City supports Capital Power proposal for 2 natural gas turbines despite public outcry

Mon, January 16, 2023

Jana Jandal Alrifai from the Windsor Essex Youth Climate Council told council the vote will show the city's priorities. (City of Windsor council meeting - image credit)

Windsor council will back a proposal to add 100 megawatts of capacity to the electric system through two natural gas-powered turbines — despite concerns from some residents that it would hurt the environment.

Capital Power wants to add two peaking fired units at its east Windsor cogeneration facility at 244 Cadillac St. The company says it only intends to use the plant when demand spikes. Council voted 8-2 to back the plan.

That drew ire at a Monday council meeting, when several people spoke against the proposal.

Opponents said the project could lead to environmental degradation, increased air pollution, carbon emissions, and fly in the face of the city declaring a climate emergency. Some shouted and called out "shame" during the vote.

"This decision will show us what the true agenda of this council is," said Jana Jandal Alrifai from the Windsor Essex Youth Climate Council.

"Show us when council gives us the words, you stick to that."

But city staff say Windsor needs new sources of energy in light of the Stellantis-LG Energy Solution electric vehicle battery plant coming to the city.

Submitted by Capital Power

Natural gas, staff said, is also a temporary solution.

"Over time, the IESO expects that natural gas generation will be replaced by a portfolio approach that includes new non-emitting generation, storage, as well as demand-side and transmission solutions," the staff report said.

"As this transition occurs, natural gas will continue to provide stability to the system as new forms of flexible supply are built, tested and connected to the grid."

Jim Morrison, Ward 10 councillor, said the move is necessary to address the "big gap" in local energy supply. He said ideally, the power generated by the expansion won't even be necessary.

It's like "you buy insurance on your house, on your car, and you hope you don't need it," he said.

Fabio Costante (Ward 2) said he couldn't support it in light of the city's climate emergency declaration.

"There's no question that we're in an environmental crisis not just locally, but across the globe," he said.

The details of the plan are to be worked out between Capital Power and the Independent Electricity System Operator, the body that manages the power system and makes plans for future energy needs in the province.

With Monday's vote, the city is endorsing the project moving forward.

How they voted

Who supported the expansion

Renaldo Agostino (Ward 3), Mark McKenzie (4), Ed Sleiman (5), Jo-Anne Gignac (6), Gary Kaschak (8), Kieran McKenzie (9), Mayor Drew Dilkens.

Who was opposed

Fabio Costante (2), Angelo Marignani (7).

Absent

Fred Francis (Ward 1).

https://www.capitalpower.com

Capital Power: Powering a sustainable future for people and planet 

Capital Power is a growth-oriented North American power producer headquartered in Edmonton, Alberta. The company develops, acquires, owns, and operates ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_Power_Corporation

Capital Power Corporation - Wikipedia 

Capital Power is an independent power generation company based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Capital Power develops, acquires, owns and operates power ...

Smith says no COVID-19 pardons because Canadian system doesn't work like the U.S.

EDMONTON — Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says she is no longer pursuing amnesty for COVID-19 health-rule violators because Canada doesn’t work that way.

“Because we’ve been so influenced by the (United) States, I think that some people think that a premier has the same power as they do in the States of clemency or offering pardons,” Smith told the Shaun Newman podcast Monday.

“I’ve not observed that that’s the case in Canada. We just have a different criminal justice and different legal system, and once things have been handed over for prosecution, politicians have to be hands off.”

However, law professor Lorian Hardcastle says there is a way.

Hardcastle says pardoning provisions exist at the federal level and Ottawa has used them to offer exemptions to those convicted of simple criminal possession of cannabis.

Hardcastle says a similar framework for COVID-19 public health violations would be unusual at the provincial level but could be done if Smith’s government passes a bill to set up the framework.

“She could pass legislation and do this,” said Hardcastle, an associate in the University of Calgary's faculty of law, who specializes in health law and policy.

“I think, though, that given her other policy priorities, I’m not sure she would do that, particularly given the heat that she has taken in recent days for some of her comments around interfering in other ways with these cases.”

Smith's office, asked if the premier would consider such a bill, said in a one-line statement: "The government of Alberta is not contemplating any such legislation."

Smith has come under fire over COVID-19 prosecutions and pardons after announcing last week she was no longer pursuing amnesties but instead talking to prosecutors about how they proceed with cases involving violations of COVID-19 public health orders.

“It is a bit frustrating, there’s no question, that once the wheels of justice roll on certain cases that there really isn’t anything a politician can do other than watch it play out,” Smith told Newman.

“That’s the kind of decision-making we have to leave to the Crown prosecutors."

Smith has delivered multiple — and at times contradictory — explanations for who she talked to and what was talked about regarding prosecutions.

Just before Christmas, she told Rebel News she was meeting with prosecutors and urging them to consider that she believes the public is no longer onside with prosecuting such cases. She said she also asked prosecutors to consider the cases were failing in court.

Last week, in a scrum with reporters, Smith repeated that she was talking to prosecutors but didn’t mention she had asked them to consider factors unique to the COVID-19 cases.

Instead, she said she only reminded prosecutors of the overarching guidelines for pursuing any case: it has to be in the public interest and have a reasonable chance of conviction.

The Opposition NDP called for an independent investigation into whether Smith interfered in the administration of justice by trying to influence prosecutors.

“(Smith) is either lying now or she was lying then. Clearly lying is happening. There is a lot of lying going on,'' said NDP Leader Rachel Notley.

In response, Smith said in a statement Friday, “my language may have been imprecise.”

In that statement, Smith also said she had not met with prosecutors – an assertion corroborated by the Justice Department — but with Justice Minister Tyler Shandro and the deputy attorney general to discuss “options” on the outstanding cases.

A day later, on her Corus radio call-in show, Smith did not mention she was seeking options but said the meeting with Shandro and the deputy attorney general was about reminding them that the cases have to be in the public interest and have a reasonable chance of conviction.

"I've never called a Crown prosecutor. You're not allowed to do that as a politician. Everyone knows that,'' Smith told her radio listeners.

