UK council returns Banksy freezer

Agence France-Presse
February 15, 2023

The new mural has appeared in Margate in southeast England © William EDWARDS / AFP

A chest freezer forming part of a work by British street artist Banksy was returned on Wednesday a day its removal by the local council for "health and safety" reasons.

The mural appeared in Margate in southeast England on Tuesday, depicting a 1950s-style housewife with a swollen eye and a missing tooth seemingly shoving her male partner into a real chest freezer.

Despite protests from locals taking pictures of the mural, at the end of a terrace of houses in a rundown part of the seaside town, council workers turned up to throw the freezer into a van.

The local council announced on Wednesday however that it had returned the old appliance.

"The freezer which council operatives removed from the Banksy installation in Margate has now been made safe," said a statement from Thanet District Council, which administers Margate.

"It has been returned to its original position at the site of the artwork today."

The council said it had had to remove the freezer to carry out works to it "for health and safety reasons".

The council acknowledged that Banksy had raised an important issue in dealing with domestic abuse in his latest work.

It was in touch with the owner of the property to find out what they intended to do to preserve it, it added.

Coveted street art

The elusive Banksy, whose true identity remains unconfirmed, posted three images of the work -- which he entitled "Valentine's Day Mascara" -- on his Instagram account.

Two of the images were close-ups showing the woman, wearing a blue pinafore and yellow washing-up gloves, smiling but seemingly with a battered face.

The removal of the freezer prompted bemusement among bystanders.

"People were sort of like, 'Stop, stop, you know, this is a Banksy, right?'" local resident Laura Holden, 35, told AFP.

"And they (the workers) were like, 'Yeah, no, we've got permission to take everything away'.

"It felt like it was part of the piece, and perhaps Banksy intended that all along -- because we all know how hard it is to get Thanet District Council to come and collect our rubbish," she quipped.

Banksy's art has come a long way from its origins on the streets of Bristol in the 1990s.

A version of his iconic "Girl with Balloon" sold at auction for just over £1 million in 2018 -- only to start self-destructing due to a shredder hidden by Banksy in the frame.

The renamed "Love is in the Bin" then sold for a staggering £18.6 million in 2021 -- a record for a Banksy.


© 2023 AFP

SEE

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2023/02/new-banksy-spotted-as-mystery-street.html

Extremist Christian terrorists kill cops after luring them onto their trap-laden farm: report

Matthew Chapman
February 16, 2023

A militia member with a rifle in an open field (Shutterstock)

An Australian family belonging to an extreme fundamentalist Christian movement murdered police officers in a bizarre terrorism plot — and the movement has a following in the United States as well, reported The Daily Beast on Thursday.

"Gareth, Nathaniel and Stacey Train died in a stand-off after killing constables Rachel McCrow, 29, Matthew Arnold, 26, and their neighbor Alan Dare, 58, on Dec. 12. They were involved in an extreme religion known as 'premillennialism,' Queensland Deputy Police Commissioner Tracy Linford said Thursday, calling the attack on the officers a 'religious terror attack,'" reported Barbie Latza Nadeau. "Linford said the religious group had a connection to a similar group in the U.S., and that officers had shared information found in text messages with the U.S. police."

Premillenialism is an extremist Christian-identifying movement that believes Christ will reign over the earth for a millennium after a period of extreme earthly suffering. Many of its adherents have ties to the "sovereign citizen movement," a largely U.S.-based extremist movement that posits the federal government is fraudulent, or secretly a corporate entity with no authority, and individual citizens hold lawmaking power.

There is no indication that sovereign citizen groups were involved in this attack, although people who knew the Trains say they referred to law enforcement as "monsters and demons," and they held strong anti-government views — Stacey Train once worked as a high school principal but resigned in response to vaccine mandates.

"The incident happened when four police officers, including the two slain officers, were 'lured' to the Train farm, which had been set up with a sophisticated surveillance system and military-grade training facilities including camouflaged hiding places and dirt mound barriers and mirrors strategically placed on trees" noted the report. "They also found six weapons, three bow and arrows, a collection of tactical knives."

