UN nuclear chief raises alarm over power outages at Ukraine plant

Thu, 9 March 2023 


The UN nuclear agency's chief warned on Thursday of the danger of repeated electricity outages at Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia power plant, after a new missile strike left it running on diesel generators.

Electricity is essential to operate pumps that circulate water to cool reactors and pools holding nuclear fuel.

"Each time we are rolling a dice," IAEA chief Rafael Grossi told the agency's board of governors.

"And if we allow this to continue time after time then one day our luck will run out."

Grossi has been in consultations with Kyiv and Moscow for several months to try to set up a protection zone around the plant, but the talks appear to have stalled.

"We must commit to protect the safety and security of the plant," Grossi said. "And we need to commit now. What we need is action.

"Let me remind you – this is the largest nuclear power station in Europe," he said.

Grossi noted this was the sixth time that the Zaporizhzhia facility had been cut off from the electricity grid since Russia captured it a year ago, and the first time since November.

"This cannot go on," he said, adding, "I am astonished by the complacency –- what are we doing to prevent this happening? he asked, vowing to pursue his efforts.

The strike came during a fresh wave of Russian attacks across Ukraine which killed at least nine people and led to power outages across the country.

"The last power line between the occupied Zaporizhzhia NPP and the Ukrainian power system was cut off as a result of rocket attacks," the operator Energoatom said.

The emergency diesel generators can provide the facility's energy needs for 10 days, it said.

"The countdown has begun. If it is impossible to renew the external power supply of the station during this time, an accident with radiation consequences for the whole world may occur," Energoatom said.

Russian authorities that control the plant said diesel generators had been switched on following a "short-circuit" on power lines, without providing details.

anb/bg/bp/jmm

Movement rekindled to rename N.B. university connected to 'torturer' of Acadians

Wed, March 8, 2023


MONTREAL — A movement has been rekindled in New Brunswick to shed a francophone university's connection to Robert Monckton, a British military figure who played an active role in the imprisonment and deportation of thousands of Acadians.

More than 1,000 people from Canada's Acadian community — including dignitaries, academics and artists — have signed a petition to rename Université de Moncton, the country's largest French-language university outside Quebec.

“We have mobilized and are creating an irreversible movement," Acadian activist Jean-Marie Nadeau said in an interview Tuesday. "There has never been such a large and popular mobilization (on this issue) like the one we have."

The university was founded in 1963 and took the name of the City of Moncton, the location of one of its three campuses and the second-largest city in the province, after Saint John.

Moncton is also home to many of Canada's Acadians, whose ancestors were forcibly deported from the Maritimes after Great Britain won the Seven Years' War. Between 1755 and 1763 approximately 10,000 Acadians were expelled from their land by the British.

Nadeau said the debate to rename the university has resurfaced at least once a decade since the 1970s. The latest revival came after he wrote an essay on Feb. 7 in local newspaper Le Moniteur Acadien calling for the change. About one week ago, Nadeau and Jean-Bernard Robichaud — rector of the university from 1990 to 2000 — started a petition on social media to change the name of the school.

Acadian signatories include current and former politicians, chancellors, and lawyers, as well as novelist Antonine Maillet, singer-songwriter Edith Butler, musician Zachary Richard and filmmaker Renée Blanchar.

“We are doing this movement because we are tired of dragging the name of Monckton like a ball and chain attached to our university," Nadeau said. "Monckton was one of our main torturers and executioners-in-chief, responsible for the logistics of the deportation in 1755."

In the letter attached to the petition, Nadeau and Robichaud ask why the people in charge of the university continue to refuse to change the name.

“Is the name of our university consistent with its identity? For the signatories of this letter, the answer is an unequivocal no. You have the power to change this name to reflect the Acadian reality," the letter says.

Representatives for Université de Moncton did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.

The mayor of Caraquet, N.B., Bernard Thériault, also signed the petition. He said that as a French-speaking Acadian who graduated from Université de Moncton, it's time for change.

“The Acadian community is strong enough today to take on this change,” Thériault said, adding that the community had never clearly expressed its desire as strongly as it is doing now.

Nadeau said he was inspired by recent events across the country over the last few years, during which monuments to controversial historical figures were torn down and street names linked to them were changed.

He mentioned the Nova Scotia communities that removed from their property the name of former governor Edward Cornwallis, who issued a "scalping proclamation" in 1749 that offered a bounty to anyone who killed Mi'kmaq men, women or children.

Nadeau also cited the former Ryerson University — now Toronto Metropolitan University — which used to be named after Egerton Ryerson, who helped create the country's residential school system.

“So, we are also part of this new movement, and the time is right," Nadeau said. "The Acadian people stand tall and are proud, and by changing its name, l’Université de Moncton will be one of the most beautiful symbols of this rediscovered pride and dignity.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 8, 2023.

—

This story was produced with the financial assistance of the Meta and Canadian Press News Fellowship.