Smith has also twice in previous statements said her involvement in the cases is ongoing and that she continues to ask questions as cases came up.

On the Newman podcast, she suggested that is no longer happening: “I’m watching it all with great interest and watching to see what those judgments are. But I do have to let that process play out.”

Smith has been a staunch advocate of protesters against COVID-19 health restrictions.

She became premier in October after winning the United Conservative Party leadership and promising to redress perceived abuses of individual rights and freedoms during the pandemic.

As premier, Smith has apologized to those charged under the restrictions and called those unvaccinated against the virus the most discriminated group she has seen in her lifetime.

In late October, when asked by reporters about offering amnesty to those prosecuted for breaking COVID-19 rules, Smith said she would pursue it.

"The things that come to top of mind for me are people who got arrested as pastors and people given fines for not wearing masks," said Smith at the time.

“I'm going to look into the range of outstanding fines and get some legal advice on which ones we are able to cancel and provide amnesty for.

"My view has been that these were political decisions that were made and so I think that they can be political decisions to offer a reversal, but I do want to get some legal advice on that first."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 16, 2023.

Dean Bennett, The Canadian Press

JUST LIKE ERIC PRINCE

Wagner mercenaries register as ‘management consultancy’ in latest attempt to normalise image

Nataliya Vasilyeva
Tue, January 17, 2023

Visitors wearing military camouflage stand at the entrance of the 'PMC Wagner Centre' - Olga Maltseva/AFP via Getty Images

The Wagner Group, a once shadowy Russian militia that now plays a leading role in the Ukraine war, has registered as a legal entity for the first time, posing as management consultants.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, a businessman and former petty criminal, long denied founding and bankrolling the private mercenary group that was first used in Syria, before finally acknowledging it last year.

The organisation has emerged as a key power broker in recent months, openly recruiting convicts for the Ukraine war from inside Russian prisons.

Its fighters, some of whom have been implicated in killings of civilians, have made rare battlefield gains for Russia while the Kremlin’s army has been suffering embarrassing defeats in southern and eastern Ukraine.

Yevgeny Prigozhin - AP Photo

On Tuesday, it was revealed that the ChVK Wagner Centre has been officially registered as a company in Russia, the first legal entity linked to the militia.

The company officially lists “management consulting” as its core activity and a variety of business endeavours from book publishing to aircraft leasing as possible secondary activities. Registering a militia in Russia remains illegal.

While its owner is not listed, the company’s director is identified as Alexei Tensin who served as an executive at the Russian state-controlled arms maker Kalashnikov that makes the iconic AK-47 rifles.

The appointment of a prominent and experienced chief executive further legitimises Wagner, a violent organisation operating well outside the law.

The mercenary group, whose fighters filmed themselves killing a defector with a sledgehammer last November, was registered at the address of a new office tower called Wagner Centre that Mr Prigozhin opened in October, saying at the time it would host IT workers willing to “shore up Russia’s defence and security”.

The new company profile was identified by the BBC Russian service, citing a corporate registry.

The move raises further questions about the growing power of Wagner, which has openly challenged Putin’s authority.

People wearing military camouflage look at drones on display in an exhibition in the 'PMC Wagner Centre' - Olga Maltseva/AFP via Getty Images

Meanwhile, Aleksandr Vucic, the pro-Russian president of Serbia, has voiced concern about Wagner recruitment in his country.

Mr Vucic, who has a good personal relationship with Vladimir Putin, told local television on Tuesday that it was “not fair” of Serbia’s “Russian friends” to call Serbs to go fight in Ukraine.

“Why are you doing this to Serbia? Why is Wagner calling everyone from Serbia when you know that’s against the law?” he said.

Mr Prigozhin, known as Putin’s chef for his previous catering contracts with the Kremlin, insisted in a statement published by his office on Tuesday that there were no Serbian nationals serving in the Wagner militia.

While there are no reports of how many fighters Wagner may have hired in Serbia, the Balkan nation, which still bears the scars of the devastating wars in the 1990s, has been a fertile ground for Wagner recruitment ever since the group first surfaced in eastern Ukraine in 2014.
Russia destroys Wagner tank

It came as reports emerged on Tuesday that Russian troops had accidentally blown up a tank of Wagner mercenaries in friendly fire, according to an intercepted phone call from the front lines.

Ukraine’s military intelligence published what it said was a conversation between a Russian soldier and his father in which the soldier described confusion on the battlefield in Ukraine.

“We were shooting at them. We blew up their tank and [an armoured vehicle] before we realised it’s our guys,” the unidentified soldier was heard saying.

The man also claimed that Wagner had sustained heavy casualties in Ukraine but the defence ministry “is not even counting them”.

It was not immediately possible to verify the authenticity of the call, but Ukraine regularly intercepts Russian communications on unsecured lines.

Rogue Wagner Commander Throws Prigozhin Under the Bus

Allison Quinn
Tue, January 17, 2023 

Concord/Handout via Reuters

A former commander of Russia’s notorious Wagner Group has fled to Norway and begun spilling the group’s most closely guarded secrets—a move that could ultimately be the downfall of mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin.

Three days after Andrei Medvedev fled across the frozen Pasvik River into Norway—under gunfire from Russia’s FSB border guards, according to him—Prigozhin confirmed the former commander was one of his men.

But his response was both laughable and telling.

“Be careful, he’s very dangerous,” Prigozhin said through his press service.

He said Medvedev was wanted by Wagner’s in-house security service for “mistreatment of prisoners,” with the mercenary boss counting on assistance from “Russian law enforcement agencies” to hold the defector accountable.

The way Medvedev tells it, however, Wagner is only hunting him down to try and shut him up before he can reveal the group’s own battlefield executions. The former commander had been sounding the alarm over the group for weeks before his escape to Norway.

“If they catch me, I will be eliminated. There will either be an execution or shooting. I don’t know what will be enough in their imaginations, but in any case I will not be alive,” Medvedev told Gulagu.net founder Vladimir Osechkin.

Osechkin, whose human rights group works closely with defectors from Russian security services, announced over the weekend that Medvedev had made it into Norway and requested political asylum.

