Thursday, November 17, 2022

PERMIAN SHALE FRACKQUAKE
Strong earthquake rattles remote West Texas desert


MENTONE, Texas (AP) — A strong earthquake shook a sparsely populated patch of desert in West Texas on Thursday, causing tremors felt as far away as the Mexican city of Ciudad Juárez.

The magnitude 5.3 earthquake struck around 3:30 p.m., according to Jim DeBerry, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in the West Texas city Midland. He said the strength of the quake means it likely caused damage in the remote oil patch and scrubland, but none had been reported so far.

DeBerry said the epicenter was about 23 miles (37 kilometers) south of Mentone, a tiny community south of the New Mexico state line and 95 miles (153 kilometers) west of Midland.

State Rep. Eddie Morales, Jr., whose district includes Mentone, said he spoke with local authorities and there were no reported injuries. He said via Twitter that state officials will be “inspecting roads, bridges and other infrastructure as a precaution.”

DeBerry said there were reports of people feeling vibrations from the quake 200 miles (515 kilometers) west in the border city of Ciudad Juárez and 200 miles (515 kilometers) south in Terlingua, a small community near the Rio Grande and Big Bend National Park.
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Myanmar releasing 4 foreigners in broad prisoner amnesty

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By DAVID RISING

BANGKOK (AP) — Myanmar’s military-controlled government announced Thursday it was releasing and deporting an Australian academic, a Japanese filmmaker, an ex-British diplomat and an American as part of a broad prisoner amnesty marking the country’s National Victory Day.

Australian Sean Turnell, Japan’s Toru Kubota, Briton Vicky Bowman, and American Kyaw Htay Oo, as well as 11 local Myanmar celebrities, were among a total of 5,774 prisoners who were being released, Myanmar’s state-run MRTV reported.

The imprisonment of the foreign nationals had been a source of friction between Myanmar’s leaders and their home governments, which had been lobbying for their release.

According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a rights monitoring organization, 16,232 people have been detained on political charges in Myanmar since the army ousted the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February last year.

Of those arrested, 13,015 were still in detention as of Wednesday, AAPP reported. At least 2,465 civilians have been killed by security forces in the same period, the group says, though the number is thought to be far higher.

Amnesty International Australia’s Tim O’Connor welcomed the decision to release Turnell, saying like many others, he should never have been arrested or jailed.

“Amnesty continues to call for the release of all those arbitrarily detained for peacefully exercising their human rights,” he said. “Thousands of people jailed since the coup in Myanmar have done nothing wrong.”

Japan’s government spokesperson, Hirokazu Matsuno, said officials have been in touch with Kubota, and the 26-year-old Tokyo-based documentary filmmaker was believed to be in good health. He left Myanmar on a flight to Bangkok on Thursday and was due back in Japan on Friday morning, the Japanese Embassy in Yangon said.

Bowman, Turnell and Kyaw Htay Oo were also expected to fly out of Myanmar on Thursday.

Turnell, 58, an associate professor of economics at Sydney’s Macquarie University who had been serving as an adviser to Suu Kyi, was arrested by security forces in Yangon just days after last year’s military takeover. He was sentenced in September to three years in prison on charges of violating the country’s official secrets law and immigration law. Suu Kyi and three of her former Cabinet members were convicted in the same trial, which was held in a closed court, with their lawyers barred by a gag order from talking about the proceedings.

Fellow Australian economist Tim Harcourt said in an email that he was delighted to hear of his longtime friend Sean Turnell’s release.

He thanked the Australian government, activists and Turnell’s friends and colleagues who had lobbied for his release.

“Sean’s heart was with the people of Myanmar to help lift them out of poverty and help Myanmar reach its economic potential. He should never have been imprisoned for doing his professional duty as an economist involved in development economics,” he said.

Myanmar has been in turmoil since the takeover, which led to nationwide protests that the military government quashed with deadly force, triggering armed resistance that some U.N. experts now characterize as civil war.

Kubota was arrested July 30 by plainclothes police in Yangon after taking images and videos of a small flash protest against the military. He was convicted last month by the prison court on incitement and other charges and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Since seizing power, the military has cracked down on the coverage of protests, raided media companies, detained dozens of journalists and revoked the licenses of at least a dozen outlets.

Most of those detained are being held on the incitement charge for allegedly causing fear, spreading false news, or agitating against a government employee.

Some of the closed media outlets have continued operating without licenses and many Myanmar journalists are working underground, moving from one safe house to another, hiding in remote border regions, or basing themselves in exile.

Kubota was the fifth foreign journalist detained in Myanmar, also called Burma, since the military seized power. U.S. citizens Nathan Maung and Danny Fenster, who worked for local publications, and freelancers Robert Bociaga of Poland and Yuki Kitazumi of Japan were deported before serving their full prison sentences.

Bowman, 56, a former British ambassador to Myanmar who was running a business consultancy, was arrested with her husband, a Myanmar national, in Yangon in August. She was given a one-year prison term in September by the prison count for failing to register her residence.

Kyaw Htay Oo, a naturalized American, returned to Myanmar, the country of his birth, in 2017, according to media reports. He was arrested in September 2021 on terrorism charges and had been in custody since then.

