It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Saturday, March 04, 2023
Turkey's pro-Kurdish party calls for opposition unity after split
Mithat Sancar of Turkey's pro-Kurdish opposition Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) poses for a picture before a news conference in Berlin
Sat, March 4, 2023
ISTANBUL (Reuters) - A leader of Turkey's pro-Kurdish party called on the opposition to unite on Saturday, a day after a separate six-party alliance aiming to defeat President Tayyip Erdogan splintered over who should run for president in May elections.
"We call on all social and political opposition to unite around the goals of democracy, justice and freedom in order to raise hope," co-leader Mithat Sancar said after an extraordinary meeting of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) senior ranks.
In a shock move on Friday seen to boost Erdogan's re-election prospects, the centre-right nationalist IYI Party quit the largest opposition bloc, the Nation Alliance, over the other five parties' choice of presidential candidate.
The third-biggest party with 12% support nationally, the HDP is not part of the alliance. But in 2019 its mainly Kurdish supporters helped the alliance win upset mayoral elections in Istanbul, Ankara and other cities.
Polls conducted before the IYI defection suggested that HDP voters would need to back the Nation Alliance in order to unseat Erdogan and win over a majority in parliament from his ruling AK Party and its nationalist allies the MHP.
Sancar said HDP, which is allied with smaller leftist parties, is still reconsidering a previous decision to field a presidential candidate.
For years, HDP has faced a government crackdown and possible ban over alleged ties to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group, which it denies. In January a court froze its bank accounts, cutting its financial lifeline before the vote expected on May 14.
The PKK, designated a terrorist group by Ankara and its NATO allies, has waged an insurgency in mainly Kurdish southeast Turkey since 1984 in which over 40,000 people have been killed.
(Reporting by Ezgi Erkoyun; Editing by Jonathan Spicer)
Pollsters see support for Erdogan's AKP largely unscathed despite quake
Turkish President Erdogan visits Hatay province in the aftermath of a deadly earthquake
Fri, March 3, 2023 By Birsen Altayli and Humeyra Pamuk
ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan's ruling AK Party, facing elections in May, appears to have largely retained its support after last month's earthquake, pollsters said on Friday, despite widespread criticism of its initial response to the disaster.
Two polls this week showed the opposition had not picked up fresh support, partly due to its failure to name a candidate with just two months left before the vote, and partly due to its lack of tangible plan to rebuild areas devastated by the quake.
"The earthquake has not caused the government to weaken as much as the opposition would have expected," Ozer Sencar, chairman of the polling company Metropoll, told Reuters.
His company's polling data puts Erdogan's alliance with the nationalist MHP in the lead in the event of an imminent election, even though it has lost several percentage points of support compared to January.
More than 45,000 people were killed in Turkey and more than a million left homeless by two massive earthquakes which struck Turkey's southeast on Feb. 6 - the worst disaster in the country's modern history.
Erdogan indicated on Wednesday that elections will be held on May 14, sticking to his previous plan for the vote despite some questions about the feasibility of voting across the heavily damaged earthquake zone.
The immediate aftermath of the disaster was dominated by reports that the government's search and rescue teams were overwhelmed and too slow to dispatch their teams. Others criticized the government's lax enforcement of building safety standards that they said caused even new homes to crumble.
PROMISES TO REBUILD
Erdogan publicly acknowledged the problems in the early days but then defended his government's response. He swiftly pledged to rebuild homes, a promise that is likely to help him maintain support among the electorate, said Mehmet Ali Kulat, chairman of the MAK polling company.
"When people go through such a disaster, we see psychological reactions for a few days and that is directed at the government. Once 15-20 days pass, they stay close to whoever promises to rebuild their collapsed house or workplace. That could be an advantage for the government," Kulat said.
In surveys carried out following the earthquake, support for Erdogan's alliance with the nationalist party appeared around 40-41 percent, Kulat said, without providing a comparison.
Another survey conducted by Istanbul Economics Research between Feb. 16-20 with 2,000 participants showed a slight increase of 0.1 points from January for Erdogan's success score.
Thirty-four percent of the respondents in the survey, dubbed the "Turkey Report" said building contractors were those most responsible for earthquake damage, while 28 percent blamed the government.
AK Party voters overwhelmingly blame the contractors for the disaster, a reason why the loss of support in the ruling party has been limited, Sencar said.
Turkey's rampant inflation and rising poverty eroded Erdogan's popularity last year but he has since managed to recover some support by announcing increases in the minimum wage and steps to facilitate early retirement.
"Following the initial stumble, we have seen the government come up with a more unifying language," said Nezih Onur Kuru, a researcher with the TEAM research group. "The government has successfully created a perception that it is the one helping heal wounds," Kuru said.
That seems to have helped Erdogan's poll ratings. His alliance with the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) has kept its support level of 44 percent in the aftermath of the earthquake, according to a survey by TEAM, conducted with 1,930 people on Feb. 19-20.
(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk, Additional reporting by Azra Ceylan and Orhan Coskun; Editing by Daren Butler and Christina Fincher)
Renewable electricity, EVs could get boost from giant battery made in Van Buren Township
Mark Phelan, Detroit Free Press Sat, March 4, 2023
Batteries to make electricity from renewable "green" sources reliably available 24 hours a day will start rolling out of a Michigan factory in 2025. A smaller version of the batteries to power electric commercial vehicles goes into production in March.
Two utilities have committed to buying massive 6-megawatt-hours batteries, said Mujeeb Ijaz, CEO and founder of Our Next Energy (ONE). The size of shipping containers, the big utility batteries will store electricity generated from wind and solar sources. Utilities can use batteries to store electricity from renewable sources, including wind and solar.
Currently, utilities sometimes shut down their renewable power plants because they produce more power than needed on particularly sunny or windy days. The batteries, which ONE calls Aries Grid, store the green power for later.
“There’s a lot of interest in the West,” Ijaz said. “States can’t use all the solar electricity they generate during the day. They shut off some capacity. Solar and wind power without batteries can be kind of a train wreck. Batteries even it out."
ONE will supply the batteries to a $500 million project in Ravenswood, West Virginia, to create a solar-powered manufacturing hub with Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Energy Renewables. On the site of an old Kaiser Aluminum foundry, the plant will be able to generate 200 MW for industries on the 2,000-acre site.
