Michigan Medicine demands nurses accept pay package that is half the rate of inflation

Kevin Reed

WSWS.ORG

With the June 30 contract expiration just four weeks away, Michigan Medicine management has made it clear it intends to force through attacks on the pay and staffing levels of the 6,000 nurses who work for the University of Michigan-affiliated hospital system.

The hospital administration said it had hoped to have a tentative agreement by May 20, but that date came and went without a resolution of the major issues facing nurses. Instead, on May 16, Michigan Medicine presented a package of contract terms which would result in a reduction in real income for nurses and does not address the chronic understaffing throughout the Ann Arbor-based health system.

Michigan Medicine nurses discharging patient (Michigan Medicine)

In a May 20 bargaining update from the University of Michigan Professional Nurses Council (UMPNC), which is affiliated with Michigan Nurses Association (MNA), the nurses union said that management’s wage proposal for Nurse Practitioners (NPs) contained an offer of salaries that are $10,000 to $25,000 less than Physician Assistants (PAs). 

The union said, “In their own statements, Michigan Medicine acknowledges that NPs and PAs do comparable work and yet brought a shameful offer that has egregiously disproportionate rates of pay.” According to a study of national trends by the University of St. Augustine, the wages of NPs and PAs are within $1,000 of each other across the country, yet Michigan Medicine “management has chosen to disrespect the profession of Nurse Practitioners with this insulting offer.” 

Management proposed annual wage increases for RNs of 5 percent, 4 percent, 4 percent and 3 percent across four years, along with a one-time $1,000 “lump sum” to be paid in 2023. If the current inflation rate of 8.3 percent were to hold over the next four years, these raises would lead to an effective pay reduction of between 4 and 5 percent annually.

On May 20, Nancy May, Chief Nurse Executive at the University of Michigan Health System—who has an annual salary of $454,480—published a communication asserting that management has proposed no changes to nurses in the Central Staffing Resources (CSR) unit. However, on May 12, a proposal was submitted during bargaining containing language that would remove the guarantee that an appropriate number of CSR nurses would be maintained based on “variable needs.”

If this change were to be accepted by nurses, it would mean further staffing shortages and exacerbate the already dire situation throughout the health care system. The May 20 communication also made it clear that management is offering no solution to the staffing crisis. Committing themselves to nothing, management claimed, “We spent time this week continuing to explore ways that Michigan Medicine can ensure we have staff available to meet patient care needs, while also enabling our nurses to have a work/life balance.”

In other words, while negotiations have been taking place daily for three weeks, there is still no proposal or plan to resolve the number one workplace issue facing nurses at Michigan Medicine.

Additionally, even in the face of what the union itself states is an “insulting” and “shameful” offer, the strategy and posture of the MNA-UMPNC has been to block the mass mobilization of hospital staff and to advance an impotent policy of appealing to management and the University of Michigan Board of Regents to be more humane.

The drive for ever-greater profit, however, is an absolute barrier to the rational allocation of financial and human resources, which is required to provide adequate staffing levels and quality care to patients.

Michigan Medicine is one of the largest health care systems in the state. This major US academic medical center has $1 billion in cash reserves and is earning profit margins of as much as 6.5 percent on revenue of more than $5 billion each year. While the hospital administration is demanding that nurses accept a paltry pay increase that will take two years to catch up to the current inflation rate, the top 25 executives at Michigan Medicine earn a combined income of $16,781,466, or an average of $671,258 each.

Rather than mobilize the strength of tens of thousands of Michigan Medicine employees, who all face the same issues as nurses whether they are doctors or support staff, the MNA-UMPNC is calling on union members to participate in a toothless petition drive to the Board of Regents. It is an absurdity to believe that petitioning the board, which includes prominent Detroit business figures, such as Denise Ilitch, daughter of the multibillionaire Little Ceasar’s founder Mike Ilitch, will have any impact on the issues facing nurses.

Proof of this fact was demonstrated at the Board of Regents meeting held on May 19, where nurses and families of patients gave stark descriptions of the conditions in the Michigan Medical facilities, including being forced to work 16-hour shifts and then return without adequate sleep for another shift 8 hours later. 

One nurse in a surgical intensive care unit who spoke at the meeting said, “Michigan Medicine is not doing enough to retain or hire both nurses or support staff, and those who have been there have been overburdened. Some of us have been there the entire time. I’ve been in the room when people have died from COVID. … A lot of nurses are going to work at other places because it’s more lucrative. My unit alone has had 24 percent of its highly trained and experienced staff leave over the last fiscal year. The executive staff response to the staffing issue has been both patronizing and to blame it on absenteeism.”

MNA-UMPNC President Rene Curtis spoke at the meeting and said, “Put yourself in the shoes of nurses. … Please acknowledge our sacrifices with more than words. We need safe working conditions, safe for our nurses and safe for our patients to whom we are devoted. Your nurses and your patients deserve no less.”

But the executives who run Michigan Medicine are not and never will be in the shoes of nurses. Instead, they look at them not a professional caregivers who require adequate pay and resources but as sources of profit. The less nurses get, the more profit they generate.

The MNA-UMPNC president’s pathetic appeal fell on deaf ears. Instead, the chair of the Michigan Medicine subcommittee spoke for the board of regents, muttering some patronizing phrases thanking the nurses “for all of your amazing hard work,” before declaring that the Board of Regents was “not involved at the negotiating table” and adjourned the meeting.

The meeting was followed immediately by an even harder line from Michigan Medicine. Despite this, the union is instructing nurses to go back to the Board of Regents for more of the same at the next meeting on June 16, only two weeks before the contract expires. As the phrase goes, “The definition of insanity ...”

Appeals to the conscience of corporate management will go nowhere. Nurses at Michigan Medicine, like workers throughout the entire health care system, are locked in an irreconcilable struggle to defend their interests and the interests of their patients, against the owners and executives who place profits and wealth accumulation about everything else in society. That is why nurses should follow the lead of their brothers and sisters across the country and form rank-and-file committees of nurses and other hospital employees that will take the conduct of the struggle out of the hands of the union. This committee can then elaborate a plan of action and draw up demands that meet the needs of nurses and staff instead of the financial interests of Michigan Medicine and the other corporations in the health care industry.

YOU'VE COME A LONG WAY BABY

GLAAD, Leaders of Journalism and Global Business, and The Ariadne Getty Foundation Spotlight Global LGBTQ Acceptance in Davos during the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting

 June 2, 2022

GLAAD was on-the-ground in Davos as the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting took place to raise awareness for current LGBTQ issues including a rise in anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, nearly 250 anti-LGBTQ bills introduced in the U.S. this year, and the continuous criminalization of LGBTQ people in nearly 70 countries globally.

The World Economic Forum’s ‘Driving LGBTQI+ Resilience through Equity’

The World Economic Forum presented a panel in Congress Centre entitled ‘Driving LGBTQI+ Resilience through Equity.’ GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis moderated the panel which featured: Asha Kharga, Executive Vice President, Brand & Customer Experience, Mahindra Group, Chairperson of the Gender Diversity Council at Mahindra; Amit Paley, CEO of The Trevor Project; Christiana Riley, Member of the Managing Board, Chief Executive Officer, Americas, Deutsche Bank; and Sander Van’t Noordende, Chief Executive Officer and Chair of the Executive Board at Randstad.



Sarah Kate Ellis opened the panel discussing criminalization of LGBTQ people, anti-LGBTQ legislation in the U.S., and violence that the community faces globally.