Norway’s National Criminal Investigation Service, in charge of investigating war crimes, said Tuesday it hopes to question the defector as a witness.

“He has himself explained that he was a part of the Wagner group and it is interesting for Kripos to have information about this period,” the agency said in a statement.

Russia’s Latest War ‘Hero’ Is Convict Who Beat Mom to Death

The former Wagner commander has confirmed that the mercenary group uses a special kill squad to execute its own recruits.

“I witnessed several such incidents, the executions of convicts [recruited from Russian prisons], they were specially taken out in front of other prisoners and publicly executed in order to scare [the others],” Medvedev said.

He said those executed are buried on-site and officially deemed missing without a trace, presumably so the group can avoid paying family members the promised compensation.

Regardless of whatever headaches Medvedev’s testimony in Norway might cause for the group from Western authorities, his escape has reportedly already inflamed tensions between Prigozhin and Russia’s top military brass, who have increasingly been butting heads in recent days over who gets to claim credit for battlefield wins: Prigozhin’s shadow army of convicted murderers and rapists, or the regular Russian army tasked with bringing Vladimir Putin victory in Ukraine.

A source cited by Gulagu.net on Tuesday said Prigozhin’s team is already preparing to take that internal war up a notch by accusing Russia’s own Defense Ministry of orchestrating Medvedev’s defection.

“The General Staff of the Defense Ministry fast-tracked the ‘flight’ of A. Medvedev, who was initially under their patronage. The goal is to discredit Prigozhin against the backdrop of an attempt to ‘steal’ his victory,” the source said of Wagner’s purported version of events.

Prigozhin and his Wagner Group, who have largely been allowed to do as they please as long as their tactics bring the Kremlin closer to a battlefield victory, seem to finally be realizing they are as expendable to Putin as their own prison recruits are to Wagner leadership.

Prigozhin revealed as much last week, when he hit back at the Russian Defense Ministry taking credit for gains in Soledar as an attempt to “steal victory” from the Wagner Group.

Putin quickly responded with a shakeup of Russian military leaders that was seen as a “snub” to Prigozhin, and on Sunday, the Russian leader appeared to take another swipe by omitting Wagner altogether from his comments about the Russian Defense Ministry leading the charge in Soledar.

Gulagu.net, citing an unnamed source, reports there is already talk of “official investigations” into Wagner and Prigozhin in Russia as the Kremlin realizes that allowing Prigozhin to steal the spotlight in the war “works against Putin personally.”

“People from his team ... are giving testimony and a campaign to de-Wagnerize Russia is only a matter of time,” the group said.
The Daily Beast.

Former Wagner commander seeks asylum in Norway after fleeing Russia



Andrei Medvedev, a former commander of Russia's Wagner mercenary group, is seen in Oslo

Tue, January 17, 2023 

MOSCOW (Reuters) -A former commander of Russia's Wagner mercenary group who fought in Ukraine said he has fled to Norway and is seeking asylum in fear for his life after witnessing the killing and mistreatment of Russian prisoners brought to front lines.

Andrei Medvedev, who joined Wagner on July 6, 2022 on a four-month contract, said in a video posted by the Gulagu.net rights group that he had crossed the northern Arctic border into Norway before being detained by Norwegian police.

Medvedev, an orphan who joined the Russian army and served time in prison before moving on to Wagner, said he had slipped away from the group after witnessing the killing of captured deserters from Wagner.

"I am afraid of dying in agony," Medvedev told Vladimir Osechkin, founder of the Gulagu.net rights group, which said it had helped Medvedev leave Russia after he approached the group in fear for his life.

He said he crossed the snowy border, climbing through barbed-wire fences and evading a border patrol with dogs, and heard guards firing shots as he ran through a forest and over thin and breaking ice into Norway.

Local Norwegian police said a foreign citizen had been arrested on the night of Thursday to Friday after illegally crossing the Russian-Norwegian frontier, north of the Arctic Circle, and was seeking asylum.

His Norwegian lawyer said Medvedev was now in the "Oslo area" but did not give details. "What is important for him (Medvedev) is that immigration authorities clarify his status as soon as possible," lawyer Brynjulf Risnes told Reuters.

Kripos, the Norwegian national criminal police service which has responsibility for investigating war crimes, said on Tuesday it wanted to question Medvedev.

"He has himself explained that he was a part of the Wagner group and it is interesting for Kripos to have information about this period," Kripos said in a statement.

"Medvedev has a status as a witness."

Risnes said Medvedev had not yet spoken with the Norwegian security police, PST, and no agreement for an interview had been reached. "I am sure that will be a question at some point," said Risnes, who declined to say where Medvedev fought in Ukraine.

"He says he has taken part in battle, which he says were clear battle situations ..., and that he has not been in contact with civilians," said Risnes.

Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said Medvedev had worked in a Norwegian unit of Wagner and had "mistreated prisoners".

"Be careful, he's very dangerous," Prigozhin said in a statement released by his spokeswoman. He did not address the claims of killings or mistreatment of prisoners in the statement.

In interviews with Gulagu, Medvedev said he grew disaffected after his contract was repeatedly extended by Wagner without his consent. He said he had witnessed the killing and mistreatment of Russian prisoners who were brought to the front by Wagner.

Medvedev said losses were very high after Wagner began sending large numbers of prisoners to the Ukrainian front in the second half of 2022. Wagner's internal security service handed out extreme punishment, Medvedev said.

He said a man who was shown in November being executed with a sledgehammer had been part of his unit.

The Wagner statement did not address Medvedev's accounts of punishment and of battlefield losses, or that his contract was repeatedly extended.

Prigozhin has said Wagner is an effective fighting force because it had extensive battlefield experience, is well supplied, has a meritocratic command system in which all can contribute, and "the most severe discipline".

Russia sent tens of thousands of armed forces into Ukraine on Feb. 24 in what it calls a "special military operation" to "denazify" its neighbour and protect Russian security.