BHE is the first customer for ONE’s Aries Grid utility storage batteries. ONE will produce the batteries at the site, using cells from the $1.6 billion Van Buren Twp. factory the company is building. Mined and made in the U.S.A.
The batteries use materials that are widely available in the United States, particularly iron that’s largely extracted in the Great Lakes region, Ijaz said. The batteries are called lithium iron phosphate, or LFP.
LFP batteries cost less and last longer than the lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries commonly used in electric vehicles and other products, Ijaz said. They’re also heavier and don’t hold as much energy, but ONE thinks it’s found a way around those limitations. “We realized there was no major U.S.-based battery maker. We decided we should try to become that.” - Our Next Energy CEO and founder Mujeeb Ijaz
A Tesla S electric vehicle fitted with ONE’s batteries covered 752 miles at 55 mph in a range test last year, more than double the range of its factory-equipped lithium ion batteries. Ijaz said ONE’s battery, which combined two different sets of materials, was the same size and about 25% heavier than Li-ion. The extra weight isn’t ideal, but it's an acceptable tradeoff for the extra range. Like ONE, many companies are working to improve batteries' cost and improve their performance.
The S racked up more than 882 miles on a single charge in a later test on a dynamometer.
ONE’s EV batteries are scheduled to go into production for vehicles from EV makers Motiv and Bollinger this year. The company is building a big new factory that’s scheduled to open in Van Buren Township, west of Detroit, in 2024. Until it opens, Supplier Piston Automotive will build ONE’s batteries, also in Van Buren Township.
Our Next Energy has tested its long-range Gemini battery in a BMW SUV.
Ijaz, who had previously worked on battery and EV programs at Ford, A123 Systems and Apple, founded ONE in 2020.
“We realized there was no major U.S.-based battery maker,” Ijaz said. "We decided we should try to become that.” EV battery improves range and recyclability
He set out to double the range of electric vehicles, but burgeoning use of renewable sources created an opening for utilities to use batteries so they could store excess power generated by sun and wind for use when those sources waned.
“Solar power plus batteries was not cost competitive in the past,” Ijaz said. “The Inflation Reduction Act leveled that out by incentivizing (battery) production and offering tax credits to utilities.” The act with clean energy goals was signed into law last year by President Joe Biden.
An electric vehicle skateboard using ONE's two-part Gemini battery.
ONE’s long-range EV batteries are actually two separate batteries. The company calls them Gemini. One section uses the same LFP materials as the utility and commercial vehicle batteries. It has a range of 150 miles and can be charged relatively quickly. The other part is based on manganese, another easily available material. It holds more energy to deliver a range of up to 450 miles, but takes longer to charge.
The two can combine to provide reliable power for up 50,000 miles a year over 10 years, Ijaz said, adding: ”That’s 500,000 miles. Well beyond warranty concerns.”
The LFP batteries have a 15-year life and are virtually 100% recyclable, Ijaz said.
Remote work and mass layoffs are creating a 7-day workweek and erasing old job boundaries
Prarthana Prakash Sat, March 4, 2023
The workplace has gone through a sea-change since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, when offices and employees were forced to adopt a remote style of work. It kicked off the Great Resignation, quiet quitting and chaotic working, in which employees take control of their work lives.
But three years on, as business largely trickles back to normal, employees are increasingly having to juggle a new burden: working over the weekends. While recent workplace developments have mostly favored flexibility and prioritizing employee well-being, a tight labor market and wide adoption of remote work technology have forced some to a work week that has no end.
On average, workers put in more hours on Saturdays and Sundays last year than in 2021, according to a report by ActivTrak, a workplace software company. Only 5% of all people surveyed worked through the weekend in 2022. Their time on the job increased by 18 minutes to an average of 6.6 hours.
But for some other industries, the number of weekend hours rose sharply. In the tech industry, the number of weekend hours soared 31% to 11.5 hours on average, while media workers put in 53% more time on the weekends, for an average of 10.7 hours.
ActivTrak’s report identifies employees of computer hardware companies and media businesses as having the biggest gains in weekend working hours in 2022. The tech industry has been particularly hard-hit by layoffs at companies like Amazon, Alphabet’s Google, Salesforce, and Twitter. Since the start of 2023, over 122,000 tech workers have been laid off from more than 400 companies, according to layoff tracker, Layoffs.fyi.
The report identifies two reasons for the weekend toil. First, mass layoffs, especially in tech, made it necessary for employees to pile on a greater workload to make up for the shortfall in headcount. Second, employees trying to escape virtual calls and meetings in the hybrid workplace are increasingly finding weekends to be the only time they can work free of distractions.
“As companies downsize and attempt to do more with less, it’s very possible that work is extending beyond the 5-day work week and into the weekends,” Gabriela Mauch, vice president of the productivity lab at ActivTrak, told Fortune. “We’re apt to see a lot more experimentation as companies begin to realize their approach to work must be uniquely suited to their business and their people.”
The report from ActivTrak looks at data collected from 134,000 employees in 2021 and 2022 to examine trends in productivity, technology, and worker well-being.
The option to work remotely has benefited workers by saving them hours of weekly commuting and boosting productivity. But hybrid work hasn’t been unanimously successful—some women have struggled to draw boundaries when on hybrid schedules and workers may miss out on factors that they desire in their professional lives such as autonomy and connectivity.
The report also highlights trends in the digital workplace, once touted as the “new normal,” that are becoming simply “normal” as employees adapted more permanently to the changes of the past few years.
“Over the last 3 years, flexibility has become significantly more acceptable and for some, this means opting for a shorter week-day and shifting part of the workload to the weekend,” Mauch said.
Even with greater flexibility in work style, employee well-being remains at risk. Burnout among American workers continued at an alarming rate of 89% in 2022. And while companies are being more proactive in helping their employees get the support they need, even high-level executives are grappling with similar struggles.
1933
Python invasion has exploded out of the Everglades and into nearly all of southern Florida, new map shows
Bill Kearney, South Florida Sun-Sentinel Sat, March 4, 2023
Burmese pythons are too good at what they do — they’re nearly undetectable to both humans and their prey, they barely need to move and when they do they’re deadly. On top of that, they have lots of babies.
As a result, according to an ambitious new paper produced by the U.S. Geological Survey, their population has exploded in only 20 years from a few snakes at the southern tip of Everglades National Park to an invasion that envelops the southern third of Florida.
