Cree singer reflects on 'speaking the law' to Pope Francis


Pope Francis visits Alberta

Fri, July 29, 2022 
By Anna Mehler Paperny

TORONTO (Reuters) - A Cree woman who captured global attention with her anguished song before Pope Francis on Monday said she was moved to do so when he donned a gifted feathered headdress without first removing his skullcap - something she saw as disrespectful.

Si Pih Ko, a Cree woman from Manitoba, stood in her beaded regalia and belted out an ancient Cree song - "Our village" - with a rhythm similar to the Canadian national anthem as tears streamed down her face.

"He didn’t remove his law before allowing our law to be placed on his head," she told Reuters by phone from Winnipeg, adding the pope could have given the headdress back instead.

Shaking with emotion, Si Pih Ko, 45, ended her song with a statement on indigenous law, fist raised, before turning her back and walking away.

As she sang, Francis stood and watched. The pontiff is in Canada to apologize to indigenous people for abuse in government schools run by the Roman Catholic church.

The poignancy of singing before the pope in a language priests and nuns beat indigenous children for speaking was not lost on her, Si Pih Ko said.

"It felt good, being able to just sing it and speak it. And he could not destroy it in me."

She said she had wanted to be at the event in Maskwacis, Alberta, not to hear the pope's apology but "to have that opportunity to speak the law to him. No apology will ever make things right."

She said she knew she would be "speaking the law" to the pope somehow, but added: "I didn't think it would be right in the centre, hand up like that."

She said that in her mind as she sang were the indigenous women, men and children who would never come home.

"Everyone who lost their lives fighting against the system, with all odds against them, that’s who I was there for."

(Reporting by Anna Mehler Paperny; Editing by Daniel Wallis)

Pope: Canadian residential schools were cultural 'genocide'





Pope Francis speaks to journalists aboard the papal flight back from Canada Saturday, July 30, 2022, where he paid a six-day pastoral visit. Pope Francis wrapped up his Canadian pilgrimage by meeting with Indigenous delegations and visiting Inuit territory in northern Nunavut. In one of his addresses, he assailed the Catholic missionaries who "supported oppressive and unjust policies" against Native peoples in the country's notorious residential schools and vowed to pursue truth and healing. (Guglielmo Mangiapane/ Pool via AP)


NICOLE WINFIELD
Sat, July 30, 2022 

ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE (AP) — Pope Francis agreed Saturday that the attempt to eliminate Indigenous culture in Canada through a church-run residential school system amounted to a cultural “genocide.”

Speaking to reporters while en route home from Canada, Francis said he didn’t use the term during his trip to atone for the Catholic Church’s role in the schools because it never came to mind.

Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission determined in 2015 that the forced removal of Indigenous children from their homes and placement in the residential schools to assimilate them constituted a “cultural genocide.”

Some 150,000 children from the late 1800s to the 1970s were subject to the forced assimilation policy, aimed at making them fully Christian and Canadian. Physical and sexual abuse were rampant at the schools, and children were beaten for speaking their Native languages.

“It’s true I didn’t use the word because it didn’t come to mind, but I described genocide, no?” Francis said. “I apologized, I asked forgiveness for this work, which was genocide.”

Francis said he repeatedly condemned the system that severed family ties and attempted to impose new cultural beliefs as “catastrophic” to generations of Indigenous peoples.

In the main apology of his Canada trip, delivered Monday, Francis spoke of “cultural destruction,” but he didn’t use the term “cultural genocide” as some school survivors had hoped and expected.

“It’s a technical word, ‘genocide.’ I didn’t use because it didn’t come to mind, but I described that, and it’s true it’s a genocide,” he said Saturday.

___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Mexican manufacturing tumbles as price hikes bite


Fri, July 29, 2022 

A worker walks past storage silos at the ALIPEC animal feed factory on the outskirts of Guadalajara

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico's manufacturing sector declined in July, with demand for the country's goods hit by inflation after a long pandemic-driven downturn, a survey showed on Friday, despite hopes for a recovery.

The seasonally adjusted S&P Global Mexico Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) fell to 48.5 in July from 52.2 in June.

Aside from a brief hiatus in May and June, Mexico's PMI has lingered below the 50-point threshold that separates growth from contraction since March 2020. It hit a record low of 35.0 in April 2020 during the initial enactment of the country's COVID-19 containment measures.

The data showed a July drop in factory orders and lower sales, with pressure from drought, input shortages and inflation.

The drop in manufacturing output also prompted a marginal drop in employment for the first time in four months.

"Companies are now reporting trepidation over their financials, a factor which restricted input buying and led to the non-renewal of temporary contracts," said Pollyanna De Lima, economics associate director at S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Business confidence also dropped, with almost one-quarter of those polled predicting output levels would continue to fall in the coming 12 months, De Lima added.

"Solvency concerns, alongside supply-chain constraints, the war in Ukraine and acute price pressures stifled business confidence in July."

Mexico's central bank announced a record interest rate increase last month if an effort to control inflation, with more hikes expected.

