TC Energy says has not found cause of Keystone oil pipeline leak

Investigators, cleanup crews begin scouring oil pipeline spill in Kansas

Sun, December 11, 2022 

(Reuters) - Canada's TC Energy said on Sunday it has not yet determined the cause of the Keystone oil pipeline leak last week in the United States, while also not giving a timeline as to when the pipeline will resume operation.

TC shut the pipeline after more than 14,000 barrels of crude oil spilled into a creek in Kansas on Wednesday, making it one of the largest U.S. crude spills in nearly a decade.

"Our teams continue to actively investigate the cause of the incident. We have not confirmed a timeline for re-start and will only resume service when it is safe to do so, and with the approval of the regulator," TC said in an update posted to its website.

The pipeline operator said that it has more than 250 people working on the leak, including third-party environmental specialists, adding that it is continuously monitoring air quality and presently there are no indications of adverse health or public concerns.

Crews are also preparing for rain forecast to begin on Monday, TC said.

The 622,000 barrel-per-day Keystone line is a critical artery shipping heavy Canadian crude from Alberta to refiners in the U.S. Midwest and the Gulf Coast.

Keystone's shutdown will hamper deliveries of Canadian crude both to the U.S. storage hub in Cushing, Oklahoma and to the Gulf, where it is processed by refiners or exported.

(Reporting by Juby Babu in Bengaluru; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

Kansas residents hold their nose as crews mop up massive U.S. oil spill






A satellite image shows emergency crews working to clean up crude oil pipeline spill along Mill Creek, in Kansas

Sat, December 10, 2022
By Erwin Seba and Nia Williams

WASHINGTON, Kan. (Reuters) -Residents near the site of the worst U.S. oil pipeline leak in a decade took the commotion and smell in stride as cleanup crews labored in near-freezing temperatures, and investigators searched for clues to what caused the spill.

A heavy odor of oil hung in the air as tractor trailers ferried generators, lighting and ground mats to a muddy site on the outskirts of this farming community, where a breach in the Keystone pipeline discovered on Wednesday spewed 14,000 barrels of oil.

Pipeline operator TC Energy said on Friday it was evaluating plans to restart the line, which carries 622,000 barrels per day of Canadian oil to U.S. refineries and export hubs.

"We could smell it first thing in the morning; it was bad," said Washington resident Dana Cecrle, 56. He shrugged off the disruption: "Stuff breaks. Pipelines break, oil trains derail."

TC Energy did not provide details of the breach or say when a restart on the broken segment could begin. Officials are scheduled on Monday to receive a briefing on the pipeline breach and cleanup, said Washington County's emergency preparedness coordinator, Randy Hubbard, on Saturday.

OIL FLOWS TO CREEK

Environmental specialists from as far away as Mississippi were helping with the cleanup and federal investigators combed the site to determine what caused the 36-inch (91-cm) pipeline to break.

Washington County, a rural area of about 5,500 people, is about 200 miles (322 km) northwest of Kansas City.

The spill has not threatened the water supply or forced residents to evacuate. Emergency workers installed booms to contain oil that flowed into a creek and that sprayed onto a hillside near a livestock pasture, said Hubbard.

TC Energy aims to restart on Saturday a pipeline segment that sends oil to Illinois, and another portion that brings oil to the major trading hub of Cushing, Oklahoma, on Dec. 20, Bloomberg News reported, citing sources. Reuters has not verified those details.

It was the third spill of several thousand barrels of crude on the 2,687-mile (4,324-km) pipeline since it opened in 2010. A previous Keystone spill had caused the pipeline to remain shut for about two weeks.

"Hell, that's life," said 70-year-old Carol Hollingsworth of nearby Hollenberg, Kansas, about the latest spill. "We got to have the oil."

TC Energy had around 100 workers leading the cleanup and containment efforts, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was providing oversight and monitoring, said Kellen Ashford, an EPA spokesperson.

U.S. regulator Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Administration (PHMSA) said the company shut the pipeline seven minutes after receiving a leak detection alarm.

CRUDE BOTTLENECK

A lengthy shutdown of the pipeline could lead to Canadian crude getting bottlenecked in Alberta, and drive prices at the Hardisty storage hub lower, although price reaction on Friday was muted.

Western Canada Select (WCS), the benchmark Canadian heavy grade, for December delivery last traded at a discount of $27.70 per barrel to the U.S. crude futures benchmark, according to a Calgary-based broker. On Thursday, December WCS traded as low as $33.50 under U.S. crude, before settling at around a $28.45 discount.

"The real impact could come if Keystone faces any (flow) pressure restrictions from PHMSA, even after the pipeline is allowed to resume operations," said Ryan Saxton, head of oil data at consultants Wood Mackenzie.

(Reporting by Erwin Seba in Washington, Kansas, and Nia Williams in Calgary, Alberta;Additional reporting by Arathy Somasekhar in Houston, Rod Nickel in Winnipeg and Stephanie Kelly in New YorkEditing by Gary McWilliams, Stephen Coates and Matthew Lewis)

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
A top art dealer sold a super-rich sheikh $5 million of 'antique' sculptures that had been polished with modern tools and contained plastic, court heard

Joshua Zitser
Sun, December 11, 2022 

A composite image shows photographs of the "Hari Hara" and "Head of Dionysus" sculptures that were sold to Sheikh Hamad Bin Abdullah al-Thani

England and Wales High Court

A respected British art dealer sold seven "antique" artifacts to a Qatari sheikh in 2014 and 2015.


The artifacts turned out to be inauthentic. Evidence shows the use of modern tools and materials.


The art dealer, John Eskenazi, has been ordered to repay the Qatari buyer $4.99 million and damages.

A respected British art dealer has been ordered to repay $4.99 million, plus damages, to a Qatari sheikh after he sold him seven "ancient" sculptures that later turned out to be forgeries.

In 2014 and 2015, Sheikh Hamad Bin Abdullah Al Thani purchased seven artifacts from London-based art dealer John Eskenazi for $4.99 million through his company Qatar Investment and Projects Holding Company, also known as QIQCO, Forbes reported.