U.S Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Bangkok, welcomed the release of the prisoners, calling it “one bright spot in what is otherwise an incredibly dark time where we see things going from bad to worse in Burma, including terrible violence that’s being done to innocent Burmese.”

Myanmar did not release many details of the other prisoners who were being freed, but many were held on charges related to the protests, including Section 505(A) of Myanmar’s penal code, which makes it a crime to spread comments that create public unrest or fear or spread false news, and carries a penalty of up to three years in prison.

Those being released included Kyaw Tint Swe, a former minister for the office of the State Counsellor, Than Htay, a former member of the Union Election Commission, and Lae Lae Maw, a former chief minister of Tanintharyi region who was sentenced to 30 years for alleged corruption under Suu Kyi’s government, MRTV announced.

Among the first set free from Yangon’s Insein prison were prominent author Maung Thar Cho, pro-democracy activist Mya Aye and Myo Nyunt, the spokesperson of Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party, all of whom were arrested on Feb. 1, 2021, the day the military seized power.

“I will always stand together with the people of Myanmar,” Mya Aye defiantly told the crowd outside the prison after he was released.

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Associated Press writers Grant Peck in Bangkok, Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo and Rod McGuirk in Canberra, Australia, contributed to this story.
Nigeria floods 80 times more likely with climate change

By WANJOHI KABUKURU

 People wade through flooded roads in Bayelsa, Nigeria, Oct. 20, 2022. Climate change is to blame for the deadliest yet heavy rains and flooding that swamped Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and the neighboring Sahel region between the months of June and October leaving more than 800 people dead.
 (AP Photo/Reed Joshua, File)

SHARM EL SHEIKH, Egypt (AP) — Heavy rains and flooding that swamped Nigeria, Niger, Chad and the surrounding region between June and October this year was made 80 times more likely because of climate change, a rapid analysis by international climate attribution experts found.

Analysis released late Wednesday by the World Weather Attribution group used peer-reviewed methods and found that climate change was overwhelmingly behind the heavy rains that left over 800 people dead, with worse to come as global average temperatures continue to rise.

“We will see very intense rains in the region in the coming years,” warned climatologist Friederike Otto of Imperial College London, who led the study.

The devastating floods, some of the worst seen in recent decades, also displaced 1.5 million people across the region, left thousands injured and damaged huge areas of both urban and rural land, prompting calls for better preparation ahead of future events.

“The lessons we learn from the floods calls for more concrete policies to consider future developments,” said Cheikh Kane of Red Cross Climate Center, calling on authorities in the region “to enhance their level of preparedness.”

The scientists ran comparisons of climate data from past and present weather information focusing on Lake Chad and the lower Niger River basins to determine the impact warming temperatures had on the flooding. They found that the region’s rainy season was 20% wetter than normal because of climate change and that an event of this intensity now has a one in ten chance of happening each year.

Researchers also analyzed the impact of climate change on droughts in 2021 that reduced crop production in the central Sahel and contributed to an ongoing food crisis, but were unable to reach any conclusions due a lack of reliable weather station data.

The scientists called for greater investment in weather stations in the region to inform their work in future and help communities prepare for extreme weather events.

“Resources are needed for Africa to create early warning systems and to build climate-resilient infrastructure and cities,” philanthropist Mo Ibrahim told The Associated Press.

In Sharm el-Sheikh, where the U.N.’s two-week climate conference known as COP27 is underway, activists from the Niger Delta called for an end to fossil fuels that are responsible for climate change.

“Oil exploration contributes immensely to the climate crises, among them being the heavy flooding in Nigeria in October,” said Nigerian activist Lucky Abeng. “That’s why we have come to the COP, to amplify our voices, for the entire global south on fossil fuels emitters.”

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Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
As climate change progresses, trees in cities struggle

MANUEL VALDES

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Lisa Ciecko, a Seattle Parks and Recreation plant ecologist, looks at a tree on Friday, Oct. 7, 2022, in Seattle. Cities across the world have promised to plant more carbon-absorbing trees to help fight climate change. Research has shown the shade of mature trees also helps reduce unhealthful “heat islands,” especially in poor neighborhoods.
(AP Photo/Stephen Brashear)


SEATTLE (AP) — As the driest summer in Seattle’s record books ended, trees across the city were sounding silent alarms.

It was the latest in a string of Seattle summers in the last decade, including a record-breaking heat dome in 2021, to feature drier conditions and hotter temperatures that have left many trees with premature brown leaves and needles, bald branches and excessive seeding –- all signs of stress.

“You see it in big leaf maples and hemlocks, just loaded with cones or seeds, it’s kind of their last-ditch effort to reproduce,” said Shea Cope, an arborist at Washington Park Arboretum, a sprawling 230-acre (93 hectare) park north of downtown.

This summer was fatal for three “significant” trees in the park’s pine collection, including an 85-year-old Japanese red pine infected with fungus left by beetles.

“We’re losing conifers faster than our broad leaf, deciduous ones,” Cope added as he surveyed a towering knobcone pine with half its canopy dead.

Cities worldwide have promised to plant more carbon-absorbing trees to help fight climate change. Research has shown the shade of mature trees also helps reduce unhealthful “heat islands,” especially in poor neighborhoods. President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act infused $1.5 billion into the Forest Service’s urban tree program — money for cities to do even more planting and maintenance.

