Escape from Foxconn: Workers recount Covid chaos at iPhone factory

Thu, November 3, 2022 

Zhang Yao recalls the moment he realised something had gone deeply wrong at the Chinese mega-factory where he and hundreds of thousands of other workers assembled iPhones and other high-end electronics.

In early October, supervisors suddenly warned him that 3,000 colleagues had been taken into quarantine after someone tested positive for Covid-19 at the factory.

"They told us not to take our masks off," Zhang, speaking under a pseudonym for fear of retaliation, told AFP by telephone.

What followed was a weeks-long ordeal including food shortages and the ever-present fear of infection, before he finally escaped on Tuesday.

Zhang's employer, Taiwanese tech giant Foxconn, has said it faces a "protracted battle" against infections and imposed a "closed loop" bubble around its sprawling campus in central China's Zhengzhou city.

Local authorities locked down the area surrounding the major Apple supplier's factory on Wednesday, but not before reports emerged of employees fleeing on foot and a lack of adequate medical care at the plant.

China is the last major economy committed to a zero-Covid strategy, persisting with snap lockdowns, mass testing and lengthy quarantines in a bid to stamp out emerging outbreaks.

But new variants have tested officials' ability to snuff out flare-ups and dragged down economic activity with the threat of sudden disruptions.

- Desperation -

Multiple workers have recounted scenes of chaos and increasing disorganisation at Foxconn's complex of workshops and dormitories, which form a city-within-a-city near Zhengzhou's airport.

Zhang told AFP that "positive tests and double lines (on antigen tests) had become a common sight" in his workshop before he left.

"Of course we were scared, it was so close to us."

"People with fevers are not guaranteed to receive medicine," another Foxconn worker, a 30-year-old man who also asked to remain anonymous, told AFP.

"We are drowning," he said.

Those who decided to stop working were not offered meals at their dormitories, Zhang said, adding that some were able to survive on personal stockpiles of instant noodles.

Kai, a worker at in the complex who gave an interview to state-owned Sanlian Lifeweek, told the magazine Foxconn's "closed loop" involved cordoning off paths between dormitory compounds and the factory, and complained he was left to his own devices after being thrown in quarantine.

TikTok videos geolocated by AFP showed mounds of uncollected rubbish outside buildings in late October, while employees in N95 masks squeezed onto packed shuttle buses taking them from dormitories to their work stations.

A 27-year-old woman working at Foxconn, who asked not to be named, told AFP a roommate who tested positive for Covid was sent back to her dormitory on Thursday morning, crying, after she decided to hand in her notice while in quarantine.

"Now the three of us are living in the same room: one a confirmed case and two of us testing positive on the rapid test, still waiting for our nucleic acid test results," the worker told AFP.

Many became so desperate by the end of last month that they attempted to walk back to their hometowns to get around Covid transport curbs.

As videos of people dragging their suitcases down motorways and struggling up hills spread on Chinese social media, the authorities rushed in to do damage control.

The Zhengzhou city government on Sunday said it had arranged for special buses to take employees back to their hometowns.

Surrounding Henan province has officially reported a spike of more than 600 Covid cases since the start of this week.

- Distrust -

When Zhang finally attempted to leave the Foxconn campus on Tuesday, he found the company had set up obstacle after obstacle.

"There were people with loudspeakers advertising the latest Foxconn policy, saying that each day there would be a 400 yuan ($55) bonus," Zhang told AFP.

A crowd of employees gathered at a pick-up point in front of empty buses but were not let on.

People in hazmat suits, known colloquially as "big whites" in China, claimed they had been sent by the city government.

"They tried to persuade people to stay in Zhengzhou... and avoid going home," Zhang said.

"But when we asked to see their work ID, they had nothing to show us, so we suspected they were actually from Foxconn."

Foxconn pointed to the local government's lockdown orders from Wednesday when asked by AFP if it attempted to stop employees from leaving, without giving any further response.

The company had on Sunday said it was "providing employees with complimentary three meals a day" and cooperating with the government to provide transport home.

Eventually, the crowd of unhappy workers who had gathered decided to take matters into their own hands and walked over seven kilometres on foot to the nearest highway entry ramp.

There, more people claiming to be government officials pleaded with the employees to wait for the bus.

The crowd had no choice as the road was blocked.

Buses eventually arrived at five in the afternoon -- nearly nine hours after Zhang had begun his attempt to secure transport.

"They were trying to grind us down," he said.

Back in his hometown, Zhang is now waiting out the home quarantine period required by the local government.

"All I feel is, I've finally left Zhengzhou," he told AFP.

iPhone factory lockdown shows risks

of China dependence, analysts say

Sébastien RICCI

Thu, November 3, 2022 

The lockdown of Foxconn's Zhengzhou factory, the world's biggest producer of iPhones, has highlighted some of the risks of relying on zero-Covid China's manufacturing sector, analysts told AFP.

Foxconn, Apple's principal subcontractor, has seen a surge in Covid-19 cases at its Zhengzhou site, leading the company to lock down the vast complex in a bid to keep the virus in check.

Images then emerged of panicking workers fleeing the site on foot in the wake of allegations of poor conditions at the facility, which employs hundreds of thousands of workers.

Foxconn is China's biggest private sector employer, with over a million people working across the country in its around thirty factories and research institutes.

But Zhengzhou is the Taiwanese giant's crown jewel, churning out iPhones in quantities not seen anywhere else.