(Reporting by Isabel Woodford; Editing by David Alire Garcia and William Mallard)

Mali and Burkina Faso: Did the coups halt jihadist attacks?


Natasha Booty - BBC News
Sat, July 30, 2022 

Many Malians welcomed the coups following months of anti-government protests

Widespread anger at chronic insecurity in the West African countries of Mali and Burkina Faso paved the way for military men to kick out failing governments over the past two years.

"There's no more room for mistakes," said Mali's coup leader as he seized power in August 2020.

"We have more than what it takes to win this war," echoed Burkina Faso's new man in charge earlier this year.

So are citizens now more safe?

The short answer is, no.

In both countries, attacks by Islamist militants on civilians have only increased. The same is true of civilian deaths - more ordinary people are being killed by Islamists, militants and the military.

Burkina Faso graph showing the rise of civilian deaths and Islamist attacks on civilians

"The tallies for each year are increasing year by year," says Héni Nsaibia, a senior researcher covering West Africa's Sahel region for the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project (Acled).


Data supplied to the BBC by Acled in June compares the 661 days before and after Mali's coup in August 2020, and the 138 days before and after Burkina Faso's coup in January 2022.

To gather this data Acled relies on a network of "informants and professionals" as well as media reports, but Mr Nsaibia says tracking violence is particularly hard in the Sahel because of "Russian-driven disinformation, and the states themselves often feed the media with fake reports to make them appear more successful than they really are".

Russia, which backs Mali's junta, has consistently denied such allegations in the past. The Mali and Burkina Faso governments have not responded to BBC requests for comment.

One of the deadliest months on record was March 2022. Acled says 790 civilians were killed in Mali.

Mali graph showing the rise of civilian deaths and Islamist attacks on civilians

Some of these civilians were killed by militants from the local branch of the Islamic State group in Ménaka, according to Acled, and there were other smaller attacks. But the vast majority were civilians massacred in the town of Moura by the Malian army, rights groups agree.

"According to multiple reports, the Malian army and Russian mercenaries entered Moura looking for what they claimed was a meeting of jihadist leaders. They attacked civilians and the UN claims that they killed towards 500 civilians in a three-day period," says International Crisis Group (ICG) Sahel project director, Richard Moncrieff.

Malian authorities have denied that any civilians were killed in Moura, saying only Islamist militants died. It has since refused access to the UN for an investigation into the deaths, and launched its own instead.

"This is a classic problem, sometimes referred to as the issue of the 'missing dead'," says Mr Nsaibia of Acled. "State-sanctioned violence goes unreported, but sometimes even framed as being perpetrated by someone else."

He says unreliable media coverage presents a key obstacle, as do the often remote, rural locations of such attacks in countries in the Sahel - plus "there is a prevailing fear among communities about speaking out".

In some instances the lines between state actor and civilian militia can seem blurred too - Burkina Faso in particular has a tradition of armed community militias, Mr Moncrieff says, for whom the government created an official role in 2020.

Such militias in the Sahel are increasingly being called upon to face down the jihadist threat, but are often outgunned and outnumbered. Some have also been accused of committing violent abuses against civilians.
'Clandestine armies'

Malian authorities are fully in control of as little as 15% of the country's territory, according to a recent UN report. Meanwhile in Burkina Faso only about 60% of the country is under state control, says the West African regional bloc Ecowas.

Islamist militants in Mali and Burkina Faso have a huge amount of firepower, analysts say.

"It's warfare between an army and a clandestine army" and in large swathes of these countries "the staying power of the state is not there", argues political scientist Abdourahmane Idrissa, based at the University of Leiden.

In Burkina Faso as well as Mali, Islamists engage in "classic asymmetric warfare," says ICG's Mr Moncrieff, "where they don't take control of any cities. They do increasingly encircle cities and cut them off in order to flex their muscles, and otherwise have become very rural."

One of the catalysts for January's coup in Burkina Faso was a brazen raid in which jihadists killed 57 gendarmes at camp in Inata, in the north of the country. The gendarmes had resorted to scavenging for food before the attack, after their requests for rations and more ammunition went unheeded.

"It was a shock - almost a whole unit was wiped out - and they died in conditions everybody thought were deplorable," former Burkinabè soldier-turned-analyst Mahamoudou Sawadogo tells the BBC.

Since then under the new junta, Mr Sawadogo says, the armed forces have been promised better conditions, more resources plus an anti-terrorism strategy review - "but that hasn't fixed the problem".

"Attacks are on the up, there's more violence against civilians and more territorial control has been lost to armed groups - so the putschists' strategy isn't adequate against the threat," he adds.

Structural changes to unify Burkina Faso's armed forces under a single command have also failed, says Mr Sawadogo.
'Exploiting the void'

Neighbouring Mali, with its longer history of insurgency, is not faring any better.

It has been the epicentre of Islamist violence in the Sahel for the past decade, with jihadists enabling ethnic Tuareg rebels to seize control of much of the north in 2012.

French troops were called in to tackle the insurgency the following year, with Malians initially welcoming the intervention by its former coloniser. But after nine years they are leaving Mali after falling out with junta, and Mali has also decided to quit the multi-national G5 Sahel force that was jointly created to fight the jihadists.

