Tesla reportedly nowhere near goal of installing 1,000 solar roofs a week

Harri Weber
Thu, July 7, 2022

Five and a half years on (well, really 5.69), Tesla's solar roofs are looking less like a revelation and more like a hobby. Though Elon Must set a goal of 1,000 solar roof installations per week, the company's latest averages are reportedly a tiny fraction of that figure.

Citing an anonymous source, Electrek reports that Tesla installed just 2.5 megawatts of solar roofs in the second quarter. That would equate to about 260 medium-sized (9.6-kilowatt) home installations last quarter, or roughly 20 each week, per some back-of-the-napkin math. A more generous estimate (say, if we assume each installation were rated at just 5 kW) would still place Tesla somewhere around 38 per week, or nearly 4% of the way toward that 1,000-per-week target.

Tesla originally showcased its roofs in 2016 on the street best known as Wisteria Lane, where "Desperate Housewives" was filmed. "It’s not a thing on the roof. It is the roof,” Musk said around then, pitching it as a sleek alternative to bolt-on solar systems that tend to stick out.

So, what's the holdup on the roofs? Tesla did not respond to a request for comment on the report, but the company may have bit off more than it could chew. "We basically made some significant mistakes in assessing the difficulty of certain roofs," Musk said last year, as Tesla hiked its prices for some buyers. "You just can’t have a one-size-fits-all situation," he said.

Supply-chain issues could also be a factor. For the first quarter of 2022, Tesla reported a sharp drop in solar deployments, most of which involve conventional panels. The company blamed "import delays beyond our control on certain solar components" for the decline.

Solar shingles aside, Tesla's larger solar business is reportedly doing well lately. The company's U.S. residential division just saw "its best quarter since 2017 right after the acquisition of SolarCity," Electrek wrote. We'll hear more on that when Tesla releases its second-quarter report on July 20.

Beyond Tesla, several other companies have tried to make solar shingles happen, including GAF Energy and SunRoof. No matter how well they blend in, however, none have managed to supplant conventional solar systems — at least not yet.

Huge underground search for mysterious dark matter begins
    

Dark Matter Search

Researchers at the Sanford Underground Research Facility in Lead, S.D., discuss conditions on Dec. 8, 2019 at the underground laboratory that was once used as a gold mine. Scientists have begun a new search for mysterious dark matter in a former gold mine a mile underground. Dark matter makes up the vast majority of the mass of the universe but scientists don't know what it is. (AP Photo/Stephen Groves)More

SETH BORENSTEIN
Thu, July 7, 2022 

LEAD, S.D. (AP) — In a former gold mine a mile underground, inside a titanium tank filled with a rare liquified gas, scientists have begun the search for what so far has been unfindable: dark matter.

Scientists are pretty sure the invisible stuff makes up most of the universe’s mass and say we wouldn't be here without it — but they don't know what it is. The race to solve this enormous mystery has brought one team to the depths under Lead, South Dakota.

The question for scientists is basic, says Kevin Lesko, a physicist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. “What is this great place I live in? Right now, 95% of it is a mystery.”

The idea is that a mile of dirt and rock, a giant tank, a second tank and the purest titanium in the world will block nearly all the cosmic rays and particles that zip around — and through — all of us every day. But dark matter particles, scientists think, can avoid all those obstacles. They hope one will fly into the vat of liquid xenon in the inner tank and smash into a xenon nucleus like two balls in a game of pool, revealing its existence in a flash of light seen by a device called “the time projection chamber.”

Scientists announced Thursday that the five-year, $60 million search finally got underway two months ago after a delay caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. So far the device has found ... nothing. At least no dark matter.

That’s OK, they say. The equipment appears to be working to filter out most of the background radiation they hoped to block. “To search for this very rare type of interaction, job number one is to first get rid of all of the ordinary sources of radiation, which would overwhelm the experiment,” said University of Maryland physicist Carter Hall.

And if all their calculations and theories are right, they figure they’ll see only a couple fleeting signs of dark matter a year. The team of 250 scientists estimates they’ll get 20 times more data over the next couple of years.

By the time the experiment finishes, the chance of finding dark matter with this device is “probably less than 50% but more than 10%,” said Hugh Lippincott, a physicist and spokesman for the experiment in a Thursday news conference.

While that's far from a sure thing, “you need a little enthusiasm," Lawrence Berkeley's Lesko said. “You don’t go into rare search physics without some hope of finding something.”

Two hulking Depression-era hoists run an elevator that brings scientists to what's called the LUX-ZEPLIN experiment in the Sanford Underground Research Facility. A 10-minute descent ends in a tunnel with cool-to-the-touch walls lined with netting. But the old, musty mine soon leads to a high-tech lab where dirt and contamination is the enemy. Helmets are exchanged for new cleaner ones and a double layer of baby blue booties go over steel-toed safety boots.

The heart of the experiment is the giant tank called the cryostat, lead engineer Jeff Cherwinka said in a December 2019 tour before the device was closed and filled. He described it as “like a thermos” made of “perhaps the purest titanium in the world” designed to keep the liquid xenon cold and keep background radiation at a minimum.

