeps on streets of Piedras Negras with his wife and 5-year-old son after fleeing Honduras, said the Mexican border town is “one of the few places where you can more or less live in peace.”

But his excitement about the Biden administration’s plans to lift Title 42 on Monday evaporated with the judge’s ruling. “Now there is no hope,” he said.

His pessimism may be a bit misplaced. Hondurans were stopped nearly 16,000 times on the border in April, with slightly more than resulting in expulsion under Title 42. The rest could seek asylum in the U.S. if they expressed fear of returning home.

But Cubans fared far better. They were stopped more than 35,000 times in April, and only 451, or barely 1%, were processed under Title 42.

“Cubans get in automatically,” said Joel Gonzalez, 34, of Honduras, who tried eluding agents for three days in Eagle Pass before getting caught and expelled. Agents told him asylum the U.S. was no longer available.

Isis Peña, 45, turned down an offer from a fellow Honduran woman to cross the river. The woman called from San Antonio, saying she was freed without even being asked if she wanted to claim asylum. The woman now lives in New York.

Peña tried crossing herself the next day, an experience she doesn’t want to repeat for fear of drowning. After about four hours in custody, an agent told her, “There is no asylum for Honduras.”