As the French-led Barkhane force has shifted the central hub of its anti-jihadist operation to Niger, militants from Islamic State in the Greater Sahara have "exploited the void left behind" to wage "unprecedented levels of violence" in the regions of Menaka and Gao, according to Mr Nsaibia.

Some analysts say that the Mali junta's activities since taking power - including hiring troops from Russian security contractor Wagner and buying a large number of arms from Russia - have failed for lack of coherent strategy.

"The army is now more active - the massive corruption that prevented them from being more active has been gotten rid of - but that doesn't mean that they are now more in control," argues Mr Idrissa.

Mr Moncrieff agrees that since the start of the year Mali's army has been taking "a much more front-foot approach and taken the fight to the jihadist groups", probably because they feel "emboldened by the support of Russian mercenaries and an influx of weapons - much of them from Moscow".

"The reports indicate that they've managed to secure some areas at least for some sustained periods and pushed jihadist groups out," he adds.

Mali denies the presence of Russian military contractors in the country, yet both parties are accused by rights groups of committing abuses and massacres of civilians, and Acled tells the BBC that violence against civilians has "skyrocketed" since Russian involvement began in December.

In many cases the civilians killed by Malian forces belong to the Fulani ethnic group, who they regard as the main social base from which the Islamists recruit, and sometimes civilians are targeted on simple suspicion of having collaborated with militants, analysts tell the BBC.

Mali, however, has consistently denied this.

IS and al-Qaeda's JNIM are both active in the Sahel region where they compete for power

In recent years as their influence has waned in the Middle East, the Islamic State group and al-Qaeda have increasingly focused their efforts on the Sahel.

They have exploited existing tensions in communities, says Mr Moncrieff, with "climate change and declining agricultural resource adding to that very violent mix".

"It's a vicious circle," he adds, with "people being excluded from their fields by insecurity, when that makes them more likely to join groups that are either jihadist in nature or simply criminal gangs who aim to steal cattle and so forth."

The spread of jihadist violence from northern to central Mali over the past seven years, and its emergence in Burkina Faso in the last two years, has implications elsewhere in West Africa.

"We also see it in the coastal states, especially Benin, and more recently Togo," says Mr Nsaibia.

"So far it's only really Ghana that has been untouched, so to speak, even though there are strong indications that militant groups are using Ghanaian territory as a place of rest and recuperation."
'A last resort'

Many people in Sahelian countries who are desperate for solutions do believe that military governments can handle insecurity better than democratically elected ones, but analysts warn that this popular support could soon sour.

"We're living through this now in Burkina Faso and in Mali," says Mr Sawadogo. "Any involvement of the army in political affairs worsens the nation's social and security situation... It's a last resort. Every coup in Burkina Faso has set back the country's progress."

"Acclaim fades when people become aware that the army in power have no greater leverage in peripheral areas than civilian governments," agrees Mr Moncrieff.

It is a view shared by Niger's President Mohamed Bazoum - who withstood a coup attempt days before his official swearing-in - as well as by Ghana's President and Ecowas leader Nana Akufo-Addo, who told the BBC in April that "the initial evidence doesn't point to the fact that Mali is doing anything better about the insecurity and the fight against the jihadists than the civilian government."

So how can Burkina Faso and Mali bring about lasting change?

"Better management and organisation of their security forces, and better management of the electoral processes in their countries," suggests ICG's Mr Moncrieff.

"The main lesson is that you need to have a plan - whether you are a military or a civilian power - because the civilian government also didn't have this," says political scientist Mr Idrissa.

Shows of military might, such as raids and crackdowns on armed groups, are ultimately not enough to establish the staying power of the state, he adds. For that you need a reformed state, able to keep control of its territory.

For now, the basic safety that military leaders had promised the people of Burkina Faso and Mali seems a long way off.

Is Danish king who gave name to Bluetooth buried in Poland?
 

The 10th century golden Curmsun disc with the name of Danish King Harald “Bluetooth“ Gormsson (Curmsun in Latin) on it, coming from a tomb at the Roman Catholic church in Wiejkowo, Poland, photographed in Malmo, Sweden, in 2015. The Bluetooth wireless link technology is named after the king. More than 1,000 years after his death in what is now Poland, a Danish king whose nickname is known to the world through the Bluetooth technology is at the center of an archeological dispute. 

(Sven Rosborn via AP)

MONIKA SCISLOWSKA
Sun, July 31, 2022 

WIEJKOWO, Poland (AP) — More than 1,000 years after his death in what is now Poland, a European king whose nickname lives on through wireless technology is at the center of an archaeological dispute.

Chronicles from the Middle Ages say King Harald “Bluetooth” Gormsson of Denmark acquired his nickname courtesy of a tooth, probably dead, that looked bluish. One chronicle from the time also says the Viking king was buried in Roskilde, in Denmark, in the late 10th century.