Asian art expert Eskenazi, who has previously sourced ancient artwork for New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art and Paris's Louvre Museum, priced and sold the artifacts with the understanding they were up to 2,000 years old, per the Mail on Sunday.

According to court documents, each invoice contained a note saying: "I declare that to the best of my knowledge and belief the item detailed on this invoice is antique and therefore over one hundred years of age."

But a High Court ruling last month found that the artifacts sold by John Eskenazi Limited (JEL) to the super-rich Qatari sheikh between 2014 and 2015 were forgeries.

"In relation to all of the objects, the Claimants have proved their inauthenticity, and the absence of reasonable grounds for the unqualified opinion as to their ancient origin, which JEL gave," concluded the High Court judge.

The judge ordered Eskenazi to refund what the sheikh had paid for the fake artworks, plus damages, on November 29.

However, the judge dismissed the sheikh's allegation that Eskenazi had committed fraud.

An image of the "Hari Hara" sculpture.England and Wales High Court

A statue of Hindu deity Hari Hara, which was said to be over 1,000 years old and sold for $2.2 million, showed clear evidence that it was not ancient, according to archeological scientist Anna Bennett in a written report supplied to the court.

Bennett said that a high-speed modern machine polisher appeared to have been used on the statue and that it had been "chemically treated with hydrochloric acid in an attempt artificially to age the surface and to remove the modern tool marks."

An image of the sculpture of the head of a Krodha.England and Wales High Court

The head of "the Krodha," a piece that was said to date back to the fifth or sixth century, had "very substantial evidence of modern materials," Bennett added.

There were fragments of plastic sheeting in the object and modern fibers protruding from the surface, Bennett said, according to the ruling.

Insider contacted Eskenazi and QIPCO for comment but did not immediately receive responses.

In a statement provided to Mail on Sunday, lawyers for the sheikh and QIPCO said: "While it is a matter of regret to Qipco that they felt it necessary to take this action against John Eskenazi Limited, they felt it was important to pursue this case as a matter of principle."

A spokesperson for Eskenazi told the newspaper: "John Eskenazi and his family have suffered years of anguish and anxiety as a result of this litigation.

"He is therefore extremely pleased that the court has dismissed in its entirety the sheik's case of fraud and has accepted that these objects were sold in good faith."

California invested an enormous amount of money into getting EVs on the road, but practically nothing when it comes to dealing with the waste: 'It's totally like the Wild West.'


Hanna Kang
Sun, December 11, 2022 

An electric car charging station.

Stock Photo/Getty Images

California has been a leader in electric vehicle adoption.

But the state doesn't have a system to figure out what to do with the hundreds of thousands of battery packs that will be retiring.

A startup company focused on repurposing and battery diagnostics is buying the state much-needed time.

California's push for electric vehicles is leading to an impending environmental issue: a pileup of toxic batteries.

California has been a leader in EV adoption since 2012, when Gov. Jerry Brown issued an executive order calling for 1.5 million zero-emission vehicles on California roads by 2025. Now, some of the batteries from those early vehicles are heading to the scrapheap, and the state has nowhere to put them.

EVs do not release carbon dioxide when they run, but the dismantling of the lithium-ion batteries results in environmental impacts. An EV battery weighs thousands of pounds and is sensitive — cutting into the wrong place or too deep into a battery cell can result in the battery combusting and releasing toxic fumes.

The difficulty in disposing of the EV batteries represents a clash between the state's lofty ambitions to have a carbon-free economy and the bind California has put itself in by enacting some of the toughest regulations against toxic waste. Breaking down and disposing of the batteries is a highly toxic process and under current laws it's difficult to create an in-state disposal operation. If left unattended, the batteries are susceptible to fire.

"It's not a problem yet," Daniel Sperling, automotive member of the California Air Resources Board, told Insider. "But we need to invest in facilities now."

"It's totally like the Wild West," said Zora Chung, co-founder of ReJoule, Inc., a startup project based in Signal Hill that is exploring repurposing used batteries from EVs.

In a few years, the state will need to have a system to figure out what to do with the hundreds of thousands of battery packs that will be retiring. However, there are no EV battery recycling plants that exist in California, nor tried-and-true recycling programs in place to deal with the fallout.

"I don't know actually what happens at this point," Chung told Insider. "I just know that the few that do get collected, they either are stored to figure out if they can be repurposed or if they go straight to recycling."

Getting batteries on the road, but no way to get them off it

End-of-life batteries are stockpiled for resale, or get shipped out of state or out of the country, where the actual recycling happens.

"It's incredibly hard to get permits done here," Chung said. "You need a huge amount of land. They also generate toxic waste. So it's just not easy to do."

In January, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a $10 billion proposal to go oil-free and end the sale of new gas cars by 2035. In 2021, EV sales in California set a new record of 176,357 vehicles, an increase of 74% from the previous year. Their share of total registrations jumped to 9.5% from 6.2% in the prior year.

In the fourth quarter of 2021, California became the first state where cumulative sales of plug-in electric vehicles exceeded 1 million. As of October 2022, they accounted for nearly 18% of the state's new car sales, compared to 6% of the country's. California also has more than 1.13 million zero-emission vehicles registered across the state.

Currently, California accounts for more than 40% of the nation's EVs. Tesla, Ford, GM Motors, Rivian and Lucid Motors are among the top electric car manufacturers in the country.

Electric vehicle assembly at Lucid Motors plant in Casa Grande, Arizona.

Caitlin O'Hara/Reuters

But in its rush to go electric, the state never allocated sufficient funding to determine what happens once those batteries expire.

The state is only just starting to scramble for solutions.

In 2019, the California Energy Commission created the Lithium-ion Car Battery Recycling Advisory Group in response to Assembly Bill 2832, which required the advisory group to submit policy recommendations to the legislature aimed at ensuring that as close to 100% as possible of lithium-ion batteries in the state are reused or recycled at end-of-life in a safe and cost-effective manner.

But unlike the European Union that is developing a battery passport system to track batteries from cradle to grave, or in Asia, where the OEM has the ownership of batteries, the US doesn't have a system to track batteries.