She noted: “The IMF contends that an economy is ‘more fragile and less resilient when it is not inclusive.’ This idea will become increasingly apparent because younger people are more open about being LGBTQI. In the U.S., the Gallup poll this year showed that over 20% of Gen Z are LGBT, that is up over 5 points from just last year. Creating more equitable and inclusive societies isn’t just the right thing to do; as the evidence shows, it’s an important part of an economic strategy focused on resilience and recovery.”

During the panel, Randstad's Sander Van't Noordende discussed the power of coming out in the workplace: "Bring your story to work, don't leave it by the door. Tell your story because that's what people need to hear. They need to hear different stories to open their eyes to people that are different than they are.”

Mahindra Group's Asha Kharga shared how to create safe environments for out employees: “It's about representation in terms of hiring but what's most important is the day to day experience of these folks in our organizations. How comfortable will they feel coming into work? What’s the psychological safety that we offer them in the context of work?”

And Deutsche Bank's Christiana Riley continued: “It's more than just being a safe space, it's about showing leadership in the space and making sure employees see you expressing that leadership.” -

The panel also discussed the growing number of anti-LGBTQ bills in the U.S. with The Trevor Project's Amit Paley noting: "There are bills being passed targeting the most vulnerable people in our world… We need people in positions of power to say this is wrong and we won't stand for it. We need the words to happen and then we need action to follow."

The Ariadne Getty Foundation and GLAAD’s ‘Leading on LGBTQ Acceptance’

The Ariadne Getty Foundation and GLAAD, with support from Randstad, also hosted a side event entitled ‘Leading on LGBTQ Acceptance: The Future of Work and Navigating an Activist Led Generation’ and centered on discussing ways companies can take action as allies today.

Richard Quest, CNN Business Editor-at-large and Anchor or “Quest Means Business,” moderated the panel featuring Sarah Kate Ellis; Christy Pambianchi, EVP and Chief People Officer, Intel Corporation; Shamina Singh, EVP of Sustainability, Mastercard, and Founder & President, Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth; and Sander Van’t Noordende, CEO, Randstad.

Van’t Noordende is one of only four openly LGBTQ CEOs of a Fortune 500 company.



Richard Quest opened the panel noting, “In previous years I have always urged this panel to look outside the United States…This year is different isn’t it. There is a real threat. There is a change in the environment that needs to be addressed in the United States.”

The rest of the panel discussed how companies can play roles in LGBTQ advocacy with Intel Corporation's Christy Pambianci noting: “A lot of the progress we’ve reached to date has been due to the incredible partnerships between the corporate world, NGOs, and public movement and sentiment. We have to continue down that path.”

Mastercard's Shamina Singh discussed the importance of hiring diverse talent: “Innovation without diverse talent is not innovation.”

During the event, The Partnership for Global LGBTQ Equality (PGLE), an initiative of BSR, the World Economic Forum, and the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, provided an update on its work from Aron Cramer, CEO of BSR. PGLE has been helping corporates operationalize the UN’s Standards of Conduct for Business in Tackling Discrimination Against LGBTQI People.

The AGF and GLAAD event also featured a fireside chat between Ina Fried, Chief Technology Correspondent at Axios, and Joy Dunn, a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader and the Head of Operations at Commonwealth Fusion Systems. Dunn also oversees manufacturing projects in the U.S. and noted: “I don’t see how you can build a building in the 21st century and not include gender neutral bathrooms.”



Fried spoke about #Letters4TransKids, an affirming campaign she created to send messages of support to trans young people. She explained: “I also couldn't sit by and see young people’s lives made even harder. The fight for trans equality isn't about wanting youth to be trans or nonbinary, or not. All we want for any young person is for them to have the space and support to safely be their fullest self, whoever that is.”

To participate, simply post a message to trans and nonbinary young people on social media using #Letters4TransKids.

During her opening remarks at the event, Ellis introduced a PSA that GLAAD released last month featuring Amber Briggle, the mom of a trans teen in Texas. GLAAD worked with Comcast NBCUniversal, Paramount, WarnerMedia, The Walt Disney Company, and The Ad Council to run versions of the PSA nationwide.

Also during her remarks, Ellis called on corporates to take real action, stating, “Do not post rainbows next month during Pride then look away the rest of the year.”

She continued: “Corporate responsibility is not just employee benefits and hiring– it extends to how a company spends its philanthropic and political dollars. It extends to if a company supports the Equality Act or takes public stands and lobbies against anti-LGBTQ legislation, because legislation impacts LGBTQ employees and consumers.

We’ve seen an unprecedented wave of attacks against our community. Our most vulnerable, our youth, have been hit the hardest – and we need vocal allies more than ever. The business community has had our backs in the past for marriage equality and decriminalization in India in 2018. For that, we thank you. Now is the time to join us again. Join our movement, don’t market to a moment during Pride. We need you, and our youth need you.”


The Female Quotient’s Corporate Advocacy & LGBTQ Inclusion

The Female Quotient’s Equality Lounge hosted panels on DEI and empowerment throughout the week. Inside the Equality Lounge was a wall with women leaders including Marsha P Johnson and Laverne Cox.

 

Sarah Kate Ellis appeared on the Female Quotient’s ‘Corporate Advocacy & LGBTQ Inclusion’ panel moderated by TIME Executive Editor Dan Macsai and featuring Damon Jones, Chief Communications Officer of P&G, to discuss intentional corporate advocacy. The two discussed the Visibility Project from GLAAD and P&G, which works to increase the quantity, quality, and diversity of LGBTQ representation in advertising and public brand communications.

Damon Jones said: "Advertisers have a unique opportunity to both help people see themselves and to truly see others. The most important driver is accurate portrayal — people want to be seen in the fullness of who they are. As we look to effectively communicate and connect with people, the first step is accurate portrayal.”

Visibility matters and LGBTQ visibility at global convenings like the WEF Annual Meeting in Davos is growing at a time when the leaders of business, politics, and civil society need to speak out and take action on LGBTQ issues.

Limits on early abortion drive more women to get them later

By BARBARA ORTUTAY

AP

An 18-year-old was undergoing treatment for an eating disorder when she learned she was pregnant, already in the second trimester. A mom of two found out at 20 weeks that her much-wanted baby had no kidneys or bladder. A young woman was raped and couldn’t fathom continuing a pregnancy.

Abortions later in pregnancy are relatively rare, even more so now with the availability of medications to terminate early pregnancies.

Across large parts of the United States, they are also increasingly difficult to obtain.

Now, if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion, women will face even more hurdles in some parts of the country, and may have to travel to another state to get an abortion.

That means more women could end up having the procedure later than they wish, and the burden falls more heavily on some groups, such as teens, poor, Black, Latino and Native American women and those who live in states where access to any abortion is limited.

“It’s not because people don’t want to have them sooner,” said Dr. Diane Horvath, an OB-GYN in Baltimore, Maryland, who has performed abortions for 16 years. “It’s because barriers and new information cause them to have to push it back to later in pregnancy.”


The Associated Press interviewed three women who had abortions later in their pregnancy. While their backgrounds and reasons for terminating their pregnancies were varied, none expressed doubt about their decision — or said they were traumatized by it — and all said they were grateful that they were able to do it.

___

WANTED BABY, MISSING ORGANS

Christina Taylor already had two kids when she became pregnant with her third. Everything was going well at the start and she was looking forward to welcoming a new baby into the family.