But a Swedish archaeologist and a Polish researcher recently claimed in separate publications that they have pinpointed his most probable burial site in the village of Wiejkowo, in an area of northwestern Poland that had ties to the Vikings in Harald's times.

Marek Kryda, author of the book “Viking Poland,” told The Associated Press that a “pagan mound” which he claims he has located beneath Wiejkowo's 19th-century Roman Catholic church probably holds the king's remains. Kryda said geological satellite images available on a Polish government portal revealed a rotund shape that looked like a Viking burial mound.

But Swedish archaeologist Sven Rosborn, says Kryda is wrong because Harald, who converted from paganism to Christianity and founded churches in the area, must have received an appropriate grave somewhere in the churchyard. Wiejkowo's Church of The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary stands atop a small round knoll.



Historians at the Danish National Museum in Copenhagen say they are familiar with the “suggestion” that Wiejkowo is Harald's burial place.

Rosborn detailed his research in the 2021 book ”The Viking King's Golden Treasure" and Kryda challenged some of the Swede's findings in his own book published this year.

Harald, who died in 985, probably in Jomsborg — which is believed to be the Polish town of Wolin now — was one of the last Viking kings to rule over what is now Denmark, northern Germany, and parts of Sweden and Norway. He spread Christianity in his kingdom.

Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson named its Bluetooth wireless link technology after the king, reflecting how he united much of Scandinavia during his lifetime. The logo for the technology is designed from the Scandinavian runic letters for the king's initials, HB.

Rosborn, the former director of Sweden's Malmo City Museum, was spurred on his quest in 2014 when an 11-year-old girl sought his opinion about a small, soiled coin-like object with old-looking text that had been in her family's possession for decades.

Experts have determined that the cast gold disc that sparked Maja Sielski's curiosity dated from the 10th century. The Latin inscription on what is now known as the “Curmsun disc” says: “Harald Gormsson (Curmsun in Latin) king of Danes, Scania, Jomsborg, town Aldinburg."

Sielski's family, who moved to Sweden from Poland in 1986, said the disc came from a trove found in 1841 in a tomb underneath the Wiejkowo church, which replaced a medieval chapel.

The Sielski family came into the possession of the disc, along with the Wiejkowo parish archives that contained medieval parchment chronicles in Latin, in 1945 as the former German area was becoming part of Poland as a result of World War II.

A family member who knew Latin understood the value of the chronicles — which dated as far back as the 10th century — and translated some of them into Polish. They mention Harald, another fact linking the Wiejkowo church to him.

The nearby Baltic Sea island and town of Wolin cultivates the region's Viking history: it has a runic stone in honor of Harald Bluetooth and holds annual festivals of Slavs and Vikings.

Kryda says the Curmsun disc is “phenomenal” with its meaningful inscription and insists that it would be worth it to examine Wiejkowo as Harald's burial place, but there are no current plans for any excavations.

A view of a 2014 stone with runic inscription in memory of Danish 10th century King Harald “Bluetooth” Gormsson, in Wolin, Poland, Saturday, July 30,2022. More than 1,000 years after his death in what is now Poland, a Danish king whose nickname is known to the world through the Bluetooth technology is at the center of an archeological dispute. A Polish researcher and a Swedish archeologist claim that they have pinpointed the probable burial site for King Harald Bluetooth Gormsson in a small village in northwestern Poland, an area that once had ties with the Vikings. (AP Photo Monika Scislowska)

MONOPOLY CAPITALI$M
EXPLAINER: Bid to block book merger sets competition fight


Book Publishers Antitrust Explainer

FILE - Stephen King poses for a photo May 22, 2018, at the 2018 PEN Literary Gala in New York. The government and publishing titan Penguin Random House are set to exchange opening salvos in a federal antitrust trial Monday, Aug. 1, 2022, as the U.S. seeks to block the biggest U.S. book publisher from absorbing rival Simon & Schuster. The government’s “star” witness will be Stephen King, the renowned and genre-transcending author whose works are published by Simon & Schuster. 

Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision

MARCY GORDON
Sat, July 30, 2022

WASHINGTON (AP) — At a time of mega-mergers and flashy high-tech corporate hookups, the biggest U.S. book publisher’s plan to buy the fourth-largest for a mere $2.2 billion may seem somewhat quaint. But the deal represents such a key test for the Biden administration's antitrust policy that the Justice Department is calling an out-of-the-ordinary witness to The Stand: author extraordinaire Stephen King.

In Penguin Random House’s proposed acquisition of rival Simon & Schuster, which would reduce the “Big Five" U.S. publishers to four, the administration is burnishing its antitrust mettle and its fight against corporate concentration.

The Justice Department has sued to block the merger. The trial opens Monday in federal court in Washington.

The government contends the merger would hurt authors and, ultimately, readers, if German media titan Bertelsmann is allowed to buy Simon & Schuster from U.S. media and entertainment company Paramount Global. It says the deal would thwart competition and give Penguin Random House gigantic influence over which books are published in the U.S., likely reducing how much authors are paid and giving consumers fewer books to choose from.

An appearance at some point by King, whose works are published by Simon & Schuster, will be a highly unusual for an antitrust trial and will draw wide attention.