After the officers were killed, survivors summoned backup, leading to a confrontation that killed the Trains.

STILL FIGHTING THE NEW DEAL

Mike Pence calls to end Social Security and Medicare in Fox News interview

David Edwards
February 16, 2023

Fox News/screen grab

Former Vice President Mike Pence on Thursday called to end Social Security and Medicare, and instead replace them with a "better deal" for younger Americans.

During an interview on Fox News, Pence was asked about his plan for entitlements like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

"We are simply not going to reform the fiscal health of this nation by simply nibbling at the edges of the federal budget," Pence said. "I submit to you that we have to have a conversation about reforming entitlements in the days ahead."

"I think we can replace the New Deal programs with a better deal," he added.

Pence proposed keeping the current system in place for "people who will retire in the next 20 years."

"But give options to younger Americans to invest a portion of their Social Security in a private savings account and get a better deal," he added. "I think [it] is an idea whose time will come."

"Do you think there's an appetite for that?" Fox News host Sandra Smith asked.

"It's all about leadership," Pence opined. "We can replace the New Deal with a better deal, and I'm going to be a part of that conversation."

Before ending the interview, Pence confirmed that he is still considering a 2024 presidential run.

The former vice president has been a longtime advocate of Social Security privatization, which was rejected during President George W. Bush's administration.

Watch the video below from Fox News.

Record-breaking dinosaur footprint appears on the Yorkshire coast

By Ashley Strickland, CNN
Published 7:01 PM EST, Wed February 15, 2023

The giant footprint left by a dinosaur 166 million years ago was found on the Yorkshire coast in the United Kingdom.

Marie Woods/University of Manchester


CNN —

A giant carnivorous dinosaur likely rested or crouched down in Yorkshire 166 million years ago, deeply pressing its feet into the ground. The colossal creature left behind a record-breaking footprint recently discovered along the United Kingdom’s “Dinosaur Coast.”

The Jurassic footprint, measuring nearly a meter (3.3 feet) long, is the largest of its kind found in the county of Yorkshire.

Thousands of dinosaur footprints and many fossils have been recovered over the years along the Yorkshire coast. But this discovery was made in April 2021 by local archaeologist Marie Woods as she walked along the coast.

“I couldn’t believe what I was looking at, I had to do a double take,” Woods said in a statement. “I have seen a few smaller prints when out with friends, but nothing like this. I can no longer say that ‘archaeologists don’t do dinosaurs.’”

Woods is the coauthor of a study describing the footprint that was published Tuesday in the journal Proceedings of the Yorkshire Geological Society.

(From left) John Hudson, Marie Woods and Dean Lomax are shown with the dinosaur footprint.Dean Lomax/University of Manchester

Woods reached out to paleontologist Dr. Dean Lomax, honorary visiting scientist at the University of Manchester, to get his thoughts on what she found at Burniston Bay, about 3 miles (5 kilometers) north of Scarborough. Just the day before, Lomax had shared an image of a dinosaur footprint found in the same area in 2006.

100 million-year-old dinosaur footprints found at restaurant in China

“Marie contacted me whilst she was down on the beach, with the fossil in front of her,” said study coauthor Lomax, who is also the author of “Dinosaurs of the British Isles.”

“At first, to be totally honest, I thought that it was some sort of joke,” he said via email. “The fact Marie then went out and saw this down on the beach seemed impossible. Plus, Marie is an archaeologist, and she and I have always joked that she’ll one day make an amazing palaeontological discovery.”
Rare evidence of Jurassic dinosaurs

The three-toed footprint is one of only six to be found in the area, and the first one was found in 1934.

“This important discovery adds further evidence that meat-eating giants once roamed this area during the Jurassic,” said lead study author and local geologist John Hudson. “The type of footprint, combined with its age, suggests that it was made by a ferocious Megalosaurus-like dinosaur, with a possible hip height between 2.5 and 3 meters (between 8.2 and 9.8 feet).”