When she was 20 weeks pregnant, Taylor went for an ultrasound and basic anatomy scan that is normally done at this stage. For most people, this is a time to find out the baby’s sex. For some, it’s also when fetal abnormalities are detected.

“I laid down and the ultrasound tech was doing her thing and she was getting really quiet and was taking a really long time,” she recalled. “She left the room at one point, ‘I need to talk to the doctor.’”

When the tech returned, Taylor could see from the look on her face that something was wrong. When the doctor arrived, he told the couple that there was no amniotic fluid. There were also no kidneys. The baby would likely not survive the pregnancy, or if by some miracle made it to full term, he would die shortly after birth.

“I told the doctor, look, I’m not sure … I don’t buy the age of viability thing, but for my own mental health and for the health of my family I want to terminate my pregnancy as soon as possible,” Taylor recalled.

She got a second doctor’s opinion and an MRI, which not only confirmed that there were no kidneys present, but also no bladder.

Fortunately, in Colorado, abortion is legal, as it was at the time, with no gestational limits. In the U.S., nearly all abortions take place in the first trimester of pregnancy. Just over 6% of abortions were performed at 14 to 20 weeks’ gestation, the second trimester, in 2019 according to the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention. Less than 1% took place at 21 weeks or later, in the third, based on the most recent data available.

Taylor’s story shows what getting an abortion with access to good health care, health insurance and no legal obstacles can look like.

“I had the option to wait it out and see when he passed and then, you know, you’d have a stillbirth. But I knew I couldn’t do that. Like, I couldn’t put my kids through that,” Taylor said.

On the way home from the MRI she called her insurance company and found that they covered both types of abortion procedures, dilation and evacuation, D&E, and induction and dilation, or I&D. She chose the latter, which essentially would mean inducing labor and going through delivery. This way, she could have the procedure in a maternity ward, with a team of midwives.

“There was a small chance that he could have been born still alive and we would have been able to hold him and say goodbye when he passed,” Taylor said.

She labored for a day and a half. Given the circumstances, she recalled it as an overall positive experience, knowing “how much worse it could have been” had they still lived in Texas, where even in 2017 the procedure would not have been legal. The state’s current ban of all abortions after 6 weeks makes no exceptions – Taylor would have had to travel out of state to receive care, or possibly wait until her baby died in her womb, putting her at increased risk of infections and even death.

Only eight states allow abortions at any time during a pregnancy. Twenty states have no specific time limits but prohibit abortions at the time of “fetal viability,” which is generally considered to be around 23 or 24 weeks but depends on a host of other factors besides gestational age.

“I still grieve to this day for the loss of my son and my husband does too,” Taylor, who has been sharing her abortion story to bring attention to experiences such as hers, said. “But you know, we accept that that’s something that happens sometimes. And especially because of the context of knowing how lucky we were to just not have laws in the way of just doing what felt right.”

___

‘I WAS FEELING SUICIDAL’

“Everyone thinks you present pregnancies the same way. You miss a period, you throw up, you take a test and at five weeks, you know you’re pregnant. And that is just not how life shakes out for a lot of people,” said Erika Christensen, founder of PatientForward, a nonprofit that helps people access later abortions.

Jenn Chalifoux, now 30 and studying law at the University of Colorado in Boulder, became pregnant in 2010, when she was 18 years old and receiving inpatient care for an eating disorder in New York. Her story touches on popular myths — that women always know they are pregnant and that women in liberal states with laws that only ban rare late abortions can easily get them.

Chalifoux returned home from college in the summer before her sophomore year to receive treatment for restrictive eating. A common symptom of such eating disorders is the loss of one’s period. A common – though by no means fail-safe – sign of being pregnant is also the loss of one’s period.

“I had a medical team of doctors and psychiatrists and stuff that I was working with. And at no point did any of us think that the fact that I hadn’t gotten my period was because of a pregnancy,” Chalifoux said.

As she was starting to recover from the eating disorder, though, her period still hadn’t returned. She was on birth control, but just to rule it out, she took a home pregnancy test, which was positive. After confirming the pregnancy through a blood test, she reached out to Planned Parenthood, where she was told that it was too late for a medical abortion and she would need a surgical procedure.

“I spent probably at least two weeks thinking about the financials, going through the money that I had,” Chalifoux said. “And a week makes a difference.”

The cost of an abortion increases significantly as time goes on, from a few hundred dollars to thousands in the second trimester and even tens of thousands later on. For many women, financial barriers to abortion serve to push the procedure later, because it can take time to come up with money. Medicaid, which provides health care coverage to low-income Americans, does not pay for abortions except in the case of rape, incest or when the mother’s life is in danger.

“It’s really hard to get an abortion in this country,” Christensen said. “And the idea that people are able to seek care by a certain date is kind of based on the myths that we get all the information we need by a certain time and that we live in equitable environments with equal access to resources and health care. Neither of those are true.”

Realizing that she could not handle it alone, Chalifoux told her parents, who embraced her with support. By this point, weeks had passed since she learned she was pregnant and she started to experience physical symptoms of pregnancy. The experience of not having control over her body as it changed horrified her and she said she getting intrusive thoughts of performing an abortion on herself.

“I just remember feeling like I wanted to cut myself open or die. The experience of not having control over my body and feeling my body, feeling it change, noticing the changes and knowing that I was getting more pregnant every day was just … I mean, it was like horror,” she recalled.

After going for an initial appointment at a hospital to prepare for the procedure, another ultrasound revealed that she was further along than first thought. In all, Chalifoux said it took about a month from the time she learned she was pregnant until she was able to receive an abortion, a few days after she turned 19.

“It was such a long time ago that I’ve healed from a lot of it, but I’m able to recognize that where I used to think that my abortion was traumatic for me, I can realize now that it was the pregnancy that was traumatic. And that the abortion was actually very healing,” she said.

Today, Chalifoux is studying law, hoping to become a public defender or find work fighting against mass incarceration and speaks publicly about her abortion as part of her reproductive rights activism. Looking back, she says, she does not think she would have survived if she were forced to carry the pregnancy to term.

“I can remember having this fear that I would be forced to give birth,” she said. “And I can remember thinking that I would rather die.”

___

RAPE AND A DOCTOR’S MISCALCULATION

It was July 2020. The young woman decided to check out her friend’s stand-up comedy show in a downtown Houston comedy club. She wouldn’t know anyone in the audience, but that didn’t matter. Working in the service industry and being a social, responsible person who had lived on her own since she turned 18, she wasn’t worried. She met what seemed like “a group of really cool people.” She had some drinks with them and had a good time, she recalled. Looking back, she doesn’t recall any women being part of the group. But she trusted herself.

“Everything kind of happened really fast,” said the woman, 31, whom the AP is not identifying because she is the victim of sexual assault. “I’m pretty sure, pretty sure someone slipped something in one of my drinks. I ended up waking up the next morning in a rundown motel room somewhere in southwest Houston.”

She had nothing on her except her clothes and shoes. Her phone, wallet and underwear were missing. It was about 10:30 a.m. and the motel’s management was banging on her door. Instead of offering help, she recalled, they yelled at her and kicked her out. The woman, who is Black, thinks they might have thought she was a prostitute. She walked along the side of the highway until she found a gas station where she could call a family member to pick her up.

Time went on, and she didn’t tell anyone what happened except one close friend. She started dating someone.

In late October, early November of that year, she, took a home pregnancy test. She was on birth control, but she figured maybe it had failed. She was pregnant.