Washington Park Arboretum arborist Shea Cope, uses a website to look up knobcone pine, one of many stressed trees in the arboretum, on Friday, Oct. 7, 2022, in Seattle.
 (AP Photo/Stephen Brashear)

CLIMATE THREAT TO URBAN FORESTS

Life in a city can be especially hard for a tree, and those challenges are escalating with global warming.

Researchers from France and Australia analyzed the impact of hotter temperatures and less rain on more than 3,100 tree and shrub species in 164 cities across 78 countries. They found about half the trees already were experiencing climate conditions beyond their limits. They also concluded that by 2050 nearly all tree species planted in Australian cities will not be able to survive in urban areas.

“If trends hold, we are going to have a lot of trees die,” said Nicholas Johnson, an arborist for Seattle City Parks. “Under heat, trees get weak — just like people.”

Heat and drought force trees to spend energy surviving that would otherwise go to regeneration, growth or fighting off disease and pests, Johnson said. “Everything outside is trying to eat a tree. The stresses become compounded.”

As Climate Change Progresses, City Trees Struggle
Life of a city tree is challenging and those problems are being compounded by a warming planet. Increasingly, the challenge for city arborists is to keep old and new trees alive
(Nov. 16) (AP Video by Manuel Valdes)


Human-caused climate change also fuels more extreme weather such as intense wind, rain and freezing temperatures.

“It’s not the gradual change that’s going to be the problem, it’s these extreme swings of too much water, too little water, too much wind, and storm intensities are going to cause these rapid changes,” said David Nowak, a retired scientist for the U.S. Forest Service.

Hurricane Katrina in 2005 wiped out about 10% of the trees in New Orleans, said Michael Karam, Director of Parks and Parkways. And in 2021, he added, Hurricane Ida uprooted many new saplings.

“The need to increase the canopy is greater than in years past,” he said. “But the benefits in an urban setting remain the same. On any hot day, go in the shade and you’re reminded that trees are such a benefit to public health and welfare.”


Housing and commercial construction, compacted soil, pollution and even car crashes contribute to a city’s canopy loss.
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A stressed western red cedar loaded with seed pods is visible, on Friday, Oct. 7, 2022, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Stephen Brashear)

Cities are familiar with large scale tree loss, but usually one kind of tree is affected, such as birches killed by a borer pest. With climate change, researchers are concerned canopy loss will outpace the rate of newly planted trees reaching maturity, which takes 10 to 20 years.

“A rising rate of tree mortality is coming to a city near you,” said Aaron Ramirez, a tree researcher at Reed College.

Between 2016 and 2021, Seattle lost 1.7% of its tree canopy, about 255 acres (255 hectares) of trees, according to a city report blaming climate change in part. To the south, Portland, Oregon last year saw its first reduction in canopy since it began keeping records two decades ago.


A blue fungus is visible, on Friday, Oct. 7, 2022, in Seattle, in the stump of a Japanese red pine that was killed by bark beetles. (AP Photo/Stephen Brashear)

“We’ve spent a lot of time talking about the health of our forest in our natural, rural areas as we’ve seen increased stress from disease, insect infestation, drought — leading to catastrophic wildfires. But the fact is our urban forest, our urban trees, are equally stressed,” said Washington State Commissioner of Public Lands Hillary Franz.
Family: Egypt activist ‘deteriorated’ since hunger strike

By The Associated Press

Egypt's leading pro-democracy activist Alaa Abdel-Fattah speaks during a conference at the American University in Cairo, Egypt, Sept. 22, 2014. The family of the imprisoned Egyptian activist says that they have seen him on Thursday, Nov. 17, 2022, and that his condition has “deteriorated severely."
 (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty, File)


CAIRO (AP) — The family of imprisoned Egyptian activist Alaa Abdel-Fattah said they were allowed into the prison and saw him on Thursday and that his condition has “deteriorated severely” following a dramatic hunger strike.

The news was posted in a tweet by his sister Mona Seif after a visit to the prison of Wadi el-Natroun, north of Cairo, by the activist’s mother, aunt and his other sister. It was their first time seeing him in nearly a month.

“News from the visit are unsettling,” Mona tweeted, adding that her brother had “deteriorated severely in the past 2 weeks.” She did not elaborate more on his health but said the family would share more information later in the day.

Abdel-Fattah is one of Egypt’s most prominent pro-democracy campaigners. He had intensified a hunger strike and halted all calories and water at the start earlier in November of the U.N. climate conference underway in Egypt’s Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, to draw attention to his case and those of other political prisoners.

Concerns for his health intensified as the family was barred from seeing him. Last Thursday, prison authorities began an unspecified medical intervention on Abdel-Fattah — prompting thoughts that he was being force-fed.

Then earlier this week, Abdel-Fattah informed his family in handwritten notes that he first started drinking water again and then also ended the hunger strike.

Abdel-Fattah’s mother, Laila Soueif, received two short letters in her son’s handwriting, on Monday and Tuesday, through prison authorities. The first letter, confirming Abdel-Fattah had started drinking water again, was dated on Saturday, while the second letter, confirming he had ended his hunger strike was dated Monday.