The publishers are fighting the lawsuit. They counter that the merger would strengthen competition among publishers to find and sell the hottest books. It would benefit readers, booksellers and authors, they say.

A look at the case:

PUBLISHING HEAVYWEIGHTS:

The two New York-based publishers each have impressive stables of blockbuster authors who’ve sold multiple millions of copies and have scored multimillion-dollar deals. Within Penguin Random House’s constellation are Barack and Michelle Obama, whose package deal for their memoirs totaled an estimated $65 million, Bill Clinton (he received $15 million for his memoir), Toni Morrison, John Grisham and Dan Brown.

Simon & Schuster counts Hillary Clinton (she received $8 million for hers), Bob Woodward and Walter Isaacson.

And King. His post-apocalyptic novel “The Stand," published in 1978, swirled around a deadly pandemic of weaponized influenza.

Bruce Springsteen split the difference: His “Renegades: Born in the USA," with Barack Obama, was published by Penguin Random House; his memoir, by Simon & Schuster.

___

THROWING THE BOOKS AT THEM

The Justice Department contends in its suit that as things now stand, No. 1 Penguin Random House and No. 4 Simon & Schuster (by total sales) compete fiercely to acquire the rights to publish the anticipated hottest-selling books. If they are allowed to merge, the combined company would control nearly 50% of the market for those books, it says, hurting competition by reducing advances paid to authors and diminishing output, creativity and diversity.

The Big Five — the other three are Hachette, HarperCollins and Macmillan — dominate U.S. publishing. They make up 90% of the market for anticipated top-selling books, the government’s court filing says. “The proposed merger would further increase consolidation in this concentrated industry, make the biggest player even bigger, and likely increase coordination in an industry with a history of coordination among the major publishers,” it says.

The Justice Department case reaches beyond the traditional antitrust concern of concentration raising prices for consumers, pointing to the impact on consumers’ choices and viewing authors as workers as well as sellers of products in the global marketplace of ideas. The notion is that fewer buyers (publishers) competing over the same talent pool reduces sellers’ (authors) bargaining power.

The case “potentially creates a precedent that could be used in the labor area," says Rebecca Allensworth, an antitrust expert who is a law professor at Vanderbilt University.

___

BIDEN’S COMPETITION CRUSADE

The Biden administration is staking out new ground on business concentration and competition, and the government's case against the publishers’ mergers can be viewed as an important step.

President Joe Biden has made competition a pillar of his economic policy, denouncing what he calls the outsized market power of an array of industries and stressing the importance of robust competition to the economy, workers, consumers and small businesses. He has called on federal regulators, notably the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission, to give greater scrutiny to big business combinations.

Biden issued an executive order a year ago targeting what he labeled anticompetitive practices in tech, health care, agriculture and numerous other parts of the economy, laying down 72 actions and recommendations for federal agencies. Targets range from hearing aid prices to airline baggage fees.

Another trial on competition starting Monday in federal court: The Justice Department is suing to block UnitedHealth Group, which runs the biggest U.S. health insurer, from acquiring health-tech company Change Healthcare. The government contends the $13 billion deal would hurt competition and put too much health care claim information in the hands of one company.

___

PUBLISHERS MAKE THEIR CASE

Hold on, Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster say as they prepare to enter trial: The merger would actually strengthen competition among publishers to find and sell the hottest books, by enabling the combined company to offer greater compensation to authors.

It would benefit readers, booksellers and authors, the publishers say, by creating a more efficient company that would bring lower prices for books. The government has failed to show harm to consumers as readers because the merger wouldn’t push up prices, the companies contend.

“The U.S. publishing industry is robust and highly competitive,” they say in their filing. “More readers are reading books than ever before, and the number grows every year. Publishers compete vigorously to reach those readers, and the only way they can compete effectively is to find, acquire and publish the books readers most want to read. ... The merger at issue in this case will encourage even more competition and growth in the U.S. publishing industry.”

The companies reject the government’s central focus on the market for anticipated best-selling books — defined as those acquired for advances to authors of at least $250,000. They represent only a tiny sliver, about 2%, of all books published by commercial companies, according to the companies’ filing.

___

Follow Marcy Gordon at https://www.twitter.com/mgordonap

Inside the super-secure Swiss lab trying to stop the next pandemic





Biosafety Laboratory in Spiez


Sun, July 31, 2022 
By Jennifer Rigby

SPIEZ, Switzerland (Reuters) - The setting is straight from a spy thriller: Crystal waters below, snow-capped Swiss Alps above and in between, a super-secure facility researching the world's deadliest pathogens.

Spiez Laboratory, known for its detective work on chemical, biological and nuclear threats since World War Two, was tasked last year by the World Health Organization to be the first in a global network of high-security laboratories that will grow, store and share newly discovered microbes that could unleash the next pandemic.

The WHO's BioHub program was, in part, born of frustration over the hurdles researchers faced in getting samples of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, first detected in China, to understand its dangers and develop tools to fight it.

But just over a year later, scientists involved in the effort have encountered hurdles.