After an initial appointment with a doctor who gave her an incorrect gestational age, she followed up at a women’s clinic, where she learned that she was actually further along. She did the math, and traced back the start of her pregnancy to the time she was raped back in July.

“And that was just something that I was not … I would not have been able to live with,” she said.

The young woman said it took her more than a week to absorb the shock of learning that she became pregnant from a sexual assault. More time passed as she searched for an abortion provider, encountering crisis pregnancy centers that tried to steer her away from terminating the pregnancy. One of the centers, she said, was calling her daily at one point. The woman said she felt harassed.

There was also the cost. According to medical bills the woman provided to the AP, the cost of her procedure increased by $2,500 between the time she was examined in Austin before her abortion and the time she arrived in New Mexico for the procedure. PatientForward helped cover her costs.

She was in her third trimester by the time she got on an airplane, alone, to fly to New Mexico and terminate her pregnancy at 27 weeks of gestation. She hasn’t told her family what happened, or any other friends, still coping with feelings of shame and guilt from both the rape and the abortion. She does not know who raped her.

“I have no idea who did it. No idea,” she said. “I never went back and pursued it.”

___

Associated Press writer Lindsay Whitehurst contributed to this story.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

ZAMBIA

Glencore’s Corruption guilty verdict vindicates Critics of the New Dawn’s blind trust in dodgy Mining Houses


June 2, 2022
By Mwansa Chalwe Snr

The New Dawn government has been accused of being too cosy to the mining houses despite their poor record. The UPND administration’s development strategy is mainly anchored on mining without making changes to decades old agreements and unfair incentives, through negotiations with mining houses, despite overwhelming evidence in the past 20 years which shows that they have been ripping Zambia off with all sorts of legal machinations as well as through financial and environmental criminal practices.

The corruption guilty verdict in the US, of Glencore, the former owners of Mopani Copper Mines (MCM), vindicates the New Dawn critics. Glencore bought MCM for $30m and sold it back to Zambia for $1.5billion, after 20 years of paying no income taxes, claiming losses throughout the period.

Glencore, is expected to pay to authorities in the US, UK and Brazil the sum US$1.5bn after pleading guilty to a 10-year international bribery scheme as well as a plot to manipulate commodity prices. Guess what, the penalty may even be paid from the loan repayments they receive from Zambia for MCM which they sold us at such an exorbitant amount having bought it for a song.

“The scope of this criminal bribery scheme is staggering,” Damian Williams, US attorney for the Southern District of New York told a press conference. “Glencore paid bribes to secure oil contracts. Glencore paid bribes to avoid government audits. Glencore bribed judges to make lawsuits disappear. At bottom, Glencore paid bribes to make money – hundreds of millions of dollars. And it did so with the approval, and even encouragement, of its top executives.”
According to the US Department of Justice, Glencore was involved in a “decade-long scheme by Glencore and its subsidiaries to make and conceal corrupt payments and bribes through intermediaries for the benefit of foreign officials across multiple countries”. And between 2007 and 2018, Glencore paid around US$80mn to third-party intermediaries to secure business with state-owned or state-controlled entities. The practices took place in several African and Latin American countries, including Nigeria, Cameroon, Brazil and Venezuela. Glencore is also said to use inflated invoices, sham consulting agreements and intermediary companies to conceal payments to foreign officials

In its recent opinion piece on the verdict, the UK Financial Times wrote: “Glencore is not alone in needing a cultural overhaul on bribery. Broadly, the contribution of global resources companies to the impoverishment and penury of African nations was considered a niche concern in the Square Mile.” (the Square mile is the City of London- Central London- which has been a doyen of dirty and bloody money which we never knew until the Ukraine-Russia was has exposed the City)

The Financial Times Opinion clearly show that Glencore is not the only Mining house involved in corruption but others are also guilty of this. But Glencore appears to have been in the premier league of Multinational corruption and has been caught red handed. Although Zambia is not mentioned by name in guilty the verdict, it is included in the phrase “multiple countries”, “African Countries”. It follows that Zambia should not be naïve and have blind trust of other Mining houses. In any case, Vendetta Resources is another mining house in Zambia whose record in Zambia for various crimes is well documented.

It is with the above back ground, that critics including the author of this article have been critical of the New Dawn’s fallacious belief that ramping up production to 3million tonne will benefit Zambia without negotiating better deals, including revision of the archaic development agreements. The reality is that increased production will only benefit foreign mining houses’ shareholders and very little will remain in Zambia for development. The argument by critics is that Zambia will not sufficiently benefits from increased mining production as Mining houses having been involved in widespread schemes financial crimes like corruption, tax evasion through transfer pricing and other machinations to deny Zambia sufficient benefits from their natural resources due to pure greed by foreign investors and their local accomplices.

The Author has written so many opinion pieces on this issue ad nauseam, including a full chapter in his book, “China-West Battleground in Africa: Debt Ridden Zambia”, .He has argued for a new cooperation model between resource rich countries like Zambia and Mining houses which he coined Rational Resource Nationalism (RRA) meant to result in win- win situation.

It is the light of our past experience with Mining houses, which has been brought to the fore by the Glencore guilty verdict, that I and many other enlightened Zambian critics, are sceptical of the recent pledge of $1.5billion investment by FQM – even after Professor Saasa “validation” report of the investment, his conflict of interests notwithstanding. We are simply not excited by these pie in the sky and mirage investments. The question Zambians should ask is how much foreign exchange, tax revenue, skills and technology transfer, infrastructure built, entrepreneurship promotion etc will flow to Zambia as a result of these investments. Your guess is as good as mine.

To put the issue in perceptive, Glencore claims to have invested $4.4 billion in Mopani since 2000. I challenge anyone, to show me tangible evidence of the benefits to Zambia of this $4.4 billion investment by Glencore, in Mufulira and Kitwe especially – where they were located- during their ownership of MCM for 20 years, before taking off on expiry of the Development Agreements incentives and selling the Mines to Zambia for billions.

The jury is now out for the New Dawn government to carefully handle the other bad boy of the Zambian mining industry – Vendetta Mining Resources. The World’s number one super power has just confirmed that Zambia’s two major foreign Mining investors for the past 20 years, are criminals. How can anyone challenge home grown critics unless there are grateful beneficiaries?

The writer is a Chartered Accountant and Author. He is a retired international MSMEs Consultant and an independent financial commentator. He is also an Op-Ed Contributor to the Hong Kong based, Alibaba owned, and South China Morning Post (SCMP). Contact: pmchalwe@gmail.com
Some of the contents of this article are abridged excerpts from my book whose link is below.
CHINA-WEST BATTLEGROUND IN AFRICA: DEBT RIDDEN ZAMBIA: Why U.S. May Lose Geo-Economic Competition to China https://www.amazon.com/dp/B097DVXBKH/ref=cm_sw_r_wa_api_glt_7PR5H7YBZZ14FCDNT54Y

US bank chief warns of economic “hurricane”

Nick Beams

WSWS.ORG

Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of America’s largest bank, JPMorgan Chase, has warned that an economic “hurricane” is about to hit the US because of the war in Ukraine and the tightening of monetary policy by the US Federal Reserve.

Two weeks ago, Dimon warned of “storm clouds” gathering over the US economy. He escalated that assessment at a financial services conference yesterday.

“I said they’re storm clouds, they’re big storm clouds here. It’s a hurricane. That hurricane is right out there down the road coming our way,” he said.

“We just don’t know if it’s a minor one or Superstorm Sandy [the devastating hurricane of 2012] … And you better brace yourself,” he told investors at the conference.