"In a normal situation, almost all the iPhone production is happening in Zhengzhou," said Ivan Lam, an analyst with specialist firm Counterpoint.

- Risk of 'strong dependence' -

Apple manufactures more than 90 percent of its products in China, which is also one of its most important markets.

"For Apple, it is once again a bad example in terms of the stability of production chains," Alicia Garcia Herrero, Asia-Pacific manager for Natixis bank, told AFP.

Experts say the company’s heavy dependence on China "brings potential risks, especially when the US-China trade war shows no signs of de-escalating," according to Dezan Shira & Associates, a consulting firm.

Opened in 2010, the Zhengzhou factory employs up to 300,000 people who live on-site all year round  -- creating a sprawling tech hub known as "iPhone city".

It is made up of three factories, one of which produces the iPhone 14 -- Apple's newest handset model.

Apple did not respond to AFP's request for comment on how exactly the lockdown will affect its production.

Analyst Lam estimates the partial stopping of work at the site resulted in a loss of "10 to 30 percent" of output, but said part of the production has also been temporarily moved to other Foxconn sites in China.

According to Foxconn, the site is currently operating a "closed loop" with the workers avoiding all contact with the outside world, while their daily bonuses have been quadrupled.

"This incident may have a limited impact," on worldwide iPhone production, estimated analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who specialises in Apple products.

"But suppliers in China must learn to improve closed-loop production efficiency in response to the zero-Covid policy," he added.

- Looking elsewhere -

China is the last major economy committed to a zero-Covid strategy, persisting with snap lockdowns, mass testing and lengthy quarantines in a bid to stamp out emerging outbreaks.

But new variants have tested local officials' ability to snuff out flare-ups faster than they can spread, causing much of the country to live under an ever-changing mosaic of Covid curbs.

Apple has already begun outsourcing part of its production to India and is eyeing Vietnam in a bid to wean itself off Chinese manufacturing -- a trend accelerated by Covid.

But that's not so simple -- last year, nearly 7.5 million iPhones were made in India, just three percent of Apple's total production.

"Increasing the capacity of factories (in India) is difficult," Lam said.

The biggest iPhone factory in the world just got locked down, but some workers managed to escape days ago


VCG/VCG via Getty 

Prarthana Prakash

Wed, November 2, 2022 

China’s “COVID-zero” policy has led to numerous lockdowns, supply-chain nightmares, and the slowing of its economy.

But the country is sticking with it. And after several COVID cases were reported by Bloomberg, China is locking down the largest iPhone manufacturing plant in the world for seven days to try to curb the spread of the disease, Bloomberg reported Wednesday after the local government announced it over WeChat.

The lockdown announcement comes days after reports that several workers have fled for fear of getting trapped. One worker identified by Zhuo by the Washington Post said that he and 200 other people made a break for it while the company was still operating as a “closed loop,” or contained bubbles to minimize virus exposure, but not fully locked down. He climbed a seven-foot wall and walked several miles before someone gave him a ride home.

Foxconn quadrupled daily bonuses for those deployed at the factory to 400 yuan ($55) a day from 100 yuan in an effort to get them to stay, Reuters reported Tuesday, citing Foxconn’s official WeChat account.

The factory employs 200,000 people, earning it the nickname “iPhone city,” and workers who test positive for COVID will be forced into mandatory isolation, Bloomberg reported.

The area near Foxconn Technology’s plant in Zhengzhou has been cleared of vehicles and people who were not medical or other essential workers. The city reported 359 cases on Tuesday—a threefold jump from a day earlier.

A lockdown means that Foxconn employees will not be allowed to go in and out of the factory for work until at least Nov. 9. The plant will continue to operate in a bubble, according to Bloomberg. However, it is unclear how Foxconn will facilitate production with fewer workers than usual.

Foxconn did not immediately return Fortune’s request for comment.

The Taiwanese company Hon Hai Precision Industry owns the Zhengzhou plant, which alone produces four out of five of Apple’s most recent iPhone models.

The lockdown will likely hurt the production and shipment of iPhones in the lead-up to the holiday season. In September, Apple also launched its new line of handsets, the iPhone 14. During its fourth-quarter earnings call last Thursday, the company said the supply for its new model was constrained. The upcoming holidays will be critical for Apple as more consumers seek to buy gadgets at this time of year.

To address the gap in supply, Foxconn is reportedly increasing production at another factory in Shenzhen, according to Reuters. It has implemented closed loops to minimize virus exposure in March and July this year at another factory location in China.

Workers have been frustrated with the strict measures; many have taken to social media to talk about it. Foxconn denied rumors about the death of its employees in its dormitory, Bloomberg reported Tuesday.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Yet another lockdown in China will test the world’s biggest iPhone factory’s “closed loop” management system

Ananya Bhattacharya
Wed, November 2, 2022

The industrial park that houses Foxconn’s main iPhone plant in China’s Zhengzhou is going into a strict lockdown for a week.

As covid-19 cases rise in and around the iPhone maker’s factory, the government is barring citizens from leaving their homes from Nov. 2-9. No vehicles, except those ferrying essentials, will be allowed on the road.

Read more

• 3 ways to reduce invisible labor for women at work

• 36 ways to build a family-friendly culture

Technically, the iPhone factory can’t let workers or parts for assembly in and out.

The measure isn’t entirely surprising: Curbs to contain covid-19 have been closing in on the industrial area for weeks now. Any signs of restrictions lifting in the capital of the Henan province have been dismissed as performative by locals who have been grappling with violent enforcement, inadequate health care, and mental stress.