Megalosaurus was the world’s first official dinosaur, named in 1824 for bones discovered in the county of Oxfordshire in England, Lomax said.

This illustration shows a Megalosaurus, the dinosuar believed to have left behind the footprint

.James McKay/University of Manchester

The carnivorous dinosaur, one of the largest predators of its time, had a large skull armed with sharp, serrated teeth, and its body reached 8 to 9 meters (26.2 to 29.5 feet) in length.

Concerned that the footprint might erode more if left along the coast, the team arranged for it to be safely moved. Fossil collectors Mark, Aaron and Shae Smith carefully collected the footprint and donated it to the Scarborough Museum and Galleries.

“We’re incredibly grateful to Mark, Aaron and Shae for rescuing this important specimen and ensuring that it was saved for science,” Lomax said. “Now that the specimen has been studied, plans are in motion for it to go on public display, to spark the imagination of the next generation of fossil hunters.”

Dinosaur footprints dating back 200 million years discovered on Wales beach, researchers believe

Hudson and Lomax were able to study the footprint in detail once it was relocated, which enabled the researchers to learn more about the dinosaur who left the impression behind. The duo analyzed the shape of the footprint, number of toes and claw marks, as well as impressions made by the dinosaur’s skin.

“The most intriguing feature of our footprint is a long portion preserved at the back of the foot, which is an impression of what we call the metapodium,” Lomax said.

“The presence of this might suggest our large meat-eater was squatting down in the mud, before standing up and walking away. It’s fun to think this dinosaur might well have been strolling along a muddy coastal plain one lazy Sunday afternoon in the Jurassic.”

Fossil hunter Rob Taylor (left) initially spotted part of the footprint, but it wasn't fully exposed at the time. Marie Woods (right) found it five months later.

Marie Woods/University of Manchester

Hudson and Lomax also worked with geologist Dr. Mike Romano, an emeritus member of the faculty at the University of Sheffield, on the study. Romano has collected and studied hundreds of dinosaur tracks along the Yorkshire Coast over the past two decades. About 25 different types of dinosaur footprints have been identified in the area.

Footprints reveal that stegosaurs once stepped across Scotland

“The east coast of Yorkshire is known as the Dinosaur Coast for very good reasons,” Romano said in a statement.

“Although these different types do not necessarily represent the same number of different dinosaurs, they do indicate a diverse ecosystem of animals including both carnivores and herbivores that roamed the Jurassic coastal plain and (river) complex some 160-175 million years ago. The prints also allow us to interpret their behaviour. Thus, we have records of walking, running and swimming dinosaurs.”

Once work has been completed on the fossilized footprint, it will go on public display among others at the Scarborough Museum and Galleries’ Rotunda Museum.

Israel exports crude oil for first time, with shipment heading for Europe

Country joins ‘club of international oil exporters’ with first cargo load of hydrocarbon liquids extracted from offshore Karish natural gas field

By TOI STAFF16 February 2023, 1:59 am  

Energean's floating production system (FPSO) at the Karish gas field in the Mediterranean Sea. (Energean)

Israel has exported crude oil material for the first time, with a shipment headed to Europe from the country’s offshore Karish gas field, according to an announcement Tuesday by Greek gas company Energean. The London- and Tel Aviv-listed firm is in charge of production at the Karish and Tanin natural gas fields in Israel’s economic waters in the Mediterranean.

In a statement Tuesday, Energean said “the first ever lifting of an Israeli crude oil cargo has taken place at the company’s Karish field,” and a cargo ship of hydrocarbon gas liquids (HGLs) extracted from natural gas (and then used in a mixture to make crude oil) was exported to global markets “for the first time in the history of Israeli oil and gas production.”

“This creates a significant differentiated income stream, fundamentally separate to gas-derived revenues,” Energean said, welcoming Israel into the “club of international oil exporters.” The cargo was “sold as part of a multi-cargo marketing agreement with Vitol; the first of a new source of East Med energy to reach Europe,” it added.