"That's why recycling rates are kind of unknown," Jessica Dunn, a senior analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists and a co-author of the advisory group's policy recommendations, told Insider. "We think they're high, but that's unknown. And for us to really have access to this information, there needs to be some kind of tracking of not only batteries that are retiring, but those that are being repurposed."

A lack of policy

Meg Slattery, a Ph.D. student at UC Davis and a co-author of the policy recommendations, said the information they rely on is more anecdotal, which may serve to misinform experts as well as the public.

"On the one hand, we think the recycling rates are high, but I'm kind of relying on car companies saying that," Slattery told Insider. "And then on the other hand, I think without that information, people throw around the statistic that only 5% of car batteries are recycled, but that's referring to a statistic about consumer electronics. So I think there's also information going the other way that's leading people to be more alarmed about batteries not getting recycled than I think corresponds to the situation."

And while both she and Dunn agree that the heightened interest and recent funding going into the battery recycling and reuse front on the federal level is a step in the right direction, policies that establish a streamlined recycling process, as well as clear ownership and collection responsibilities, need to happen in tandem.

"Funding research and development and demonstration, but also tackling it with an extended producer responsibility among other regulations, that's not something we've really seen at all from the federal government," Dunn said.

They feel overall optimistic about the situation, Slattery said, but quite a lot is happening in the absence of policy.

"If there's no requirement, you're sort of relying on the batteries being profitable to recycle in order for it to happen," she said. "For example, damaged batteries are much more expensive to ship. And so that could throw off the economics, whereas if there were clear requirements, it removes that uncertainty."

A ticking timebomb

The policy recommendations from the Lithium-ion Car Battery Recycling Advisory Group — submitted to the legislature in March — will require new legislation and/or regulatory changes, said Lance Klug, a spokesman for CalRecycle.

Once legislation is in place, regulations would be required to implement the statute.

The Energy Commission is looking at the reuse of batteries as a potential solution to combat the pressing issue. The policy recommendation report states the lifespan of repurposed batteries can be extended by 10 years or longer.

Nick Lapis, a spokesman for Californians Against Waste, an environmental advocacy organization that advocates for stronger environmental laws and more recycling at the state and local level, said the organization is in support of the end-of-life batteries being used for various things like grid scale and home energy storage.

"We definitely want to reuse them as much as possible," he said. "But at some point, they are going to reach the end of their lives and the recycling needs to happen."

A problem with that, however, is that an environmental bill takes years to pass, Lapis told Insider.

Then should the state loosen its restrictions on toxic waste plant permits? It's complicated, he said.

"We don't want to sacrifice the public health and safety of communities just to recycle something," he said. "And so it's not like we want to make it easier."

On the flipside, Lapis believes the government should take some steps to speed up the permitting process. They can give businesses more certainty or give them answers faster, he said.

Slattery believes now is the time to do something before end-of-life batteries become a huge issue.

"I do think everybody does want the batteries to be as sustainable as possible and have this be an opportunity to do something right," she said.

In July 2020, the Energy Commission awarded $10.8 million to four projects that will explore repurposing used batteries from EVs: Repurpose Energy, Smartville, San Diego State University and ReJoule.

ReJoule recently launched a state-funded pilot project to adapt the used batteries for solar storage. Currently, the company has used batteries deployed at the American Museum of Ceramic Art in Pomona, where solar panels feed electricity into the used battery storage units.

Charging station for electric and hybrid cars using solar panels to generate electricity to charge car batteries.

Stock Photo/Getty Images

If successful, the project could extend the life of an EV battery by a decade or more.

The company is also set to launch a project focused on battery diagnostics aimed at diagnosing a battery pack before it's removed from the car. This will enable people to analyze whether the battery is suitable for a second life, without the dangers of taking it apart.

One of the benefits of having the state of health be easily readable in some capacity is that it makes the whole system more efficient, Slattery said. That's because whoever is handling the vehicle knows immediately whether it should be sent to a repurposing facility or straight to a recycling facility.

"You don't necessarily need to have a third party that checks the state of health and before it gets shipped even farther away," she said. "And knowing the state of health is super important if we're going to repurpose batteries."

The cost to ship and recycle battery packs from passenger vehicles costs upwards of a thousand dollars per pack, according to ReJoule. The cost increases for larger commercial vehicles or transit vehicles, like buses. Chung said the consequences of the high cost is starting to show.

"We're already starting to see some of these pile up at customer sites," she said.

Getting one data point for one battery normally takes between six to 10 hours, depending on the battery and also the protocol used. This is separate from UL 1974, which is the only test standard that exists on repurposing batteries, which outlines a test procedure that takes about 40 hours non stop.

"Imagine if it just took you one full work week to qualify one used battery," Chung said. "Really not feasible."

Without the need for installing costly machinery, ReJoule's patent-pending technology can assess a battery's state of health in minutes, rather than hours. The technology, which requires far less training, is portable, too. This means that ReJoule's technology can travel wherever batteries are found, slashing the greenhouse gas emissions and overall cost of the grading process while completely obviating the need for premature recycling of a battery with a decade or more of useful life remaining.

"We're not the doctor, we're not necessarily going to heal a sickness," Chung said. "But we can identify it so that the necessary accommodation could be made."

A Message to President Biden: No Prisoner Swap Needed to FREE Leonard Peltier


Levi Rickert
Sun, December 11, 2022

Cartoon by Ricardo Cate'. (Photo/Facebook)

Opinion. As Americans were beginning their day this past Thursday, news spread quickly that President Joe Biden’s administration had worked out a deal for the release of Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) superstar and two-time Olympic gold medalist Brittney Griner from a Russian penal colony.

Griner was arrested in February when customs officials in Moscow discovered vape canisters with cannabis oil in her luggage. She pleaded guilty to the offense, sentenced to nine years and was transferred last month to the penal colony.

For months, Griner’s supporters put tremendous pressure on the Biden White House to do everything it could do to secure her release. As part of the negotiations, the Biden administration also worked to secure the release of Paul Whelan, a Michigan corporate security executive who had been held in Russia for four years on spying charges that are thought to be baseless.