Xenon is special, explained experiment physics coordinator Aaron Manalaysay, because it allows researchers to see if a collision is with one of its electrons or with its nucleus. If something hits the nucleus, it is more likely to be the dark matter that everyone is looking for, he said.

These scientists tried a similar, smaller experiment here years ago. After coming up empty, they figured they had to go much bigger. Another large-scale experiment is underway in Italy run by a rival team, but no results have been announced so far.

The scientists are trying to understand why the universe is not what it seems.

One part of the mystery is dark matter, which has by far most of the mass in the cosmos. Astronomers know it's there because when they measure the stars and other regular matter in galaxies, they find that there is not nearly enough gravity to hold these clusters together. If nothing else was out there, galaxies would be “quickly flying apart,” Manalaysay said.

“It is essentially impossible to understand our observation of history, of the evolutionary cosmos without dark matter,” Manalaysay said.

Lippincott, a University of California, Santa Barbara, physicist, said “we would not be here without dark matter.”

So while there's little doubt that dark matter exists, there's lots of doubt about what it is. The leading theory is that it involves things called WIMPs — weakly interacting massive particles.

If that's the case, LUX-ZEPLIN could be able to detect them. We want to find “where the wimps can be hiding,” Lippincott said.

___

Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears.

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

 

SEE

 LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for ETHER 

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for DARK MATTER 

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for DARK ENERGY

Asteroid Bennu nearly swallowed up NASA's sampling spacecraft

It was a close call, but OSIRIS-REx's unexpected adventure might help improve planetary defense techniques.

By Elizabeth Howell published 1 day ago

A mosaic image of the asteroid Bennu created using data from NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission. 

(Image credit: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona)

NASA's asteroid-sampling spacecraft had a near-death experience at Bennu, according to the mission team.

In October 2020, the agency's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft nearly sank into the surface of the rubbly asteroid while picking up rocks for shipment to Earth in 2023, team members revealed Thursday (July 7). The spacecraft only escaped getting stuck or sinking into oblivion within Bennu by firing its thrusters at the right moment.

"We expected the surface to be pretty rigid," principal investigator Dante Lauretta, a planetary scientist at the University of Arizona, told Space.com. "We saw a giant wall of debris flying away from the sample site. For spacecraft operators, it was really frightening."

Now that the spacecraft (more formally known as Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer) is safely on its way back to our planet to deliver its precious cargo, scientists are digging into the science implications of the dramatic moment.

"It turns out that the particles making up Bennu's exterior are so loosely packed and lightly bound to each other that they act more like a fluid than a solid," Lauretta said in a University of Arizona statement

That structure is why the OSIRIS-REx sampling probe had such a close call, he and his colleagues determined. The loose surface, made up of particles jostling against each other like plastic balls in a children's play area, has implications for how asteroids were formed and also for planetary defense techniques to protect against potential rogue space rocks coming near our planet, NASA added in a second statement

Photographs from the mission showed a giraffe-scale crater left behind from the brief touchdown, scarring the surface as far as 26 feet (8-meters) wide. That was nothing like the small divot investigators predicted from simulations.

The encounter was a very close call for the spacecraft, mission personnel now say. Where scientists had expected to find a firm surface, the spacecraft experienced resistance comparable to that needed to filter a French press coffee maker, they said.

"By the time we fired our thrusters to leave the surface, we were still plunging into the asteroid," Ron Ballouz, an OSIRIS-REx scientist based at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland, said in the University of Arizona statement.

"I think we're still at the beginning of understanding what these bodies are, because they behave in very counterintuitive ways," Patrick Michel, an OSIRIS-REx team member and asteroid scientist at Côte d'Azur Observatory in France, said in the NASA statement.

RELATED STORIES:

— Asteroid Bennu's mysterious missing craters suggest 'impact armoring' protecting the surface

— Boulders on asteroid Bennu shed new light on the space rock's history

— Eruptions on Asteroid Bennu hint at causes of space rock explosions

Read more: 

Dramatic sampling shows asteroid Bennu is nothing like scientists expected

Related: Ride shotgun with NASA's OSIRIS-REx asteroid probe as it buzzes Bennu (video)

Butler shows hundreds of employees the door after raising $50M for room service delivery

Kyle Wiggers

TechCrunch

Fri, July 8, 2022 

On May 16, Butler Hospitality, an on-demand platform for room service and amenities, sent an email to vendors that might have been considered reassuring under other circumstances. "We are writing to inform you [that] room service and catering services will continue as is. All collateral is still functional," the email read. "We appreciate your loyalty to sticking with us through these times."

The trouble was, Butler's roughly 1,000-person workforce had been laid off just days earlier. In fact, most were told that the company had been dissolved -- according to interviews TechCrunch had with a number of former employees, and corroborated in a report last week by industry blog Restaurant Dive.

Butler’s downfall is a cautionary tale both of the opportunities and challenges that exist in the world of on-demand startups. There may be clear gaps in the market for services that appear in theory like easy sailing. Yet they can inevitably be buffeted by economic, social and, in recent times, extreme public health headwinds. And amidst all that, those working there are the first to go over.