The reptile’s “invasion front” has recently rolled through Broward and Palm Beach counties and is moving up the state. The current front encompasses the southern end of Lake Okeechobee and is pushing westward north of Fort Myers.
The study, which meticulously synthesizes several decades’ worth of findings from more than 250 research initiatives, assesses where we stand in the python invasion and how we might slow it.
The success of these snakes, which are native to Southeast Asia, and came here via the exotic pet trade, has been a cataclysmic failure for South Florida ecosystems and “represent one of the most intractable invasive-species management issues across the globe,” said the paper.
To put it simply, the snakes are very much on the move, butting up against civilization and heading north — how far it will go depends on several factors, including climate change. History of an invasion
In the 1970s, Burmese pythons, which are admittedly beautiful, dappled in a rich pattern of mahogany, coffee and taupe, became all the rage in the exotic pet trade. Snakes from Thailand and Myanmar began showing up more and more in the States, including South Florida.
By the end of the decade, there was evidence that some of the snakes were living in Everglades National Park. In 1979, a python measuring more than 12 feet was run over on Tamiami Trail, and there was a spate of unconfirmed sightings in the southwest section of the park through the 1980s.
It wasn’t until 1995, though, that biologists officially documented and collected two snakes — a 7-foot adult and, tellingly, a hatchling — near West Lake at the southern tip of the peninsula.
In the following years, park staff began finding the invasive snakes farther and farther north in the park. “Together, these observations suggest that multiple generations of Burmese pythons were present in ENP by 2000 or earlier and that the population occupied a large geographic area,” writes the USGS’s Jackie Guzy, author of the report.
That year, wildlife officials deemed them to be established and reproducing. Since then the snakes have expanded steadily up the peninsula, with genetic analysis suggesting that a second introduction of snakes with slightly different patterns on their skin occurred to the west, near Naples.
Little did biologists know at the time the massive impact the invaders would have on native animals, and how futile control efforts would be. The ‘invasion front’
One of the most startling aspects of the study is a map depiction of the snake’s “invasion front.” Guzy used occurrence records submitted by both researchers and the public between 1979 and 2021 to create a map that shows the chronology of python removals. She cautions that the leading edge “represents the best professional estimate of the invasion front, which is not exact and will change over time” and could include snakes that are escaped captives, and not part of the wild invasive population.
On the map we can see the tiny nugget of removals at the southern tip of the Everglades from 1995 to 2000. From there the species blossoms rapidly through the wilderness of Everglades National Park and then more slowly, both down into the Keys and laterally into boundary reserve and agricultural areas of Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties before finally finding its way into coastal civilization areas starting in about 2013.
The outer band of the invasion front, representing 2019 to 2021, now reaches West Palm Beach, the southern end of Lake Okeechobee, and areas north of Fort Myers.
The snakes clearly thrive in the swamps of the Everglades, but is suburbia suitable? A study that tracked hatchlings showed that fewer survived near urbanized areas. Canals, though, provide not only habitat, but travel routes as they look for territory.
Guzy wrote in an email that “while Burmese pythons may expand into urban areas, or occur in proximity to the urban interface, research thus far indicates they tend to avoid highly urban areas. This may be because urban areas have expansive development and less favorable habitat, which may result in higher rates of detection and removal.” Detecting the outer band
The study says there are few records along the leading edge of the invasion front, so researchers used environmental DNA to detect the presence of the snakes. Animals release environmental DNA through shed skin, feces, mucous and decomposing flesh, and researchers can detect it by taking water or samples.
The map is dotted with hundreds of spot where pythons were seen or captured, and many occur north of Lake Okeechobee, but Guzy warns that, “Thus far, verified records north of Lake Okeechobee cannot be confidently attributed to the southern Florida population and may represent newly escaped individuals.”
A quick glance at the density of the python occurrences shows that the bulk of them occur along rural roads and canals, where snakes often bask for warmth, and where they butt up against the human-made world. That doesn’t mean there are no snakes out in the middle of the sawgrass, it’s just nearly impossible to find them there.
Just how many invasive pythons now live in Florida is impossible to say. The species is so “cryptic,” the study says, that it’s extremely difficult to ascertain a number. The most committal statement the study gives is that there “may be tens of thousands of pythons across known areas of invasion in southern Florida.” How are they so successful?
Sight, our dominant sense, is likely the worst way to locate a python. They’re nocturnal, can feed infrequently and don’t need to move. If they don’t move, humans just don’t see them. According to Guzy, the snakes also spend an average of 86.1% of their time resting.
In one study, people walking around looking for the snakes in a semi-natural outdoor enclosure the size of two basketball courts only had a success rate of less than 1%. The snakes were underwater, underground, but sometimes hiding in plain sight.
Their cloaking power makes them super-efficient predators, waiting along animal trails or the water’s edge for prey. As a constrictor, they coil around their prey, tightening the grip every time the animal exhales, eventually suffocating it.
The largest invasive python in Florida measured 18.7 feet long, weighed 213.8 pounds and was a big momma, carrying 122 eggs. They normally lay 11-84 eggs per clutch, but studies suggest an average of 34 in the wilds of Florida. A brutal toll on native wildlife
When biologists open the invasive snakes up, it’s like rifling through a Florida field guide. All told, they’ve found 76 prey species inside the snakes. That includes lots of birds, such as vultures, crows, ducks, herons, roseate spoonbills and threatened wood storks; small mammals such as the endangered Key Largo woodrat and Key Largo cotton mouse, marsh rabbits, armadillos, possums, raccoons, otters and domestic cats, and larger prey including domestic goats, white-tailed deer, wild hogs and alligators. There has never been a documented human death due to a wild python in Florida.
How much damage have they done? Guzy points out that before 2000, researchers could frequently spot mammals in Everglades National Park. But from 2003 to 2011, the frequency of mammal observations [raccoons, opossums, bobcats, rabbits, gray foxes, and white-tailed deer] declined by 85% to 100%. Outside the python’s range, those species were more common.
The snakes also competed with native predators, like bobcats. One study released marsh rabbits in areas with and without pythons. In python areas, the snakes accounted for 77% of rabbit mortalities within 11 months. At other sites, no rabbits were killed by pythons and mammal predators accounted for 71% of the marsh rabbit deaths. Marsh rabbit declines in southern Florida were caused by pythons, other studies showed. Cold comfort: How much farther can they go?