Marisela Amador, The Canadian Press

The story of Evangeline [microform] : adapted from Longfellow

by Stokes, Winston, 1886-1950; 

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 1807-1882. Evangeline

Publication date 1913

Publisher Toronto : Copp, Clark

https://archive.org/details/cihm_991027

Evangeline

by Henry W. Longfellow

Publication date 1807-1882

Collection internetarchivebooks

https://archive.org/details/evangeline0000henr

Earthquakes at 2 Alaska volcanoes could signal eruption


In this photo provided by the Alaska Volcano Observatory/U.S. Geological Survey is the Tanaga Volcano near Adak, Alaska, on May 23, 2021. A swarm of earthquakes occurring over the past few weeks has intensified at a remote Alaska volcano dormant for over a century, a possible indication of an impending eruption. The Alaska Volcano Observatory raised the alert level to advisory status for Tanaga Volcano late Tuesday, March 7, 2023, after the quakes became very vigorous. 

(Matt Loewen/Alaska Volcano Observatory/U.S. Geological Survey via AP) 


Thu, March 9, 2023

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A second volcano in remote Alaska is experiencing elevated earthquake activity this week, signaling an increased potential for eruption, officials said.

Earthquake activity near Takawangha Volcano increased over the past 48 hours and are continuing, Alaska Volcano Observatory officials said in a news release Thursday.

That volcano is west of Anchorage in the western Aleutian islands and about 5 miles (8 kilometers) from Tanaga Volcano, which scientists said earlier this week had seen intensified earthquake activity.

The Alaska Volcano Observatory raised the alert level to advisory status for Tanaga Volcano late Tuesday after the quakes became vigorous.

The observatory on Thursday raised the alert level to watch status for Takawangha Volcano.

Analysts at the observatory continue to monitor the situation closely. Up to several earthquakes per minute are occurring under Tanaga Island, where both volcanoes are located, the observatory said. The largest quake over the previous 24 hours was a magnitude 3.9 located under Tanaga Volcano.

No eruptive activity or signs of unrest was detected in satellite or other monitoring data.

The island is about 1,250 miles (2,012 kilometers) southwest of Anchorage. There are no communities there, but Adak, a city of about 170 people on another island, is about 65 miles (105 kilometers) away and could see ashfall.

If one of the volcanoes were to erupt, it could be a problem for aircraft. The Aleutians are below the routes that jets fly between North America and Asia. Volcanic ash is angular and sharp and can cause airplane engines to shut down. Past eruptions had both ash clouds and viscous lava that moves slowly, much like what happened at Mount St. Helens in Washington state in 1980.

No historical eruptions are known from Takawangha but field work shows recent eruptions have occurred and it's possible historic eruptions attributed to Tanaga may instead have come from Takawangha, according to scientists.

The last eruption from Tanaga Volcano was in 1914.

Is Canada prone to a devastating earthquake? Answer isn't so simple

Nathan Howes
Wed, March 8, 2023 


Canada is certainly not immune to earthquakes, but what are the chances of deadly events on the magnitudes of the Turkey-Syria tremors occurring here?

The earthquakes in early February 2023 caused catastrophic damage, pegged at more than $100 billion in Turkey alone, and massive fatalities, which have since risen to more than 52,000. It's natural to then ponder about the potential of disastrous and deadly tremors in Canada in the future.

SEE ALSO: Turkey earthquake damage set to exceed $100 billion: UN agency

Mark Robinson, meteorologist and Storm Hunter at The Weather Network, spoke with Tiegan Hobbs, research scientist with the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC) -- the national organization for geoscientific information and research -- to get the answer.

Red Cross - Turkey and Syria donation appeal

Because earthquakes aren't as high of seismic hazards in Canada as they are in Turkey, we don't expect to get the same frequency or severity of tremors, Hobbs said.

"Here in Canada, it's a little bit different. We've got the Cascadia subduction zone on the West Coast and then [we] can also get what we think of as shallow, crustal earthquakes," said Hobbs.

The shallow earthquakes happen where the surface of the Earth is "just crushing around," she added. These tremors occur in Eastern Canada, in a zone stretching from the Great Lakes to the St. Lawrence River, which includes major cities like Toronto, Hamilton, Ottawa, Montréal and Québec City.

The good news for Eastern Canada is these kinds of earthquakes are unable to register on a large-scale magnitude such as an 8 or 9, which happen in the Cascadia subduction zone, Hobbs noted.

CASCADIAZONE

The largest earthquake recorded in Eastern Canada was the Nov. 18, 1929 (7.2 magnitude) event off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. Twenty-eight people perished after a tsunami rushed ashore.

"You really don't want them happening near a city, which, as we saw in Turkey, was a shallow, crustal earthquake that was quite big for [that type of tremor]," said Hobbs. "It happened near a populated centre and that's why it was such a devastating sequence of events."

Although there have been several large earthquakes in Canada, some occur in incredibly remote regions with no threat to life. Injuries, damage and the risk of deaths increase along the B.C. coast, however, with the hazard of a tsunami near the top of the list.