On-demand delivery

New York-based Butler was founded in 2016 as a "ghost kitchen" operator with a simple business model. Butler would lease a hotel kitchen on one property and use it to provide meal delivery services to in-house guests there and in other, nearby hotels.

Butler founder and CEO Premtim Gjonbalic has experience in the hospitality industry. According to a Forbes profile, he opened his first restaurant in New York City at the age of 19 -- located inside a "big-box" hotel. Gjonbalic is also listed as an advisor to Fast Acquisition Corp., a special-purpose acquisition company that unsuccessfully attempted to take Fertitta Entertainment, a dining, hospitality, and gaming giant, public.

"We are coming in and showing what the experience should be,” Gjonbalic told Crunchbase in a 2020 interview. "You don’t need a cart in the room or a $20 service charge to deliver food. Guests want good packaging, a good menu, price transparency and to be able to track their order. This should have been happening a long time ago."

Butler owned five different restaurant concepts that it staffed, including Standard by Butler (a casual bar and grill), Prime by Butler (an American brasserie) and Super Franc (a Tuscan steakhouse). Hotels could choose which concepts to have available to their guests; Butler handled the integration, experience, menu design and packaging. To customers, it pledged to deliver orders -- including "convenience" items on the side, like chargers and shaving cream -- in under 30 minutes, charged directly to their hotel bill.

After a seed round and bootstrapped funding from Gjonbalic, Butler went on to raise $15 million in Series A contributions from The Kraft Group, &vest, Scopus Ventures and Mousse Partners. The company subsequently raised $30 million from backers including Shamrock Holdings, Maywic Select Investments and Platform Ventures, bringing Butler's total raised to "north of" $50 million.

In a press release issued last October, Butler said that it wanted to more than double its presence to 12 markets in the U.S., with plans to service rooms in cities including Boston, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh (expanding from its bases in New York, New Jersey, Chicago, Miami, Denver, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.). The company said that Hilton, Hyatt, IHG and Marriott were among its more than 400 hospitality partners, which were big gets for the small operation.

But some ex-employees say trouble was brewing behind the scenes.

Signs of instability

Butler no doubt took a hit as the pandemic depressed service and hospitality spending. In April 2020, the company received a $600,000 loan through the Paycheck Protection Program. But Butler, intent on expansion, continued to take on expensive new hotel restaurant leases.

At one point, Butler was offering $500 prepaid Visa cards for every hotel partner successfully referred to it.

"Butler expanded its national footprint in 2021, hoping to capitalize on the travel recovery," Gjonbalic told TechCrunch via email. However, the startup found COVID-19 having both direct and indirect lasting effects, he added, among them labor and supply chain shortages, closed international borders, and continued delays of corporate and group travel.

As travel recovered in late Q1 2022, Butler's challenges didn't go away, with inflation, geopolitical issues (i.e. the war in Ukraine), interest rate hikes and the bigger pressure on tech finance all creating a challenging fundraising environment for the startup. This led to commitments falling through "abruptly," Gjonbalic said.

But Gjonbalic and the rest of the company's senior leaders failed to communicate the severity of the situation, according to ex-staffers who spoke with TechCrunch on the condition of anonymity. Just weeks prior to the mass firings, one ex-employee claims they were told Butler had no cash flow issues and that "the next [financing] round was coming." Another says they were assured that the company's board of directors would give six months of runway regardless of how the next fundraise went.

Some of the complaints have been more public and open. Kelly Buerger, a former launch manager for Butler, filed a class action lawsuit against the company in June alleging that Butler failed to give employees sufficient notice of their termination. Under the New York WARN Act and the federal WARN Act, companies employing 50 or more employees are generally required to give several weeks’ advance notice of mass layoffs.

"Beginning on or about April 22, 2022, and within 90 days therefrom, [Butler] terminated hundreds of its employees," the lawsuit alleges. "[Butler] was required by the WARN Act to give [Buerger] and putative class members at least 60 days advance written notice of their termination ... [Butler also] failed to pay [Buerger] and each of the putative class members their respective wages, salaries, commissions, bonuses, accrued holiday pay and accrued vacation for 60 days following their respective terminations, along with other vested compensation perks during the 60-day period."

Some ex-Butler employees who were promised health benefits through August received an email a week after the dissolution indicating their plans would been terminated early.

Layoffs begin

Butler began taking extraordinary measures to preserve its remaining capital. An employee at one of Butler's hotel customers said the company began discontinuing services and introducing new fees without advanced warning. For example, Butler began charging for deliveries that previously had been free.

Early in the year, there was a round of layoffs at Butler -- fewer than 20 people -- that management described to employees as "a one-time thing." A few weeks later, about 50 people were furloughed in what Butler internally called a response to "challenges."

"We regret to inform you that due to ... circumstances faced by [Butler] resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, including the critical need to conserve our cash resources, we have made the very difficult decision to place you on a temporary furlough," a notice received by one ex-Butler employee reads. "We are hopeful that [Butler's] financial condition will improve, and we hope to recall you from temporary furlough to resume your position with [Butler] by no later than November 9, 2022."

The larger-scale layoffs started in May, shortly after Butler hired a new COO and chief revenue officer. The company dissolved on May 13.