(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge in Moscow and Gwladys Fouche in Oslo, Editing by Andrew Heavens, Nick Macfie and Mark Heinrich)

NASA Reveals Tantalizing Details About Webb Telescope’s Successor

Isaac Schultz
Tue, January 17, 2023

An artist’s concept of LUVOIR, a 15-meter telescope that was an early NASA concept for a future space telescope. The newly described Habitable Worlds Telescope wouldn’t be quite as large as this.

NASA officials disclosed information about a planned next-generation space telescope, the Habitable Worlds Observatory, during a recent session of the American Astronomical Society,

In the session, Mark Clampin, the Astrophysics Division Director NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, offered a few details about the telescope, which could be operational in the early 2040s.

The need for such an observatory is outlined in the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s decadal survey on astronomy and astrophysics, a report assembled by hundreds of industry experts that serves as a reference document for the fields’ future goals.

One of the key findings of the most recent decadal survey was the necessity of finding habitable worlds beyond our own, using a telescope tailored specifically for such a purpose. The report suggested an $11 billion observatory—one with a 6-meter telescope that would take in light at optical, ultraviolet, and near-infrared wavelengths. (Hubble Space Telescope sees mostly in optical and ultraviolet light, while the more recently launched Webb Space Telescope images at mid-infrared and near-infrared wavelengths.)

The authors of the decadal survey suggested the Habitable Worlds Observatory as the first in a new Great Observatories program; basically, the linchpin in the next generation of 21st-century space telescopes. As Science reported, the decadal report’s suggestion of an exoplanet-focused space telescope falls somewhere between two older NASA proposals, telescope concepts named HabEx and LUVOIR.

Exoplanets are found with regularity; it’s finding worlds with conditions that can host life as we know it that’s tricky. Webb has spotted exoplanets and deduced aspects of their atmospheric chemistry, and other telescopes (even planned ones, like the Roman Space Telescope) are turning their gaze toward these alien worlds.

An artist’s impression of the exoplanet LHS 475 b, recently discovered by Webb, and the star it orbits.

Unlike other telescopes—both operational and those still on the drawing board—the planned Habitable Worlds Observatory would look specifically for so-called Goldilocks planets, worlds with conditions that could foster life.

The search for extraterrestrial life is a relentless goal of NASA. The Perseverance rover on Mars is collecting rock samples on Mars to learn, among other things, whether there’s any evidence for ancient microbial life in a region of the planet that once was a flowing river delta. (An environment, it’s important to note, that scientists believe was similar to that where Earth’s first known life materialized.)

Beyond Mars, scientists harbor hope that future probes can poke around for signs of life in the subsurface ocean on Jupiter’s moon Europa or the methane sea on Saturn’s moon Titan.

But those are just venues—and hostile ones, compared to Earth—within our solar system. Missions like TESS and the Kepler Space Telescope have detected thousands of exoplanets, but the fraction that are Earth-like is vanishingly small.

Like the Webb telescope, the future observatory will be located at L2, a region of space one million miles from Earth that allows objects to remain in position with relatively little fuel burn. (By saving fuel, the missions’ lifespans are prolonged.)

As reported by Science, Clampin said that the Habitable Worlds Observatory would be designed for maintenance and upgrades, which Webb is not. That could make the next observatory a more permanent presence in NASA’s menagerie of space telescopes.

Hubble was famously serviced by humans in low-Earth orbit multiple times, due to a number of mechanical snafus and issues that have arisen over the telescope’s 32-year tenure in space.

The Habitable Worlds Observatory repairs and upgrades (which would take place a million miles from Earth—a little far for human repairs) would be done robotically, more in the style of a Star Wars droid than a hand from the IT department.

Space News reported that NASA will imminently begin seeking out nominations for people to join the Science, Technology, Architecture Review Team (START) for the new observatory. The first phase of the observatory’s development is slated for 2029.

In November, Clampin told a House subcommittee that the Webb telescope had suffered 14 strikes from micrometeoroids—very small bits of fast-traveling space rock that can damage the telescope’s mirrors. Clampin said the NASA team was “making some operational changes to make sure we avoid any future impacts,” and the telescope was slightly repositioned to reduce the risk of future strikes.

One of the telescope’s mirror segments was damaged by a micrometeoroid strike, but an analysis by the team found the telescope “should meet its optical performance requirements for many years.”

Of paramount importance to the astronomical community is that the budget and timeline of the new observatory stay on track. The Webb project was years late and way over budget. Space News reports that some scientists are calling for an expedited timeline that could see the Habitable Worlds Observatory launch by 2035.

The ball is well and truly rolling on the telescopes of the future. The question is how Sisyphean the roll of the ball will be.

More: Webb Telescope Spots Ancient Galaxy Built Like the Milky Way

More from Gizmodo

WATCH: Divers record rare sea creature video off the coast of Japan

Peter Aitken

Thu, January 19, 2023

Video has surfaced of a giant squid swimming off the coast of Japan, marking a rare sighting and footage of these elusive creatures.

Yosuke Tanaka, 41, encountered the 8-foot-long squid while diving with his wife Miki, 34, off the western coast of Japan. The couple, who operate a diving business in Toyooka city, found out about the squid from a fishing equipment vendor who spotted it in a bay, Japan Times reported.

Tanaka and Miki took a boat out in search of the creature, staying near the shoreline as they scoured the bay.

"I could see its tentacles moving. I thought it would be dangerous to be grabbed hard by them and taken off somewhere," Tanaka told the Times.

"We didn’t see the kinds of agile movements that many fish and marine creatures normally show," he added. "Its tentacles and fins were moving very slowly."

Yosuke Tanaka, 41, encountered the 8-foot-long squid while diving with his wife Miki, 34, off the western coast of Japan.

The footage, posted to Viral Press, shows the giant squid floating near the surface, its tentacles drifting behind it while the couple swim nearby. The squid seems either unaware or undisturbed by their presence.

An honorary researcher at the National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo told NHK news that the squid was likely around 1 or 2 years old, based on its size. A giant squid can grow as long as 39 feet.

While diving off Queensland, Australia, in 2018, Jay Wink, owner and operator of Abc Scuba Diving Port Douglas, captured this image of what seems to be strings of squid eggs held together by a gelatinous material.