SUBDUCTIONZONE
Certain buildings don't hold up against earthquakes

The bigger the population and the more infrastructure a community has, the higher the risk of a disastrous earthquake, she said.

Bricks, or unreinforced masonry as they're categorized as, are examples of the types of infrastructure that won't offer much protection during a tremor. A wood building, on the other hand, tends to be a "really good performer" during earthquakes, she said.

"[It is] pretty flexible, so [when there] is shaking, the building can shake and that's just fine. A lot of our wood buildings are maybe one, two or three storeys, so you're not going to have some of the effects you have to worry about when you have high-rise buildings," said Hobbs.

GETTY: Emergency kit

(Getty Images)

While Canadians aren't as likely to experience catastrophic earthquakes, such as the ones that occurred in Turkey and Syria last month, it's always good to be prepared. This includes having an emergency kit, creating and reviewing an evacuation/earthquake plan, and practise dropping, covering and holding in a safe place.

Thumbnail courtesy of Getty Images.

With files from Tyler Hamilton, a meteorologist at The Weather Network.

Follow Nathan Howes on Twitter.

Artists honour women, pay tribute to Turkey, Syria earthquake victims in Vancouver exhibit

Wed, March 8, 2023 

Artist Inanna Cusi says her painting of a woman's cracking body holding up the earth symbolizes women's strength and vulnerability. (Rafe Arnott/CBC - image credit)

Artists in Metro Vancouver are honouring women and paying tribute to the victims of the devastating earthquakes in Turkey and Syria in an exhibit for International Women's Day and the centennial anniversary of the Turkish Republic.

The exhibit, titled Women's Art On Women's Day, will be held at Simon Fraser University's Segal Building in Vancouver, featuring the works of 15 artists, all of them women.

Although preparations for the event began months ago, when the powerful earthquakes hit in February, the artists decided to change their projects, and work on paintings related to the quakes and the strength of women simultaneously.

"The quakes affected us deeply … I lost a very dear friend of mine," said Eser Ince, who moved to Canada from Turkey in 2011 and now lives in North Vancouver.

Rafe Arnott/CBC

Nilufar Moayeri, an Iranian-born artist who grew up in Istanbul, is organizing the exhibition with the Turkish-Canadian Society. Proceeds from the artists' paintings will go towards supporting survivors of the quake.

"After that painful tragedy, we were all prepared to paint a woman to show how strong they are," Moayeri said.

'I tried to capture the strength of women'

Moayeri's painting shows a woman's face in light and darkness. The dark side shows damaged buildings and people trying to help others out of the rubble, while the light side, full of blues and yellows, represents hope, she says.

Inanna Cusi, an Austrian-Mexican painter and filmmaker, will be showcasing a piece titled Gaia after the ancient Greek goddess of the Earth. It features the body of a woman carrying the planet. The body and the ground are full of cracks.

"I tried to capture the strength of women and how we are holding together the world but also the doom … the earthquake destroying our world and the hardships that we're enduring at the same time," she said.

"So I guess it's up to interpretation how optimistic or pessimistic you see it."

Rafe Arnott/CBC

Ince's painting shows a building full of cracks and diagonal lines, representing fault lines. A woman is seen at the bottom — an homage to the friend she lost in the earthquake.

Her friend was visiting her mother in a hospital in İskenderun when the earthquake struck.

"I was really deeply hurt and traumatized by what happened," Ince said.

Since the earthquakes shook southern Turkey and northern Syria one month ago, killing more than 45,000 people, hundreds of thousands of people are still in need of adequate shelter and sanitation, according to the United Nations. An appeal for $1 billion to assist survivors is only 10 per cent funded, hampering efforts to tackle the humanitarian crisis.

About two million survivors have been housed in temporary accommodation or evacuated from the earthquake-devastated region, according to Turkish government figures. Around 1.5 million people have been settled in tents while another 46,000 have been moved to container houses.

Showcasing 'the power of women'

Moayeri and Ince say it's essential to showcase "the power of women" through the paintings, especially as part of celebrations of the Turkish Republic's centenary and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

In 1923, Turkey started efforts to modernize and secularize the country, which included passing equality legislation. Turkish women got the right to vote in 1934.

"It's a very important day," Ince said.

For Moayeri, it's doubly important to create art that empowers women because of the women's movement in Iran that began in the fall of 2021.

Stephanie Keith/Getty Images

Protests were held around the world after 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died after being detained by Iran's morality police, allegedly for not wearing her hijab properly.

"As a woman," she said, "I always try to tell with my paintings that women are powerful.

Ontario mayors seek help, clarity from Ottawa to support Roxham Road asylum seekers

Wed, March 8, 2023


The mayors of three Ontario cities are calling on the federal government to help them support asylum seekers being transferred to their communities after entering the country through an unofficial border crossing in Quebec.