But Foxconn has tried to maintain the illusion that it’s been business as usual. Workers, equipped with masks and sanitizers, continue their work under a “closed-loop” management system—they live and work in the factory complex. But is it really working?

Foxconn’s workers are in distress

The larger sacrifice of residing and working on site wasn’t the end of workers’ woes:

🍲For a couple weeks, Foxconn banned all dine-in at canteens, requiring workers to take their meals in their dormitories. It provided three meals free of charge daily, but it wasn’t always in prime condition

🚪Workers could only take a few routes across the complex since many entrances were shut

🤒Foxconn apparently didn’t pay much heed to those affected by the virus. There was no food or medicine provided, and employees who tested positive were isolated in nearby unfinished apartment buildings, according to China Labor Watch

🏃While the factory claims it has been arranging transport for workers who want to go home, videos on social media show employees lugging suitcases and jumping fences. The fear of lockdown and unsafe working conditions has been compelling thousands to flee.

Foxconn’s Zhengzhou iPhone factory, by the digits

200,000: Workers in the Zhengzhou plant; the largest iPhone production site in the world, of which around have have reportedly left

45%: Share of Foxconn’s revenues that come from Apple

80%: Foxconn’s Zhengzhou facility is responsible for the bulk of the iPhone 14 series production, according to Counterpoint senior analyst Ivan Lam.

10%: Share of global iPhone production hit when the Zhengzhou factory abruptly adopted its “closed-loop” strategy, according to TF International Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo

30%: Apple’s iPhone production to slump in November due to lockdown restrictions

400 yuan ($55): Daily bonuses for Foxconn employees have quadrupled from 100 yuan, according to the official WeChat account of Foxconn’s Zhengzhou plant

25 miles: How far one worker walked to flee the lockdown

Unknown: How many employees have been infected, how many new cases are occuring in the factory, and how many—if any—have received treatment

China’s zero-covid strategy is hurting business

To contain the resurgence of Covid, the Chinese government has given cities the power to adopt snap lockdowns, mass testing, and lengthy quarantines. To reduce the impact of the sudden and drastic measures, several businesses from battery factories to ports have adopted closed loop systems. Drone maker DJI and automaker BYD also jumped on the bandwagon. Ahead of the holiday season, Foxconn has adopted the strategy to keep production running, too.

Besides siloing off workers in covid-hit areas, Foxconn is also trying to make up for the loss in production in Zhengzhou with its factories elsewhere, like Shenzhen. Foxconn’s India plant could’ve been another option, but it’s a much smaller-scale operation.

Regardless, Apple, a trillion dollar behemoth, can likely stomach the production slowdown. But not all businesses can.

Several companies are bogged down by productivity losses. The world’s factory keeps shutting and reopening parts, hurting economic activity across industries and across the world. Players in retail, food and beverage, tourism, and more, are suffering because of the constant uncertainty, too.

The mounting protests, anti-lockdown graffiti, and altercations with the police are proof the public is irate about not being able to resume normal life, like much of the rest of the world.

Related stories

📱Apple’s manufacturing moves away from China are a drop in the ocean

🦠 Why China won’t give up on zero-covid in 2022

🇮🇳 Will Apple ever make new iPhone models in India before it does in China?

Solar power, farming revive Tunisia school as social enterprise

Friday 4 November 2022 

The project at Tunisia's Makhtar boarding school is aimed at generating income and opening pupils' minds to the outside world
AFP | FETHI BELAID

MAKTHAR - Most Tunisian schools are cash-strapped and run down, but an innovative project has allowed one to become self-sustaining by generating its own solar power and growing its own food.

Today the man behind the initiative hopes the success of the rural Makthar boarding school can serve as a model to improve the crumbling public school sector in the small North African nation.

Entrepreneur Lotfi Hamadi, 46, founder of the "Wallah (Swear to God) We Can" non-profit group, grew up in France but moved to Tunisia after the 2011 revolution that overthrew dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

Based in Tunis, the hospitality consultant set his sights on the school, located in a remote and poor region 170 kilometres (100 miles) southwest of the capital and close to his parents' hometown of Kesra.

"I wanted to take what works in the business world and turn schools into social enterprises," said Hamadi, whose parents were economic migrants to France who could not read or write.

"We're not trying to fill the gap left by the education system but to compensate them a bit, teach them to learn, give them the curiosity to open up to the world," he said about the school's 565 students, most of whom are boarders.

Hamadi started a decade ago by gathering donations to buy 50 solar water heaters -- allowing regular hot showers for the students for the first time -- and 140 photovoltaic panels that produce four times the power consumed on site.

By selling one-third of the surplus back to the national power company, the school could pay back debts to utilities and fund site improvements and extra-curricular activities.

The remaining extra power is distributed for free to three other nearby schools.

Last year, Hamadi's group launched Kidchen, a farmers' cooperative that grows vegetables on around eight hectares (20 acres) of nearby land.

While some produce goes to the school canteen, 90 percent has been sold since this summer, with the profits helping to pay for school activities.

Kidchen is staffed by six school parents, formerly unemployed, and an agricultural engineer, who receive stable incomes and a share of the equity and dividends.

"That pushes us to work harder and produce more," said chief gardener Chayeb Chayeb, a 44-year-old father of three.

"It's a project for ourselves."

- 'Discover opportunities' -

Hamadi said better schooling is urgently needed in the country gripped by years of political instability and economic woes since the revolution.