Gjonbalic claims that the board and Butler's legal counsel at Cooley, a Palo Alto-based law firm, explored "several options" to try to save the company, but ultimately decided to shut down and dissolve the company on May 12.

"On May 13, Delaware counsel was retained to assist with the shutdown and to liquidate the business assets and the employees were terminated on May 13," Gjonbalic told TechCrunch in an email. "Butler is not operational. The board agreed ... to shut down the company, but this is not something that happens overnight, so several excess liability hubs were assigned or transitioned back to hotel ownership to assist with accomplishing this as quickly as possible."

Employees laid off during the final round, which included operational staff working at Butler-leased restaurants, were informed in a three-minute Google Meet call. An ex-employee told TechCrunch that services stopped abruptly after the company's dissolution; guests at one hotel with a Butler contract were suddenly unable to order room service.

Vestiges of the company remain. An ex-employee with knowledge of the matter said that people formerly employed by Butler were direct-messaging the company's Instagram account, which remains active, to ask about missing payments. Much of Butler's senior leadership haven't updated their profiles on LinkedIn to reflect the shutdown, and Butler's website makes no mention of it.

"Hotel owners and hotel management companies took over most of [Butler's] lease obligations, and fortunately my dad agreed to assume two of the remaining lease obligations and debts off the company’s hands," Gjonbalic said [in an email to TechCrunch]. "An assignee is in place and he is handling all post-dissolution matters."

Cautionary tale

While an extreme example, Butler is hardly the only food delivery startup to have fallen on hard times recently. Instacart last month slashed its valuation by almost 40% and slowed hiring. Publicly traded DoorDash and Deliveroo have seen their stock prices fluctuate wildly over the past year. Gorillas, Getir, Zapp, Jokr and Gopuff are among other delivery startups that have let go staff in recent months, despite fundraising. And some have been forced to shut down entirely, like Fridge No More, 1520 and Buyk.

Beyond foodtech, stories like Butler's are playing out with increasing frequency as investors tighten their belts, fearing a downturn. As one ex-Butler staffer put it, VC backers maintained an insatiable demand for growth, encouraging expansion that later proved to be foolhardy. Valuations became inflated, which caused unrealistic expectations and changes in direction -- and initiatives.

"Butler is a prime example of what’s happening in tech right now -- except instead of just 20% layoffs, the whole company went under," the staffer said.

PAKISTAN

Sindh orders suspension of coal exploration, mining work in two districts

Move follows death of eight miners due to flooding

Published: July 09, 2022 

Azeem Samar, Correspondent

A man pushes his rickshaw (tuk tuk) through a flooded road during the monsoon season in Karachi, Pakistan July 9, 2022.

Image Credit: Reuters

Karachi: After the tragic death of eight miners due to flooding caused by heavy monsoon rains, the Sindh government has issued orders to immediately halt coal exploration and mining work in two districts of the province.

The Sindh government’s Director-General of Coal Mines Development has issued the orders asking the contractors concerned to suspend coal mining and exploration work in Thatta and Jamshoro districts due to unsuitable weather.

The orders have asked the coal mining companies to adopt all the due safety precautions at the coalfields in addition to suspending the exploration and mining operations.

The provincial government warned that in case of non-compliance the mining permits would be cancelled as per the provisions of Sindh Coal Mining Concession Rules-2022.

The orders were issued on the directives of Sindh Energy Minister, Imtiaz Ahmed Sheikh.

The Sindh government’s Energy Department has in the past promised to improve working conditions of the workers associated with coalfields in Thatta and Jamshoro like the facilities available to labourers associated with the Thar coal mining site in the province.

The coal miners in the two districts often work in highly risky conditions in tunnel mines where accidents during the mining operations often threaten their lives.

The Sindh Energy Minister said that a private company owned the coal mine in the Jhimpir area of Thatta where eight miners had died earlier in the week due to flash flooding after heavy rains.

He said the relevant district administration had been asked to lodge a criminal case against the loss of the precious lives of the coal miners.

Sheikh said that due penal action would be launched against the owner and contractor of the coal mine for showing negligence by them that endangered the lives of the miners.

He said that a probe committee had been formed to investigate the mining tragedy in the Jhimpir area.

The Sindh Energy Minister said the probe committee comprised the DG of Coal Mines Development, the Chief Inspector of the Mines, and representatives of the miners.

He stated that the initial reports received after the tragedy revealed that one of the deceased who had lost his life in the mining tragedy was a 12-year-old boy.

He said the deceased boy was the son of one of the minors who had survived the accident.

Sheikh said the bereaved father of the boy had said that he was present at the mine along with his son as the flooding had caused the boy to fall into the mine.

He maintained that the probe committee would determine whether the account of the accident given by the father of the deceased boy was true or else the boy had already been inside the mine when the flooding occurred as it was a case of child labour related to the coal mining work.

Sindh Chief Minister, Syed Murad Ali Shah, also took cognisance of the death of a boy in the mining tragedy in Jhimpir and asked Sindh Energy Minister to conduct a probe into the incident for taking due action against those responsible if it was proven that it was a case of child labour.