The sheer size of the animal struck Tanaka, and he said he couldn’t help thinking about stories of squids fighting with whales. He assured that the experience would remain with him, saying it was "very exciting" and "there is nothing rarer than this."

Giant squids have occasionally appeared along Japan’s coast, with the last known sighting in March 2022. Most of what scientists have learned about giant squids comes from the stomachs of sperm whales, one of the squid’s chief predators.

In a rare event, a live giant squid (Architeuthis dux) is hauled to the surface on a baited hook in Japan. The giant squid can be 40 feet long tip-to-tail and weigh nearly a ton. (Tsunemi Kubodera)

A study estimated that sperm whales feed upon up to 131 million giant squids each year, Newsweek reported. The animals are most commonly found around New Zealand and Japan, as well as the North Atlantic and waters around Africa.

KASHMIR IS INDIA'S GAZA

Pakistan PM Sharif makes conditional talks offer to arch-rival India


The United Nations and Pakistan co-host a climate resilience conference in Geneva

Tue, January 17, 2023
By Asif Shahzad

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) -Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has made a conditional offer to his Indian counterpart to open talks on all outstanding issues between them, including disputed Kashmir, which he believes could be facilitated by the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

"My message to the Indian leadership and Prime Minister Narendra Modi is let's sit down at the table and have serious and sincere talks to resolve our burning issues, like Kashmir," Sharif said in an interview with Al Arabiya news channel, telecast by Pakistan's state run TV on Tuesday.

However, a statement issued by Sharif's office after the interview aired added that such talks would only be possible if India restored the autonomous status in the part of Kashmir it rules that was revoked in 2019.

"Without India's revocation of this step, negotiations are not possible," it said.

The Indian foreign affairs ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. New Delhi has ignored such calls from Pakistan on Kashmir's status in the past.

In the interview, Sharif said he had taken up the issue with UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed on his recent visit to the Emirates.

"He's a brother of Pakistan. He also has good relations with India. He can play a very important role to bring the two countries on the talking table," Sharif said.

'NOTHING BUT MISERY'

The two arch-rival nuclear powers have fought three wars since independence from British rule in 1947. Two of the wars were over Kashmir, a disputed Himalayan region, which both the nations claim. Each controls half of the region.

The two neighbours came close to war again in 2019, when India launched an air strike inside Pakistan to target what New Delhi said was a militant training facility.

Tensions were again inflamed when India unilaterally revoked the autonomous status of its part of Kashmir later in 2019, which Sharif said resulted in "flagrant" human rights violations.

India has faced a decades-long insurgency in its part of Kashmir which is accuses Pakistan of stoking - an accusation Islamabad denies.

Official talks between the two countries have been suspended since then, although there have been some backdoor diplomacy attempts to resume negotiations - one brokered by the UAE in 2021.

Sharif said the wars between the two countries brought nothing except misery, poverty and unemployment.

"We want to alleviate poverty, achieve prosperity and provide education, health facilities and employment to our people, and not waste our resources on bombs and ammunition, that's the message I want to give to PM Modi," he said.

(Reporting by Asif Shahzad; Editing by Gerry Doyle and Alex Richardson)

In DeSantis’ Florida, ‘reverse racism’ has morphed into a new boogeyman: diversity | Opinion



the Miami Herald Editorial Board
Tue, January 17, 2023 

“Reverse racism” once seemed like a fringe idea not to be taken seriously. Even the most basic understanding of this country’s history will quickly quell any fears that white Americans are the target of widespread discrimination that denies them peace and opportunities.

And yet that concept now has gone mainstream in Florida. The fight against so-called “reverse racism” has been enshrined into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Legislature as if it were the next frontier of the civil rights movement. They have turned what we traditionally considered discrimination on its head.

Discrimination 2.0 comes dressed as “diversity, equity and inclusion,” commonly known as DEI, at state universities and private companies, according to Florida’s new logic. Racists are now are those who seek to make our institutions look more like our country and address the effects of slavery and segregation on African Americans.

Public higher education is now under the gun to root out DEI programs and critical race theory, a 40-year-old academic area of study that looks into how racism has been embedded into our legal system and policies. The Florida House last week requested data from 40 institutions to “access the cost and benefit” of DEI initiatives. Speaker Paul Renner has even requested text messages, social media posts and email regarding curriculum, faculty hiring and proposed discipline.

Renner and fellow lawmakers control the budget of state colleges and universities, so the consequences of trying to diversify academia could be costly. Lawmakers have also set up a mechanism to retaliate against university professors who don’t fall in line. Last year, they made it harder for faculty members to maintain tenure, which protects them from the kind of political interference in education that DeSantis has ushered in.

The fight against DEI is more than a concern about our university system. Florida Republicans have given affirmation and credence to those who once felt ashamed to assert some version of the idea that “white men are the most discriminated group of people in America these days.”

DeSantis’ critics might hate to admit this, but he also has exposed how fraught diversity initiatives can be if not done right. He recently blasted a National Hockey League job fair taking place in Fort Lauderdale in February. The event description on LinkedIn said it was open to participants who “identify as female, Black, Asian/Pacific Islander, Hispanic/Latino, Indigenous, LGBTQIA+, and/or a person with a disability,” Fox News Digital reported. The NHL said the post was “not accurate” and revised it after backlash. DeSantis’ office called the fair discriminatory for selecting the type of people who should attend.

We don’t believe that DeSantis’ intention is to improve how companies and institutions diversify their workforce. There’s zero recognition on his part — at least publicly — that not all Americans start life on an equal footing. Nor does he seem to care that some companies and entities are still largely run by white men, even though the country is looking increasingly diverse.

The knowledge that the median white household net worth is 10 times that of the median Black household, according to the Brookings Institution, should provide enough evidence that race impacts the types of opportunities one can access. And saying that we elected a Black president doesn’t change that.

When DeSantis disavows DEI, he’s defending the sensibilities of a group of people who feel threatened by it. Lost in the conversation is that nearly 84% of the NHL’s employees are white and almost 62% are men, according to a report the league itself released in October.