In the end, only Griner was released through an exchange brokered by the State Department for arms dealer Viktor Bout, who is nicknamed “Merchant of Death.” He was convicted 11 years ago in by a jury in New York City of conspiracy to kill U.S. citizens and officials, delivery of military equipment and providing assistance to a terrorist organization. He was sentenced to the minimum of 25 years in prison.

Griner’s release required an exchange. Bout was the exchange. Critics are saying Bout for Griner was not an even exchange.

The whole Griner-Bout prisoner swap prompted talented Native American artists Ricardo Caté (Santo Domingo Pueblo), creator of the Santa Fe New Mexican’s daily “Without Reservations” comic strip, to create a cartoon that read; “It doesn’t take a prisoner swap to free Leonard Peltier.”

Caté’s cartoon, as usual, was on target for a bullseye.

President Biden would not have to worry about coming up with an arms dealer criminal to grant the release of Leonard Peltier (Turtle Mountain Ojibwe), who has been incarcerated for 47 years for a crime he did not commit.

Following a controversial trial, Peltier was convicted of aiding and abetting murder and has been imprisoned since 1977. Many people and human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, National Congress of American Indians, the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and others believe Peltier is a political prisoner who should be immediately released.

Kevin Sharp, former chief judge for the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee and now in private practice, spends his time these days seeking the long-overdue release of Peltier.

He gave this statement to Native News Online on Saturday:

“I am happy Brittany Griner is home. Was her trade for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout the right thing to do? That will be for history to decide. But there is another political hostage in this country, Leonard Peltier, and it doesn’t require a swap with the ‘Merchant of Death’ to bring him home. It merely requires the President to sign clemency papers. Leonard’s 47 year incarceration is the product of an FBI vendetta, and the continuation of the government’s mistreatment of Native Americans dating back hundreds of years. Enough is enough. Free Leonard Peltier.”

In a previous conversation with Native News Online in August 2021, Sharp said the federal government now admits they don’t know who shot the agents

“Rather than receiving equal protection under the law, Leonard Peltier was convicted based on fabricated evidence, perjured testimony, and a hidden exculpatory ballistics test. Leonard remains in prison not because of proof beyond a reasonable doubt but because of politics. His last chance at freedom is the collective voice of people who care and dare to stand up for justice and mercy,” Sharp said.

In the case of Griner, there was tremendous pressure put on the White House during the past 10 months to get her freed for what many believe was a miscarriage of justice.

Similarly, there has been a lot of pressure by Native American organizations and many others, including U.S. senators, to see Peltier rightfully set free.

Readers of Native News Online will know I have written several opinion columns calling for the release of Peltier. Obviously, there is a need to write more on this matter.

It is important to keep the pressure on the White House. Letters and calls should not cease. The President should be reminded there is no prisoner swap needed to FREE Leonard Peltier.

About the Author: "Levi Rickert (Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation) is the founder, publisher and editor of Native News Online. Rickert was awarded Best Column 2021 Native Media Award for the print\/online category by the Native American Journalists Association. He serves on the advisory board of the Multicultural Media Correspondents Association. He can be reached at levi@nativenewsonline.net."

Contact: levi@nativenewsonline.net

Philippines protesters decry alleged injustices under Marcos

Fri, December 9, 2022 

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Hundreds of people marched in the Philippine capital on Saturday protesting what they said was a rising number of extrajudicial killings and other injustices under the administration of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

The protesters, led by a Philippines-based rights group, gathered at a public square in Manila before marching toward the presidential palace to demand justice for victims. Police estimated around 800 protesters took part in the rally, which coincided with International Human Rights Day.

Cristina Palabay of the rights group Karapatan said under the Marcos administration’s counterinsurgency campaign, the group has documented at least 17 cases of extrajudicial killings in addition to four other incidents of violence where victims survived.

The number of political prisoners continues to rise, with 828 detained as of Nov. 30, Palabay said, noting that at least 25 of them were arrested after Marcos took office in June.



“Despite these sordid figures there has been zero justice for the victims of extrajudicial killings,” Palabay said in a statement. “The culture of impunity continues to rear its ugly head.”

Organizers said protesters in Manila and other parts of the country included families of activists who disappeared or were tortured during the administration of Marcos’ father and namesake, ousted dictator Ferdinand Marcos, as well as human rights victims under former President Rodrigo Duterte, whose brutal war on drugs is under investigation by the International Criminal Court after leaving thousands dead.

The dictator was ousted in an army-backed “People Power” revolt in 1986 and died three years later in exile in the U.S. without admitting any wrongdoing, including accusations that he, his family and other associates amassed an estimated $5 billion to $10 billion while he was in power.

“We come together as families of victims from different regimes and presidents ... We have made it a point that every International Human Rights Day we call for justice, and commit to not allow the same violations to happen to others,” said Evangeline Hernandez, chairperson of a human rights victims group.

Karapatan said the current administration is also increasing the use of anti-terror laws to suppress dissent and curtailing freedom of expression and association.

The U.N. Human Rights Council has urged the Marcos administration to address the killings and other rights abuses.

The government has said it is committed to protecting human rights, citing reforms in the country’s judicial system.

Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla, in a speech last month in Geneva before the Human Rights Council, dismissed allegations that there is a culture of impunity in the Philippines. He said the government will not tolerate the denial of justice or the violation of rights.

Also coinciding with International Human Rights Day, journalist Maria Ressa, one of the winners of the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize, launched in Manila her memoir “How to Stand Up to a Dictator: The Fight for Our Future.”

“It is a time when we are seeing our rights eroded globally, where you are seeing a shift away from democracy to ... fascism and it’s time for us to hold the line so this is what we did today,” she told The Associated Press.

The co-founder of local news website Rappler faces a string of criminal charges filed by Duterte’s administration and his allies that are related to Rappler’s coverage of the killings in the war on drugs and alleged government-sponsored disinformation networks.

Her book warns of creeping authoritarianism in the Philippines and other parts of the world, allegedly aided and abetted by social media companies whose algorithms and business models have allowed their platforms to spread lies.

“It’s not a coincidence that when lies spread faster than facts you see an erosion of democracy globally,” Ressa said. “Until we solve this problem to stop the corruption in our information eco system we won’t be able to solve any problems. In fact democracy is at risk.”