“I’ve broken my strike. I’ll explain everything on Thursday,” the second letter read. The circumstances under which he wrote the letter were not clear. The activist had previously said he was willing to die in his strike if not freed.

The family has not seen Abdel-Fattah since the last pre-allotted visit on Oct. 24 and had not been given information on his condition. In the note, Abdel-Fattah asks his mother to bring a cake to celebrate his upcoming birthday. The meetings, conducted behind a glass barrier, usually last for around 20 minutes.

Abdel-Fattah, who turns 41 on Friday, has spent most of the past decade in prison because of his criticism of Egypt’s rulers. Last year, he was sentenced to five years for sharing a Facebook post about a prisoner who died in custody in 2019.

His hunger strike drew attention on Egypt’s heavy suppression of speech and political activity, during the Arab nation hosting of the U.N. climate summit, known as COP27. Since 2013, President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi’s government has cracked down on dissidents and critics, jailing thousands, virtually banning protests and monitoring social media.

During the two-week climate conference, U.S. President Joe Biden, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz all raised the activist’s case in their private talks with el-Sissi. Abdel-Fattah gained British citizenship earlier this year through his mother, who was born in London. The family have frequently criticized the British government for not doing enough to secure his release.

But the ending of the hunger strike, which was a surprise to his family, also raised questions over whether Abdel-Fattah had been told something by authorities.

“I have no idea why he took this step, has he been promised something, what has been told to him, what has been hidden from him, I have no idea,” Soueif said earlier.

Egypt’s foreign minister has tried to talk down the attention on Abdel-Fattah. In an interview with The Associated Press on Saturday on the sidelines of COP27, Sameh Shoukry said the priority of the summit should be focused on “the existential challenge related to climate change” not the activist’s wellbeing.

Abdel-Fattah rose to fame during the 2011 pro-democracy uprisings that swept through the Middle East, toppling Egypt’s long-time autocratic President Hosni Mubarak. He has been imprisoned several times, and has spent a total of nine years behind bars, becoming a symbol of Egypt’s sliding back to an even more autocratic rule under el-Sissi.

On Tuesday, Tarik el-Awady, a member of Egypt’s presidential pardon committee, announced the release of the 30 pre-trial detainees before posting pictures of several of the freed inmates on his Facebook account. El-Awady did not disclose the identity of any of the detainees.

In recent months, the Egyptian government has sought to improve its international image through mass prisoner releases via presidential pardons and its establishment of a new “strategy” to upgrade the country’s human rights conditions.

A number of human rights groups have cast doubt on these measures and accused Egypt of using the gathering in Sharm el-Sheikh to further whitewash its poor rights record. Egypt is among the world’s worst jailers of journalists, along with Turkey and China, according to 2021 data produced by the U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists. Human Rights Watch estimated in 2019 that as many as 60,000 political prisoners are incarcerated in Egyptian prisons, many without trial.

Abdel-Fattah’s other sister, Sanaa Seif, took part in a protest march in Sharm el Sheikh that saw hundreds of activists demand action on climate change, human and gender rights. The protesters also called for the release of Abdel-Fattah and all political prisoners detained in Egypt. Sanaa, who has been imprisoned in Egypt before and now lives in London, flew to the conference to raise awareness about her brother’s case.
Women lead climate talks’ toughest topic: reparations

By SETH BORENSTEIN
today

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 Maisa Rojas, minister of environment of Chile, speaks at the COP27 U.N. Climate Summit, Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2022, in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. Women are controlling negotiations about the thorniest topic in the United Nations climate talks in Egypt. The issue is of reparations for climate disasters and payments from polluting nations to damaged countries. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong, File)

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (AP) — Men usually outnumber and outrank women negotiators in climate talks, except when it comes to global warming’s thorniest diplomatic issue this year — reparations for climate disasters.

The issue of polluting nations paying vulnerable countries is handed over to women, who got the issue on the agenda after 30 years. Whether this year’s United Nations climate talks in Egypt succeed or fail mostly will come down to the issue called loss and damage in international negotiations, officials and experts say. It’s an issue that intertwines equity and economics, balancing the needs of those hurt and those who would pay.

Nearly all of the key players are women and they and others say better gender representation could yield better results.

“I think what we need at this crucial time is empathy ... We need to think about our world in the sense of taking care of our world,” said Chilean Environment Minister Maisa Rojas. “Maybe culturally, historically, they are seen as feminine values.”

Rojas, a climate scientist, and Germany special climate envoy Jennifer Morgan engineered a last-minute deal that got the issue of loss and damage on the agenda for the first time in 27 climate summits.

Now that it’s on the agenda, the top people trying to get something meaningful done are women. And that provides hope, a top United Nations official said.

“At times, at least in negotiations, women are able to find a pathway forward where maybe high testosterone does not yield itself well to that,” United Nations Environment Programme Director Inger Andersen said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Milagros De Camps, vice minister of international cooperation for the Dominican Republic, said women simply get better results.

“There are better results because women tend to be better in conflict resolution,” De Camps said. “They tend to be better in terms of reaching agreements, better in developing stricter policies that tend to be more sustainable.”

Overall, in the climate talks, men still dominate, both in their total numbers and in holding top positions. The summit’s president, the United Nations’ climate chief, the U.N. secretary-general and the top climate envoys for the United States, China and India are men, as are the overwhelming majority of heads of government who took the stage in the first week.