These include securing guarantees needed to accept coronavirus variant samples from several countries, the first phase of the project. Some of the world's biggest countries might not cooperate. And there is no mechanism yet to share samples for developing vaccines, treatments or tests without running afoul of intellectual property protections.

"If we have another pandemic like coronavirus, the goal would be it stays wherever it starts," Isabel Hunger-Glaser, head of the BioHub project at Spiez, told Reuters in a rare media interview at the lab. Hence the need to get samples to the hub so it can help scientists worldwide assess the risk.

"We have realised it's much more difficult" than we had thought, she said.

SAFETY IN THE MOUNTAINS

Spiez Lab's exterior provides no hint of the high-stakes work inside. Its angular architecture resembles European university buildings erected in the 1970s. At times, cows graze on the grassy central courtyard.

But the biosafety officer in charge keeps his blinds shut. Alarms go off if his door is open for more than a few seconds. He monitors several screens showing security camera views of the labs with the greatest Biosafety Level (BSL) precautions.

SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing COVID, is studied in BSL-3 labs, the second-highest security level. Samples of the virus used in the BioHub are stored in locked freezers, said Hunger-Glaser. A system of decreasing air pressure means clean air would flow into the most secure areas, rather than contaminated air flowing out, in a breach.

Scientists working with coronavirus and other pathogens wear protective suits, sometimes with their own air supply. They work with samples in a hermetically sealed containment unit. Waste leaving the lab is super-heated at up to 1,000 degrees Celsius (1,830 F) to kill pathogens clinging to it.

To date, Spiez has never had an accidental leak, the team say. That reputation is a key part of why they were chosen as the WHO's first BioHub, said Hunger-Glaser.

The proximity to WHO headquarters, two hours away in Geneva, helped too. The WHO and Swiss government are funding the annual 600,000 Swiss franc ($626,000) budget for its first phase.

Researchers have always shared pathogens, and there are some existing networks and regional repositories. But the process is ad hoc and often slow.

The sharing process has also been controversial, for instance when researchers in wealthy countries get credit for the work of less well-connected scientists in developing nations.

"Often you just exchanged material with your buddies," said Hunger-Glaser.

Marion Koopmans, head of the Erasmus MC Department of Viroscience in the Netherlands, said it took a month for her lab to get hold of SARS-CoV-2 after it emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019.

Chinese researchers were quick to post a copy of the genetic sequence online, which helped researchers begin early work. But efforts to understand how a new virus transmits and how it responds to existing tools requires live samples, scientists said.

EARLY CHALLENGES

Luxembourg was the first country to share samples of new coronavirus variants with the BioHub, followed by South Africa and Britain.

Luxembourg sent in Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta variants, while the latter two countries shared Omicron, WHO said.

Luxembourg got Omicron samples from South Africa, via the hub, less than three weeks after it was identified, enabling its researchers to start assessing the risks of the now-dominant strain. Portugal and Germany also received Omicron samples.

But Peru, El Salvador, Thailand and Egypt, all of which signalled in early 2022 that they wanted to send in variants found domestically, are still waiting, chiefly because it is unclear which official in each country should provide the necessary legal guarantees, Hunger-Glaser said.

There is no international protocol for who should sign the forms providing safety details and usage agreements, she added. None of the four countries responded to requests for comment.

Both WHO and Hunger-Glaser stressed the project is a pilot, and they have already sped up certain processes.

Another challenge is how to share samples used in research that could lead to commercial gain, such as vaccine development. BioHub samples are shared for free to provide broad access. However this throws up potential problems if, for example, drugmakers reap profits from the discoveries of uncompensated researchers.

WHO plans to tackle this longer-term, and bring labs in each global region online, but it is not yet clear when or how this will be funded. The project's voluntary nature may also hold it back.

"Some countries will never ship viruses, or it can be extremely difficult – China, Indonesia, Brazil," said Koopmans, referring to their stance in recent outbreaks. None of the three responded to requests for comment.

The project also comes amid heightened attention on labs worldwide after unproven claims in some Western countries that a leak from a high-security Wuhan lab may have sparked the COVID-19 pandemic, an accusation China and most international scientists have dismissed.

Hunger-Glaser said the thinking around emerging threats must change post-COVID-19.

"If it is a real emergency, WHO should even get a plane" to transport the virus to scientists, she said.

"If you can prevent the spreading, it's worthwhile."

(Reporting by Jennifer Rigby; Editing by Michele Gershberg and Nick Macfie)

Ford adds battery capacity, LFP chemistry to scale global EV business


Jaclyn Trop
July 21, 2022·


Ford said Thursday it has shored up its battery supply chain as part of its global strategy to sell more than 2 million EVs annually by 2026.

The automaker, which is investing $50 billion to scale its battery-electric portfolio through 2026, said it plans to boost battery capacity, shorten its supply chain and use lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries for some of its EVs. LFP batteries are a less expensive cell chemistry growing in popularity among automakers competing for share in the burgeoning EV segment.