Philippines Human Rights Day

Journalist Maria Ressa, one of the winners of the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize, speaks while holding her book "How to Stand Up to a Dictator: The Fight for Our Future." during its launch, in metropolitan Manila, Philippines that coincides with International Human Rights Day, Saturday, Dec. 10, 2022. The co-founder of local news website Rappler faces a string of criminal charges filed by former President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration and his allies that are related to Rappler’s coverage of the killings in the war on drugs and alleged government-sponsored disinformation networks.

 (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)More
179

THE BLIND LEADING THE BLIND

Meta staff are hitting out at Mark Zuckerberg in Blind reviews because they think his metaverse obsession will 'single-handedly kill' the company

Jyoti Mann

Sun, December 11, 2022 

Mark Zuckerberg apologized on Wednesday for making 11,000 job cuts.Drew Angerer/Getty Images

• Meta employees are posting negative comments about Mark Zuckerberg on anonymous forum Blind.

• A software developer said Meta's CEO will "single-handedly kill" the company with the metaverse.

• The reviews were posted on the day that Meta axed 13% of its workforce and on the following day.

Meta employees are taking aim at Mark Zuckerberg in employee reviews on Blind, the anonymous forum.

Some reviews, posted on Wednesday – the day Meta laid off 13% of its workforce – are negative, although others are more positive. One user likened the layoffs to the "hunger games" and another said the Facebook owner had an "uncertain future."
Insider surveyed the workplace community app, where staff can air their grievances in posts and reviews, to see what was being said about Meta and its CEO. Some 44 employee reviews of Meta were posted on Blind on Wednesday and Thursday this week.

"The Metaverse will be our slow death," one user, who called themselves a senior software developer, posted on Wednesday. They added: "Mark Zuckerberg will single-handedly kill a company with the meta-verse."

Zuckerberg apologized to staff for the need to cut 11,000 jobs, admitting that he "got this wrong".

Blind users must provide their work email email address, job title and employer when joining the platform so the company can "gauge the professional status" of posters, according to its website.

A user's employment is not officially verified, however. Blind said it occasionally sent prompts to users to "re-verify" their accounts.

Rick Chen, head of public relations at Blind, told Insider: "Nearly all of the reviews posted have been written by current employees of the respective companies at the time of writing, as people generally cannot access Blind after they are laid off or resign."

He added: "The loss of access after an employment change is not immediate."

Meta employees have posted almost 6,000 reviews of the company on Blind since 2020 and it has a rating of 4 out of 5 stars.

A self-described engineer, who gave the company five stars, listed "extremely smart and talented coworkers" as well as "great culture" in a list of "pros". Posting on the day the layoffs were made, they added that "Zuck is leading this company in the wrong direction" in their list of "cons".

A user who says they are a data scientist said Meta is in "need of layoffs in executive level," adding: "Leadership is having no clue, they mistake motion for a progress."

One person, who said they worked in talent acquisition, gave Meta a four-star rating on Wednesday. They said it was an "overall great place to experience" adding that "Mark is not afraid to take risks (which is a good and bad thing)."

A poster, who says they are a senior technical program manager, wrote on Thursday: "Poor leadership is on track to sink this ship." They went on to list "good pay" perks, benefits and talented peers as "pros". The "cons" included: "No accountability at and above Director level. VPs and Directors are here to just milk the company without adding any value."

They added: "I thought it was a data-driven company but actually it is one man's gut feeling and emotions-driven. Nobody can overwrite his decision."

Not all Meta employees share the negative view of Zuckerberg, however. One former staff member who was laid off Wednesday told Insider that they felt the CEO handled the layoffs "with humanity".

Another engineer gave the company just one star on Wednesday and described the mass cuts as the "worst layoff in history." They said: "With the layoff, I wouldn't recommend anyone to work there until the stock price fully recovers."

Meta did not respond to a request for comment from Insider.

Staff say 'stay away from Twitter 2.0' in Blind reviews due to its 'toxic' culture under Elon Musk

Jyoti Mann

Sun, December 11, 2022 at 2:00 

Twitter employees have posted 180 reviews on Blind since Elon Musk took over.Getty Images

• Twitter employees are warning potential recruits to "stay away" from the company in Blind reviews.

• One worker claimed the company has a "cut-throat culture" since Elon Musk took over the platform. 

• Staff posted 33 reviews in December alone and 180 since Musk became the owner and CEO.

Twitter employees are posting reviews of the company on Blind and warning potential new hires to "stay away from Twitter 2.0."

Staff have posted 33 reviews of their employer on the anonymous networking site this month. Some are warning people not to join Twitter, while others say the culture has changed for the worse and described it as "toxic."

One Blind user told people to "wake up and stay away from Twitter 2.0" in their review on December 3. They said the company offered "fair compensation" to those who joined earlier, but that "Elon Musk ruined everything" because the "pay is no longer transparent."

Blind has told Insider that users can only upload a review of a company they work for. The anonymous posters are required to provide their work email address, job title and employer when they sign up so Blind can "gauge the professional status" of users.

A self-described people manager said Twitter was once an "amazing company" with a "welcoming culture" in their review posted December 6. They also said: "Don't come here if you value well-being or a safe workplace."

Another Twitter employee gave the company a rating of one star out of five. In their list of pros, they said: "Nothing tbh. Twitter 1.0 was cool, but the new one, if you can work elsewhere just go there."

The worker included "cut-throat culture" and "leadership just sucking up to EM" among their list of cons in their review.

One reviewer described it as a "sinking ship with Elon Musk" in their review. They said: "Overworked with extreme hours, always on PIP [performance improvement plan] and threatened to get fired, supervised by under-qualified engineers, no credit for work, no decision-making power."

Musk issued Twitter staff an ultimatum to sign up to his "Twitter 2.0" vision and "work long hours at high intensity" or quit after he fired almost half of Twitter's workforce last month.

About 1,400 Twitter employees signed up to Blind after Musk bought Twitter on October 27, Blind's co-founder told Insider. A total of 180 reviews of Twitter have been posted by employees on Blind since Musk took over.

Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider.

Amazon’s ‘thank my driver’ program

that tipped $5 maxed out after 1 day

Alex Portée

Fri, December 9, 2022 a

Amazon’s “Alexa, thank my driver” promotion came to an end just one day after being launched and after a million “thank yous” were received.

On Dec. 7, the e-commerce site kicked off its promotion which offered customers a new way to thank delivery drivers for their service during the hectic holiday season.

Throughout the “Alexa, thank my driver” promotion, Amazon customers were encouraged to use Amazon devices such as the Echo or Alexa app on smartphones to thank delivery drivers for recent deliveries by saying, “Alexa, thank my driver.”

For the first 1 million thank-yous received, drivers were able to receive an additional $5 tip at no cost to customers. According to Amazon, the five drivers to receive the most “thank-you’s” during the promotion period are to be awarded $10,000 and an additional $10,000 to their charity of choice.

“Delivery drivers work hard every day delivering for our customers, and we want to show them our sincere appreciation and connect them with the customers they serve,” Amazon said in a statement about the end of the promotion. “As of Dec. 8, we have received more than 1 Million ‘thank yous’ concluding the promotion offering $5 per ‘thank you’ to eligible drivers. You can still share your appreciation by saying, ‘Alexa, thank my driver.’ We are thankful for the enthusiastic response to the promotion and the appreciation shown to drivers.”

The start of the promotion coincided with reports that Amazon had been sued by the District of Columbia for allegedly pilfering tips from drivers. A 2021 Federal Trade Commission complaint is cited in the suit. According to the complaint, Amazon is accused of changing its payment policies in 2016 so that drivers earned less than 100% of their tips.

“Nothing is more important to us than customer trust. This lawsuit involves a practice we changed three years ago and is without merit — all of the customer tips at issue were already paid to drivers as part of a settlement last year with the FTC,” Maria Boschetti, an Amazon spokesperson, told TODAY.com in a statement regarding the lawsuit.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M 

Calls for reform after EU arrests in Qatar corruption probe

Sat, December 10, 2022 

The arrest of a European Parliament vice-president and four others linked to a corruption probe implicating World Cup hosts Qatar sparked calls Saturday for "root and branch reform" in the EU institution.

"This is not an isolated incident," said anti-corruption campaigning group Transparency International.

"Over many decades, the Parliament has allowed a culture of impunity to develop, with a combination of lax financial rules and controls and a complete lack of independent (or indeed any) ethics oversight," its director Michiel van Hulten said.

The European Parliament's Greens group called for a full investigation into the allegations of bribery by Qatar.

"We will not accept business as usual...," the group posted on Twitter. "We must strengthen our rules so this cannot happen again.

The European Parliament had "become a law unto itself", said Van Hulten. "It is time for root and branch reform."

Alberto Alemanno, a law professor based in Belgium, said the "scandal opens multiple Pandora’s boxes all at once", including "flawed EU ethics system for MEPs" and the "scale of foreign influence over EU".

- Corruption, money laundering -

Police arrested Greek socialist MEP Eva Kaili on Friday hours after four others had been detained for questioning.

At least three were either Italian citizens or originally came from Italy, a source close to the case told AFP.

Kaili, 44, is the partner of one of the four, Francesco Giorgi, a parliamentary assistant with the European Parliament's Socialists and Democrats group, said the source.

Former Italian MEP Pier-Antonio Panzeri, who served as a socialist in the parliament between 2004 and 2019, was also reportedly arrested.

All five were still being questioned Saturday, said a spokesman for Belgium's federal prosecutor's office, adding that the investigation concerned suspected "corruption" and "money laundering".

In Rome, a government source confirmed to AFP reports that Panzeri's wife and daughter had been detained.

The arrests followed raids in Brussels which Belgian prosecutors said turned up 600,000 euros ($630,000) in cash. Police also seized computers and mobile phones.

Belgian daily L'Echo reported Saturday that "several bags full of (cash) notes" had been found at Kaili's Brussels home.

While prosecutors did not name the country under investigation, a legal source close to the case confirmed to AFP Belgian press reports that it was Qatar.

Prosecutors had merely said the state in question was suspected of influencing the decisions of the European Parliament through cash payments or gifts to top figures.

- Kaili expelled from party -

Kaili is a former television presenter and one of the European Parliament's 14 vice presidents. In November, just prior to the World Cup, she met Qatar's Labour Minister Ali bin Samikh Al Marri.

In a video statement posted on Twitter by the Qatar News Agency, she said: "I believe the World Cup for Arabs has been a great tool for... political transformation and reforms".

In a subsequent speech at the European Parliament she said: "Today, the World Cup in Qatar is proof... of how sports diplomacy can achieve a historical transformation of a country."

Qatar, she insisted, was a "front-runner in labour rights".

In Athens Friday, the president of the Greek socialists (PASOK) Nikos Androulakis announced on Twitter that Kaili had been expelled from the party.

On Saturday, the Socialists and Democrats group in the European Parliament announced they had suspended her membership.

"We are appalled by the allegations of corruption in the European institutions," they said in a statement, promising full cooperation with the investigating authorities.

- Qatar denial -

A Qatari government official told AFP: "We are not aware of any details of an investigation. Any claims of misconduct by the State of Qatar are gravely misinformed."

The country "operates in full compliance with international laws and regulations", he added.

European Parliament president Roberta Metsola, meanwhile said the assembly "stands firmly against corruption."

"We'll do all we can to assist the course of justice," she added.

Panzeri, 67, currently heads a Brussels-based human rights organisation called Fight Impunity.

The secretary general of the International Trade Union Confederation, Italian Luca Visentini, was also among those reportedly arrested. The ITUC said it was "aware" of the media reports.

World Cup host Qatar has striven to improve its image in the face of criticism over its record on worker protections and human rights.

Interviewed by AFP on Monday, Visentini had welcomed progress made by Qatar on worker rights, but insisted "pressure" needed to be maintained once the tournament ended.