Christiana Figueres, who was a driving force behind the 2015 Paris agreement as the United Nation’s climate chief, said that, while every generality has exceptions, women tend to be more long-term thinkers, more inclusive, and more concerned with justice than men are.

“We have a deeper sense of human justice and this is very much a justice issue,” Figueres said in a Zoom interview Wednesday. “So I’m not surprised that it is women who are taking the lead on both the political negotiations as well as the thought leadership on loss and damages.”

“Women are on the cutting edge of the climate crisis,” said German special climate envoy Morgan, a veteran of negotiations as an environmental advocate and former head of Greenpeace. “We understand how we need to work together with others to find a solution. Especially the most vulnerable.”

For women “it’s not about egos, it is about finding the solution,” said Preety Bhandari, a senior adviser on climate finance at the World Resources Institute.

It’s not just behind the scenes. The public faces of climate reparations are often female.

Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, who is promoting her Bridgetown Initiative that expands the idea with reform of multinational development banks, and Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon “have been fearless” in pushing for some kind of compensation system, said Bhandari.

Many of the youth advocates who push negotiators further with their criticism of inaction — including Vanessa Nakate and Greta Thunberg — are female.

“(Legislatures) around the world that have more women, have stronger climate action,” said Katharine Hayhoe, The Nature Conservancy’s chief scientist. “They did a study on it.”

But it’s not enough.

A United Nations report said that women made up 37% of countries’ delegations, and 26% of leaders of delegations, in last year’s summit in Glasgow. But among those younger than 26, 64% were female.In the groupd of those aged 26 to 35, it was nearly half women.

Maldives Environment Aminauth Shauna said she noticed that, when all the heads of state gathered at the beginning for pictures, called the family photo, they were nearly all male. But when it came to the people doing the work, that was more women and young people, like most of her delegation, she said.

“I hope all of us women here can make a difference here this time,” Shauna said.

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Wanjohi Kabukuru contributed to this report.

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Follow AP’s climate and environment coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

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Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears

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Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
AMERICAN PROTESTANTISM
Poll: Religious Americans less worried about climate change

By LUIS ANDRES HENAO

Storm clouds approach a church in Mequon, Wis., on Sunday, Aug. 2, 2020. A new Pew Research Center report published Thursday, Nov. 17, 2022 explores how religion in the U.S. intersects with views on the environment and climate change. 
(AP Photo/Morry Gash)


NEW YORK (AP) — Most adults in the United States – including a large majority of Christians and people who identify with other religions – consider the Earth sacred and believe God gave humans a duty to care for it.


AMERICAN PROTESTANT CHRISTIANS
But highly religious Americans – those who pray daily, regularly attend religious services and consider religion crucial in their lives -- are far less likely than other U.S. adults to express concern about global warming.

Those are among the key findings in a comprehensive report released Thursday by the Pew Research Center, which surveyed 10,156 U.S. adults from April 11 to April 17. It’s margin of error for the full sample of respondents is plus or minus 1.6 percentage points.

The survey says religious Americans tend to be less concerned about climate change for several reasons.

“First and foremost is politics: The main driver of U.S. public opinion about the climate is political party, not religion,” the report says.

AMERICAN PROTESTANTISM
“Highly religious Americans are more inclined than others to identify with or lean toward the Republican Party, and Republicans tend to be much less likely than Democrats to believe human activity (such as burning fossil fuels) is warming the Earth or to consider climate change a serious problem.”

Responding to the findings, the Rev. Richenda Fairhurst, steward of climate at the non-profit Circle Faith Future, said the siloed culture in America sows further division instead of inspiring teamwork.

“I don’t know who that serves,” she said. “But it’s not serving the community — and it’s certainly not serving the planet.”

The poll found that about three-quarters (74%) of religiously affiliated Americans say the Earth is sacred. A larger share, (80%), feel a sense of stewardship -- and fully or mostly agree with the idea that “God gave humans a duty to protect and care for the Earth, including the plants and animals.”

Religious Americans who show little or no concern about climate change also say “there are much bigger problems in the world, that God is in control of the climate, and that they do not believe the climate is actually changing.”

Many religious Americans are also concerned about the potential consequences of environmental regulations, including the loss of individual freedoms, fewer jobs or increased energy prices, the report says.

The survey also found that two-thirds of U.S. adults who are religiously affiliated say their faith’s scriptures include lessons about the environment, and about four-in-ten say they’ve prayed for the environment in the past year.

The views, the report says, are common across a range of religious traditions.
CHRISTIANITY IS ONE RELIGION REGARDLESS OF THE NUMBER OF SECTS

Three-quarters of both evangelical Protestants and members of historically Black Protestant churches say the Bible includes lessons about the environment. Eight in ten U.S. Catholics and mainline Protestants say the Earth is sacred and so do 77% of non-Christian religions, according to the poll.


But Christians, and more broadly, religiously affiliated Americans, are divided in their views about climate change, the report says.

Those who consider climate change “an extremely or very serious problem” range from 68% of adults who identify with the historically Black Protestant tradition, to 34% of evangelical Protestants.