The situation now is a far cry from the era of Habib Bourguiba, Tunisia's first president after independence from France in 1956, who strongly promoted primary education.

Initially the Arab Spring uprising inspired hopes of greater social and economic rights, but today "75 percent of pupils leave primary school without being able to write two sentences", Hamadi said.

"The education system has been suffering since the revolution... because every government has caved in to pressure from the unions," he said.

As a result, over 95 percent of the ministry's budget goes to paying staff salaries, leaving little for maintenance, schoolbooks and teacher training.

Some 100,000 pupils drop out of the Tunisian school system every year, and many parents, worried about low academic standards in state schools, opt for expensive private tuition.

Chayeb, the chief farmer, said the Makthar model had helped his family and given his children better school meals and activities ranging from business skills and foreign languages to robotics and drama.

"Before, I was a seasonal worker on five- or six-month contracts, always somewhere different," he said. "Now I work near where I live."

Former student Chaima Rhouma, 21 and studying law with a view to becoming a diplomat, said the project had completely revitalised the school, replacing a garbage-strewn yard with a sports field and garden.

Literature, theatre and cinema clubs had filled her with "good vibes", she said. "I've become more curious, I'm always looking for new things. Here you can study by having fun."

The school has gained a reputation in the region and is in high demand, with 80 children now on the waiting list, said its director Taher Meterfi.

Hamadi is meanwhile forging ahead with his next project -- a largely organic 40-hectare farm project to supply the city's 23 schools with energy and food for some 3,500 students.

At a time when Tunisia's crisis is driving many young people to emigrate, he hopes to help children "come to terms with their country and discover the opportunities it has to offer them".

fka/par/jsa/fz/smw

© Agence France-Presse

New Millennium book brings Nordic noir even further north

Viken Kantarci and Alma Cohen
Thu, November 3, 2022 


The latest instalment in the Nordic crime saga Millennium hits Swedish bookstores Friday, with a new author seeking to shift the story's focus to the far north of the country.

Karin Smirnoff, who already had four novels under her belt, is continuing the celebrated series originally created by Stieg Larsson.

His fame came posthumously -- he died in 2004, a year before the release of the first book in the saga, "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo".

"It was quite easy to say yes to the project," Smirnoff told AFP, adding she had a special fondness for rogue hacker Lisbeth Salander, one of the main characters.

The Millennium books were some of the breakout hits of the 21st century. More than 100 million copies were sold, with the titles published in over 50 countries and adapted several times for the cinema.

Larsson, an investigative journalist specialising in extreme right-wing movements, died of a heart attack just after submitting his first three manuscripts.

He would never know the success of his work or enjoy the fortune it generated.
- Controversy -

His partner, Eva Gabrielsson, found herself excluded from the proceeds because they were not married.

The controversy over the inheritance reared its head again years later when the decision was made to write a first batch of sequels after Larsson's death, consisting of three novels by the best-selling author David Lagercrantz.

The author wrote the books with the blessing of Larsson's brother and father, the heirs to his work.

Another two books are planned, but for Smirnoff the goal wasn't to reinvent Larsson's work in the new trilogy.

"I'm trying to continue this with respect to what's been done before," the 58-year-old author said.

But she still aims to put her "own point of view" forward while exploring themes of violence, politics and abuse of power present in the series.

In her opinion, works of art by necessity transcend their creators.

"I don't think that art belongs to anyone in that sense. Because if it was like that, art wouldn't progress at all," she said.

Picking up the pen was to continue "a project which is huge", she said, admitting the mission was "quite a task".

"I know a lot of people, they're thinking that this is only done for money. I don't think that David Lagercrantz did this only for money. I'm not doing it" for money, she said.
- Far north -

The seventh instalment of the grim series, "Havsornens skrik" ("The Cry of the White-tailed Eagle"), is set in Sweden's far north where the adventures of Salander and Mikael Blomkvist will continue.

"I live up in the north of Sweden, so I wanted it to take place here," Smirnoff explained.

Setting the story more than a thousand kilometres north of the capital Stockholm, where most of the previous books have taken place, was also an opportunity to point out the injustices suffered by the region.

The ancestral land of the indigenous Sami people, which holds much of Sweden's natural resources, has been undergoing an industrial boom in recent decades.

Smirnoff notes the region "has a history of people from the south coming here", exploiting its resources and disappearing with the spoils.

Billions are also currently being pumped into the region in so-called green industries.

"With the billions come the problems as well," she told AFP.

Now, Smirnoff awaits readers' judgements.

"It's only like three weeks ago I wrote the last word. So for me, it's too close. I can't decide whether it's a good book," she said.

"It's going to be quite exciting when it's coming out to hear what other people think."

vk-aco/jll/lcm/smw

Gentrification fuels ire in iconic Athens neighbourhood

John HADOULIS
Fri, November 4, 2022 


The historic Athens district of Exarcheia has been a famed anti-establishment haven to some and a hideout for firebomb-wielding anarchists and drug dealers to others.

Now two regeneration projects are sparking controversy, protests and fears that a gentrification drive will forever alter the 19th century district's bohemian character.

Construction is underway on a new metro station on Exarcheia Square -- for years iconic as the culmination point of countless demonstrations in the volatile political culture of the Greek capital.

There is also an ongoing makeover of nearby Strefi Hill, a rare, albeit run-down spot of greenery in congested Athens with a panoramic view.

Protesters say the two projects combined will "kill off" Exarcheia's libertarian spirit.