Migrant workers make up more than 2.5 million of Qatar's 2.9 million population.

mad/jj/ach

EU strips Greek MEP Kaili of vice president title over Qatar probe



Issued on: 10/12/2022 -

In this handout photograph taken and released by European Parliament on December 7, 2022 Greek politician and European Parliament vice-president Eva Kaili speaks during the European Book Prize award ceremony in Brussels. © Éric Vidal, AFP

Text by: NEWS WIRES

A Greek MEP was suspended as a vice president of the European Parliament Saturday over a corruption probe implicating World Cup hosts Qatar that has ensnared four others and sparked calls for "root and branch reform" in the EU institution.

European Parliament president Roberta Metsola "has decided to suspend with immediate effect all powers, duties and tasks that were delegated to Eva Kaili in her capacity as Vice-President of the European Parliament," a spokesperson said.

Earlier Saturday, Metsola said on Twitter that the parliament "stands firmly against corruption", adding they would so everything they could to "assist the course of justice".

Socialist MEP Eva Kaili was arrested on Friday hours after four others were detained for questioning.

The announcement came amid mounting outrage over the allegations and calls for action to tackle corruption inside the European Parliament.

"Over many decades, the Parliament has allowed a culture of impunity to develop, with a combination of lax financial rules and controls and a complete lack of independent (or indeed any) ethics oversight," Transparency International's director Michiel van Hulten said.

The European Parliament's Greens group called for a full investigation into allegations of bribery by Qatar.

"We will not accept business as usual...," the group said. "We must strengthen our rules so this cannot happen again."

The European Parliament had "become a law unto itself", said Van Hulten. "It is time for root and branch reform."

Alberto Alemanno, a law professor based in Belgium, said the "scandal opens multiple Pandora's boxes all at once", including "flawed EU ethics system for MEPs" and the "scale of foreign influence over EU".

Corruption, money laundering

At least three of the others arrested were either Italian citizens or originally came from Italy, a source close to the case told AFP.

Kaili, 44, is the partner of one of the four others detained: Francesco Giorgi, a parliamentary assistant with the European Parliament's Socialists and Democrats group, said the source.

Former Italian MEP Pier-Antonio Panzeri, who served as a socialist in the parliament between 2004 and 2019, was also reportedly arrested.

Belgium's federal prosecutor's office said the investigation concerned suspected "corruption" and "money laundering".

In Rome, a government source confirmed to AFP reports that Panzeri's wife and daughter had been detained.

The arrests followed raids in Brussels which Belgian prosecutors said turned up 600,000 euros ($630,000) in cash. Police also seized computers and mobile phones.

Belgian daily L'Echo reported that "several bags full of (cash) notes" had been found at Kaili's Brussels home.

While prosecutors did not name the country under investigation, a legal source close to the case confirmed to AFP Belgian press reports that it was Qatar.

Kaili expelled from party

Kaili is a former television presenter and one of the European Parliament's 14 vice presidents. In November, just prior to the World Cup, she met Qatar's Labour Minister Ali bin Samikh Al Marri.

In a video statement posted on Twitter by the Qatar News Agency, she said: "I believe the World Cup for Arabs has been a great tool for... political transformation and reforms".

In a subsequent speech at the European Parliament she said Qatar was a "front-runner in labour rights".

In Athens Friday, the president of the Greek socialists (PASOK) Nikos Androulakis announced on Twitter that Kaili had been expelled from the party.

On Saturday, the Socialists and Democrats group in the European Parliament announced they had suspended her membership.

Qatar denial

A Qatari government official told AFP: "We are not aware of any details of an investigation. Any claims of misconduct by the State of Qatar are gravely misinformed."

The country "operates in full compliance with international laws and regulations", he added.

Panzeri, 67, currently heads a Brussels-based human rights organisation called Fight Impunity.

The secretary general of the International Trade Union Confederation, Italian Luca Visentini, was also among those reportedly arrested. The ITUC said it was "aware" of the media reports.

World Cup host Qatar has striven to improve its image in the face of criticism over its record on worker protections and human rights.

Migrant workers make up more than 2.5 million of Qatar's 2.9 million population.

(AFP)

EU parliament chief takes action as lobbying scandal simmers

By Lorne Cook | AP
December 10, 2022

BRUSSELS — A vice president of the European Union’s parliament was suspended from her duties on Saturday after being caught up in an investigation into influence peddling at the EU assembly allegedly involving officials from Qatar.

Eva Kaili, a 44-year-old Greek former TV news anchor, was suspended by her party in Greece and the EU assembly’s Socialists and Democrats group Friday after Belgian police staged 16 raids across Brussels as part of a probe into corruption and money laundering at the parliament.

Four people were detained for questioning, and investigators recovered around 600,000 euros ($633,500) in cash and seized computer equipment and mobile telephones. Prosecutors did not identify the four but at least one was an EU lawmaker and one was a former member.

Authorities have not identified the Gulf country suspected of offering cash or gifts to officials at the parliament in exchange for political favors, but several members have linked the investigation to Qatar.

Parliament President Roberta Metsola “has decided to suspend with immediate effect all powers, duties and tasks that were delegated to Eva Kaili in her capacity as vice president of the European Parliament,” Metsola’s spokesman said late Saturday.

The decision was taken “in the light of the ongoing judicial investigations by Belgian authorities,” he said, without providing further details.

The EU assembly is set to hold its last plenary session of the year in Strasbourg, France, beginning Monda

The co-president of the Greens group, Philippe Lamberts, called for a parliamentary inquiry and for the issue to be put to debate this week, echoing calls from some other political groups.

The Greens “strongly condemn corruption and bribery, cash and precious gifts cannot draw the political lines in this house,” Lamberts said in a statement. He added that his group “will vote against visa facilitation for Qatar in this week’s plenary vote.”

The EU’s executive branch, the European Commission, proposed in April that citizens from Qatar be granted short visa-free stays in the 27-nation bloc provided they have a biometric passport. The legislation has been working its way through the assembly.

Kaili’s party in Greece, the Socialist Pasok-Movement for Change, publicly distanced itself from remarks she made in the EU parliament last month praising Qatar, which is currently hosting soccer’s gala event, the World Cup.