X-FILES Congressman proposes whistleblower protection for UFO spotters

Aaron Foster via Getty Images

Daniel Cooper
·Senior Editor

Fri, July 8, 2022

A UFO-obsessed Republican Congressman has introduced an amendment to the Defense Authorization Act to offer new protection for UFO whistleblowers. Rep. Mike Gallagher has pushed for a new rule to establish a process for receiving reports concerning Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP). It’s hoped that, with these in place, soldiers and contractors will feel more comfortable sharing details of unexplained phenomena they see on the battlefield.

The Drive suggests that this could be a way of resolving the ever-present rumors that the government has evidence of extra-terrestrial life. Those who come forward should feel comfortable that they will not be breaking secrets laws, and will be protected from reprisals. There are some on the UFO speaker circuit, for instance, who say they have proof of alien life but can’t reveal it for fear of imprisonment.

The notion that the US has had secret dealings with alien life is something of a hobby-horse for Gallagher. Back in May, Politico reported that Gallagher used a House Intelligence Committee meeting to needle Pentagon officials about a glowing orb floating over Montana that briefly shut down a nuclear weapons facility in 1967. That story apparently comes from the book Unidentified: The UFO Phenomenon, from former USAF airman Robert Salas. At the time, Pentagon officials denied that there was any secret trove of evidence concerning alien life.

In 2020, the Pentagon released a series of videos that it had received concerning UAPs, showing pilots capturing something moving across their view. But officials added that there was nothing more to share, and that it has not been able to prove to anyone's satisfaction that the events featured are the result of alien incursion

MASS MURDERER

Former Mexican President Echeverria, famed INFAMOUS for role in repression, 

dies at 100

 Former Mexican President Luis Echeverria makes a statement in Mexico City

Sat, July 9, 2022
By Adriana Barrera

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -Former Mexican President Luis Echeverria, who took office in 1970 promising a democratic opening for the country but oversaw six of the harshest years of a so-called "dirty war" against dissidents, has died aged 100.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Twitter confirmed the death on Saturday, expressing his condolences to Echeverria's family.

As an elderly man, Echeverria escaped attempts by Mexican prosecutors to indict him for genocide for his role in two infamous massacres of student protesters in 1968 and 1971 that helped define an era of heavy-handed state repression.

MEXICO'S HIMMLER
Bald and bespectacled, Echeverria denied wrongdoing and said his conscience was clear. He refused to testify about crimes that have not been fully cleared up to this day.

A loyal son of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which ruled Mexico for 71 years until its ousting in a 2000 election, Echeverria believed in preserving the all-encompassing party system that reached into every sphere of public life.

His 1970-1976 presidency was tainted from the outset by accusations that he ordered troops to open fire on thousands of peacefully demonstrating students in the Mexico City area of Tlatelolco on Oct. 2, 1968 while serving as interior minister.

At the time, the government said just 30 people had been killed and injured in the massacre, carried out days before the Olympic Games opened in Mexico City. Some witnesses said many more bodies were carted off from the scene.

Hundreds of students were beaten and jailed after the protest, which occurred when student uprisings were erupting worldwide. A definitive death toll has never been given.

CRACKDOWNS AND ECONOMIC WOES

As interior minister, Echeverria led a group of top officials crafting a response to the student uprisings, according to declassified U.S. government documents.

Keen to wipe the slate clean during his presidency, Echeverria promised a "democratic opening". He released people imprisoned after the massacre and courted the intellectual left, promoting them to prominent positions in government.

But from the late 1960s to early 1980s, activists say PRI security forces were responsible for a brutal campaign against leftist intellectuals and critical journalists, many of whom were killed and disappeared during Echeverria's rule.

On June 10, 1971, the day of the Corpus Christi Catholic celebration, a paramilitary force known as Los Halcones, or The Falcons, attacked a student protest with pistols, rifles, tear gas and batons, killing or wounding dozens of demonstrators.

Born on Jan. 17, 1922 to a middle class family in Mexico City, Echeverria was know for embracing a leftist foreign policy while cozying up to Washington.

U.S. President Richard Nixon was fond of Echeverria.

"He's strong, he wants to play the right games," Nixon said of Echeverria in a recorded conversation with the director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

During his presidency, Echeverria had plans to redistribute lands of the wealthy to peasants and espoused a protectionist economic policy of high tariffs, state intervention and preference for domestic products.

As the public sector ballooned and government borrowing soared, Echeverria alienated the business class, which stopped investing and sent its capital out of the country.

Mexico's foreign debt sextupled and the peso's value almost halved during Echeverria's term in office, leading to a currency devaluation shortly before his term expired.

In 2006, a judge ordered Echeverria to be placed under house arrest for his connection to the student killings.

But in March 2009, a court ruled the army crackdown did not qualify as genocide, and upheld prior rulings that a 30-year statute of limitations for the crimes had expired.

In 2020, after some 10 years out of the public eye, Mexican media photographed Echeverria waiting in a wheelchair to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat and rolling up the sleeve of a lilac-colored shirt for the shot.

(Reporting by Adriana Barrera; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Diane Craft)

Luis Echeverria, former Mexican president blamed for political killings, dies at age 100


By —E. Eduardo Castillo, Associated Press
By —Mark Stevenson, Associated Press

 Jul 9, 2022 3:42 PM EDT

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Former Mexican President Luis Echeverria, blamed for some of Mexico’s worst political killings of the 20th century, has died at the age of 100, current President Andrés Manuel López Obrador confirmed Saturday.