The leaders of Niagara Falls, Cornwall and Windsor say local supports are being stretched to capacity as migrants who crossed into Canada via Roxham Road arrive in increasing numbers. In addition to federal funding, they're seeking clarity from Ottawa on what lies ahead.

"We need to know the plan," Niagara Falls Mayor Jim Diodati said in an interview. "Don't just tell us the plan, let's develop it together."

Roxham Road is an irregular border crossing on a country road stretching from New York state to Quebec, about 50 kilometres south of Montreal. In 2021, 4,246 migrants entered Canada via Roxham Road, with that number jumping to nearly 40,000 last year, the federal government has said.

Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada said the government began transferring asylum claimants to various cities in Ontario in June last year, after Quebec voiced concerns the migrants were placing pressure on publicly funded services and accommodation.

The department said 7,131 people have been transferred to Ontario communities so far – 4,313 to Niagara Falls, 1,396 to Cornwall, 720 to Windsor and 702 to Ottawa.

"IRCC is now in the process of working with other provinces and municipalities to identify new destinations that have the capacity to accommodate asylum seekers," spokesman Remi Lariviere said, noting that Atlantic provinces have received a few dozen asylum seekers.

Diodati said the federal government initially approached his city last summer and said 87 hotel rooms were needed for asylum seekers.

"They didn't want this to be public so we thought that's fine, we'll do our part. Then it quickly went to 300, then 687, 2,000, and it's gotten much bigger," he said.

The city now needs Ottawa to provide guidance on how the community can support the growing number of asylum seekers, Diodati said.

Niagara Falls has also asked Ottawa for $5 million to support local food banks and legal aid groups, the mayor said.

In Cornwall, Mayor Justin Towndale is seeking similar support from the federal government.

He said his eastern Ontario city has been doing "the Canadian thing" and supporting the migrants but needs clarity on long-term plans.

"In this case, the initial communication wasn't there," Towndale said in a phone interview. "We were having meetings with IRCC on a regular basis but they weren't really giving us updates to their plan."

Cornwall has brought on more staff to support asylum seekers who have arrived, Towndale said, and the city is asking the federal government for $2 million to fund those extra city employees.

There are also concerns about the effects of having many hotel rooms in the city booked up by the federal government to house the asylum seekers, Towndale said. Cornwall recently lost two conferences because organizers couldn't find enough hotel rooms, he noted, and future sporting events hosted in the city could face similar issues.

In Niagara Falls, Diodati said there are concerns about fewer hotel rooms being available for tourists as summer approaches.

"Tourists fan out, they go to the restaurants, the attractions, the golf courses, the wineries," he said. "There's a lot of mom-and-pop operators in Niagara Falls that count on that rubber tire and the overnight traffic to visit the city."

Syed Hussan, the executive director of the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, criticized the suggestion that having migrants take up hotel rooms would hit tourism operations and other businesses hard.

"There's a lot of hysteria that's been generated," he said. "Part of this is the fact that these are poor, racialized Black, brown people who are walking in the downtowns of these tourist centres."

Drew Dilkens, the mayor of Windsor, said his city has been acting on the Canadian principle "to help people who need help."

"But at the end of the day, we have to find a pathway to do this in a sensible way, in a smart way," he said. "The city is feeling the strain."

Dilkens said, however, that having asylum seekers choose to settle in Windsor would be a benefit for the city.

"We may be able to find people who are skilled and want to work and that would be great for our local economy," he said.

Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada said Canada is continuing to work with the U.S. on strengthening the Safe Third Country Agreement.

The agreement prevents people who come to Canada from the U.S. via official land border crossings from claiming asylum in Canada. But if asylum seekers cross through unofficial border crossings, such as Roxham Road, they avoid the application of the agreement and can proceed with a claim for asylum.

The Ontario mayors say they are expecting more guidance from the federal government in the coming weeks, after U.S. President Joe Biden makes a visit to Canada this month.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 8, 2023.

Fakiha Baig, The Canadian Press

'It is simply not true': Grocery CEOs push back at price-gouging allegations

Wed, March 8, 2023 

Empire Foods CEO Michael Medline, foreground, and Loblaws chairman and CEO Galen Weston both appeared before a parliamentary committee probing grocery prices on Wednesday.

 (Blair Gable/Reuters - image credit)

The heads of Canada's biggest grocery chains pushed back at allegations they are profiteering from high inflation on Wednesday, telling lawmakers that they aren't the cause of high food prices — and claiming their profit margins are as razor thin as ever.

"We are not profiting from inflation, it doesn't matter how many times you say it ... it is simply not true," said Michael Medline, the CEO of Empire Foods, which owns Sobeys, FreshCo, Farm Boy, Foodland and other chains.

Medline was speaking to the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, which is probing the causes of food inflation, which has skyrocketed to its highest level in decades.

Do you have a question, experience or story tip to share? Send an email to ask@cbc.ca.