The Wall St. street sign is framed by the American flags flying outside the New York Stock exchange, Friday, Jan. 14, 2022, in the Financial District. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

He warned the Ukraine war would continue to put upward pressure on oil prices, which could go to as high as $150 or $175 per barrel. At present oil is over $120 after a spike following the decision by the European Union to ban seaborne oil imports from Russia as part of its tightening sanctions regime.

Dimon warned that oil prices would continue to rise over the longer term.

“We’re not taking the proper actions to protect Europe from what’s going to happen to oil in the short run. And we’re not taking the proper actions to protect you all from what’s going to happen to oil in the next five years, which means it almost has to go up in price.”

He also directed attention to the monetary tightening initiated by the Fed.

This consists of two components: Interest rate rises each of 0.5 percent over the next two meetings of its policymaking body, with more to follow; and a winding down of the $9 trillion of financial assets purchased by the Fed in response to the 2008 financial crisis and the market meltdown in March 2020 at the start of the pandemic.

The effects of interest increases are generally known, at least if historical experience is any guide. They must be lifted to “stunt” economic growth, in the words of one of the Fed governors, Christopher Waller, in a speech delivered on Monday calling for sustained interest rate increases.

But the effect on financial markets and the economy more broadly of a continuous reduction in the Fed’s balance sheet, known as “quantitative tightening [QT],” is not because it has never been undertaken in a sustained way before. Before the 2008 crisis the Fed held just under $1 trillion in financial assets in order to facilitate the operation of its monetary policy.

The expansion of its assets holding since then has had a different purpose—to prevent the implosion of the financial system which has loomed large twice in the past 14 years.

The only other occasion when the Fed, briefly, moved to cut its asset holdings took place in 2018. It contributed to a sharp fall on Wall Street at the end of that year and was rapidly withdrawn by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell in January 2019.

Dimon warned that there was a risk of market volatility as the Fed began quantitative tightening.

“They do not have a choice because there’s so much liquidity in the system,” he said. “They have to remove some of the liquidity to stop the speculation, to reduce home prices and stuff like that. And you’ve never been through QT.”

With the Fed reducing its holding of Treasury bonds, the supply will increase, bringing about a “huge change in the flow of funds around the world. I don’t know what the effect of that is,” he said, warning of the potential for “huge volatility.”

His “hope” was that it would end up “OK,” but “who the hell knows?”

As Dimon was making his remarks, the rating agency S&P Global issued a warning that investors were underestimating the severity of the financial and social effects of what it called the “global food shock.”

In a report published yesterday, it said food price rises, combined with the escalation of energy prices, would impact the credit worthiness of a large number of emerging economies.

According to Frank Gill, a specialist on sovereign debt for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at the ratings agency: “Rising energy and food prices represent yet further balance-of-payments, fiscal and growth shocks to the majority of emerging markets. This intensifies strains on their public finances and ratings, which are already impacted negatively by the global pandemic.”

These markets are already experiencing an outflow of capital from their bond markets, which have already had their worst start to a year in almost three decades, as a result of the increase in interest rates in the US. Dollar-denominated debt is also coming under increasing stress because of the rise in the value of the US currency on global markets.

S&P Global said emerging markets exposed to the food price hikes already had low credit ratings, and they could fall even further.

The social and political consequences were underscored in remarks by Uday Patnaik, head of emerging market debt at Legal and General Investment, a major European asset management firm, to the Financial Times.

“For emerging markets, food is a much more significant part of your disposable income. If you’re a big importer or poorer country this is painful. This is an issue that can cause governments to fall,” he said.

He commented that Sri Lanka, where ongoing protests strikes have erupted calling for the end of the Rajapaksa presidency, was already “highly stressed” before the war in Ukraine, but the food price shock was “the final straw that pushed them over the edge.”

Other countries could follow, with the S&P Global report noting that price shock and the reduction in food supplies raised the risk of social unrest with the crisis to last for years not months.

The economic and social turmoil will not be confined to so-called emerging market economies because the crisis is striking at the major economies as well. Inflation in the UK is running at 10 percent and threatening to go even higher. In the Eurozone it hit 8.1 percent in May, up from 7.4 percent in March and April; and in the US it is running at more than 8 percent.

In all these regions, as well as others, the cost of basic items, such as food and energy that make up much of the spending of the working class, are rising much faster than the official inflation rate.

The policy of capitalist governments and central banks everywhere is to hike interest rates, inducing a recession if that is considered necessary, to try to crush a wages movement of the working class.

In the US, the Fed’s agenda received the backing of the Biden administration in a meeting between the president, the Treasury secretary Janet Yellen and Fed chair Powell earlier this week.

Following the meeting Biden said: “My plan … to address inflation starts with a simple proposition: Respect the Fed, respect the Fed’s independence which I have done and will continue to do.”

He said Powell and other members of the Fed were focused, “laser-focused on addressing inflation as I am.”

As Powell had made clear on numerous occasions, that “laser focus” means continuing to lift interest rates to a level where they drive down wages, and a preparedness to follow the path of Fed chair Paul Volcker in the 1980s. He raised rates to record highs, resulting in the deepest recession since the 1930s and inflicting social and economic devastation from which the working class has never fully recovered.

Dimon’s “hurricane” remarks were directed to an audience of financial market operators. But it is also clear that a social and economic hurricane is confronting the working class in the US and around the world.

Framework developed to advance modern treaty implementation in B.C.


The Alliance of BC Modern Treaty Nations has developed a framework with the province to advance treaty implementation in British Columbia, which was announced on May 24.

It is the first of its kind within the province and renews B.C.’s commitment to effectively implement modern treaties, according to the Ministry of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation.

“Modern treaties create the blueprint for Indigenous self-governance and effective government-to-government relationships,” Toquaht First Nation Chief Anne Mack said in a release, on behalf of the alliance. “However, you can’t live in a blueprint. You still need to build the house, and then you need to maintain it and expand it as the family grows.”

Treaty implementation is a work in progress that “requires ongoing efforts and attention,” she said.

Three priorities were identified in the framework, including: developing fiscal arrangements to fulfil treaty rights and obligations, establishing meaningful participation in B.C.’s legislative and policy initiatives, as well as initiating policy changes in the BC Public Service to advance a whole-of-government approach.

“The Shared Priorities Framework is B.C.’s commitment to modern treaty nations to create and strengthen relationships that are dynamic, evolving and improving over time,” Premier John Horgan said in a release. “Treaties are important living documents that provide a foundation for renewed relationships and certainty for all First Nations in the treaty process.”

The Alliance of BC Modern Treaty Nations was formed as a collective of the eight nations operating with modern treaties in British Columbia. It was established in 2018 by Tla’amin Nation, Tsawwassen First Nation and the Maa-nulth Treaty nations. Nisg̱a’a Nation joined later in 2019.

According to the alliance, modern treaty nations needed a way to collectively engage with the provincial government to advocate for improved implementation of the final agreements.

“Having the alliance being heard by B.C. is the first of many steps in the right direction for modern treaty nations to achieve reconciliation,” said Huu-ay-aht First Nation Councillor Brad Johnson. “What is needed is to continue building our government-to-government relationships and have a good working relationship so they understand our need to achieve our strategic goals.”

Over a decade ago, the Maa-nulth treaty was signed as one of the first final agreements reached under B.C.’s treaty process.

The government-to-government agreement between Canada, British Columbia and five Nuu-chah-nulth nations was signed on April 1, 2011.