In his Twitter account, López Obrador sent condolences to Echeverria’s family and friends “in the name of the government of Mexico,” but did not express any personal sadness about the death. López Obrador did not provide a cause of death for Echeverria, who governed Mexico from 1970 to 1976.

Echeverria had been hospitalized for pulmonary problems in 2018.

In 2005, a judge ruled Echeverria could not be tried on genocide charges stemming from a 1971 student massacre depicted in the Oscar-winning movie “Roma.”

READ MORE: What does López Obrador’s win in Mexico mean for the U.S.?

The judge ruled that Echeverria may have been responsible for homicide, but could not be tried because the statute of limitations for that crime expired in 1985.

In 1971, students set out from a teacher’s college just west of the city center for one of the first large-scale protests since hundreds of demonstrators were killed in a far larger massacre in 1968. They didn’t get more than a few blocks before they were set upon by plainclothes thugs.

The main female characters in “Roma” are depicted as incidental witnesses to the slaughter when they go to buy baby furniture at a store near the scene. Unwittingly they run across the protagonist’s sometime boyfriend, who is depicted as participating in the repression.

“Roma” won the Oscar for best foreign language film.

Echeverria had battled respiratory and neurological difficulties in recent years.

In 2004, he became the first former Mexican head of state formally accused of criminal wrongdoing. Prosecutors linked Echeverria to the country’s so-called “dirty war” in which hundreds of leftist activists and members of fringe guerrilla groups were imprisoned, killed, or simply disappeared without a trace.

A motion filed by special prosecutor Ignacio Carrillo asked a judge to issue an arrest warrant against Echeverria on genocide charges in the two student massacres: first for the 1968 killings at the Tlatelolco plaza, when Echeverria was interior secretary.

On Oct. 2 1968, a few weeks before the Summer Olympics in Mexico City, government sharpshooters opened fire on student protesters in the Tlatelolco plaza, and soldiers posted there opened fire. Estimates of the dead have ranged from 25 to more than 300. Echeverria had denied any participation in the attacks.

According to military reports, at least 360 government snipers were placed on buildings surrounding the protesters.

READ MORE: In blow to Biden, Mexican president to skip Summit of the Americas

In March 2009, a federal court in Mexico upheld a lower court’s ruling that Echeverria did not have to face genocide charges for his alleged involvement in the 1968 student massacre, and ordered his absolute freedom.

While few people in Mexico mourned the passing of Echeverria, Félix Hernández Gamundi — a 1968 student movement leader who was in Tlatelolco plaza on the day of the massacre, and who saw his friends gunned down — mourned what might have been.

“The death of ex-president Luis Echeverría is regrettable, becuse it occurred in total silence, because despite his his very long life, Luis Echeverria never decided to come clean about his actions,” Hernández Gamundi said.

“Of course we don’t mourn his death,” he said. “We mourn the opacity he displayed his entire life and his decision never to make an accounting, to always take advantage of his immense political and economic power that he enjoyed for the rest of his life.”

“He delayed for a long time the inevitable process of democracy that began in 1968,” Hernández Gamundi said. “October 2 marked the beginning of the end of the old regime, but it took many years afterward.”

Echeverria’s death came as his Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI — which ruled Mexico with an iron hand for seven decades, before losing power for the first time in the elections of 2000 — is losing what little power it still had, discredited and riven by internal scandals and disputes.

Born on Jan. 17, 1922, in Mexico City, Echeverria received a law degree from Mexico’s Autonomous National University in 1945.

Shortly afterward, he began his political career with PRI. He later held posts in the navy and Education Department, advanced to chief administrative officer of the PRI and organized the presidential campaign of Adolfo Lopez Mateos, who served as Mexico’s leader from 1958-64.

In 1964, under then-President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz, Echeverria was rewarded with the position of interior secretary, overseeing domestic security. He held that position in 1968, when the government cracked down on student pro-democracy protests, apparently worried they would embarrass Mexico as the host of the Olympics that year.

Echeverria left the interior post in November 1969, when he became the PRI’s presidential candidate.

He won that race, and was sworn in on Dec. 1, 1970, supporting the regimes of Cuba’s Fidel Castro and leftist Salvador Allende in Chile.

After Allende was assassinated in 1973 during a bloody coup led by Gen. Augusto Pinochet, Echeverria opened Mexico’s borders to Chileans fleeing Pinochet’s dictatorship.

READ MORE: Mexico’s drug war fought with drones, human shields, gunships

Echeverria traveled the world promoting himself as a leader and friend of leftist governments. But within Mexico, he was developing a reputation for cracking down on dissent and guerrilla groups.

According to Carrillo, the prosecutor who tried to charge him, Echeverria “was the master of illusion, the magician of deceit.”

Juan Velásquez, the lawyer who defended Echeverria, said the ex-president died at one of his homes, but did not specify a cause.

“I told Luis that even though nobody — not him, not me, not his family — wanted him to go on trial, in the end it was the best thing that could have happened,” because the charges were dropped, Velásquez said.