With discontent bubbling under the surface, multi-million-euro investments at stake and demonstrations, locals now complain that Exarcheia has more police guarding its streets than outside parliament or government offices.

City and government officials are taking no chances in a neighbourhood synonymous to most Greeks with far-left unrest.

Under Strefi Hill, motorcycle police watch a group of teenagers shoot hoops at an outdoor basketball court. Others stand guard around the metro construction site.

- 'Political obsession' -

"We have more police than the prime minister's office," quips 66-year-old Thodoris Kokkinakis, a lifelong Exarcheia resident who says he sees around 200 officers in his neighbourhood at any given time of the day.

Residents accuse city officials of neglecting the heavily graffitied Strefi Hill for over two decades. The local playground is gutted, pathways are eroding, fire hydrants are faulty and there is no garbage collection.

Residents have often banded together in the past to clean up garbage, douse fires and discourage drug trading, Kokkinakis told AFP.

"We would repeatedly call the police. They claimed not to know where the hill was... or never turn up," he said.

While the metro station project has been on the drawing board for over a decade, opponents accuse the conservative government of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis of weaponising the project as part of its law-and-order agenda.

"The government has a political obsession, a vendetta towards youths living or enjoying themselves in this historic district," wrote Nikos Belavilas, an architecture professor at the National Technical University of Athens, on Facebook.

After police in October beat up a protesting resident in front of his children, Greece's main opposition Syriza party said there was an "explosive mix" of "chronic neglect, unchecked real estate and police barbarity" in Exarcheia.

Yet others welcome the extension of the metro line.

- 'Nihilists' -

"The nearest stations are too far to walk," said a 75-year-old Exarcheia pensioner.

"A lot of people here want the metro" but are reluctant to speak openly, she added, declining to give her name to avoid antagonising neighbours who disagree.

Athens Mayor Kostas Bakoyannis, whose office did not respond to an AFP request for an interview, has dismissed protesters as "a few dozen" wandering "nihilists" in comments to Skai TV last August.

He told the municipal council last month that the regeneration project was aimed at "mums with prams".

Greece is banking hard on tourism to shore up its economy ahead of a tough winter compounded by soaring energy prices.

After slashing most of its coronavirus restrictions, tourism arrivals more than doubled year-on-year in the first eight months of 2022, to over 19 million.

But residents fear Exarcheia may soon follow the fate of Koukaki, another historic Athens district that saw rents skyrocket due to short-term property rentals and holiday lets owing to its proximity to the Acropolis.

A study by the Greek realtor group Remax last month showed Exarcheia rents rising on average 18 percent since last year.

- Rent hikes -

"The shop next door had to shut down after the landlord hiked the rent from 600 to 900 euros," says Angelos, a bookstore owner a short distance from Exarcheia Square.

Critics also view with suspicion the awarding, without tender, of the Strefi works to a major Greek real estate investment company.

Athens' mayor -- a nephew of Mitsotakis -- has also drawn fire and comparisons to France's 16th and 17th century spendthrift King Louis XIV over an ambitious pedestrianisation project.

A key part of the 50-million-euro ($49 million) Great Walk project, sold as "Europe's loveliest promenade", involved sealing off a lane on one of Athens' busiest avenues with large palm trees, flower planters and benches.

The mayor has promoted the project, which began in 2020, as necessary to modernise and revitalise downtown Athens. "Fewer cars, more greenery, less noise, more pedestrians and cyclists," he told Kathimerini newspaper last month.

But a year into the four-year project, a survey found in 2021 that over 85 percent of residents and local business owners were dissatisfied with the initiative.

Much of the criticism has been levelled at the cost. According to a municipal budget sheet published at the time, some six-metre palm trees cost 3,200 euros each and the largest planters a hefty 5,000 euros.

jph/jm

THE GREAT REPLACEMENT
Jordan Bardella: heir of France's Le Pen at just 27


Adam PLOWRIGHT
Fri, November 4, 2022 


Jordan Bardella, a self-confident 27-year-old, looks set this weekend to confirm he is the rising star of France's far-right politics and the favoured heir to veteran leader Marine Le Pen.

The Paris-born politician is odds-on to be selected by members of the anti-immigration National Rally (RN) party as their new president at a congress on Saturday. Le Pen decided to step back from the role after 11 years at the helm.

Formerly known as the National Front, the party had been run by Le Pen's father Jean-Marie for 40 years before that.

Bardella would be the first party chief outside the family dynasty in a half-century.


"The fact the party president will not have the name Le Pen is the sign of openness and confidence that Marine has in the new generation," Bardella told AFP during a recent trip to eastern France.

Not that the ultra-loyal protege, who was elected to the European parliament in 2019, is planning to try to overshadow her.

"I am a continuity candidate, with the aim of building on the incredible legacy that Marine is handing over," he added.

He expects and wants Le Pen to take a fourth run at the presidency in 2027 after her record 41.5 percent in April's election run-off against President Emmanuel Macron.


She then fronted the party's parliamentary election campaign in June which saw the RN capture 89 seats, a 10-fold rise making it the biggest opposition party in the national assembly.
- 'Drug dealers' -

His only opponent is Louis Aliot, the mayor of the southwestern city of Perpignan who lacks Bardella's profile despite being a party member for more than 30 years.

Le Pen's 32-year-old niece Marion Marechal, long seen as the long-term family successor, is out of the picture having left the party before the presidential vote to back rival far-right candidate Eric Zemmour.