Ford said the moves will help it remain on track to meet its short-term goal of ramping up EV production to 600,000 units by 2023 and 2 million units by 2026. The company said it has sourced 70% of battery capacity to meet its 2026 sales target so far.

Meeting its EV production goals could require about 8,000 job cuts, according to unnamed sources cited by Bloomberg.

Executives did not address layoffs directly during a briefing with analysts and media Thursday but said that speed and agility is crucial for Ford’s battery-electric Model e division. Cutting out bureaucracy means they can close deals in days, rather than months, said Lisa Drake, vice president of EV industrialization at Ford Model e.

“Believe it or not to move fast in this space, smaller is better,” she said. “A smaller team can move faster than a larger team.”

Lithium iron phosphate batteries

Ford said it will begin incorporating LFP batteries into its portfolio while continuing to use the nickel cobalt manganese (NCM) chemistry currently powering its EVs. As the cheaper alternative, LFP presents a potential path for the mass EV market, according to analysts.

CATL, the world’s largest battery supplier, will provide LFP battery packs for Ford Mustang Mach-E SUVs in North America starting next year, followed by F-150 Lightning pickup trucks in early 2024.

LFP batteries provide cost advantages over NCM but are less powerful due to their lower energy density. The chemistry may seem a puzzling choice to underpin two of Ford’s most muscular models, but “these standard-range batteries offer customers many years of operation with minimal loss of range after many charge cycles,” Drake said. “That benefits owners who need to charge often, like our commercial customers.”

Using LFP will help reduce Ford’s reliance on scarce critical minerals such as nickel and cobalt, while trimming 10 to 15% from its battery materials costs, according to Drake.

The company declined to say how many of its EVs will use LFP chemistry but said it has signed non-binding MOUs with lithium suppliers Liontown Resources and Rio Tinto.

Batteries have become VC and PE’s most electric investment opportunity

Battery suppliers

Ford also said it has upped its contracts with NCM battery suppliers in order to meet its late-2023 production target. LG Energy will double its NCM battery capacity to supply Ford’s Mach-E and E-Transit van.

SK On has increased production at its Georgia facility to supply Ford with more NCM cells. It will also supply additional battery packs from its factory in Hungary to power the F-150 Lightning and E-Transit through 2023.

That’s in addition to the deal Ford and SK On closed last week to create an $11.4 billion joint venture to build and operate the Blue Oval City complex in Stanton, Tennessee, and two EV battery plants in Glendale, Kentucky.

Ford also announced Thursday a non-binding agreement with CATL to explore partnering on LFP batteries in Chinese and European markets.

Raw Materials

As Ford scales its EV production, it must reinvent its supply chain by sourcing raw battery materials directly, according to executives.

“Battery cell manufacturing capacity is the foundation of our EV business,” Drake said. “We have direct-sourced our lithium and nickel to scale battery production more quickly and keep the volumes and the cost more stable over time.”

The automaker said Thursday it has sourced most of the nickel it needs through 2026 and it has signed non-binding MOUs with mining partners including Vale Canada, PT Vale Indonesia, Huayou Cobalt and BHP.

LIKE EVEREST BEFORE IT

There Are Conga Lines and Huge Crowds on K2 Now

The “Savage Mountain” saw its busiest day ever earlier this week, as more than 100 climbers reached the summit

Ben Ayers

Jul 28, 2022

On July 21 at 10:45 P.M. Pakistan time, five climbers stood on the summit of 28,251-foot K2. They were the first mountaineers to reach the peak’s top during the 2022 summer climbing season, after spending more than 24 hours battling their way to the summit. For Pasdawa Sherpa, Chhiring Namgyal Sherpa, Siddhi Ghising, Dorjee Gyelzen Sherpa, and Rinji Sherpa, turning around wasn’t an option, as hundreds of climbers further down on the mountain were relying on their work. This team of elite high-altitude workers from Nepal had fixed a series of ropes that would be later used by climbers waiting in cramped tents at Camp 4.

By the time the rope fixers began their descent, a horde of climbers was already working its way towards the summit, leading to what was to become the most crowded day on the peak.

One of the climbers ascending the mountain was Nepali guide Mingma Gyalge Sherpa, better known as Mingma G, who captured a video on Instagram that was quickly circulated around the globe. The video showed dozens of climbers waiting in a so-called “conga line” on the mountain’s infamous bottleneck couloir at 26,900 feet.

“Many of the climbers were expected to go to the summit on 20 and 21 July but there was no route fixed to the summit until 21 July at night so everyone made the summit push for July 22, that made the traffic jam,” Mingma G said in a WhatsApp message.

The scene marked a historic moment for K2, long called the “savage mountain” in climbing circles. In previous decades, K2 was off-limits to all but the most seasoned mountaineers due to its extreme danger and steepness. Now, K2 has exploded in popularity, driven by a generation of paying clients that seek a greater challenge than Mount Everest, and a coterie of expedition operators who specialize in getting climbers to the top—regardless of the dangers found along the way.