Is the solution to only allow minorities to attend a job fair? No. Incidents like these are what make white people think that diversity is a zero-sum game, that opportunities to one group come at a cost to another. That’s a misconception that many politicians perpetuate for their own gain. The NHL job fair will be seen in conservative circles as proof that businesses engaging in diversity, equity and inclusion are — as far from the truth as that may be — essentially saying “white people need not apply.”

At the same time, good intentions alone won’t diversify a workforce. We know by now it’s not enough to simply invite everyone to apply or lament that “we couldn’t find any qualified women.” Diversity cannot be such an elusive goal that it becomes an afterthought. The point isn’t to have “diversity hires” but to hire people who are a good fit for a workplace, have the proper experience and skills — and that are also diverse.

Diversity, equity and inclusion are not easy topics to discuss, much less achieve. DeSantis seeks to simplify them into a new, more palatable iteration of “reverse racism.”

DeSantis wants to permanently ban COVID vaccine, mask requirements for Florida workers

Mary Ellen Klas
Tue, January 17, 2023 

Despite facing pushback from medical professionals and businesses, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced legislation Tuesday that would make permanent a law to penalize companies that require employees to wear masks or be vaccinated for COVID-19 and added a new ban on medical boards reprimanding doctors for spreading COVID misinformation.

“This is just nuts that we’re still doing this,’’ DeSantis said to cheering supporters in Panama City Beach. “We need to be leading on this by making all of these protections permanent in Florida statute as we need to do in the upcoming legislative session.”

The proposal will attempt to make permanent a series of laws passed by legislators in November 2021 after DeSantis called a special session aimed at restricting Florida businesses that were following a federal law requiring mask mandates or requiring employees to be vaccinated.

If approved by Florida legislators, the measure would continue to prohibit COVID-19 vaccine and mask requirements in schools and government, and prohibit COVID-19 vaccine requirements for employment or travel.

This year, DeSantis wants to expand the sanctions on businesses by prohibiting employers from hiring or firing based on vaccine status or wearing a mask, and he wants to revive a failed proposal from last year’s legislative session that would make it more difficult for a medical licensing board to reprimand or sanction a doctor for views expressed by the medical professional — including on social media.

Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo also spoke at the news conference Tuesday and repeated his claim that masks are not effective in preventing the spread of the virus and dismissed the effectiveness of vaccines.

“This is the first time in history where we are using this technology widely in human beings,’’ he said, referring to the mRNA vaccines. “You’re telling people to put it in children, and you’ve never even shown the children to gain from it in terms of an actual help. That’s the land of crazy. Florida is the land of sanity.”

Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph A. Ladapo, left, at a news conference with Gov. Ron DeSantis in January 2022 at Broward Health Medical Center.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website lists several studies that have shown masking to be helpful in curbing the spread of the virus. In January 2022, a CDC report found vaccinated Americans were far less likely both to contract the virus and die from it.

Leading House Democrat responds

House Democratic Leader Fentrice Driskell of Tampa called the governor and his administration “the No. 1 peddler of misinformation from the anti-vax establishment.”

“It is a fake ideology with real consequences,’’ she said, noting that less than one-third of Florida’s nursing home residents, the most vulnerable age group, are up to date on their vaccines, even though the state Department of Health recommends it.

Driskell emphasized that “no one ever promised total immunity, but those vaccines do lessen the chance of infection and they increase the likelihood of a milder case if you do get sick.” She accused the governor of “rewriting history” after promoting the vaccines when they were first available.

Since former President Donald Trump lost his reelection bid, DeSantis sought to become the face of the opposition to the Biden administration’s COVID policies which the governor said were overreaching. He called lawmakers into special session in November 2021 to punish companies that followed the federal law.

But lawmakers rejected some of his proposals, including changing the law to open the door for businesses to be sued for coronavirus-related liability if the business required their employees to be vaccinated.

Business leaders quietly told legislators then that they didn’t want to be told by the state what they couldn’t do any more than they wanted the federal government to tell them what they had to do to keep their workplaces safe in the midst of the pandemic.

More than 100 companies, including some of the largest corporations operating in Florida, had adopted vaccination requirements for their employees with some already issuing layoff notices to those who didn’t comply.

Legislators changed course

Legislators not only rejected some of the strict penalties on businesses sought by the governor, they set

the entire package of vaccine-related provisions to expire June 1, 2023.

But with the deadline approaching and a new Republican-led Legislature ready to please the popular governor, DeSantis said Tuesday he was confident the permanent restrictions would pass.

As he positions himself for a run for the 2024 GOP nomination for president, DeSantis has been focused on keeping COVID and Florida’s response to it in the national headlines. During his 2022 reelection campaign, the governor promoted the “free state of Florida” and pointed to the absence of COVID protocols as proof.

“The Free State of Florida did not happen by accident,” DeSantis said at the news conference Tuesday in which he took no questions. “It required us over these last few years to stand against major institutions in our society — the bureaucracy, the medical establishment, legacy media and even the President of the United States — who together were working to impose a bio medical security state on society.”

But many of the proposals that drew headlines in 2021, have since been weakened in the face of court challenges or disregarded.

After a Leon County judge’s ruling that said the state could not enforce a ban on strict mask mandates in schools, a three-judge panel of the 1st District Court of Appeal reversed the decision, giving the DeSantis administration a victory. The U.S. Department of Education subsequently dropped a cease-and-desist complaint against the state when school districts dropped mask mandates.

Leaving OSHA over restrictions isn’t happening

In 2021, the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) enforced federal COVID mask and vaccine mandates. During the special session, legislators also passed a law to allow the state to study withdrawing from the business safety protections required under OSHA and replace it with a newly created state agency.

That plan got the governor national attention, but it never got off the ground. The governor’s budget chief said in a January 2022 report to the Legislature that creating a new state agency would take nine years and it was too early to determine whether pursuing the change would be “prudent.”

Meanwhile, as Florida and other states sued the Biden administration over its mandate of vaccines in large workplaces, the U.S. Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision blocked Biden’s vaccine and testing mandate for businesses with more than 100 employees that was enforced by OSHA. However, the high court allowed the vaccine mandate to stand for medical facilities that take Medicare or Medicaid payments, which is still in force in many Florida hospitals.