Bardella has been acting president since September 2021 when Le Pen stepped back, supposedly temporarily.

"He's got everything right and is respected by everyone," far-right MP Laurent Jacobelli told AFP at a mid-October campaign stop at Hayange in the Moselle region.

"And he knows how to make different people work together, so why would we change anything?

At the event, Bardella spoke confidently on stage, without notes, for 40 minutes, sharing details about his childhood on the eighth floor of a drab tower block in the crime-ridden Seine-Saint-Denis area northeast of Paris.

He lived with his mother, an Italian immigrant and single mum.

"Every day from my window and when I entered the building I would see that there were drug dealers checking if you were from the police," he said.

There was also an Islamic school across the road, he said.

"I used to see groups of girls aged five, six or seven leaving with veils over their heads," he added.

Personal harassment and riots in 2005, led by mostly black and north African youths angry about police violence, pushed him to join Le Pen's party aged just 16.

"I got involved in politics very early because I didn't want the whole of France to resemble what I had experienced," he told the crowd.
- 'Jordan, President! -

Bardella likes to stress that he is from a new generation of nationalists with little in common with the racist, anti-Semitic thuggery associated with Jean-Marie Le Pen and the National Front.

Marine Le Pen has gone to great lengths to try to distance herself from this toxic legacy although critics say racism remains rife at the grassroots level and accuse Le Pen of simply spinning old ideas with new language.

Bardella is the image of the clean-cut and controlled modern party that she now promotes: conspicuously neat, always dressed in immaculate shirts, polished shoes, with hair cut short.

"Without Jean-Marie Le Pen, the National Front wouldn't exist, but without Marine it wouldn't still be here," Bardella told AFP. "She transformed it from having a protest culture to having a culture of government."
- 'Step aside' -

Opponents from within the party, including Aliot, have expressed discomfort with an alleged readiness to embrace ideas espoused by Le Pen's far-right rival the pundit Eric Zemmour.

Last year, Bardella came close to embracing Zemmour's mantra of the "Great Replacement", a conspiracy theory that suggests white Europeans are being deliberately replaced by immigrants.

He also hastily backtracked from a plan to attend a demonstration organised by Zemmour's party after the killing of a 12-year-old by an Algerian woman facing expulsion shocked France.

There are also questions over what value the presidency of the RN has for Bardella, given Le Pen formally leads its cohort in parliament and is widely expected to be its presidential candidate in 2027.

But many expect the party position to be a stepping stone.

"At some point Marine will step aside and he's got every chance," said Alice Orsudci, a 52-year-old local business owner watching his campaign tour.

"I don't know if we're allowed to say it, and I don't want to flatter him, but I sincerely believe Jordan will be president one day," said MP Jacobelli.

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'New Orleans is under threat from extreme weather events'

New Orleans is under threat from extreme weather events. To protect itself from hurricanes, the city invested 14.5 billion dollars in a levee system. The city is now surrounded by a 560 kilometre-long and 8 metre-high wall. The system survived its first big test in 2021 with Hurricane Ida but it remains fragile. 

Brazil's Bolsonaro asks supporters to 'unblock' roads

Bolsonaro's supporters are rallying in front of military installations in Brazil's major cities and have blocked highways

By AFP
November 03, 2022

Brazil's outgoing President Jair Bolsonaro.— AFP

SAO PAULO: Brazil's outgoing President Jair Bolsonaro asked participants in what he said were "legitimate" protests to "unblock the roads" and demonstrate elsewhere Wednesday as they push for military intervention to keep him in power.

The far-right leaders' supporters are rallying in front of military installations in Brazil's major cities and have blocked highways in more than half the country´s states.

The demonstrators, unwilling to accept the results of Bolsonaro's Sunday election defeat to leftist ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, have now clogged autoroutes and caused nationwide disruptions for three straight days.

"I want to make an appeal to them: Unblock the roads," Bolsonaro said late Wednesday. The blockages do "not seem to me to be part of legitimate demonstrations."

"Other demonstrations that are taking place throughout Brazil in squares... are part of the democratic game. They are welcome," he added.

After days of silence, Bolsonaro on Tuesday gave a short speech in which he neither accepted defeat nor congratulated Lula on his weekend win, although his chief of staff took the podium afterward to say the president had authorized the transition to a new government.

"Federal intervention now!" chanted some of the thousands who gathered in front of the Southeastern Military Command in the country´s biggest city, Sao Paulo.

"We want a federal intervention because we demand our freedom. We do not admit that a thief governs us," Angela Cosac, 70, told AFP, alluding to the fact that Lula served time in prison for corruption.

The day of mobilization was marred by violence, however. At a roadblock near the town of Mirassol in Sao Paulo state, a motorist drove into a crowd of demonstrators, injuring at least seven people, according to CNN.

Some supporters of Bolsonaro, himself a retired army captain, made threatening gestures to journalists in Sao Paulo, where crowds of demonstrators swelled later in the day.

In the southern state of Santa Catarina, protesters were filmed on Wednesday raising Nazi salutes.

Thousands meanwhile gathered in the capital, Brasilia, chanting "civil resistance," while in rainy downtown Rio de Janeiro, demonstrators were filmed by Brazilian media shouting: "Lula, thief, your place is in prison."

Disruptions nationwide

The number of road blockades throughout the country decreased from 271 on Tuesday to 146 on Wednesday, according to police.

In Sao Paulo, military police used tear gas to disperse a blockade on the main highway connecting the state with the central-west region of the country, after the Supreme Federal Court ordered the use of "all necessary measures" to open the roads.