In his later years, Echeverria tried to project himself as an elder statesman, and a few times— when his health permitted — held forth unrepentantly before journalists. But he mainly lived in reclusive retirement at his sprawling home in an upscale Mexico City neighborhood.

Mexican prosecutors allege that Echeverria ordered an elite force of plain-clothes state fighters known as the “Halcones,” or “Falcons,” to attack suspected government enemies. It was that group that participated in the beating or shooting deaths of 12 people during the student demonstration on June 10, 1971.

Despite decades of calls by activists and opposition politicians for justice, Echeverria never spent a day in jail, though he was briefly declared under a form of house arrest.

One in five people rely on wild species for income and food, UN report confirms

Human exploitation and climate change are undermining many benefits of natural world, IPBES study finds


A protest outside the Victoria state parliament in Melbourne, Australia against proposed new laws that include harsh penalties for citizens who enter logging sites to protest. 

Photograph: William West / AFPBy Kevin O'SullivanSat Jul 9 2022 - 05:00

Human exploitation in combination with climate change is undermining the enormous benefits billions of people across the planet derive from wild species, a UN report has found.

The increasing strain on wild species of plants, animals, microbes and algae also means global biodiversity loss is accelerating, according to the report released on Friday by Ipbes, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.

One in five people rely on wild species for food and income, while humans use 50,000 wild species to meet their needs every day, it adds.

Iphes — whose research is on a par with IPCC reports on climate change — previously established that 1 million species were threatened with extinction, many within decades.

Its latest evaluation details how billions of people in developed and developing countries benefit daily from use of wild species “for food, energy, materials, medicine, recreation, inspiration and many other vital contributions to human wellbeing”.

“The accelerating global biodiversity crisis, with a million species of plants and animals facing extinction, threatens these contributions to people,” it warns.

The assessment report on sustainable use of wild species is the result of four years’ work by 85 leading experts from the natural and social sciences, holders of indigenous and local knowledge, and 200 contributing authors. Its summary was approved this week by representatives of the 139 member states of Ipbes, including Ireland, in Bonn, Germany.

It calls for a transformative change in human-nature relationships, whereby sustainable use of wild species is achieved and “biodiversity and ecosystem functioning are maintained while contributing to human wellbeing”.

One in five people rely on wild plants, algae and fungi for their food and income; 2.4 billion rely on fuel wood for cooking— Dr Marla R Emery

“With about 50,000 wild species used through different practices, including more than 10,000 wild species harvested directly for human food, rural people in developing countries are most at risk from unsustainable use, with lack of complementary alternatives often forcing them to further exploit wild species already at risk,” said Dr Jean-Marc Fromentin who co-chaired the assessment.

“One in five people rely on wild plants, algae and fungi for their food and income; 2.4 billion rely on fuel wood for cooking; and about 90 per cent of the 120 million people working in capture fisheries are supported by small-scale fishing,” noted co-chair Dr Marla R Emery. “But the regular use of wild species is extremely important not only in the Global South. From the fish that we eat, to medicines, cosmetics, decoration and recreation, wild species’ use is much more prevalent than most people realise.”

Some 70 per cent of the world’s poor are directly dependent on the products of nature including 7,500 species of wild fish and aquatic invertebrates, 31,100 species of wild plants including trees and fungi, 1,700 species of wild land-based invertebrates, and 7,500 species of wild amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals.

Wild tree species account for two thirds of global industrial roundwood; trade in wild plants, algae and fungi is a billion-dollar industry, and even non-extractive uses of wild species are big business, it finds. Tourism, based on observing wild species, is one of the main reasons that — before the Covid-19 pandemic — protected areas globally received 8 billion visitors and generated US$600 billion annually.


On fishing, Dr Fromentin said: “Recent global estimates confirm about 34 per cent of marine wild fish stocks are overfished and 66 per cent are fished within biologically sustainable levels — with significant local and contextual variations.”

Global estimates confirm about 34 per cent of marine wild fish stocks are overfished. 

Photograph: Koen van Weel / ANP / AFP

The report calls for a fixing of current inefficiencies; reducing illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing; suppressing harmful financial subsidies; supporting small-scale fisheries; adapting to changes in oceanic productivity due to climate change; and proactively creating effective transboundary institutions.

Countries with robust fisheries management have seen stocks increasing in abundance, it concludes. The Atlantic bluefin tuna population has been rebuilt and is now fished within sustainable levels, it confirms. For countries and regions with low intensity fisheries management measures, however, the status of stocks is often poorly known, but generally believed to be below the abundance that would maximise sustainable food production. —

“Many small-scale fisheries are unsustainable or only partially sustainable, especially in Africa for both inland and marine fisheries, and in Asia, Latin America and Europe for coastal fisheries.”

The report says climate change, increasing demand and technological advances — making many extractive practices more efficient — “are likely to present significant challenges to sustainable use in the future”.

The Atlantic bluefin tuna population has been rebuilt and is now fished within sustainable levels, the report confirms. Photograph: David Morrissey

“Overexploitation is one of the main threats to the survival of many land-based and aquatic species in the wild,” said co-chair Prof John Donaldson. “Addressing the causes of unsustainable use and, wherever possible reversing these trends, will result in better outcomes for wild species and the people who depend on them.”