It established Huu-ay-aht, Uchucklesaht, Yuułuʔiłʔatḥ, Toquaht and Ka:’yu:’k’t’h’/Che:k’tl7et’h’ First Nations as self-governing under provincial and federal law.

“Ten years feels like a long time in one’s life,” said Toquaht Nation Director of Operations Angela Polifroni, on behalf of the alliance’s technical team. “But it's a very, very short time for First Nations entering into a self-government under a modern treaty.”

Especially, she said, “since a lot of what we’re trying to achieve is new to us and new to our treaty partners.”

Part of that discovery is learning what's needed to succeed, she said.

“Modern treaty governments need sufficient resources to succeed,” Polifroni said. “Modern treaty governments are responsible for lawmaking and enforcement, land management, social programs and services, and so many other obligations – many of which were B.C.’s responsibility pre-treaty.”

To date, Polifroni said B.C. has contributed “very little to our fiscal arrangements.”

“The shared priorities framework affirms B.C.’s commitment to working collaboratively with modern treaty nations to rectify this major gap,” she said.

A whole-of-government approach requires education for staff to understand treaty rights and treaty implementation obligations, Polifroni said.

“It requires effective communication and fully resourced engagements,” she said. “It requires accountability and oversight at the highest levels in all of the B.C. public service.”

That’s why it was important to the alliance that the framework be signed by the premier – to affirm the whole-of-government commitment to treaty implementation, said Polifroni.

One of the major benefits of becoming a treaty nation was that Huu-ay-aht was no longer “restricted” on how to allocate their funding and budget, said Johnson.

“Treaties recognize the inherent rights of Indigenous peoples and enable them to rebuild their communities and governments on their own terms,” Murray Rankin, minister of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation, said in a release. “To uphold our treaties with the intent they were written, we must be intentional about how we implement them and grow our government-to-government relationships through collaborative action. This framework gives us the vision to do just that.”

It's important to consider that modern treaties were negotiated at a specific point in history, Polifroni said.

“Canadian and B.C. laws and policies have changed,” she said. “And part of treaty implementation is ensuring that modern treaty nations are aware of the changes and can benefit from [them].”

Because the treaty is a “living relationship,” Polifroni said agreements and relationships are going to continue to grow and evolve.

“Treaty implementation is ongoing,” Polifroni said. “We will never be able to say that the treaties are fully implemented because the work will be ongoing as long as the modern treaty nations, the province of B.C., and Canada continue to exist.”

Melissa Renwick, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Ha-Shilth-Sa

Who is Cassidy Hutchinson and what has she told the Jan. 6 committee?

Caitlin Dickson
·Reporter
Wed, June 1, 2022

The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection has kept a tight lid on its plans for televised hearings slated to take place this month, but that hasn’t stopped speculation about who might be called to testify.

Among the names that have been floated as a potential witness in the highly anticipated hearings is that of Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, who has already been cited as the source of multiple revelations uncovered by the select committee’s probe.

Hutchinson, who served as a special assistant to the president for legislative affairs, was subpoenaed in November 2021, along with several other former Trump administration officials who, the panel believed, had relevant information regarding the former president’s activities on Jan. 6 and the role he and his aides played in efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

ICONIC

Far-right supporters of Donald Trump gather near the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

 (Shay Horse/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

According to her subpoena, Hutchinson was not only at the White House on Jan. 6 but she’d been with Trump during his speech at the “Stop the Steal” rally on the Ellipse, where he urged his supporters to “fight like hell” before promising to march with them to the Capitol.

She also emailed Georgia officials directly following Meadows’s trip to attend that state’s election audit, according to the subpoena, and was present for other key meetings and conversations at the White House leading up to Jan. 6.

Unlike her former boss, whose refusal to cooperate with House investigators has earned him a Justice Department referral for criminal contempt charges, Hutchinson has appeared before the committee on three separate occasions since the beginning of this year. In fact, following her most recent deposition last month, a source reportedly told CNN that Hutchinson believes she’s being forced to testify due to Meadows’s refusal to comply with his own subpoena. The same source said Hutchinson will likely make another appearance before the committee, possibly during the upcoming public hearings, according to CNN.

Trump aide Cassidy Hutchinson, left, with White House press secretary Kaleigh McEnany in 2020. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

A spokesperson for the Jan. 6 committee declined to comment on whether Hutchinson will be called as a witness at the hearings, the first of which is set for June 9. Hutchinson’s attorney did not respond to a request for comment from Yahoo News.

While much remains unknown about what Hutchinson has told the select committee so far, a handful of key details have emerged from her closed-door depositions that seem likely to feature prominently in the case House investigators hope to present to the American public this summer.

Here’s a look at some of the key revelations that have already been attributed to Hutchinson, and how they might factor into the public hearings.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., surrounded by reporters after House investigators issued a subpoena to McCarthy and four other GOP lawmakers.

 (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)

Meadows and others pressed ahead with plans to overturn Trump’s election loss, court filing says, even after White House counsel had deemed them not “legally sound.”

The select committee’s legal battle against Meadows, who has sued to block the panel’s subpoenas, may offer clues on how Hutchinson’s testimony could be used in the hearings.

In an April court filing, the select committee cited sections of Hutchinson’s testimony as proof of the former chief’s involvement in the effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election and that he had pursued unlawful plans to make that happen.

According to the filing, Hutchinson told the committee that the White House Counsel’s Office repeatedly objected on legal grounds to a plan to push Republican officials in battleground states that had voted for Biden to send alternate, pro-Trump slates of electors to Congress when lawmakers met on Jan. 6 to certify the Electoral College vote count.

Hutchinson told the committee that the counsel’s office had concluded that the alternate electors plan was not legally sound potentially as early as November 2021, and that this conclusion was raised during multiple meetings at the White House involving Meadows, other Trump associates like Trump’s former personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, and members of Congress including Reps. Scott Perry, R-Pa., Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., and Louie Gohmert, R-Texas.

“Despite that advice, the plan moved forward,” the committee’s filing states.

The role played by Trump and advisers like Meadows has been a key focus of the committee’s investigation, and the Guardian reported last month that the upcoming hearings are expected to highlight how the Trump White House pursued potentially illegal methods, including the plot to send fake electors to Congress to subvert Joe Biden’s win and secure a second term for Trump.

Then-President Donald Trump arrives to speak at the "Stop the Steal" rally on Jan. 6, 2021. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP)

Meadows was warned about the possibility of violence on Jan. 6, filing says

Another focus of the panel’s investigation has been the role Trump advisers played in organizing the events that took place on Jan. 6 as Congress met to certify the Electoral College results. Those events include the rally at the Ellipse that preceded the Capitol riot, which left five people dead and more than 140 police officers injured.

In that same April court filing, the select committee also cited Hutchinson’s testimony as evidence that Meadows went ahead with plans for Trump’s Jan. 6 rally in Washington despite receiving direct warnings of violence that day.

The filing includes quotes from Hutchinson's March 7 deposition in which she told investigators, “I know that there were concerns brought forward to Mr. Meadows,” and “I know that people had brought information forward to him that had indicated that there could be violence on the 6th. But, again, I’m not sure if he — what he did with that information.”

Trump supporters taking over the steps of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

 (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images)

Specifically, Hutchinson told the committee that in early January, Meadows had discussed the potential for violence on Jan. 6 with Anthony Ornato, a senior Secret Service agent who also served as Trump’s White House chief of operations.