The study is not ready to commit to predicting how far north the snakes could live, in part because different researchers have come up with vastly different answers.
One study cross-referenced the climate and rainfall of the snake’s range in Asia with that of the U.S. and suggested the snake could reach much of the southern third of the United States. Another analysis foretold all of Florida as eventual python country. Add climate change to the mix and it’s hard to say where the snakes will stop.
Cold tolerance puts the brakes on the snakes, but they often stay warm by sheltering in gopher tortoise and mammal burrows. One study said this strategy could see the snakes surviving in southwest Georgia.
In another study, snakes in north Florida died during a cold snap, even though they had access to a den and a heat source. The wildcard here is the snake’s ability to evolve to tolerate cold — after a severe 2010 cold snap, snake populations dropped, but have recovered. Those cold-hardened snakes are the ones having babies today, the paper said. How to slow the invasion
“Over the past two decades we have extensively explored methods to capture and remove pythons. But so far, there are no easy solutions,” Guzy said. “The more tools we have at our disposal, the better.”
Those tools currently include the state’s Python Challenge, an annual 10-day event where hunters cruise backroads and canal and slog through swaps to catch and euthanize as many snakes as they can. Last year’s Challenge totaled 231 dead snakes.
Some hunters used trained dogs to sniff the snakes out, and biologists have implanted tracking devices in certain snakes and followed them to breeding aggregations, where they can snag several in a small area.
Another nascent but promising concept is to put tracking collars on prey such as possums and racoons. Snakes are so ubiquitous that the mammals are eventually eaten, usually by a larger snake.
The collar stays in the snake’s digestive tract for some time, and biologists can track the collar to the snake.
This method recently led researchers to two massive female pythons full of egg follicles in Key Largo. The snakes were humanely euthanized.
There is hope that with cheaper collars and drone technology, this prey-tracking method could put a real dent in the snake’s populations, particularly because it leads to larger snakes, which are often female.
The next frontier in python control may be genetic biocontrol, akin to the genetically modified mosquitoes that Florida released in 2021 to prevent females from surviving to adulthood. Someday, biologists might be able to alter the genetics of a population to either become sterile, or almost entirely male, or hamper their survival in some way.
“Genetic biocontrol tools represent exciting possibilities that are actively being explored but which are still a long way from being used,” Guzy said.
In the end, Guzy said, “these snakes are extremely cryptic and secretive, and they are inherently difficult to find. ... Although supremely challenging, python research is active and ongoing, and public support and engagement is an important aspect of these efforts.”
Why Chinese players are taking private stakes in Africa's new megaprojects
Fri, March 3, 2023
Lekki Deep Sea Port in Nigeria is among new megaprojects in Africa showing how the Chinese government lending boom is gradually being replaced by the commercial project market.
Observers say Chinese firms are shifting from a model that limited them to engineering, procurement, construction plus finance to now taking stakes in running the infrastructure once it is built in a model known as integrated investment, construction, and operation (IICO).
IICO is now commonly used in Chinese discussions on public-private partnerships (PPPs). It refers to a long-term contract which usually entails the design, financing, construction, operation and, in certain cases, toll collection of an asset.
Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team.
It also comes in the form of build-operate-transfer (BOT), build, own, operate, transfer (BOOT) and build-own-operate (BOO) contracting.
The approach is being promoted by Beijing and is behind new projects such as the Lekki port in Lagos and phase 1 of Port of Kribi in Cameroon. The Kribi port was financed by China Eximbank and contracted to China Harbour Engineering Company for construction and which later joined as a minor shareholder in the port operation joint venture.
Another example is the 27km (16-mile) Nairobi Expressway built and financed by the state-owned China Road and Bridge Corporation for US$668 million. The firm will recoup its investment by charging toll fees for three decades before transferring ownership to the Kenyan government.
Last month, at the inauguration of the US$1.5 billion Lekki port, Chinese ambassador to Nigeria Cui Jianchun praised the financing model used to build the country's largest deep seaport. Referring to the port, the ambassador said it was a valuable practice for Chinese companies to move from engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor to a strategic investor in building major infrastructure projects in Africa.
"The government doesn't need to worry about the existence of guarantees or debt risks," Cui said, adding that China would promote this business model for everyone's benefit.
Lekki port, 64km (40 miles) east of Nigeria's economic capital Lagos, is expected to help the country meet its growing cargo demand. Two other Lagos terminals - Apapa and Tin Can Island - are shallow and cannot receive large container ships, forcing bigger vessels to call on ports in neighbouring countries before the cargo is shipped to Nigeria in smaller vessels.
Zhang Hui, deputy general manager of the China Export and Credit Insurance Corporation, foreshadowed significant changes to the market, noting in 2021 that the international engineering model centred on design, procurement and construction was shifting to "investment, construction and operation". The corporation, also known as Sinosure, is China's policy agency providing insurance for export and outward investment.
"The fiscal investment model in which the host country's government plays a leading role in investment is evolving into a diversified investment model. The adoption of the PPP model to promote the construction of public infrastructure projects has become an important trend for enterprises to participate in international cooperation," Zhang told an infrastructure investment and construction forum in Macau in 2021.
By the first half of that year, Sinosure had cumulatively underwritten 221 overseas projects integrating "investment, construction and operation" worth US$56.3 billion, pointing to more Chinese companies taking up the financing model.
The shift to public-private partnerships for Chinese companies comes amid reduced bilateral lending for overseas projects as Chinese lenders take a more cautious approach in financing infrastructure projects.
Lekki Deep Sea Port in Nigeria is one of a number of African megaprojects reflecting a shift towards more commercial involvement for Chinese players. Photo: Facebook/Lekki Deep Sea Port alt=Lekki Deep Sea Port in Nigeria is one of a number of African megaprojects reflecting a shift towards more commercial involvement for Chinese players. Photo: Facebook/Lekki Deep Sea Port>
Chinese financing and investment in big African infrastructure projects under the Belt and Road Initiative fell to a historical low last year as China cut financing for some big-ticket projects because of debt concerns, and shifted capital to other regions. Belt and road funding in sub-Saharan Africa dropped 54 per cent last year, from US$16.5 billion in 2021 to US$7.5 billion, according to the Green Finance and Development Centre, a think tank which is part of the Fanhai International School of Finance at Fudan University in Shanghai.