In none of the major Protestant traditions did a majority say the Earth is getting warmer mostly because of human activity; only 32% of evangelicals felt that way.

The report says the religiously unaffiliated -- the fastest-growing group in surveys asking Americans about their religious identity – are much more likely to say that climate change is an extreme or very serious problem (70%) than religiously affiliated Americans (52%).

Commonly known as the “nones,” they describe themselves as atheists, agnostics or “nothing in particular.” The report says they are far more likely to say the Earth is getting warmer mostly because of human-induced activity (66%) than those who are religiously affiliated (47%).


The survey offers clues as to why religious Americans are less likely to care about climate change than those with no religion despite seeing a link between their beliefs and caring for the environment:

• For U.S. congregations, climate change doesn’t seem to be a major focus. The report says that among all U.S. adults who attend religious services at least once or twice per month, only 8% say they “hear a great deal or quite a bit about climate change in sermons.”

• One in five say they hear some discussion of the topic from the pulpit.

• And just 6% of American congregants say they talk about climate change with other people at their congregation a great deal or quite a bit.

Highly religious Americans are also less likely to view inefficient energy practices as morally wrong, the report says. This same pattern is also seen when asked about eating food that takes a lot of energy to produce.

The Rev. Fletcher Harper, an Episcopal priest, and executive director of GreenFaith, a global multi-faith environmental organization based in New York, said he was not surprised by the findings since he doesn’t see culturally and politically conservative Americans prioritizing climate action.

“What this study doesn’t tell us, though, is the role that religion, when utilized effectively, can play in moving people who are concerned but inactive into public action on the climate’s behalf,” Harper said. “This warrants further research so that we can all understand better what positive role religion can play in the fight against climate change.”

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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.
Exec who cleaned up Enron calls FTX mess ‘unprecedented’

By KEN SWEET and MICHELLE CHAPMAN

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 The FTX logo appears on home plate umpire Jansen Visconti's jacket at a baseball game with the Minnesota Twins on Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2022, in Minneapolis. The new CEO of the collapse cryptocurrency trading firm FTX, who oversaw Enron’s bankruptcy, said, Thursday, Nov. 17, he has never seen such a “complete failure” of corporate control. John Ray III, in a filing with the U.S. bankruptcy court for the district of Delaware, said there was a “complete absence of trustworthy financial information.” (AP Photo/Bruce Kluckhohn, File)


NEW YORK (AP) — The man who had to clean up the mess at Enron says the situation at FTX is even worse, describing what he calls a “complete failure” of corporate control.

The filing by John Ray III, the new CEO of the bankrupt cryptocurrency firm, lays out a damning description of FTX’s operations under its founder Sam Bankman-Fried, from a lack of security controls to business funds being used to buy employees homes and luxuries.

“Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here,” Ray said. “From compromised systems integrity and faulty regulatory oversight abroad, to the concentration of control in the hands of a very small group of inexperienced, unsophisticated and potentially compromised individuals, this situation is unprecedented.”

Ray was appointed CEO on November 11, after the company was near collapse and its previous management sought legal counsel on what to do next. Bankman-Fried was persuaded to give up control of the company by his lawyers as well as his father, Joseph Bankman, a professor at Stanford Law School, according to Thursday’s filing.

Since his resignation, Bankman-Fried has sought out news outlets for interviews and has been active on Twitter trying to explain himself and the firm’s failure.

In an interview with the online news outlet Vox, Bankman-Fried admitted that his previous calls for regulation of cryptocurrencies were mostly for public relations.

“Regulators, they make everything worse,” Bankman-Fried said, using an expletive for emphasis.

In a terse statement, Ray said that Bankman-Fried’s statements have been “erratic and misleading” and “Bankman-Fried is not employed by the Debtors and does not speak for them.”

Ray noted that many of the companies in the FTX Group, particularly those in Antigua and the Bahamas, didn’t have appropriate corporate governance and many had never held a board meeting. Ray also addressed the use of corporate funds to pay for homes and other items for employees.

“In the Bahamas, I understand that corporate funds of the FTX Group were used to purchase homes and other personal items for employees and advisors. I understand that there does not appear to be documentation for certain of these transactions as loans, and that certain real estate was recorded in the personal name of these employees and advisors on the records of the Bahamas,” he said.

So far, debtors have found and secured “only a fraction” of the group’s digital assets that they hope to recover, with about $740 million of cryptocurrency secured in new cold wallets, which is a way of holding cryptocurrency tokens offline, said Ray.

Ray was named CEO of FTX less than a week ago when the company filed for bankruptcy protection and its CEO and founder Bankman-Fried resigned. The embattled cryptocurrency exchange, short billions of dollars, sought bankruptcy protection after the exchange experienced the crypto equivalent of a bank run.

In its bankruptcy filing, FTX listed more than 130 affiliated companies around the globe. The company valued its assets between $10 billion to $50 billion, with a similar estimate for its liabilities.

Bankman-Fried was recently estimated to be worth $23 billion. His net worth has all but evaporated, according to Forbes and Bloomberg, which closely track the net worth of the world’s richest people.

FTX’s failure goes beyond finance. The company had major sports sponsorships as well, including Formula One racing and a sponsorship deal with Major League Baseball. Miami-Dade County decided Friday to terminate its relationship with FTX, meaning the venue where the Miami Heat play will no longer be known as FTX Arena. Mercedes was planning to remove FTX from its race cars starting last weekend.