“I just remember Mr. Ornato coming in and saying that we had intel reports saying that there could be violence on the 6th,” Hutchinson said. “And Mr. Meadows said, All right, let’s talk about it.”

Hutchinson said Ornato had raised the subject with Meadows on his way out of the office one evening and the two discussed it briefly.

“I believe they went to the office for maybe five minutes,” she said. “It was very quick.”

Based on the sections of Hutchinson’s testimony that have been released by the select committee, it’s not clear whether she offered any further details about the warnings Meadows received, or whether he was warned specifically about the possibility that Trump supporters protesting the former president’s loss in D.C. on Jan. 6 could turn violent. Shortly after the rally at the Ellipse, a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol.

Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., speaks to Trump supporters in Harrisburg, Pa., on Nov. 5, 2020, the day after Joe Biden's election. (Mark Kauzlarich/Reuters)

Meadows reportedly burned papers after Scott Perry meeting

Recent reports suggest Hutchinson has continued to provide the select committee with other relevant details about the former chief of staff’s behavior in the lead-up to Jan. 6.

According to Politico, Hutchinson told the panel during her latest deposition last month that she saw Meadows burn documents in his office following a meeting with Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., in the weeks after the 2020 election.

Perry has emerged as another key player in the select panel’s investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn his election defeat and the events leading up to Jan. 6. Testimony and documents obtained by the committee have identified Perry as the first link between the former president and Jeffrey Clark, then a little-known senior official at the Justice Department.

During his final weeks in the White House, Trump reportedly conspired with Clark to try to use the DOJ to sow doubt about the election results — even after the FBI failed to find evidence of widespread voter fraud He also came close to installing Clark as acting attorney general before several top aides threatened to resign in protest.

It’s not clear whether Hutchinson told investigators which papers Meadows had reportedly incinerated or if they should have been preserved under federal records laws. The select committee has uncovered other efforts by Meadows and Perry to conceal their communications in the wake of the 2020 election, including in one text message exchange in which Perry told Meadows he’d “just sent you something on Signal,” an encrypted messaging app.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., second from right, speaks during a meeting of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection, on March 28. (Eric Lee/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Trump reportedly expressed support for hanging Mike Pence

Another key line of inquiry for the select committee has been what, exactly, the president was doing while an angry mob of his supporters violently ransacked the Capitol, and why it took 187 minutes before National Guard troops and additional police were sent to the Capitol to stop them.

Investigators may seek to answer those questions by sharing one witness’s account, which has been reportedly confirmed by Hutchinson, of a telling scene that took place at the White House on Jan. 6.

According to the account that was provided to the Jan. 6 committee, not long after rioters began chanting “Hang Mike Pence!” outside the Capitol, Meadows told colleagues in his office that Trump was complaining about his vice president being evacuated to safety. According to the New York Times, which was first to report the story, Meadows “then told the colleagues that Mr. Trump had said something to the effect of, maybe Mr. Pence should be hanged.”

The Times reported that the select committee first heard about Trump’s comment from at least one witness, and then confirmed it with Hutchinson, who was present in Meadows’s office when he relayed what Trump had said. Meadows’s lawyer denied the account in the Times.

The Times report notes that it’s unclear what the tone of Trump’s comment was, but that it underscores his frustration with Pence, who’d refused to succumb to the president’s pressure campaign to get him to block Congress’s certification of the Electoral College results that day.

The anecdote also seems to shed light on Trump’s initial reaction to the riot, and why he did not act immediately to call off the mob despite repeated pleas from members of his family and Republicans in Congress to do so.

In Alabama’s ‘19th Unnamed Cave,’ a Trove of Ancient Dark-Zone Art

Researchers using 3-D technology brought to light an array of art in an Alabama cave, including a serpent, flying creatures and humanoid figures in regalia.

Alvarez worked on the photogrammetry project inside the main art gallery of the 19th Unnamed Cave in Alabama.

Credit...Alan Cressler


By Christine Hauser
 May 9, 2022

The cave meanders for two miles under northern Alabama, with passages that veer into mysterious so-called dark zones, sediment deposits, a waterfall and deep pools. Ancient footprints are embedded in its remotest passage. The names of Union soldiers from the Civil War remain scrawled on a wall.

Stooped over because the ceiling was so low, Alan Cressler unclipped a light from his helmet on July 30, 1998, and raked the beam across the surface above him.

The artwork of a fellow human being who lived many centuries ago came into view: possibly a bird, with a rounded head.

“Once I saw that, I am like, ‘OK,’” Mr. Cressler, who now works for the United States Geological Survey, said in an interview this week. “It gives me chills today to talk about it. I just recognized the immediate importance of it.”

With an archaeologist, an expert in 3-D photography and others, Mr. Cressler further explored the cave, known as the 19th Unfinamed Cave, and its art over the years. This week, they published their findings in the journal Antiquity. The study highlighted the role of 3-D technology in uncovering art that was not initially visible to Mr. Cressler over 20 years ago, when he was pressed so close to the ceiling that he could not see the full array that radiated in all directions above him.

Jan Simek, an archaeologist with the University of Tennessee and a co-author of the paper, said the cave art was among the largest found in North America, deep in a convoluted dark zone where natural light could not reach.

Using radiocarbon dating and analysis of pottery shards, the researchers estimate that the art dates to the Middle and Late Woodland periods, or between 500 A.D. and 1000 A.D., when farming, hunting and gathering gave way to food production and sedentary life in the region.

There are figures with human features, a coiled snake with a tail rattle and forked tongue and a 10-foot-long serpent winding its way across the expanse. Some incorporate the features of the ceiling into their design, such as the serpent that appears to emerge from a natural fissure.

Ghostly humanoid figures are adorned in regalia. Charred fragments of river cane suggest the artwork, finely incised in a veneer of mud, could have been a team effort, with someone holding a torch while the artist, or artists, worked.

The early artists were very likely lying on sediment deposits when they made their mud carvings, either with fingers or delicate tools with tines.

“It is highly detailed,” Dr. Simek said. “It covers an acre of surface area on the ceiling. The glyphs are in a single chamber, but the cave goes on.”

Since cave art was first documented in North America in 1979, Dr. Simek and Mr. Cressler have been studying what is known as dark-zone cave art, which involves exploring passageways unreachable by natural light.

The cave documented in 1979 in Tennessee, contained mud drawings, 750 to 800 years old, depicting pre-Columbian Native American religious themes, the Antiquity study said. Since then, it said, 89 other pre-Columbian cave-art sites have been identified in southeastern North America. The earliest is nearly 7,000 years old, but most of them date from 800 A.D. to 1600 A.D.

Some are on private property, and those findings are kept secret to keep the area free of vandals. Others are on public lands, including in Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky and Alabama. Some can be reached only by boat because rivers have risen to entrances that were once accessible by land.

The use of 3-D modeling in Alabama’s 19th Unnamed Cave “promises a new era of discovery of ancient cave art” because it reveals images that could not be perceived otherwise, the researchers said in their study.

The technique has been used elsewhere, such as to create a replica of the art in the Lascaux caves in France, but not as much in searching, as Dr. Simek said, “to see if there are things we can’t see.”

The researchers used a technique called photogrammetry, in which a camera inches along a track, taking overlapping images that are then stitched together using software. It creates a seamless representation that highlights even the finest engravings in the mud, said Stephen Alvarez, a founder of the Ancient Art Archive and a co-author of the study. He was responsible for the 3-D work in the 19th Unnamed Cave.

More than 16,000 overlapping photographs produced the map of the cave’s known art.