Hong Zhang, a China public policy postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University's Ash Centre for Democratic Governance and Innovation, said China Harbour only became an investor in Lekki port after the original developer - Singapore's Tolaram Group - failed to secure financing from European and Nigerian banks.
Zhang said China Harbour, originally hired by Tolaram as the EPC contractor in 2012, started approaching Tolaram about providing equity investment in 2017. Eventually, they agreed on a 70-30 split in the Lekki Port Investment Holding joint venture with China Harbour taking the majority.
This joint venture in turn holds a 75 per cent stake in the concessionaire responsible for developing Lekki port - together with the Lagos state government (20 per cent) and the Nigerian Ports Authority (5 per cent). The venture won a 45-year concession and has a preferential right for a 25-year renewal.
However, Zhang said the Nigerian partners and Tolaram also demanded the operation be separated from China Harbour's control for the sake of balance.
"This was how CMA Terminals, a subsidiary of the French shipping conglomerate CMA-CGM, came into the picture ... CMA will take an 80 per cent stake in the joint venture with CHEC that will operate Lekki port," Zhang said in a recent study published by the China-Africa Research Initiative at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
"Importantly, CMA's guarantee of port traffic helped convince China Harbour's leaders to greenlight the investment. The two companies already have a history of cooperation, including as joint venture partners for the operation of Cameroon's Kribi port."
Cui Jianchun, Chinese ambassador to Nigeria, speaks at the handing over ceremony of the Lekki Deep Sea Port in Lagos, Nigeria, in October. Photo: Xinhua alt=Cui Jianchun, Chinese ambassador to Nigeria, speaks at the handing over ceremony of the Lekki Deep Sea Port in Lagos, Nigeria, in October. Photo: Xinhua>
In 2020, China Harbour injected US$221 million of equity capital into China Harbour Engineering LFTZ Enterprise. China Development Bank then advanced a US$629 million loan facility to build the port with the aim of making Africa's most populous nation a logistics hub.
Zhang said BOT/BOOT (thus IICO) projects were most likely in the power sector, and some Chinese companies such as Sinohydro and PowerChina had already done business this way for a while. Chinese firms did not have as much experience in roads, another sector seeing a rise in public-private partnerships around the world, Zhang said.
"[China Road and Bridge Corporation] is learning to do it, and this case of Nairobi Expressway is one of their first attempts in Africa, and very worth watching," she said.
Zhang said the port sector was "quite special because development of new major ports is relatively rare" and Chinese companies had fewer examples to follow, "that's why Lekki port is so significant".
Tim Zajontz, a research fellow at the Centre for International and Comparative Politics at Stellenbosch University in South Africa, said the Chinese government had started to encourage Chinese firms to invest in PPPs in African infrastructure markets as early as 2016, when debt sustainability had started to wane in several African countries.
"Beijing has since actively promoted PPPs across Africa as a debtless alternative to loan-financed infrastructure development. However, research shows that PPPs can come with burdensome long-term liabilities for public authorities if not negotiated prudently," said Zajontz, who is also a research associate with the Second Cold War Observatory, a global collective of scholars concerned with the effects of intensifying power rivalries.
He said the success of China's belt and road programme in Africa depended on gradually shifting the initiative's financial governance from sovereign loan finance towards investments in public-private partnerships. Zajontz said Beijing's active globalisation of the "integrated investment, construction and operation" model was therefore motivated by both economic and political reasons.
He said both private and state-owned Chinese firms were interested in continuing Africa's infrastructure boom, because they were heavily invested and widely mobilised in African markets.
"With a growing number of African governments unable to take on new loans, the privatisation of infrastructure development is currently returning as the renewed order of the day," Zajontz said. "Chinese firms will try to capitalise on these market developments by increasingly transforming from being mere contractors to becoming long-term investors and operators of African infrastructure."
Lauren Johnston, a China-Africa researcher at the South African Institute of International Affairs, said what she found interesting was that Singapore and some Middle Eastern countries were becoming partners as part of the new development trend.
She said Singapore's Tolaram Group was involved in the Lekki port and Singaporean shipping, and maritime firm Winning International Group, along with Chinese investors, was investing in infrastructure connected to the Simandou iron ore deposit in Guinea.
She said there might be echoes of the type of joint venture enterprises (JVEs) China used in the late 20th century, some of which had sunset clauses at which point they would become fully locally owned.
"These JVEs typically also had explicit local talent training obligations. African companies and governments might take some time to learn from earlier East Asian JVE models, and work out the best equivalent for their own development," Johnston said.
Copyright (c) 2023. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
129-Year-Old Shipwreck Discovered at the Bottom of Lake Huron
Kevin Hurler Fri, March 3, 2023 A sonar image of the Ironton sitting upright, with all three masts intact, on the bottom of Lake Huron.
Researchers with the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, the state of Michigan, and Ocean Exploration Trust have found a long-lost sailing ship called Ironton resting upright at the bottom of Lake Huron.
As the 191-foot-long (58-meter) Ironton sailed across the inky black water of Lake Huron in the early hours of a September 1894 morning, it collided with a freight ship called Ohio. Ironton sank, with only two of its seven crew surviving to tell the tale, and no one saw it again for over a century. This week, NOAA announced that the Ironton was found using sonar imaging in 2019. Researchers located the ship hundreds of feet below the surface, sitting upright on the lakebed, with its three masts and rigging appearing relatively undamaged.
“The discovery illustrates how we can use the past to create a better future,” said Jeff Gray, Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary superintendent, in a NOAA press release. “Using this cutting-edge technology, we have not only located a pristine shipwreck lost for over a century, we are also learning more about one of our nation’s most important natural resources—the Great Lakes. This research will help protect Lake Huron and its rich history.”
Ironton sitting at the bottom of Lake Huron.
According to NOAA, Ironton was traveling with the Moonlight, both in tow behind the Kershaw as all three departed Ashtabula, Ohio en route to Marquette, Michigan. At 12:30 a.m. on September 26, 1894, the lead vessel’s engine failed while a strong wind pushed Moonlight and Ironton toward the crippled ship. Crew aboard Moonlight severed the line holding Ironton to Kershaw, and Ironton drifted away into the dark of the night.
At the mercy of Lake Huron’s winds, Ironton veered from its course and collided with Ohio, a steamship that was carrying 1,000 tons of grain to Ogdensburg, New York from Duluth, Minnesota. Ironton’s bow ripped a 12-foot (3.6-meter) hole in Ohio’s hull, and Ironton drifted for an hour before sinking beneath the waves.