Energean got the green light last October to begin production at Karish, a day before Israel and Lebanon signed a long-awaited, US-brokered maritime border deal that ended a dispute over the gas field.

The Karish and Tanin fields contain a total of around 75 billion cubic meters of natural gas. About 12 billion cubic meters are consumed annually in Israel.

Karish is Israel’s third offshore natural gas rig, joining Tamar and Leviathan, with each connected to the mainland by separate infrastructure. Israel began exporting natural gas in 2017 — in a first deal with neighboring Jordan and then Egypt — as it started a path toward energy independence which has largely shielded it from the worst of the ongoing energy crisis sparked by the Russian war on Ukraine last year.

In June, Israel signed a new deal with Cairo and the European Union to export natural gas to the bloc via Egypt as demand for its gas exports grows.

Energean said the firm would remain focused on natural gas “with our Israeli gas production central to our role in enabling the energy transition” but that “light, sweet crude oil responsibly produced… is very much in demand globally,” according to Nick Witney, Energean Group commercial director.

“We are happy and proud that Energean has facilitated Israel joining the club of international oil exporters,” said Energean CEO Mathios Rigas.

Giuliani associate regrets buying into 'deep state' conspiracy — and thinks Trump committed crimes bribing Ukraine

Sarah K. Burris
February 15, 2023

Volodymyr Zelensky and Donald Trump (AFP)

Lev Parnas, one of the associates of Rudy Giuliani's working on the Ukraine conspiracy has been released from prison on home confinement and he's speaking out about his experience working to help Donald Trump.

MSNBC's Ari Melber asked what he called "an obvious, straightforward comparison. There are people like Mr. Giuliani, to say nothing of Mr. Trump who have faced less accountability than you. Did that way on your mind while you were incarcerated?"

Parnas agreed, noting that since his incarceration he's had a lot of time to think.

"That's been weighing on my mind from the day I was arrested, because the things I was doing, at the time I was doing it, I thought I was doing it, as an American patriot, serving my country," he said. "Never in my wildest dreams did I think the president of the United States could be so corrupt and do the things he did or send me to do the things that I ended up doing. It still weighs on my mind heavily. That is why I am trying to now make amends and make sure I let the whole truth out and make sure everybody knows exactly what transpired, especially with what's going on in Ukraine."

He explained that at the time, he truly believed Trump and Giuliani's claims that there was a "deep state conspiracy" afoot inside the U.S. government.

"And the Ukrainian people were involved in the officials involved were corrupt and they were trying to undermine the U.S. elections by -- at the time," Parnas continued. "But after reflecting and understanding exactly what transpired, I now realize and understand that it was really Trump using Giuliani, like his Roy Cohn. And making him put people like myself in harm's way to be able to dig up dirt, at that time, on Joe Biden."

Conservatives are still trying to push the same conspiracy, that President Joe Biden's son was somehow involved in a slew of international scams that made the Biden men billionaires. It's false and no one in the Biden family is a billionaire. Parnas has said that the Hunter Biden laptop scheme was a "setup" from the beginning.

"Let me dig into that," Melber began. "What you are telling me, for my understanding is that, during that time you bought into the storyline that you thought, if there is really corruption over there, you are helping explore or uproot it, perhaps. And you are telling me that later you came to see that — which I should know and viewers know was a widely discredited cover story to hurt the Bidens for political reasons — that you do now see it that way and say well, actually it was all kind of Trump's political BS?"

He agreed, and began to echo some of the same points other former Trump allies have said once leaving the fold, describing it more as a kind of cult than a political campaign.

"You have to understand, I grew up in Brooklyn and I looked up to people like Giuliani and Trump and when he became president, I really believed I was cutinized, and I drink the kool-aid," Parnas admitted. "And I really believed that he was trying to do good for our country and I thought, honestly that everything I'm doing is positive for our country. But eventually, even prior to my arrest, I could see the way that Giuliani was being so aggressive with Trump officials and putting pressure on President [Volodymyr] Zelensky at the time."