“It is like magic,” Mr. Alvarez said. “Here is this thing that has been invisible for 1,000-plus years that has suddenly come to life. Even though the people were removed, their stories are still here.”

The method is useful because the uneven features of a cave ceiling can throw shadows that obscure delicate lines in the art. Mr. Cressler said those features complicated his early attempts to document the work with a camera.

One of the many large abstract mud-glyph panels on the ceiling in the 19th Unnamed Cave.

Credit...Alan Cressler

Dr. Simek said the use of photogrammetry was even more intriguing because ancient artists had no such technology, or opportunity, to see the big picture. Unlike with rock art, which is out in the open, the artists inside the cave chamber could not step back and ponder their work-in-progress from a distance.

“The makers of these images couldn’t see them in their totality except in their mind,” he said. “That means they had an idea of what they had to draw and to move around while they did it.”

But what exactly the artists had in mind has so far escaped the researchers.

Dr. Simek said the project’s work with Native American collaborators helped interpret the cave’s possible relation to the supernatural.

Dustin Mater, a Chickasaw citizen and artist who works with Mr. Alvarez’s archive, said themes and images from the cave art were similar to those he had learned about in tales from tribal elders, such as cave portals to the underworld and a winged humanlike figure armed with a war mace.

“It is almost speculative, but there are nuances today that are carried forward into our traditions and in our stories,” said Mr. Mater, whose ancestors were among the Indigenous people forcibly removed from northwest Alabama in the 1800s. “Living cultures take symbols and then revivify them and give them meaning.”

Cave Art and Photogrammetry

Pig Painting May Be World’s Oldest Cave Art Yet, Archaeologists Say
Jan. 13, 2021

In Cave in Borneo Jungle, Scientists Find Oldest Figurative Painting in the World
Nov. 7, 2018

Creating Stories You Can Walk Through
Oct. 13, 2020

Back to the Cave of Altamira in Spain, Still Controversial
July 30, 2014



Christine Hauser is a reporter, covering national and foreign news. Her previous jobs in the newsroom include stints in Business covering financial markets and on the Metro desk in the police bureau. @ChristineNYT

A version of this article appears in print on May 10, 2022, Section A, Page 18 of the New York edition with the headline: Deep in Alabama Cave, 3-D Tech Reveals Trove Of Ancient Native Art. 

OH THE IRONY

German anti-terrorism org launches U.S. operations in Pittsburgh with goal of preventing homegrown extremism


JESSE BUNCH
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
JUN 1, 2022

Imagine this scenario: a mother begins to notice a change in her teenage son, who spends an increasing amount of time online in chat rooms and on fringe forums. Around the house, the teen begins to spout racially-charged, anti-immigrant sentiments.

With nowhere to turn, she looks at his Google search history and finds he has been researching where to purchase a firearm nearby.

In the anonymity of the online world, it’s for outsiders to tell when someone is becoming radicalized by extremist groups that target vulnerable users. In Pittsburgh, which FBI officials recently warned was becoming a hotbed for far-right nationalist groups, a German-based nonprofit is hoping it can intervene in these scenarios before they escalate to tragedy.

The Violence Prevention Network convened in Downtown on Wednesday to announce its flagship U.S. operation. Board members explained that the choice to launch in Pittsburgh was very deliberate given the city’s relationship to extremist groups.

Citing the tragedy of the Tree of Life synagogue shooting coupled with budding activity from far-right groups like Sovereign Citizens and Patriot Front, VPN sees an opportunity to partner with local law enforcement agencies to spot would-be extremists and deradicalize them through its unique intervention program.

“There’s many organizations that work in the field of violent extremism, and one thing that’s very important to us, is that we talk to extremists, not about them,” said Michele Leaman, a director at the Violence Prevention Network.

Alongside Judy Korn, a VPN co-founder and director, Ms. Leaman detailed VPN’s strategy in Germany that it plans to mirror here. Originating in Berlin in 2002, the nonprofit has since received support from the country’s government along with the the European Commission, a branch of the European Union.

In Pittsburgh, VPN plans to operate telephone and digital hotlines for friends and family of potential extremists, who can call to receive support and education on the early warning signs of extremism that can crop up both online and in-person.

According to Ms. Leaman, VPN’s staff educates family members on how to maintain their relationship with the at-risk person while seeking help, instead of cutting them off completely.

Should the at-risk person escalate their interest in extremist groups, Ms. Leaman said VPN works with law enforcement to monitor their behavior. In addition, the group provides police departments with training on how to detect risks.

Already, the nonprofit of 120 employees claims it’s intervened and prevented at least eight would-be terrorist attacks in Europe through its program, including extremist Islamic activity that would have targeted Christmas Villages.

Ms. Korn said details or locations of the thwarted attempts could not be shared due to security concerns.

But because VPN values working alongside extremists, the nonprofit has a robust program though prisons in Germany that it hopes to eventually remodel in Western Pennsylvania’s correctional facilities.

“Our training and our program won’t stop if they are in prison,” Ms. Korn explained. “We go on with the relationship, we go on with the dialogues.”

VPN claims that it’s worked with over 800 far-right extremists and over 1,000 Islamic extremists in German prisons, 50% who were sentenced on terrorism-related charges.

Ms. Korn shared data provided by VPN that showed only around 13% of violent-offenders who passed through their education program were eventually reincarcerated, as opposed to the national German average of 41.5%.

According to Ms. Korn, the group has a presence in a quarter of all German prisons and has worked on over 1,800 individual cases.

Already, Ms. Leaman and Ms. Korn have presented their strategy to law enforcement in Fox Chapel, where one member of the nonprofit’s U.S. team resides.

Anne Clarke Ronce, a U.S. team member, said on Wednesday that law enforcement have expressed interest in partnering with VPN as they receive increasing alerts of potential far-right extremists in the Pittsburgh region.

Ms. Ronce mentioned concern over past gatherings of a group called the Iron City Militia, who self-describe on their website as a “well-regulated, well-trained, well-equipped and knowledgeable militia unit comprised of ordinary citizens, based out of the greater Pittsburgh area” that are a “last line of defense against a tyrannical government.”

VPN members cited additional concern over the organization of Sovereign Citizen members in the Pittsburgh region.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups, classifies the Sovereign Citizen movement as racist and antisemitic, citing its founder’s belief that “non-white people were not human, and that Jews possessed a satanic plot to take over the world.”

As of May, VPN claims to have $100,000 in funding secured for its U.S. launch, partially thanks to a German donor whose identity was not disclosed.

After launching its Pittsburgh-based hotline, VPN hopes to extend its program into Western Pennsylvania jails and prisons, though Ms. Leaman said that could take a year or more.

A step in VPN’s U.S. launch includes hiring and training 15 “everyday heroes,” or staff specialists who work to deradicalize both rising and incarcerated extremists.

The launch comes as the national conversation around extremism and gun-control reaches a high-water mark. This month alone, a racially-motivated shooting in Buffalo left 10 Black people dead, while a gunman in Uvalde, Texas terrorized Reed Elementary last week, claiming 21 lives — most of them young children.

Bruce Bowden, a U.S. VPN board member, made that connection as he introduced Ms. Korn, who was visiting Pittsburgh from the nonprofit’s German office.

“This trip was planned before the recent incidents in Texas and other places,” Ms. Bowden said. “That’s just a very horrible coincidence that those things happened just before they came. But it makes this, I think, all the more timely.”

First Published June 1, 2022, 3:42pm