The departure and arrival point for the Kershaw, Moonlight, and Ironton (blue circles) and the Ohio (red triangles).
Researchers from NOAA’s Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary began looking for both Ohio and Ironton in 2017, and found Ohio submerged under 300 feet (91 meters of water). In 2019, NOAA partnered with Robert Ballard’s Ocean Exploration Trust to find Ironton using a piece of technology called BEN, or “Bathymetric Explorer and Navigator,” which is a self-driving boat that can use sonar to map a lakebed.
Using sonar imaging and knowledge of the location of Ohio—along with historic wind and weather data from the time of the collision—the team of researchers soon found a ship. After observing the wreck with a submersible, they confirmed the wreck was the Ironton. NOAA says that Thunder Bay National Sanctuary is planning to create educational materials and exhibits based on the Ironton. Divers can also visit the site of the wreck.
“The discovery of Ironton inspires us to keep exploring,” said Gray. “We will continue to map Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary, and this research will ultimately lead to even more discoveries about the Great Lakes and the unique collection of shipwrecks that rest on the lakebed.”
NOAA Finds Wreck of Great Lakes Schooner in Perfect Shape
The foredeck of the Ironton (NOAA / Undersea Vehicles Program UNCW)
A public-private research team has located an exceptional and rare find on the bottom of Lake Huron: the wreck of a 190-foot sailing vessel with all three of its original masts still upright and standing. The vessel, identified as the 19th-century schooner barge Ironton, was found within the boundaries of the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary in 2019, and its discovery was first announced on Wednesday.
Ironton was a 1,250 dwt "consort" barge built in 1873. She was part of the great fleet of crewed cargo barges that were constructed to augment the capacity of merchant steamers on the Great Lakes towards the end of the 19th century. She could sail independently if needed, but her primary function was to operate under tow.
In September 1894, Ironton departed Ashtabula, Ohio under tow by the steamer Charles J. Kershaw. She was at the far end of the tow arrangement, behind the barge Moonlight. In the early hours of September 26, as they crossed Lake Huron, the Kershaw lost power in rough weather. The wind blew Ironton towards Moonlight and Kershaw, and the crew of the Moonlight cut Ironton's tow line loose to prevent a collision.
This left Ironton adrift in foul weather. The captain ordered the crew to raise the sails so that they could regain control of their heading, but their efforts were not quick enough. Ironton drifted across the bow of an oncoming steamer, the Ohio, and collided with her port quarter. The impact holed both vessels' hulls, and Ohio sank quickly.
Ironton drifted for another hour before she slipped below. The crew managed to board their lifeboat, but in the rush to abandon ship, the painter remained tied to the stern. Ironton pulled the boat down with her as she sank, claiming the lives of five crewmembers. Two men survived by clinging to wreckage and were picked up by a passing steamer.
In 2017, a NOAA survey of 100 square miles of the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary identified the site of the Ohio's wreck. The research team knew that Ironton must be nearby, but the sonar data did not yield any further clues to her location.
In 2019, a joint team from NOAA and Robert Ballard's Ocean Exploration Trust returned to the area. Using advanced calculations to extrapolate from the Ironton's last known position, they determined the likeliest area for her final resting place. Based on this intelligence, they mapped the target area using an autonomous workboat equipped with sidescan sonar. An object matching Ironton appeared near the end of the search expedition, and an ROV inspection confirmed the find the next month.
A second expedition in June 2021 drew on the resources of the U.S. Coast Guard and the University of North Carolina's Undersea Vehicle Program to conduct a more thorough ROV survey. The team found that the Ironton was in remarkably good condition in the cold, deep water of Lake Huron. She sat on an even keel on the bottom, with all three masts upright and rigging attached as though still preparing to set sail.
The survey also confirmed the survivors' tale of human error and disaster: After 120 years, Ironton's lifeboat was still lashed to the stern.
"The discovery illustrates how we can use the past to create a better future," said Jeff Gray, Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary superintendent. "Using this cutting-edge technology, we have not only located a pristine shipwreck lost for over a century, we are also learning more about one of our nation's most important natural resources—the Great Lakes. This research will help protect Lake Huron and its rich history."
The researchers intend to continue mapping the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary in search of more discoveries about the area's 200-plus shipwrecks.
Archaeologists find well-preserved 500-year-old spices on Baltic shipwreck Archaeologists make 'extraordinary' find of 500-year-old spices on Baltic ship wreck
Fri, March 3, 2023 By Tom Little
LUND, Sweden (Reuters) - Archaeologists say they have uncovered a "unique" cache of well-preserved spices, from strands of saffron to peppercorns and ginger, on the wreck of a royal ship that sunk off Sweden's Baltic coast more than 500 years ago.
The wreck of the Gribshund, owned by King Hans of Denmark and Norway, has lain off the coast off Ronneby since 1495 when it is thought to have caught fire and sank as the monarch attended a political meeting ashore in Sweden.
Rediscovered by sports divers in the 1960s, sporadic excavations of the ship have taken place in recent years. Previous dives recovered large items such as figureheads and timber. Now an excavation led by Brendan Foley, an archaeological scientist at Lund University, has found the spices buried in the silt of the boat. "The Baltic is strange - it's low oxygen, low temperature, low salinity, so many organic things are well preserved in the Baltic where they wouldn't be well preserved elsewhere in the world ocean system," said Foley. "But to find spices like this is quite extraordinary."
The spices would have been a symbol of high status, as only the wealthy could afford goods such as saffron or cloves that were imported from outside Europe. They would have been travelling with King Hans as he attended the meeting in Sweden.
Lund University researcher Mikael Larsson, who has been studying the finds, said: "This is the only archaeological context where we've found saffron. So it's very unique and it's very special."
(Reporting by Tom Little, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)
Mark Zuckerberg warned not to attempt to lure teen users into trying to rescue his $26 billion ‘Horizon Worlds’ metaverse
Christiaan Hetzner Fri, March 3, 2023
Two U.S. senators warned Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg against alleged plans to target underage minors in a bid to salvage his all-or-nothing bet on the metaverse.
Democrats Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut said Meta had earned itself a “documented track record of failure to protect children and teens” in a statement published on Thursday.