Prices for food purchased at grocery stores increased by 11.4 per cent in the year up to January, according to Statistics Canada. That's almost twice the overall inflation rate of 5.9 per cent in that same period.

Medline was summoned to speak, along with his compatriots at rival Loblaws, led by Galen Weston, and Eric La Flèche, president and CEO of Metro, which owns Food Basics and other chains.

Together, those three grocery chains make up the majority of Canada's grocery industry, with thousands of stores across the country. Profits at all three firms are up sharply in the pandemic, but all three say their profit margins on food are razor-thin.

As overall inflation flattens, grocery prices continue to climb

"It is folly to suggest that an unprofitable grocery business is somehow better for customers," Medline said. "Like all Canadians, we look forward to seeing the end of this tough inflationary period."

Weston echoed that sentiment, insisting that higher profits at Loblaws are mostly due to higher sales in non-food items, such as discretionary spending at Shoppers Drug Mart, its Joe Fresh clothing line and its financial services arm.

"As unexpected as it may sound, grocery chains operate with extremely small profit margins, which means we have minimal influence on inflation," Weston said, adding that the profit margin on the company's grocery arm is about four per cent. "That means even if the industry had zero profits, a $25 grocery bill would still cost $24," Weston said, "so the claim that Canadian grocers can correct food price inflation is simply wrong."

Weston cited his company's highly publicized price freeze on thousands of No Name items during the holiday period. Critics have dismissed it as a publicity stunt, but Weston said that price freeze saved Canadians $45 million at the cash register for the three months it was in operation. He also said the company pushed back against price increases by refusing to accept $500 million in "unjustified cost increases" from suppliers.

He singled out items such as milk, butter, some cheeses and vegetable oil as products that the chain sells at a level that makes them unprofitable, in order to get customers into the store. "As a matter of interest, we lose money on every breast of chicken that we sell," Weston told reporters in a scrum outside the committee hall after he had finished testifying.

"So no matter how many times you read it on Twitter, the idea that grocers are causing food inflation is not only false, it's impossible," he said. "Our retail prices have not risen faster than our costs," he said.

La Flèche went further still, arguing that his company's profit margin on its food business is lower today than before.

"Our food profit margin has actually decreased, though it's been offset by a higher pharmacy product margin," he told the committee in French.

"Focusing on grocers will not solve the problem of food inflation because we are not causing it and we're not benefiting from it."

'Too much profit'

Weston was the target of a number of testy exchanges with NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, who has been drawing attention to the profits in Canada's grocery sector for months.

Singh cited a recent academic research paper that tabulated, based on its recent financial results, Loblaws took in a profit of about $1 million per day above what it saw before the pandemic. "How much profit is too much profit?" Singh asked Weston, repeatedly.

"Reasonable profitability is an important part of operating a successful business," Weston replied. He added that the company reinvests those profits into opening new stores and hiring more employees. "It doesn't go to me. It goes back into this country."

Stuart Smyth, a professor of agri-food innovation at the University of Saskatchewan, says that consumers are noticing high food prices at grocery stores because they shop so frequently, unlike other products.

"There is a little bit of price inflation going on, certainly within the retail sector, but I'm not convinced that is the real driver of higher food prices," he told CBC News in an interview.

He said calls for a tax on excess profits in the grocery sector are misguided, since it is employees and investors who will pay that price. "We face the challenge of higher food prices but do we want our investments to be investing in companies that are not trying to be profit maximizing?"

Biden's big, bold green spend sends shockwaves around the world, including Canada

Wed, March 8, 2023 

U.S. President Joe Biden signs the Inflation Reduction Act in August 2022. (Leah Millis/Reuters - image credit)

U.S. President Joe Biden's climate bill is only six months old, but its impact on the energy industry around the world continues to grow as pressure mounts on countries to offer similar subsidies toward green energy or risk losing out on valuable investment dollars.

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is a multi-billion-dollar program that pledges government dollars toward developing low-carbon energy. The policy is aimed at boosting the country's manufacturing sector and takes aim at China's dominant position in the clean energy technology supply chain.

The legislation is regarded as the most ambitious climate bill ever passed in the U.S. Still, the IRA could force governments around the world, including Canada, to introduce their own sweeping series of subsidies and have a much larger impact on climate change.

It's a big wake-up call for world leaders, said Marcel van Poecke, head of Carlyle International Energy Partners, a global investment firm based in Washington, D.C.

"That is going to be very, very powerful, and in Europe, people are shocked, but I think it's exactly what we need," he said while on stage at CERAWeek, an energy conference in Houston.

There are many facets of the IRA, such as tax incentives aimed at increasing the manufacturing of wind turbines, solar panels, and electric vehicle batteries. There are also subsidies to promote the development of hydrogen, biofuels and carbon capture and storage facilities. The financial supports are estimated to total nearly $60 billion US ($82.5 billion Cdn) over the next 10 years.

"The IRA will have the effect of really attracting capital back to the U.S. for the reasons and the results that it sort of needs," Tengku Muhammad Taufik, CEO of Petronas, told the CERAWeek audience.