By the end of the day on July 22, well over 100 climbers had reached K2’s summit, which is notorious for brutal weather and a high fatality rate. In the ensuing days, this number continued to rise. As of Thursday morning, 145 climbers have notched the summit since July 21, a figure that has added 30 percent more total summits to the mountain’s tally since it was first climbed nearly 70 years ago. Prior to the historic day, just 302 people had stood on the summit.

But this bonanza on the mountains produced the cringe-worthy moment on the bottleneck, and other scenes of crowding.

“I never thought this would happen on K2,” said Himalayan Database director and mountaineer, Bili Bierling, when she saw Mingma G’s video.

The bottleneck is notorious for danger. In February, 2021 it claimed the lives of three elite mountaineers: Muhammad Ali Sadpara, John Snorri, and Juan Pablo Mohr. The deaths sent shockwaves through the mountaineering community. In the video, the line of climbers stood below a soaring wall of seracs that are known to send tons of ice crashing down the mountain at irregular intervals. The video also echoes a viral photo shared by Nirmal ‘Nims’ Purja in 2019 of an overcrowded Everest summit ridge. While in Purja’s photo the climbers are stacked on an open ridge and surrounded by blue skies, on K2 the traffic jam was positioned directly beneath the dangerous seracs.

The video generated more than 200 comments, and a simmering debate about the mountain’s popularity this year. “K2 is not Everest—it cannot be commercialized like this. What a pity,” read one comment on the video.

Pemba Sherpa, the founder of 8K Expeditions, a leading Nepali outfitter, told Outside that the increase in climbers this year was due to multiple dynamics, among them pent-up demand that occurred during the pandemic.

“So many people are on the way to climb 14 peaks,” Pemba said. “And so many people were stopped because of COVID and the financial downturn. Now, in 2022…. people are coming to K2.”

Pemba estimated there to be more than 200 total permits for the mountain this year. But he downplayed the danger caused by the crowding on the mountain. The conga line at the bottleneck was a large group that had been traveling together, and not a queue of disparate teams trying to reach the top.

“Two hundred people on a mountain of that size will get spread out,” he said. “The issue is when everyone wants to climb on the same day.”

When asked about his video, Mingma G echoed Pemba’s sentiment, saying that his company has seen a steady increase in interest for guiding on K2 in recent years. “Since 2017, we have seen summits every year on K2. It wasn’t like this previously,” he said. “And COVID-19 also increased the number of climbers on K2.”

Thanks to a patch of unusually stable weather in the Karakoram, summits on K2 have continued throughout the week. Notable ascents include Pasdawa Sherpa who, as part of the rope fixing team, became the fastest person to summit the five tallest peaks on the planet.

Norwegian climber Kristin Harila notched the eighth peak on her quest to climb all 14 peaks over 8,000 meters in six months and to draw attention to the role of women in high-altitude mountaineering. To prove her point, three women summited without the use of supplemental oxygen—Grace Teng from Taiwan, Andorran climber Stefi Troguet, and He Jing from China.

Huge crowds may be the norm on some of the world’s highest peaks this year. Thanks to a recent report by German archivist Eberhard Jurgalski on his blog 8000ers.com, that offered convincing evidence that the vast majority of recent ascents of Manaslu (26,781 feet) were, in fact, a few meters below the actual summit, operators in Nepal are expecting a wave of climbers to return to the mountain this fall. Sources told Outside that they expect to see several hundred climbers on that peak later this fall.

“For my company alone, we have 50 clients already signed up.” said Pemba Sherpa. “Everyone is coming to repeat Manaslu.”

How Aleister Crowley, the Infamous Occultist, Led the First ...

https://www.openculture.com › 2018/08 › aleister-crow...

Aug 16, 2018 — After the failed K2 attempt, he would only make one more daring expedition with Eckenstein, in 1905, a climb up the Himalayan mountain of ...

K2 | First Attempt | 1902 Expedition - Altitude Pakistan

http://altitudepakistan.blogspot.com › K2

Nov 30, 2012 — Aleister Crowley was a crazy soul; an occultist with queer views on subjects of magic and faith. Eckenstein was a member of Martin Conway's 1892 ...

1905 Kanchenjunga expedition - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › 1905_Kanchenjunga_...

In April 1905 he proposed his plans to the British occultist Aleister Crowley, with whom he had participated in Oscar Eckenstein's K2 expedition in 1902.

Legends Series: Aleister Crowley - Explorersweb »

https://explorersweb.com › legends-series-aleister-crowley

Jun 11, 2020 — Legends Series: Aleister Crowley. June 11, 2020 Ash Routen Climbing | Expeditions | Himalaya | K2 | Mountain | Mountaineering.

TIL Aleister Crowley climbed up K2, reaching an altitude of ...

https://www.reddit.com › alpinism › comments › til_ale...

Sept 20, 2015 — TIL Aleister Crowley climbed up K2, reaching an altitude of 6,100m before he and his climbing companions decided to turn back. In 1903. A link to his writings ...

English occultist, poet, and novelist Aleister Crowley bathing ...

Jul 4, 2017

Pictures of Crowley's 1902 expedition on K2 : r/thelema - Reddit

Aug 30, 2015

More results from www.reddit.com