“We call on you to immediately halt Meta’s plan to bring teen users onto Horizon Worlds,” they said, referring to the virtual world that is offered as a free app.
The problem is that Zuckerberg has bet the proverbial farm on his metaverse ambitions.
According to the latest company figures, Meta’s Reality Labs division has lost a cumulative $26 billion since October 2020—a record $4.3 billion of which came in the fourth quarter alone.
Yet the Wall Street Journal reported in October that the userbase of Horizon Worlds had been shrinking since last spring, with most not returning after the first month.
Aspirations to attract half a million users were revised down to 280,000 against an actual base that didn’t even crack the 200,000 mark.
Citing an internal memo, the Journal last month uncovered a plan for Zuckerberg to salvage his investment by lowering the age threshold from 18 to just 13 years.
This could raise a number of risks, including exposing underage minors to predators and abusers online.
“Meta has completely lost the public’s trust and this latest attempt to bring kids onto the metaverse is just another flagrant attempt to exploit young people for profit,” Markey posted to Twitter on Thursday.
Spokespeople for the social media giant, worth over $473 billion, could not be reached by Fortune for comment.
Meta opened up Horizon Worlds to the U.S. public in December 2021.
Only accessible via its virtual reality headsets, like the $400 Quest 2, it was initially restricted to U.S. and Canadian residents of 18 years or above. It has since been rolled out to users in the U.K., France and Spain.
Zuckerberg is now planning to allow users into the community that have not purchased a Quest 2 headset, even though it was meant to be an immersive experience, in a bid to attract more people.
Before Horizon Worlds’ debut, Meta already knew its built-in safety protocols were either not working or not easily understood. In November 2021 a beta tester alerted the company to the fact she had been virtually groped.
“That’s good feedback still for us, because I want to make [the blocking feature] trivially easy and finable,” Vivek Sharma, VP of Horizon Worlds at the time, told The Verge (in August he left the company, replaced by Vishal Shah).
Markey’s partner, Sen. Blumenthal, criticized Big Tech’s lacking accountability, citing the Gonzalez v. Google case currently being heard by the Supreme Court.
“Tech giants have long turned a blind eye to horrific harms and dangers on their platforms,” he wrote.
Democratic Senators urge Meta to halt launch of Metaverse app for teens, citing company's 'failure to protect' young users
Aidan Pollard Thu, March 2, 2023 Breakout rooms in Meta's metaverse.Meta
Meta is preparing to open its app 'Horizon Worlds' to teens as early as this month.
Senators Ed Markey and Richard Blumenthal are calling on the company to halt plans for the app's release.
Meta, which has struggled to find users for its fledgling virtual reality Metaverse, is looking to tap into a younger base.
Two Democratic Senators are pressuring Meta to halt plans to open the Metaverse to teenagers by lowering the age limit to its "Horizon Worlds" app, criticizing the company's past handling of youth data and privacy.
In a joint letter to Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Senators Ed Markey and Richard Blumental demanded the company scrap plans to expand access to the app — a virtual reality program set in the Metaverse — for teens aged 13 to 17 as soon as this month. Currently, the app only allows users aged 18 and up.
"Meta's plan to target young people with offerings in the metaverse is particularly concerning in light of your consistent failures to protect young users," the Senators wrote. "With a documented track record of failure to protect children and teens, Meta has lost parents', pediatricians', policymakers', and the public's trust."
In a statement to Insider, a Meta spokesperson said its Quest VR platform — the virtual reality headset needed to access Horizon — "has always been designed for people ages 13+" and thus " it makes sense" for the company to expand to younger demographics.
"Teens are already spending time in a variety of VR experiences on Quest and we want to ensure that we can provide them with a great experience in Horizon Worlds as well, with age-appropriate tools and protections in place," a Meta spokesperson told Insider.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Meta plans to release the Horizon Worlds app to teens in order to expand its user base. In an internal memo cited by the Journal, Horizon vice president Gabriel Aul told staff improving user retention among youth users was a top priority.
"Today our competitors are doing a much better job meeting the unique needs of these cohorts," Aul wrote, per the Journal. "For Horizon to succeed we need to ensure that we serve this cohort first and foremost."
In their letter, Markey and Blumenthal harped on Meta's past endeavors regarding children and young adults, arguing that the company poses a threat to the well-being of American teens.
"Any strategy to invite young users into a digital space rife with potential harms should not be driven by a goal to maximize profit," the Senators wrote. "We call on you to immediately halt Meta's plan to bring teen users onto Horizon Worlds."
Sen. Markey has a track record of scrutinizing virtual reality, especially as it pertains to children. In February, he called on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate companies working to build apps in the Metaverse, specifically in regard to the privacy and security of kids.
But Horizon Worlds, a flagship property of the Metaverse, has struggled to find and keep users, according to the Journal. Meta is shooting for one million active Horizon users by the end of the year, the Journal reported.
Meta Chief Zuckerberg Faces Opposition From Democrat Senators Over Metaverse App Launch For Teenagers
Anusuya Lahiri Fri, March 3, 2023
Democratic senators Ed Markey (D., Mass.) and Richard Blumenthal (D., Conn.) urged Meta Platforms, Inc (NASDAQ: META) CEO Mark Zuckerberg to halt the release of its Horizon Worlds metaverse app to teens ages 13 to 17.
"In light of your company's record of failure to protect children and teens and a growing body of evidence pointing to threats to young users in the metaverse, we urge you to halt this plan immediately," the Wall Street Journal reports citing the letter.
A spokesman for Meta said in June, Meta launched supervision tools for users of the company's Quest headsets that let parents approve, block and view the apps their teens use.
Meta's Quest virtual-reality headsets targeted people ages 13 and up who already spend time on the headset, a great experience with age-appropriate protections in place.
The senators noted a flaw in Messenger Kids that allowed users between the ages of 6 and 12 to bypass the app's age restrictions and interact with strangers.
The senators highlighted Meta's failure to stop ads for tobacco, alcohol, and eating disorders from targeting teens.
The two senators also cited the company's internal research, which found that its Instagram service was toxic for some teen girls.
The senators also emphasized collecting data on face and eye movement, physiological damage such as nausea and eyestrain, and exposure to abusive behavior like bullying, threats of violence, and sexual content.
"Meta can't protect the young people on its platforms now, so Mark Zuckerberg has no right to pull more teens into the wild west of the metaverse," Sen. Markey said in a statement to the WSJ.