She said the World Cup is “proof, actually, of how sports diplomacy can achieve a historical transformation of a country with reforms that inspired the Arab world.” Kaili also repeated what she said is an International Labour Organization view that “Qatar is a frontrunner in labor rights.”

After Friday’s raids, Belgian prosecutors said federal judicial police suspect that an undisclosed country in the Gulf region has been trying “to influence the economic and political decisions of the European Parliament."

It said this was allegedly done “by paying large sums of money or offering large gifts to third parties with a significant political and/or strategic position within the European Parliament.”

In Italy on Saturday, Article One, a small center-left party, suspended former EU lawmaker Pier-Antonio Panzeri following reports he was caught up in the scandal.

In a statement posted on the party’s Facebook page, Article One said it was “disturbed” by the reports but expressed full confidence in Belgian investigators. It added that it “hopes that Panzeri can show he is not involved in something that is completely incompatible with his history and political commitment.”

Panzeri, who was inscribed in the Lombardy branch of Article One, was also once a member of the same political group in the EU parliament as Kaili, the Socialists and Democrats. The head of the group, Iratxe Garcia Perez, tweeted Saturday that “Eva Kaili should be replaced as EP vice-president in order to protect the institution’s respectability and citizens’ trust.”

The International Trade Union Confederation declined to comment Friday when asked by The Associated Press about reports that its general secretary, Luca Visentini, was also caught up in the affair. A message on the organization’s website on Saturday said that “ITUC has no further comment on this issue at present, pending further information.”

Associated Press writers Nicole Winfield in Rome, Derek Gatopoulos in Athens and Samuel Petrequin in Brussels contributed to this report.

POSTMODERN GODDESS CULT
Devotion to Virgin Mary draws millions to Mexico City shrine



Mexico Virgin of Guadalupe - A pilgrim carries on his back a statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe toward the Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico City, Dec. 11, 2017. Also known as La Morenita, Our Lady of Guadalupe is Mexico's most popular religious and cultural image. Her feast day is Dec. 12.

(AP Photo/Marco Ugarte, File)


MARÍA TERESA HERNÁNDEZ
Sat, December 10, 2022 

MEXICO CITY (AP) — It is one of the world’s most visited and beloved religious venues – the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, with a circular, tent-shaped roof visible from miles away and a sacred history that each year draws millions of pilgrims from near and far to its hilltop site in Mexico City.

Early December is the busiest time, as pilgrims converge ahead of Dec. 12, the feast day honoring Our Lady of Guadalupe. To Catholic believers, the date is the anniversary of one of several apparitions of the Virgin Mary witnessed by an Indigenous Mexican man named Juan Diego in 1531.

The COVID-19 pandemic curtailed the number of pilgrims in 2020. Last year, even with some restrictions still in place, attendance for the December celebrations rose to at least 3.5 million, according to local officials. Bigger numbers are expected this year.

For many pilgrims, their journey to the site is an expression of gratitude for miracles that they believe the Virgin brought into their lives. Around the basilica, some people light candles while praying in silence. Some kneel and weep. Others carry statues of the Virgin in their arms as they receive a priest’s blessing.

Among the first-time pilgrims this year was Yamilleth Fuente, who entered the basilica wearing a yellow scarf decorated with an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Fuente, who traveled alone to Mexico City from her home in El Salvador, said that she was diagnosed with cancer in 2014 and recovered after praying to the Virgin. When she suggested making the pilgrimage, her husband and two children encouraged her.

“I’ve loved the Virgin my whole life. I even used to dream about her,” Fuente said. “My daughter’s name is Alexandra Guadalupe because she’s also a miracle that the Virgin granted me."

For the Catholic Church, the image of the Virgin is a miracle itself – dating to a cold December dawn in 1531 when Juan Diego was walking near the Tepeyac Hill.

According to Catholic tradition, Juan Diego heard a female voice calling to him, climbed the hill and saw the Virgin Mary standing there, in a dress that shone like the sun. Speaking to him in his native language, Nahuatl, she asked for a temple to be built to honor her son, Jesus Christ.

As the church teaches, Juan Diego ran to notify the local bishop, who was skeptical, and then returned to the hill for more exchanges with the Virgin. At her suggestion, he left the hillside carrying flowers in his cloak, and when he later opened the cloak in the bishop’s presence it displayed a detailed, colorful image of the Virgin.

That piece of cloth currently hangs in the center of the Basilica, protected by a frame.

In an annotated edition of the apparition story, the Rev. Eduardo Chavez – a leading expert on the topic -- said the Virgin’s appearance occurred in a time of despair. By 1531, 10 years after the Spaniards’ conquest of the Aztecs, smallpox had killed nearly half of Mexico’s Indigenous population, wrecking their pre-conquest social and religious systems.

To many Mexicans, the Virgin’s image became a symbol of unity because her face looks mixed-race -- neither fully Indigenous nor European, but a bit of both.

Some academics have said that the devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe intertwines Indigenous and Catholic beliefs, though the Catholic Church rejects this theory. At the foot of the hill that today accommodates the basilica was a temple for the goddess Coatlicue Tonantzin, and the date of the apparition coincided with an Indigenous festival.

On a recent day, numerous motorcycle taxis were parked on one of the esplanades outside the basilica. Abraham García, a 45-year-old driver from the nearby city of Nezahualcóyotl, was there, accompanied by more than 70 colleagues.

“We come year after year to thank God, the basilica and the Virgin, and to ask her for help,” he said. “This was a good year for us, so now we’ll leave even more blessed.”

Many of the drivers’ vehicles have stickers bearing the Virgin’s image on their windows; others display a statuette of her under the rear-view mirror.

According to Nayeli Amezcua, a researcher at the National School of Anthropology and History, images and carvings play a substantial role in this faith.

“Catholicism is a very sensory religion... Through many objects, the sacred is transmitted,” she said. “We could think of them as representations, but for those who believe, the images themselves are alive.”

Fuente, the Salvadoran pilgrim, is eager to share the fervor of her faith.

“My entire life is filled with miracles from God and the Blessed Virgin,” she said. “You could write a book about all that she has done for me.”

___

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.