The governor said he will also revive two measures that died last year after opposition from medical communities, Senate Bill 1184 and House Bill 687.

Under the proposals, a regulatory board could only sanction a physician for their views if it found that the speech “led to the direct physical harm” of a patient the doctor had seen within the last three years. Under the Senate bill, a board could be liable for up to $1.5 million every time it violates the established standard for sanctions.

State medical boards opposed the legislation. The Federation of State Medical Boards told the Herald/Times last year that the proposed legislation could limit boards’ abilities to conduct their work, which “sets a dangerous precedent and puts the public at risk.”

DeSantis said that the proposal is in response to legislation passed in California that would allow regulators to punish doctors for spreading false information about COVID-19 vaccinations and treatments.

“We want to protect people’s ability to follow the evidence and to choose evidence over narrative and unfortunately, we’ve seen a lot of these institutions, including many medical institutions, become very politicized,’’ DeSantis said.

California passed the legislation following a 2021 warning by the national Federation of State Medical Boards that licensing boards should do more to discipline doctors who share false claims. The American Medical Association has also warned that spreading disinformation violates doctors’ code of ethics.

Also speaking at the news conference was Panama City dermatologist Jon Ward, whom DeSantis last year called “one of the engines behind this movement.”

“What is misinformation and who gets to decide,’’ Ward asked. “Time and time again we see that yesterday’s misinformation is today’s fact.”

In 2021, Ward made a social media post encouraging parents to “train your child” to lie to school officials and say they previously had COVID-19 to avoid having to quarantine after an exposure. Bay County Superintendent Bill Husfelt told a local TV station at the time that the advice was “absolutely reprehensible,” and Ward later said he felt “regret” for the statement and edited the post.

However, the new version still offered “a pro tip to game the system” by noting that many schools were not requiring actual proof of vaccination or previous infection, according to WJHG.

Tampa Bay Times reporters Kirby Wilson and Emily L. Mahoney contributed to this report.

Mary Ellen Klas can be reached at meklas@miamiherald.com and @MaryEllenKlas

Slain Kenya LGBTQ activist laid to rest amid calls for justice

Tue, January 17, 2023 


A prominent Kenyan LGBTQ campaigner whose body was found dumped in a metal box about two weeks ago was buried at the family home in the west of the country on Tuesday.

The grisly death of Edwin Kiprotich Kipruto, popularly known as Edwin Chiloba, has drawn condemnation and calls for justice from friends and rights groups in Kenya and abroad.

Hundreds of people gathered at his parents' home in Sergoit, a village in Elgeyo Marakwet county, some 300 kilometres (190 miles) northwest of Nairobi.

Family and friends wept as they paid homage to the 25-year-old model and fashion designer, who has been targeted by online abuse since his death.

Joel Onteri, who attended high school with Chiloba, appealed for the vilification of his former classmate to end.

"Despite all that is being said, Chiloba has a family and those close to him. If we continue mocking him on social media, the family is being stigmatised," Onteri said.

"Let's leave judgement to God."

Others made similar calls on Twitter, where his name was the top trending topic in Kenya.

"Today, a peaceful person is buried. Rest in Power Edwin Chiloba. Salute your courage to authentically live your life," Irungu Houghton, the executive director of Amnesty International's Kenya branch, said on Twitter.

"May your love for life inspire all who now know you. Deepest condolences again to family, friends + the LGBTIQ+ community."

Last week, the chief government pathologist Johansen Oduor said Chiloba had been smothered to death.

He said after a post-mortem that a piece of denim had been tied around Chiloba's mouth and nose and that socks had also been stuffed in his mouth.

Chiloba's body was discovered about 40 kilometres (25 miles) outside the Rift Valley town of Eldoret after it was reportedly dumped from a moving car.

The killing was initially suspected to have been a hate crime, as members of Kenya's LGBTQ community have faced harassment and physical attacks in the predominantly conservative Christian nation.

Freelance photographer Jacktone Odhiambo, who was reportedly a lover of Chiloba, is the prime suspect in his death and is in police custody along with four other people.

A court in Eldoret has allowed police to detain the five until January 31 as they pursue their investigations into the killing.

Rights campaigners have condemned Chiloba's violent death and called for heightened efforts to protect members of the LGBTQ community.

Homosexuality is taboo in Kenya and across much of Africa.

Despite attempts to overturn British colonial-era laws banning homosexuality in Kenya, gay sex remains a crime with penalties including prison terms of up to 14 years.

According to the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, Chiloba's death came after the unsolved murders of several other rights advocates for sexual minorities.

txw/ho/np/js

SpaceX Rocket Sends Solar Power Prototype Into Orbit


Editor OilPrice.com

Tue, January 17, 2023 

The Caltech Space Solar Power Project (SSPP) prototype launched into orbit, dubbed the Space Solar Power Demonstrator (SSPD), will test several key components of an ambitious plan to harvest solar power in space and beam the energy back to Earth.

Space solar power provides a way to tap into the practically unlimited supply of solar energy in outer space, where the energy is constantly available without being subjected to the cycles of day and night, seasons, and cloud cover.

For more lots more images, gifs and video, here are the links: 1st, Cal Tech’s press release. Then 2nd, the project web site.

The launch represents a major milestone in the project and promises to make what was once science fiction a reality. When fully realized, SSPP will deploy a constellation of modular spacecraft that collect sunlight, transform it into electricity, then wirelessly transmit that electricity over long distances wherever it is needed – including to places that currently have no access to reliable power.


A Momentus Vigoride spacecraft carried aboard a SpaceX rocket on the Transporter-6 mission carried the 50-kilogram SSPD to space. It consists of three main experiments, each tasked with testing a different key technology of the project:

DOLCE (Deployable on-Orbit ultraLight Composite Experiment): A structure measuring 6 feet by 6 feet that demonstrates the architecture, packaging scheme and deployment mechanisms of the modular spacecraft that would eventually make up a kilometer-scale constellation forming a power station;

ALBA: A collection of 32 different types of photovoltaic (PV) cells, to enable an assessment of the types of cells that are the most effective in the punishing environment of space;

MAPLE (Microwave Array for Power-transfer Low-orbit Experiment): An array of flexible lightweight microwave power transmitters with precise timing control focusing the power selectively on two different receivers to demonstrate wireless power transmission at distance in space.