Rodrigo da Mata, a 41-year-old salesman, told AFP that he wanted a military intervention "so that our country does not become communist."

"We do not accept the election result because we know it was fraudulent. Like everything that the PT does," he added, in reference to Lula's Workers' Party.

Trucks sounded their horns, while demonstrators wearing yellow football jerseys waved flags in front of passing vehicles, in scenes broadcast on local television.

The blockades have caused disruptions nationwide. The main airport in Sao Paulo cancelled 48 flights due to the protests, according to its press office.

Bolsonaro´s vice president, Hamilton Mourao, told the O Globo daily that "it´s no use crying, we´ve lost the game."

The National Confederation of Industry warned on Tuesday of an imminent risk of fuel shortages if blocked roads were not quickly cleared.

Infrastructure minister Marcelo Sampaio had asked late Tuesday for protesters to unblock the highways to allow medicine, supplies and fuel to circulate.

Many Brazilian supermarkets reportedly were already experiencing some supply shortages.

'Dream is still alive'

Demonstrations calling for military intervention in front of military buildings took place Wednesday in 11 of the country's 27 states, according to news site UOL.

Bolsonaro on Tuesday said protesters should not "use the methods of the left... that prevent freedom of movement," but added that the roadblocks were "the fruit of indignation and a feeling of injustice at how the electoral process took place."

"Peaceful protests will always be welcome," he said.

That was interpreted by some supporters as a call to maintain the demonstrations.

"The dream is still alive," said a message by one supporter Tuesday on Telegram. "Fill the streets tomorrow."

India's capital to shut schools as toxic smog chokes city

Primary schools in India's capital New Delhi will shut to protect children from the toxic smog choking the megacity of 20 million people, authorities said Friday

By AFP
November 04, 2022

The burning of rice paddies after harvests across northern India takes place every year. — AFP

New Delhi: Primary schools in India's capital New Delhi will shut to protect children from the toxic smog choking the megacity of 20 million people, authorities said Friday.

Smoke from farmers burning crop stubble, vehicle exhaust and factory emissions combine every winter to blanket the capital in a deadly grey haze.

On Friday, levels of the most dangerous PM2.5 particles -- so tiny they can enter the bloodstream -- were almost 25 times the daily maximum recommended by the World Health Organization, according to monitoring firm IQAir.

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, under fire from residents and political opponents for failing to address the crisis, said primary schools would be closed from Saturday until "the pollution situation improves".

"No child should suffer in any way," Kejriwal told reporters.

Delhi is frequently ranked as one of the world's most polluted cities. On Friday it again topped IQAir's list of major cities with the worst air quality.

A Lancet study in 2020 attributed 1.67 million deaths to air pollution in India during the previous year, including almost 17,500 in the capital.

Authorities regularly announce different plans to reduce the pollution, for example by halting construction work, but to little effect.

Tens of thousands of farmers across north India set fire to their fields at the start of every winter to clear crop stubble from recently harvested rice paddies.

The practice is one of the key drivers of Delhi's annual smog problem and persists despite efforts to persuade farmers to use different clearing methods.

Farm fire smoke accounted for a third of Delhi's air pollution on Thursday, according to India's air quality monitoring agency.

The problem is also a political flashpoint -- with Delhi and the northern state of Punjab governed by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), a rival to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party.

But Kejriwal called for an end to "blame games and finger-pointing" over responsibility for tackling the smog, after India's environment minister lambasted the AAP for presiding over an increase in farm fires.

"It won't help in finding solutions. We can blame them, and they can blame us, but that would lead to nothing," he said.

"Farmers need solutions," he added. "The day they get a solution, they will stop burning the stubble."

CO2 capture and storage: Environmental lifeline or blank cheque for polluters?

Grégoire SAUVAGE -

CO2 capture and storage technologies are gaining momentum as the world struggles to reduce emissions enough to avoid a climate catastrophe. Some climate activists are sceptical and see this technology as a cop-out. But others say its use could well be necessary.


CO2 capture and storage: Environmental lifeline or blank cheque for polluters?

© Alexiane Lerouge, AFP

For years, carbon capture and storage (CCS) was outside the mainstream, hindered by prohibitive costs and a lack of political support. But now the CCS industry is booming.

The French Institute of International Relations counted a record 76 CCS projects on the go in Europe in a 2021 report.

“Currently, CCS is progressing along two tracks in Europe; there’s a lot of enthusiasm in northern Europe and a lot less enthusiasm in southern Europe, where there’s a lack of political will to implement these technologies,” said Thomas Le Guénan, a geologist at the French Geological and Mining Research Bureau.

The market for CO2 capture and storage equipment is expected to quadruple over the next three years, reaching some $50 billion in 2025, according to Norwegian research firm Rystad Energy. Thanks to surging investment in Europe and North America, the CCS industry should be able to sequester 150 million tonnes per year, up from 40 million at present. This is nevertheless a drop in the ocean when compared to the 38 billion tonnes of CO2 emitted by humans in 2019.

Piloted by oil supermajors Total, Shell and Equinor, the Northern Lights project is expected to make Norway a CO2 storage powerhouse. Near the island of Bergen, a terminal is set to capture nearly 1.5 million tonnes of CO2 per year produced by European industry. “The ship will unload its CO2 in liquid form; it’s like water, odourless and colourless,” explained Cristel Lambtone, the project's technical director, speaking to France Info. The CO2 will then be transported through pipelines to be stored 2,500 metres below the North Sea in wells currently being drilled.