CERAWeek by S&P Global

The IRA is a policy that is easy to understand and offers clear incentives for industry, compared to a more complex system in Europe, said Sanjiv Lamba, the chief executive of Linde, a European industrial gas company.

"There's no denying the fact that suddenly people have woken up with the IRA and said 'Hey, we can do a lot more,'" said Lamba, who doesn't think the European Union will be able to match the level of subsidies.

Carrot vs. stick

Canada has offered subsidies to promote low-carbon sources of energy, although its main policy to promote the decarbonization of the energy sector is the carbon tax. Putting a price on pollution is described by some experts as using a stick to motivate industry, while the IRA is like dangling a carrot.

"You can really feel that the rest of the world is looking at the Inflation Reduction Act and saying, 'How are we going to participate?' and that will help change the pace and accelerate transition," said Lance Uggla, the chief executive of BeyondNetZero, a climate-focused private equity fund. Uggla is a former bank executive with TD and CIBC.

Kyle Bakx/CBC

In Canada, oilsands companies are pressuring the federal government to increase the level of financial support for building and operating carbon capture and storage facilities. Ottawa has already introduced a tax credit, although the government has admitted the policy is not as robust as the IRA.

Oilsands executives have formed a group called Pathways to Net Zero to work together cutting emissions. It's also seeking provincial government subsidies in Alberta.

Cenovus Energy chief executive Alex Pourbaix spoke with CBC News in Houston about subsidies for a proposed carbon capture project in northern Alberta, saying it will need support from both levels of government to move ahead.

"People just need to be very thoughtful about what failure would mean," he said. "What we need is a little bit of help on the order of what we're seeing in the U.S. with the IRA, and I would be very, very surprised if people didn't see the value."

Canadian response

The next federal budget could include a commitment of more cash aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions and promoting low-carbon sources of energy.

In October, the government hinted at further action to boost subsidies as part of its fall economic statement, which said, "Canada will need to do even more to secure our competitive advantage and continue creating opportunities for Canadian workers. This challenge has become even more pressing with the United States' recent passage of the Inflation Reduction Act."

The oilpatch earned record profits in 2022 as commodity prices spiked following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The industry has faced criticism for not using those profits to move quickly enough to respond to climate change.

Some industry executives in the U.S. have questioned the effectiveness of the IRA because of the permitting process in the country, which they say takes much too long. The climate law has plenty of potential, but it could stumble without improvements to speed up the permit system for energy projects.

It is "procedurally impossible" for the country to transition to cleaner and more sustainable forms of energy, said ConocoPhillips chief executive Ryan Lance, even if the IRA makes those types of projects more economical.

ZIONIST THUGS

West Bank Palestinian village on edge after Israeli settler attacks




Fri, March 10, 2023 
By Henriette Chacar

HUWARA, West Bank (Reuters) - Palestinians in the occupied West Bank town of Huwara say a rise in settler attacks has made them fear walking to school, going to work and shopping at the local supermarket.

A settler rampage through the town last month, amid rising tensions in the West Bank, drew worldwide condemnation, with Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin saying on a visit to Israel on Thursday that the United States was "especially disturbed" by settler violence.

Huwara, near a checkpoint on a highway between the West Bank cities of Ramallah and Nablus that links four nearby Israeli settlements, has become a fault line of violence over the years.

Residents of the town and its neighbouring villages told Reuters they felt defenceless in the face of the increased attacks, with no protection from either the Israeli army or Palestinian Authority security forces.

"I've lived in Huwara my entire life," said Ghazi Shehadeh, a 58-year-old glazier, as he fitted a glass window into a frame from one of dozens of houses that were recently vandalised. "These attacks are not new, but they have become more intense," he said.

"I want to walk without fear. I want to enjoy a trip out of town. I can't anymore. They (the settlers) will hurl rocks or shoot at us. We don't dare leave anymore because the settlers are in the streets."

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) recorded 849 settler attacks last year that resulted in casualties or property damage across the West Bank - the highest since it began monitoring cases in 2005.

But the issue has attracted global attention since hundreds of settlers went on a rampage in Huwara on Feb. 26 after a Hamas gunman shot dead two Israeli brothers from the nearby settlement of Har Bracha as they sat in their car.

During the riot, a Palestinian man was killed and dozens of Palestinian houses and cars were torched. Fifteen settlers were arrested, most of whom were released for lack of evidence, but two were in administrative detention and investigations were continuing, a police source said.

Some parties in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government criticised the violence and called for people not to take the law into their own hands. One senior army commander described it as a "pogrom", a word normally associated with massacres of Jews in Russia during the 19th and early 20th century.

But days after the rampage, far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has responsibility for aspects of Israel's West Bank administration, said Huwara should be "erased", before he partially retracted the remark.