Bahamas financial regulators appoint liquidators for FTX unit



Illustration shows FTX logo and representation of cryptocurrencies

Tue, November 15, 2022 
(Reuters) - Financial regulators in the Bahamas on Monday appointed liquidators to run FTX's unit in the country, just days after authorities said they were looking for any "criminal misconduct" by the collapsed crypto exchange.

The Securities Commission of The Bahamas said it had won court approval and appointed two members from PwC to oversee FTX Digital Markets Ltd, a subsidiary of FTX licensed in the country.

FTX filed for bankruptcy on Friday, one of the highest profile crypto blowups, after traders rushed to withdraw $6 billion from the platform in just 72 hours and rival exchange Binance abandoned a proposed rescue deal.

"Given the magnitude, urgency, and international implications of the unfolding events with regard to FTX, the Commission recognized that it had to, and moved swiftly... to further protect the interests of clients, creditors, and other stakeholders globally," the regulator said in a statement.

FTX did not respond to a Reuters' request for comment.

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, who lives in the Bahamas, has also been the subject of speculation about his whereabouts and he denied rumors on Twitter that he had flown to South America.

When asked by Reuters on Saturday whether he had flown to Argentina, he responded in a text message: "Nope". He told Reuters he was in the Bahamas.

(Reporting by Akriti Sharma in Bengaluru; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)
Calgary-based crypto platform Bitvo terminates deal to be acquired by FTX

Bitvo says it has no exposure to FTX and is not part of the company's bankruptcy proceedings

Author of the article: Barbara Shecter
Publishing date: Nov 15, 2022 •
This photo illustration shows the logo of cryptocurrency FTX, reflected in its website on a laptop screen. 
PHOTO BY STEFANI REYNOLDS/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

Calgary-based crypto trading platform Bitvo Inc. made a splash in June with an agreement to be acquired by FTX Trading Inc., part of an exchange that had attracted hundreds of millions of dollars from venture capital heavyweights including Sequoia Capital, Softbank Capital, and Tiger Global.

But the plan to make Bitvo FTX’s Canadian beachhead has been terminated in the wake of the latter’s spectacular collapse last week, according to a statement from the Canadian company.

“In light of recent events, Bitvo Inc. announces that its shareholder, Pateno Payments Inc., has terminated its previously announced agreement with FTX … in accordance with the terms of such agreement,” the statement said, adding that the Canadian company has no material exposure to FTX, is not a party to the Bahamas-based crypto’s bankruptcy proceedings, and has never “owned, listed or traded” FTX’s token FTT.

“Since inception, Bitvo has operated as an independent, Canadian crypto asset trading platform,” the statement said.

Under terms of the company’s registration with Canadian securities regulators as a “restricted” dealer, obtained in April, Bitvo operates on a full reserve basis, meaning it does not lend customer funds. The company is also registered with FINTRAC as a money services business in the virtual asset service provider category.

“Bitvo’s operations have and are expected to continue unaffected (by the FTX problems), with trading operations as well as withdrawals and deposits continuing seamlessly,” the company said in Tuesday’s statement.

When the acquisition by FTX was announced in June, the companies said Bitvo’s buying, selling and trading operations would be “integrated into the FTX global team serving the Canadian market in a variety of capacities.”

The acquisition had been targeted to close in the third quarter, subject to regulatory approval and customary closing conditions, but Bitvo issued a news release Nov. 11 indicating that it had not yet closed.

Sam Bankman-Fried, the 30-year-old founder of FTX, was quoted in a news release saying he was “delighted” to enter the Canadian marketplace and continue to expand FTX’s global reach.

“Our expansion into Canada is another step in proactively working with cryptocurrency regulators in different geographies across the globe,” Bankman-Fried said in June.

Regulators in the United States and Bahamas are now reportedly probing FTX amid allegations that millions of dollars of client money have gone missing, and that funds were being diverted to a related trading company owned by Bankman-Fried.

He resigned as chief executive last week in the wake of the collapse that began with a liquidity crisis that left users unable to access their funds.

Larger rival exchange Binance Holdings Ltd. called off a proposed rescue last week. In a Nov. 9 tweet, the larger crypto exchange said it was pulling out of acquiring FTX due, in part, to “news reports regarding mishandled customer funds and alleged U.S. agency investigations.”

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A red banner at the top of FTX’s website Tuesday said the crypto exchange was unable to process withdrawals and added that the company would “strongly advise against depositing.” The website said all “onboarding” of new clients was suspended until further notice.

FTX’s rapidly sinking fortunes highlighted the exposure to the crypto world of a second large Canadian pension fund.

The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board invested US$95 million in FTX in two tranches late last year and early this year. The pension manager, which had $242.5 billion in assets at the end of June, said last week that its potential exposure is limited to less than 0.05 per cent of the plan’s total net assets.

In August, the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Quebec said it had written off a US$150-million investment in fizzled crypto lender Celsius Network LLC. Caisse chief executive Charles Emond said at the time that the Quebec pension fund was keen on “seizing the potential of blockchain technology” and perhaps the investment in Celsius was made “too soon” in the company’s development.