An additional fourth component of SSPD is a box of electronics that interfaces with the Vigoride computer and controls the three experiments.

SSPP got its start in 2011 after philanthropist Donald Bren, chairman of Irvine Company and a lifetime member of the Caltech Board of Trustees, learned about the potential for space-based solar energy manufacturing in an article in the magazine Popular Science.

Intrigued by the potential for space solar power, Bren approached Caltech’s then-president Jean-Lou Chameau to discuss the creation of a space-based solar power research project. In 2013, Bren and his wife, Brigitte Bren, a Caltech trustee, agreed to make the donation to fund the project. The first of the donations (which will eventually exceed $100 million) was made that year through the Donald Bren Foundation, and the research began.

Bren said, “For many years, I’ve dreamed about how space-based solar power could solve some of humanity’s most urgent challenges. Today, I’m thrilled to be supporting Caltech’s brilliant scientists as they race to make that dream a reality.”

The rocket took approximately 10 minutes to reach its desired altitude. The Momentus spacecraft was deployed from the rocket into orbit. The Caltech team on Earth plans to start running their experiments on the SSPD within a few weeks of the launch.

Some elements of the test will be conducted quickly. “We plan to command the deployment of DOLCE within days of getting access to SSPD from Momentus. We should know right away if DOLCE works,” said Sergio Pellegrino, Caltech’s Joyce and Kent Kresa Professor of Aerospace and Professor of Civil Engineering and co-director of SSPP. Pellegrino is also a senior research scientist at JPL, which Caltech manages for NASA.

Other elements will require more time. The collection of photovoltaics will need up to six months of testing to give new insights into what types of photovoltaic technology will be best for this application. MAPLE involves a series of experiments, from an initial function verification to an evaluation of the performance of the system under different environments over time.

Meanwhile, two cameras on deployable booms mounted on DOLCE and additional cameras on the electronics box will monitor the experiment’s progress, and stream a feed back down to Earth. The SSPP team hopes that they will have a full assessment of the SSPD’s performance within a few months of the launch.

Numerous challenges remain: nothing about conducting an experiment in space – from the launch to the deployment of the spacecraft to the operation of the SSPD – is guaranteed. But regardless of what happens, the sheer ability to create a space-worthy prototype represents a significant achievement by the SSPP team.

Ali Hajimiri, Caltech’s Bren Professor of Electrical Engineering and Medical Engineering and co-director of SSPP said, “No matter what happens, this prototype is a major step forward. It works here on Earth, and has passed the rigorous steps required of anything launched into space. There are still many risks, but having gone through the whole process has taught us valuable lessons. We believe the space experiments will provide us with plenty of additional useful information that will guide the project as we continue to move forward.”

Although solar cells have existed on Earth since the late 1800s and currently generate about 4 percent of the world’s electricity (in addition to powering the International Space Station), everything about solar power generation and transmission needed to be rethought for use on a large scale in space.

Solar panels are bulky and heavy, making them expensive to launch, and they need extensive wiring to transmit power. To overcome these challenges, the SSPP team has had to envision and create new technologies, architectures, materials, and structures for a system that is capable of the practical realization of space solar power, while being light enough to be cost-effective for bulk deployment in space, and strong enough to withstand the punishing space environment.

Pellegrino commented, “DOLCE demonstrates a new architecture for solar-powered spacecraft and phased antenna arrays. It exploits the latest generation of ultrathin composite materials to achieve unprecedented packaging efficiency and flexibility. With the further advances that we have already started to work on, we anticipate applications to a variety of future space missions.”

Hajimiri noted, “The entire flexible MAPLE array, as well as its core wireless power transfer electronic chips and transmitting elements, have been designed from scratch. This wasn’t made from items you can buy because they didn’t even exist. This fundamental rethinking of the system from the ground up is essential to realize scalable solutions for SSPP.”

The entire set of three prototypes within the SSPD was envisioned, designed, built, and tested by a team of about 35 individuals. “This was accomplished with a smaller team and significantly fewer resources than what would be available in an industrial, rather than academic, setting. The highly talented team of individuals on our team has made it possible to achieve this,” Hajimiri added.

Those individuals, however – a collection of graduate students, postdocs, and research scientists – now represent the cutting edge in the burgeoning space solar power field.

“We’re creating the next generation of space engineers,” said SSPP researcher Harry A. Atwater, Caltech’s Otis Booth Leadership Chair of the Division of Engineering and Applied Science and the Howard Hughes Professor of Applied Physics and Materials Science, and director of the Liquid Sunlight Alliance, a research institute dedicated to using sunlight to make liquid products that could be used for industrial chemicals, fuels, and building materials or products.

Success or failure from the three testbeds will be measured in a variety of ways. The most important test for DOLCE is that the structure completely deploys from its folded-up configuration into its open configuration. For ALBA, a successful test will provide an assessment of which photovoltaic cells operate with maximum efficiency and resiliency. MAPLE’s goal is to demonstrate selective free-space power transmission to different specific targets on demand.

“Many times, we asked colleagues at JPL and in the Southern California space industry for advice about the design and test procedures that are used to develop successful missions. We tried to reduce the risk of failure, even though the development of entirely new technologies is inherently a risky process,” said Pellegrino.

SSPP aims to ultimately produce a global supply of affordable, renewable, clean energy. More about SSPP can be found on the program’s website: https://www.spacesolar.caltech.edu/

***

Your humble writer says this is a huge success right now. And will add a thanks to a privateer investor, Donald Bren, his wife, Brigitte Bren, and his foundation. Sometimes great wealth gives back in a great way.

There isn’t a failure possible in this. The test equipment is in orbit and the information, every byte, is a success. The question that exists is just how fully realized will the tests and experiments get? One hopes far enough to encourage more investment and further research.

By Brian Westenhaus via New Energy and Fuel