For their part, the settlers see Huwara as a "terror village". Nati Rom, a lawyer representing suspects arrested following the attack, said settlers faced constant violence from Palestinians who threw stones at their cars and incited to violence on social media and through calls at the mosque.

Hours after the shooting of the brothers, some Palestinians expressed support for the incident on Facebook and in one post mockingly offered the car the brothers were in for sale.

"Our children have to ride in bulletproof buses, our cars are rock proof, and the other sides never needs to worry because they don't have that," Rom said.

PALESTINIAN STATE

More than half a million Israeli settlers live in the West Bank. Settlers living around Nablus are among the most ideological and many see themselves as exercising a biblical birthright to the West Bank, which Palestinians want as the core of a future state.

ZIONIST APARTHEID;

Huwara is surrounded by settlements that cut off Palestinian communities from each other and from their land. 

It veers between periods of relative calm, when Israelis visit Palestinian businesses in the town to buy goods or get their tyres changed cheaply, and outbursts of violence.

The main road, dotted with signs in Arabic and Hebrew, was now scarred by scorched walls and piles of shattered glass. Soldiers behind barricades aimed their weapons at passing cars, carrying Israeli and Palestinian licence plates.

"We're living on edge," said Kayed Awad, a member of the Huwara municipality and the owner of a bathroom appliances store, as he took quick glances at the screen mounted above his desk showing CCTV footage. Awad said he survived a settler attack last year, when young men shattered the shop's glass door, broke sinks and beat him with sticks and pipes.

Palestinians say such experiences are part of their everyday lives, made worse because they say soldiers either stand by and allow attacks to take place or actively participate themselves.

The Israeli military, which has overall authority in the West Bank, said soldiers were instructed and authorised to stop violence against Palestinians. But it acknowledged that the Huwara rampage should have been prevented and said "lessons had been learned" on sending reinforcements more quickly and improving coordination with police.

However, international concerns over how effectively settler attacks are policed long predate the current escalation. An OCHA report from January said "some settler attacks occur in the presence of or through active support by Israeli forces".

Israeli rights group Yesh Din found that 93% of investigations into settler violence in the West Bank from 2005 to 2022 were closed without indictment.

"There is nothing to do when you are facing armed settlers who are backed by the military," said Usama Abuzayn, 25, who was working in a supermarket on Monday when a gang of blackclad youths attacked a Palestinian family in a car outside. "We are left to defend ourselves."

(Reporting by Henriette Chacar; Additional reporting by Emily Rose; Editing by James Mackenzie and William Maclean)

Norfolk Southern derailment ‘is a wake-up call,’ professor says

Thu, March 9, 2023

Northwestern University Professor Emeritus of Civil & Environmental Engineering Joseph L Schofer joins Yahoo Finance Live to discuss the Ohio train derailment, railroad regulation, employment struggles across the railroad space, and the outlook for Norfolk Southern.

Video Transcript

- Norfolk Southern's CEO is facing the US Senate Committee on Environment and Public Work amid scrutiny over last month's train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. Will the turmoil of recent events be enough to alter the trajectory for US rail infrastructure? Here to discuss is Joseph Schofer. He's a Northwestern University professor emeritus of civil and environmental engineering.

Thank you for being here. So I know that's a big question to kick it off. But I guess first I would ask whether you think there need to be fundamental changes in rail infrastructure. Was this some sort of wakeup call for the industry, Joseph?

JOSEPH SCHOFER: I think it's a wakeup call. I mean, this is a real disaster. On the other hand, keep in mind that no one was killed. It doesn't look like the environmental consequences are all that serious.

And my concern going forward is, what are the causes? What's fundamental here, and what should motivate changes? As I watch the news coverage, it looks like every politician, from the local level to the federal level, is trying to jump in front of the camera and say, I'm gonna save your lives. But we really don't have a good sense of the scope of the problem and whether what we're seeing, particularly the several events in Ohio, are in any way connected. My sense is they're not connected.

The railroad industry has a motivation to take care of its infrastructure because its livelihood depends on that infrastructure. And they have a variety of strategies for doing that. Can they do better? I'm certain that they can do better. I'm certain that there are opportunities for better use of technology, more investment in safety and in the workforce.

But right now, they tend, particularly the class I railroads, the largest railroads in the nation, are very much driven by you, by Wall Street, and by the pressures to keep their operating ratios low, which means to make a bigger profit. And there needs to be some balance in that. I think that this incident is getting people's attention.

- Joseph, Ines here. And so what do you think should this investigation look like? I mean, what are some of the questions that need to be asked to get to the bottom of what happened and whether or not it was preventable?

JOSEPH SCHOFER: I think it's very straightforward. I think it's a matter of answering the question, what was the cause, or what were the precipitating causes? I don't think we have a full answer. I know we have a partial answer on the Palestine event, but not yet on the other events.

My concern is acting too soon, that is, everyone trying to jump in and saying, I'm gonna solve this problem, when I don't really quite know what the problem is. It looks like there may be an opportunity to add some detection capability to detect overheated bearings or other kinds of anomalies in the rail system. But my guess is, based on looking at long-term trends in derailments in particular, and railroad accidents in general, is that I don't really see a crisis here.