"Sooner or later I started getting a feeling, but I didn't realize it until after my arrest and after I had time to re-evaluate everything that happened and understand," continued Parnas. "Today I truly believe and understand that they were using me to be able to basically win the 2020 election. Most people deep down inside -- educated, common sense individuals who might not be saying it out loud, realize it's a bunch of BS and it's not true, but they don't come out and say it because for their own personal benefits. They want to change the policy or president, or whatever the political aspect is."

He closed by admitting that based on what he saw, he firmly believes that both Giuliani and Trump "committed crimes" based on the way they pressured Zelensky and prosecutors in Ukraine. Parnas also linked Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) to the scheme at one point.

"They basically blackmailed them and force them into trying to get information. They threaten them with different things," said Parnas. "The first thing was not having Vice President Pence attend the inauguration. That was a huge thing for President Zelensky once he got into office. With how the military is and stuff like that. The constant threat going on, the state and get what they wanted and what they wanted was for President Zelensky to come out and say there was going to be an investigation into Joe Biden."

Trump was impeached for the alleged attempt to bribe Ukraine, which is listed under the impeachment rules in the Constitution as an example of an impeachable offense. Senate Republicans refused to even hear the case.

HE SAID THIS WHERE?

Elon Musk: ‘Single World Government’ Could Lead to the End of Civilization'

By NTD Newsroom
February 15, 2023

VIDEO Duration 4:42

At the World Government Summit on Feb. 15, Elon Musk said that having a single world government could lead to the end of human civilization. The billionaire warned attendees that excessive cooperation could pose an existential threat.

Debt in Focus as G20 Finance Chiefs Meet in India

By Reuters
Feb. 15, 2023, 

The Gateway of India monument is lit up as part of India's G20 presidency event in Mumbai on December 13, 2022. REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas/

By Aftab Ahmed and Christian Kraemer

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - G20 finance and central bank chiefs meet in India next week at the first-year anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine to discuss rising debt troubles among developing countries, the regulation of cryptocurrencies and the global slowdown.

The Feb. 22-25 meeting in the Nandi Hills summer retreat near Bengaluru is the first major event of India's G20 presidency and will be followed by a March 1-2 meeting of foreign ministers in New Delhi.

As global borrowing costs rise, India - whose neighbours Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh have all sought International Monetary Fund support in recent months - wants to put debt relief at the forefront of discussions at the finance talks.

It is drafting a proposal for G20 countries to help debtor nations badly hit by the economic impact from the pandemic and the Ukraine war, by asking big lenders including China to take a large haircut on loans, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

New Delhi also supports a push by the IMF, the World Bank and the United States for the so-called Common Framework (CF) - a G20 initiative launched in 2020 to help poor countries delay debt repayments - to be expanded to include middle-income countries, though China has resisted.

"We support exploring a possible extension of the CF to middle-income countries facing debt vulnerabilities," said a European Union paper, signalling its backing for such moves ahead of the meeting.

The World Bank said in December the world's poorest countries owed $62 billion in annual debt service to bilateral creditors, a year-on-year increase of 35%, triggering a higher risk of defaults. Two-thirds of the debt burden is owed to China, the world's largest sovereign creditor.

For India, the other priority is to agree on global rules for cryptocurrencies. India's central bank governor said last year cryptocurrencies were a "huge threat" to economic and financial stability" and some officials even called for a ban.

The country is now keen on international views on it.

"Crypto assets are by definition borderless and require international collaboration to prevent regulatory arbitrage," India's Ministry of Finance told parliament this week.

"Therefore, any legislation for regulation or for banning can be effective only with significant international collaboration on evaluation of the risks and benefits and evolution of common taxonomy and standards."

The meeting comes amid attempts to ensure that sanctions on Russia do not deprive nations like Sri Lanka, Zambia and Pakistan - whose economies are still struggling to recover from the pandemic - access to vital oil and fertilizer supplies.

After a video call between Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva last week, New Delhi said it had asked the global lender to work on policy guidance to ensure energy and food security.

"Food shortages and higher food and fertiliser prices triggered by the war are exacerbating global food insecurity, which disproportionately affects the most vulnerable," the EU paper said, urging the G20 to step up efforts to address the problem.