How does CO2 capture work?

Needless to say, CO2 needs to captured before it is buried. The easiest way to do this is while fossil fuels or wood are being burned. There are various processes, but the one the CCS sector has mastered best is called “post-combustion” – using a solvent to isolate the CO2 from the industrial fumes. This technique is especially effective on the most polluting manufacturing sites, like power stations, steelworks, chemical plants and cement plants.

The next step is to transport the compressed CO2 to storage sites such as old oil reservoirs or saline aquifers. “These are not holes but deep formations with porous rocks that allow CO2 to be injected,” Le Guénan explained. “We also look for formations with impermeable rock on top to prevent CO2 from rising up.”

Related video: Shipping industry feeling increased pressure to reduce carbon emissions

Duration 4:17 View on Watch

It is also possible to suck CO2 straight from the atmosphere using giant hoovers. The largest operation using this technology is the Orca site in Iceland. Although still in its infancy, this technology has won a lot of investment over the past two years, especially in the US. Tech titans like Elon Musk and Bill Gates have poured in money.

A gigafactory capturing CO2 directly from the atmosphere is due to start work in the US state of Wyoming, a big coal producer. This “Bison” project aims to capture 5 million tonnes of CO2 per year by 2030.

Limits of CO2 capture

CCS looks like a godsend as countries around the world struggle to wean themselves off fossil fuels.

But while prices have reduced significantly, the high costs of these energy-intensive technologies still place a ceiling on what the sector can do. “As things stand, the price of the carbon allowance issued under the EU’s CO2 emissions trading scheme is still lower than the costs for manufacturers of CCS technology,” said Florence Delprat-Jannaud, head of the CCS programme at the French Institute of Petroleum. “Subsidies are needed to accelerate the implementation of this technology.”

The cost is even higher for direct capture from the air – up to €335 per tonne of CO2 – because the process requires a lot of energy, since CO2 is not highly concentrated in the air.

Nevertheless, costs could fall below €100 per tonne by 2030 for facilities benefitting from large renewable energy resources, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

And it takes a long time to make storage locations operational. “You’ve got to collect a lot of data to have enough confidence in a site; all in all, it can take about a decade,” said Le Guénan, who is currently studying a potential storage area in Grandpuits in the Paris region as part of an EU project.

‘Essential’ or a ‘risky bet’?

At the same time, many people do not like the idea of CO2 storage sites in their local area due to fears of gas leaks and lower house prices. Fierce opposition from local populations to proposed projects has already been seen in Germany and The Netherlands.

Many environmentalists are also sceptical. “Manufacturers see CCS as a way of carrying on with the same production model, when it would be better to reduce energy consumption while recycling industrial materials,” said Léa Mattieu, head of the heavy industry programme at the NGO Climate Action Network.

“It’s a risky bet,” Mattieu continued. “Manufacturers have been talking about this technology for several decades – and we haven’t really seen the results come to fruition. CCS is still too expensive and it may well end up being a last resort solution, just for heavy industry.”

Indeed, as things stand CCS plays a marginal role in reducing CO2 emissions and its potential for development remains unproven. At present only around 30 large-scale installations are at work across the globe, capable of capturing and storing some 40 million tonnes a year. In order to achieve carbon neutrality, according to the IEA, 50 or even 100 times more than that needs to be captured and stored by 2035.

All that said, as countries struggle to bring enough renewable and nuclear energy on line, scientists from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change say CCS is essential to averting a climate catastrophe – while highlighting that nothing must distract from the imperative of drastically reducing emissions.

This article was adapted from the original in French.

US Embassy officials visit Brittney Griner in Russian prison

It was the first consular access to the WNBA star since early August, when she was imprisoned in Russia on drug charges. Washington and Moscow are discussing a potential prisoner swap.

Officials of the United States Embassy in Moscow visited imprisoned WNBA star Brittney Griner on Thursday.

State Department spokesman Ned Price wrote on Twitter that the American representatives, "saw firsthand her tenacity and perseverance despite her present circumstances."

"We are told she is doing as well as can be expected under the circumstances," White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Air Force One.

The visit comes after a Russian court last week rejected Griner's appeal of her nine-year sentence for drug possession.

She has been imprisoned since her arrest in February after being caught bringing less than a gram of cannabis oil into the country.

Once the appeals process is over, she could be transferred to a penal colony.

Russian court rejects Brittney Griner's appeal

02:00

Potential prisoner exchange?

According to Jean-Pierre, President Joe Biden's administration is pressing Russia, "to resolve the current unacceptable and wrongful detentions," of Griner and Paul Whelan, a former US Marine also imprisoned in Russia

He was sentenced in 2020 to 16 years in prison in Russia on espionage-related charges that he and his family say are bogus.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said over the summer that the US had made a "substantial proposal'' to Russia to try to secure their release.

Biden told relatives of Griner and Whelan in a White House meeting in September that his administration was committed to bringing them home.

The US has offered to exchange Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer currently serving a 25-year prison sentence, for the two Americans.

The US described the Russian court proceedings against Griner as a 'sham'

Evgenia Novozhenina/Reuters/AP/picture alliance

On Thursday Russia's ambassador to the US, Anatoly Antonov, said Moscow would seek the release of as many of its citizens as possible in any future prisoner exchange with Washington.

This came despite Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov's saying last week that a potential prisoner exchange could only be negotiated quietly.

lo/msh (AP, Reuters)