The survival of an estimated 12 per cent of wild tree species is threatened by unsustainable logging, while unsustainable gathering is one of the main threats for several plant groups, notably cacti, cycads and orchids, and unsustainable hunting has been identified as a threat for 1,341 wild mammal species — with declines in large-bodied species that have low natural rates of increase also linked to hunting pressure.

It identifies drivers such as land- and seascape changes, climate change, pollution and invasive alien species that impact the abundance and distribution of wild species, and can increase stress and challenges among the human communities that use them. Global trade in wild species has expanded substantially in volume, value and trade networks over the past four decades, it warns.

While trade in wild species provides important income for exporting countries, offers higher incomes for harvesters, and can diversify sources of supply to allow pressure to be redirected from species being unsustainably used, “it also decouples the consumption of wild species from their places of origin”, it says.

Without effective regulation across supply chains — from local to global — global trade of wild species generally increases pressures on wild species, leading to unsustainable use and sometimes to wild population collapses as seen with the shark fin trade.

The authors find illegal trade in wild species represents the third largest class of all illegal trade — with estimated annual values of up to US$199 billion — with timber and fish making up the largest volumes and value under this heading.

UK

Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi announces ambition to be the next Prime Minister

The former education secretary pledged to lower taxes, boost defence spending, and continue with school reforms

Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi announced his candidacy to become Prime Minister on Saturday (Photo: Reuters/ Phil Noble)

By Natalie Chalk

July 9, 2022 

Newly-appointed Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi has thrown his hat into the ring for Tory leader, joining his predecessor Rishi Sunak, and becoming the second Cabinet minister to declare their ambition in the space of an hour, early on Saturday evening.

The former education secretary becomes the third serving Government minister to kick off their campaign for the leadership, after Grant Shapps and Attorney General Suella Braverman declared their intentions.

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said that after “careful consideration” and discussion with colleagues and family, he would not stand to be party leader and the next prime minister.

In addition to ex-minister Kemi Badenoch and senior Tory Tom Tugendhat have launched their own bids, with further announcements expected.

Foreign Secretary Liz Truss is widely expected to stand, while other potential front-runners include trade minister Penny Mordaunt and former health secretaries Sajid Javid and Jeremy Hunt.

MORE ON TORY LEADERSHIP

'Boy from Baghdad' Nadhim Zahawi to pitch to become next PM as tax cutting, unity candidate09 July, 2022

Launching his campaign, Mr Zahawi pledged to lower taxes for individuals, families and business, boost defence spending, and continue with education reforms that he started in his previous role.

Born in Iraq to a Kurdish family, the new Chancellor came to the UK as a nine-year-old when his parents fled the regime of Saddam Hussein.

Believed to be one of the richest politicians in the House of Commons, he helped found polling company YouGov after studying chemical engineering at University College London.

He has often said that his own personal backstory has deeply influenced his view of Britain and he recently spoke of the debt he owed poet Philip Larkin as he improved his English as a teenager.

He has had something of a tumultuous week – first being promoted to Chancellor following Mr Sunak’s resignation on Tuesday, then defending Boris Johnson during a gruelling broadcast round on Wednesday, before publicly calling for him to stand down on Thursday morning.

In his bid for leader, Mr Zahawi said: “My aim is a simple one: to provide the opportunities that were afforded to my generation, to all Britons, whoever you are and wherever you come from. To steady the ship and to stabilise the economy.

“Thanks to Brexit, we are now a free nation. Let’s not just talk about the opportunities that follow, let’s take them.

“If a young boy, who came here aged 11 without a word of English, can serve at the highest levels of Her Majesty’s Government and run to be the next prime minister, anything is possible.”

He added that he wants to “focus on letting children be children, protecting them from damaging and inappropriate nonsense being forced on them by radical activists”.

Mr Sunak announced his bid for leader on Twitter on Friday afternoon, saying: “Let’s restore trust, rebuild the economy and reunite the country.”

Additional reporting by Press Association

Was Shinzo Abe's assassin motivated by religious 'cult' that backs right-wing politicians?
Bob Brigham
July 09, 2022

Official White House photo by Shealah Craighead.

With media in Japan refusing to report key details about what motivated alleged assassin Tetsuya Yamagami to shoot former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the people of Japan are taking to social media to fill in the gaps.

Jeffrey Hall, special lecturer in Japanese studies at Japan’s Kanda University of International Studies, noted the growing online speculation that the group in question is the Unification Church, officially now known on the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification that was founded by Sun Myung Moon, whose members are known colloquially as "Moonies."

“Japanese society is generally suspicious towards newer religious groups, the word ‘cult’ will be used quite often,” Hall told The Globe and Mail newspaper. “This kind of reporting, which may be motivated by a desire to prevent discrimination or by a desire to prevent an unfair impact on the election, could ultimately lead to a backlash against whatever group this person is affiliated with and possibly others that are just similar."

In his 2021 address, Trump mentioned the right-wing Washington Times newspaper.

On Saturday, media in Japan reported for the first time that the suspect said, "I targeted Abe because he's friendly with the Unification Church."