Neither the Russian finance minister nor the central bank chief were expected to attend the meeting.

(Writing by Krishna N. Das; editing by Mark John and Jonathan Oatis)

Elderly in China protest over slashed health benefits

Publishe

IMAGE SOURCE,REUTERS/ SOCIAL MEDIA GRAB

Image caption,

This is the second round of protests in seven days in Wuhan

By Stephen McDonell

BBC

China correspondent

Crowds of retirees in China have again taken to the streets to protest against cuts to their medical benefits.

They gathered on Wednesday for a second time in Wuhan, where Covid was first detected, and also in the north-eastern city of Dalian.

The second round of protests in seven days puts pressure on President Xi Jinping's administration just weeks before the annual National People's Congress, which will usher in a new leadership team.

Protests first took place in Wuhan on 8 February after provincial authorities said they were cutting the level of medical expenses which retirees can claim back from the government.

Social media footage shows the protesters to be largely elderly retirees, who say this comes at a time of soaring healthcare costs.

Although such health insurance matters are handled at a provincial level, protests have spread to different parts of the country in what appears to be a renewed belief in the power of demonstrating in China.

At the end of last year, thousands of young Chinese took part in protests that eventually forced the government to overturn its strict zero-Covid measures - people had grown weary of the mass testing and sudden, sweeping lockdowns that had been smashing the economy.

But the abrupt change in policy placed China's medical system under enormous strain, as the coronavirus quickly spread through the country. It led to an unknown number of deaths and reporting by the BBC appeared to show that a vast majority of those who died were elderly.

The changes to health benefits for retirees, which officials have described as reforms, come just as China emerges from that brutal Covid wave.

The plan has been sold as a means of trading off reimbursement levels to increase the scope of coverage to include more areas. However criticism of plan on social media has included the widely held view that Chinese officials are trying to recoup the vast amounts of money spent on compulsory Covid testing and other pandemic measures.

Officials in both Wuhan and Dalian said they had no knowledge of the most recent protests and, as such, had no comment to make. Calls to local police stations went unanswered.

Radio Free Asia reported that retired iron and steel workers made up a significant proportion of the original protest group in Wuhan.

The use of existing social network links could help to explain how these gatherings have been coordinated in a country where organising dissent against the government in any form is difficult and can lead to severe punishment, including prison sentences.

Video clips shared on social media showed elderly protestors singing the global Communist anthem, the Internationale. In the past, this song has been used as a means of indicating that demonstrators are not against the government or the Communist Party but merely want their grievances resolved.

A shopkeeper who witnessed this Wednesday's protest in Wuhan told the BBC that police on both sides of a nearby road had blocked access to the area in order to prevent more people joining the hundreds of elderly demonstrators who were already chanting slogans.

Three years of the pandemic crisis followed by a tumultuous exit from zero-Covid have generated considerable public discontent over China's health policies.

IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES

Image caption,

China's zero-Covid measures involved mass testing

Mr Xi had given the country's Covid amelioration policies his personal stamp of approval and the Party has struggled to explain why such a sudden about-face was necessary.

The Chinese government had also publicly ridiculed other countries for opening up too early, claiming they had unnecessarily sacrificed their people as a result.

It then turned around and abandoned its own restrictions at an even greater speed than other nations had done, and did so after maintaining lockdowns and other harsh measures for much longer than anywhere else in the world.

Many here now believe that, as a result, livelihoods were unnecessarily destroyed.

On China's Twitter-like Weibo social media platform, the hashtag #healthinsurance - in Chinese - has attracted millions of hits but was removed from the site's "hot topics" section.

The hashtag matching the site of the most recent protests in Wuhan - Zhongshan Park - was censored and photos claiming to be of the demonstration have been removed.

However, even with China's vast censorship apparatus swinging into action, a large amount of support is still being expressed for the protesting retirees on social media.

Beijing will need to find a way to resolve the issue if it wants to avoid further public agitation.