Meta splurged billions of dollars building out the metaverse. In 2022 alone, the company spent $15.9 billion on its Reality Labs division. Zuckerberg has said he views the metaverse as the next frontier for computing technology.
Meta set 500,000 monthly active users as the Horizon unit's goal for the first half of 2023, with one million as the goal for the full year. Horizon's monthly active users reached just above 200,000 as of January.
Price Action: META shares traded higher by 1% at $176.28 premarket on the last check Friday.
Pot vote has Oklahoma hungry to rake in green from Texas Ethan McKee, vice president of Mango Cannabis, weighs marijuana flowers at a dispensary, Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2023, in Oklahoma City. Voters in Oklahoma, which already has a robust medical marijuana program, will decide on Tuesday, March 7, whether to legalize cannabis for adults over the age of 21.
(AP Photo/Sean Murphy)
SEAN MURPHY Sat, March 4, 2023
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Tens of thousands of Texans from the bustling Dallas-Fort Worth area routinely drive across the Red River to gamble in glitzy, Las Vegas-style tribal casinos or to relax at cabins or swim and ski in lakes that dot southern Oklahoma.
Soon, they could come north for another draw: recreational marijuana.
Oklahoma voters will decide Tuesday whether to approve a ballot measure that legalizes consuming the plant for adults 21 and older. The conservative state already has one of the nation's most robust medical marijuana programs, and industry proponents hope an influx of Texas consumers will be a boon for a market that's become saturated.
“There are thousands and thousands of Texans who are increasingly coming to Oklahoma as a tourist destination,” said Ryan Kiesel, a former state lawmaker and one of the organizers of State Question 820. “I want to be able to sell legal, regulated and taxed marijuana to those Texans over the age of 21, and take their tax dollars and invest them in Oklahoma schools and Oklahoma health care.”
The population of the booming Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex alone — closing in on 8 million people — is nearly double that of the entire state of Oklahoma.
Oklahoma is expected to see an increase of $1.8 billion in recreational sales that would generate about $434 million in excise tax revenue alone from 2024 to 2028 if the measure passes, according to an economic impact study sponsored by the cannabis industry. By far the largest number of out-of-state consumers would be from Texas, followed by Arkansas and Kansas, the report shows.
Oklahoma already has one of the most liberal medical marijuana programs in the country, with roughly 10% of the state's adult population having a medical license. Unlike most other states, Oklahoma has no list of qualifying medical conditions, allows patients to get a recommendation from a doctor online, and gives licenses that are valid for two years.
Supporters of SQ 820 initially tried to get the question on the November ballot, but a delay in verifying the signatures led to Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt calling for a special election just for that proposal.
People in the industry say Oklahoma's low barrier to entry led to thousands of licensed growers, processors and dispensary operators competing for a limited number of patients. While inflation is causing the cost of many products to go up, marijuana prices at dispensaries have plummeted, and many operators are going out of business. A website for cannabis-related sales shows thousands of Oklahoma grow operations and dispensaries up for sale.
"They allowed for a free-market cannabis industry, and that’s what everyone wanted, but now we need more customers,” said Chip Baker, a grower who also runs a marijuana garden supply shop in Oklahoma City. “There needs to be an influx of people here to buy this product. It’s just simple math.”
Kevin Pattah, a Michigan native who came to Oklahoma to get into the cannabis business, now operates six Mango Cannabis retail locations across the state. He said the price of 1-gram cartridges of marijuana concentrate that retailed for $60-$70 in 2019 is now going for $20. Prices for marijuana flower and other products also have plunged.
“There’s so much product on the market, and there’s only so much demand. It hurts everyone,” said Pattah, whose dispensary features a prominent digital screen with a countdown to Tuesday's vote. "We've felt the heat as well.
“Our average ticket was $130 at one point. Now they're spending an average of $60. So, it's less than half now.”
Pattah said the expansion of legalized sales in Michigan in 2018 was a huge boon to medical operators in that state, particularly those who ran dispensaries near its border with Ohio and Indiana.
While many in Oklahoma's cannabis industry are eager for recreational sales, opponents include a group of clergy, law enforcement and prosecutors led by former Republican Gov. Frank Keating, an ex-FBI agent. Current Gov. Kevin Stitt and nearly all the Republicans in the Oklahoma Senate also have announced their opposition.
Opponents cite an increase in the amount of Oklahoma marijuana being exported out of state and sold on the black market, as well as criminal activity associated with some marijuana grows, including the execution-style slayings of four Chinese nationals at an illegal marijuana farm in rural Oklahoma.
“SQ 820 throws a match into the middle of what already is a powder keg in rural Oklahoma,” said Logan County Sheriff Damon Devereaux, president of the Oklahoma Sheriffs’ Association.
Not everyone in law enforcement is overly concerned about legalized marijuana. Sheriff Ray Sappington in Cooke County, Texas, which borders Oklahoma and includes a major north-south interstate, I-35, said that while his deputies may end up arresting more people for bringing marijuana into Texas from Oklahoma, it's not his top priority.
“Our issues are not marijuana, to be honest with you,” said Sappington, who said most people caught with less than 2 ounces of cannabis are issued a citation and released. “Fentanyl is so deadly, and we're facing that all across the nation. That's the battle. It's not marijuana.”
Still, marijuana legalization is a non-starter in the Texas Capitol and is poised to stay that way as Republican Gov. Greg Abbott settles into a new four-year term. That has left marijuana supporters in Texas looking elsewhere — including with ballot measures in some cities. In November, five Texas cities approved referendums to decriminalize marijuana possession. One was Denton, less than an hour’s drive from the Oklahoma border.
If approved, Oklahoma would be the 22nd state to legalize cannabis and likely the most conservative, following defeats of similar proposals in Arkansas, North Dakota and South Dakota last year. Under Oklahoma's plan, anyone over the age of 21 would be able to purchase and possess up to 1 ounce of marijuana, plus concentrates and marijuana-infused products. People could also legally grow up to 12 marijuana plants. Recreational sales would be subjected to a 15% excise tax on top of the standard sales tax. The excise tax would be used to help fund local municipalities, the court system, public schools, substance abuse treatment and the state’s general revenue fund.
The proposal also outlines a judicial process for people to seek expungement or dismissal of prior marijuana-related convictions.
___
Associated Press writer Paul J. Weber in Austin, Texas, contributed to this report.