• Email: bshecter@nationalpost.com | Twitter: BatPost

As FTX’s ties in Canada grew, was due diligence done by regulators and the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan?
GLOBE AND MAIL
TECHNOLOGY REPORTER
PUBLISHED NOVEMBER 15, 2022

The stunning implosion of FTX Ltd. has derailed its plans to officially launch in Canada, but it’s unclear if regulators in this country were even able to peer into the books of the cryptocurrency exchange as part of their due diligence on the company that now faces potentially criminal liability.

Months before it filed for bankruptcy amid a scandal that continues to reverberate across the global crypto industry, FTX was on course in June to acquire Bitvo Inc., a Calgary-based crypto exchange regulated by all 13 provincial and territorial securities commissions in Canada. It was one of several opportunities Canadian regulators were ostensibly provided to look closely at FTX’s finances.

Bahamas-based FTX had already been operating in Canada, despite not having regulatory approval. Retail investors were able to hold digital wallets on FTX’s platform to store their crypto, with many using VPN technology, which anonymized their Canadian location and created a private network from a public internet connection.

Still, FTX wanted a “real Canadian footprint” and this was only the beginning of its move into this country, the company’s founder and former chief executive officer Sam Bankman-Fried had told The Globe and Mail then.

“We’re looking to expand in places where regulators are working with the sector to create meaningful opportunities,” Mr. Bankman-Fried had said. The Alberta government had hailed the launch, calling it a vehicle to “further grow our reputation and our opportunities in technology, and innovation.”

Now, all of that has fallen apart.

Who are the big names affected by the FTX crash? Tom Brady, Ontario’s Teacher Pension Plan, Steph Curry and more

What’s happening at bankrupt crypto exchange FTX?

Bitvo announced Tuesday that owner Pateno Payments Inc. has terminated the deal with FTX, which was previously expected to be finalized in the third quarter of this year.

On top of that, FTX is facing a criminal investigation in the Bahamas, according to a news release by the Caribbean country. And U.S. prosecutors – including the Justice Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission – are investigating how FTX had been handling customer funds, Reuters first reported this week.

FTX was funneling customer assets worth nearly US$10-billion to an affiliated trading firm, Alameda Research, which is also owned by Mr. Bankman-Fried and has since suspended its operations, the Wall Street Journal and crypto publication CoinDesk reported.

Alameda allegedly invested FTX assets in risky bets, in contravention of FTX’s own terms of service and against common industry norms, which require market brokers and exchanges to keep customer funds separated from company assets.

A spokesperson for FTX declined to comment.

It is a situation that raises many questions for Canadian regulators, which have struggled to control international crypto players skirting rules to operate here. The CEO of the Ontario Securities Commission, Grant Vingoe, recently called it a dilemma on multiple levels: insufficient co-ordination in developing a cross-country regime for crypto platforms, finite resources and non-compliance by companies in the sector when facing sanctions.

In an interview Tuesday, Bitvo CEO Pamela Draper said her company does not have any material exposure to FTX or the company’s cryptocurrency, FTT, beyond the now-cancelled acquisition deal.

When the deal was first announced, neither FTX nor Bitvo revealed the exact terms or valuation. It was pending regulatory approval and Bitvo was not allowed to look into FTX’s books, though FTX had been able to go over Bitvo’s finances.

“We were not given an opportunity to perform due diligence,” Ms. Draper said.

Due diligence is what first revealed the cracks in FTX’s finances last week.

FTX was planning to sell itself to rival Binance Holdings Ltd. after announcing a “liquidity crunch.” But shortly after performing due diligence, Binance said it was walking away from the rescue takeover, issuing a statement that alluded to discrepancies in FTX’s books and expressed concerns about how it was handling customer assets.

The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan had its own opportunity to conduct due diligence into FTX. Teachers said last week that it invested a total of US$95-million in FTX over two rounds: US$75-million in October, 2021, followed by US$20-million in January, 2022.

This week, Teachers spokesperson Dan Madge would not say whether it performed due diligence before it invested in FTX.

The Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ontario (FSRA) said in a statement that it expects Teachers and other pension funds it regulates to follow “robust risk management practices.”

“Pension plan administrators are expected to understand and manage investment risks as per the standard of care required by the Pension Benefits Act,” FSRA spokesperson Russ Courtney said in a statement. “The Act requires pension plan administrators to oversee the plan with the same care and diligence expected when an individual deals with someone else’s property.”

Mr. Courtney declined to say if due diligence on FTX was done by Teachers.

In the case of Bitvo, due diligence would be the purview of the Alberta Securities Commission (ASC), which was spearheading the approval for its deal with FTX and is a principal regulator for the operations at the Calgary company, according to the OSC. JP Vecsi, a spokesperson for the OSC, declined to comment further and referred The Globe to the ASC.

The ASC declined to comment. “It is premature for us to comment upon the circumstances surrounding Bahamas-based FTX at this time,” said Theresa Schroder, communications adviser at the ASC, referring The Globe back to Bitvo.

Collapsed crypto exchange FTX was engulfed in more chaos on Nov. 12 when the company said it had detected unauthorized access and analysts said hundreds of millions of dollars of assets had been moved from the platform in 'suspicious circumstances.'

REUTERS