I see a need to respond to this and to make sure this doesn't happen. And in the long run, I think the railroads need to rethink their workforce strategy, that is, to assure that they have a sufficient number of employees. And that's a problem because they've tried, but they haven't had great success in recruitment.

And part of that is these are difficult jobs. And while they pay well, they're difficult, and they're dangerous, and the working conditions need to be adapted to attract a 21st-century workforce.

- Well, and to that point, of course, the railroads have been fighting with their unions, right, over the past six months or so. Among other things, the folks who work for the railroads want more flexible sick leave policies, et cetera. Is that at odds with the push that we've also seen from the railroads over the past few years for efficiency, right, for--

JOSEPH SCHOFER: Yes.

- --you know, so how--

JOSEPH SCHOFER: It is at odds.

- How is that gonna resolve?

JOSEPH SCHOFER: Well, it's gonna resolve because this is a typical labor-management conflict. And it has to resolve because the railroads need the workers to function. They're moving more toward automation. And I think that's probably, in the long run, inevitable and probably a good thing.

But there needs to-- each party in this dispute needs to find a compromise. The working conditions are a challenge. And some of the railroads are trying, are experimenting and trying to do better.

I think people that are looking at the industry from the outside, including me, are saying, yeah, you guys you can do better. These working conditions are not good. You can look at what other people have done in the logistics industry. There are examples of developing a better balance and treating employees better.

The stories that I'm hearing from the railroads is that they're desperately trying to hire, and they're not finding the people that are willing to accept the jobs under the current conditions. So current conditions have to change.

- We've also seen some consolidation and attempted consolidation, of course, within the railroad industry. Does that also contribute to potential safety issues? Or do you think that, you know, when you have integration, it can go smoothly and not risk those kinds of things?

JOSEPH SCHOFER: Well, I'm not sure I'm not sure what you mean by consolidation. I mean, you've got the major merger in place-- on the table right now. And my sense is that's likely to go through. And the expectation is that this is the last merger you're gonna see for the foreseeable future.

So I don't see so much consolidation. But I do see a matter of finding a different balance. And consolidation doesn't seem to me to be a huge threat in the sense that the industry has an incentive to be safe.

And mistakes were made. You have this event in East Palestine. It isn't really clear to me that a mistake was made. It looks like the employees on the train-- and there were three operators on the train-- they did the right thing. Maybe they didn't have the right information. And so that's a technological problem that we can solve.

But I guess I don't see a long-term threat here. One of the things you have to keep in mind is if you didn't have, whatever it was, 330 or 350,000 gallons' worth of hazardous materials on that train, how would they have moved? They would have moved in 30 trucks. Would they have been safer? And the evidence is no, they wouldn't have been safer.

- And speaking of hazardous materials, do you see more regulations coming down the line when it comes to transporting hazardous materials via rail?

JOSEPH SCHOFER: It's possible, but I seriously doubt it. I mean, again, my sense is let's try to understand what the causal factors here were and address those causal factors. So I would not jump right away to regulation. It doesn't say that it's gonna happen. But I don't see that as an immediate answer.

Probably, if there's a change in operations and strategy and in regulations, it may be in detecting events as they proceed, that is, to catch this before it happens. But I don't think it's a matter of pulling hazardous materials out of the railroads. One of the things to keep in mind is that railroads have an obligation to serve. They have a common carrier obligation. And within broad limits, they're not in a position to say, no, I won't carry your goods. Their business is to keep the economy going.

So the question is, how do you find a way to assure that? They're motivated to do it. Norfolk Southern is gonna pay a price for this, at least, certainly, a public relations price, if not a monetary price as well. The whole industry will learn from this. Going to more automated detection, yeah, probably a really good idea-- feasible, cost, money, that's fine. It's worth it.

- All right. We'll see what happens. Joseph Schofer, thank you so much for your time this morning. We appreciate it.

Railroad group warns that car flaw could cause derailments


- This photo taken with a drone shows portions of a Norfolk Southern freight train that derailed Feb. 3, in East Palestine, Ohio, are still on fire on Feb. 4, 2023. The major freight railroads announced a number of steps Wednesday, March 8, 2023, that they are taking to improve safety in the wake of last month’s fiery Ohio derailment, but it’s not clear if their actions will be enough to satisfy regulators and members of Congress who are pushing for changes. 

(AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)

JOSH FUNK
Thu, March 9, 2023 

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — U.S. railroads were warned to take certain cars out of service Thursday after Norfolk Southern discovered loose wheels on a car involved in last weekend's derailment in Ohio.

It's not clear that the loose wheels caused the derailment near Springfield last Saturday because the National Transportation Safety Board has just begun investigating that crash — the latest in a string of high-profile derailments that have been grabbing headlines. But the railroad said the loose wheels on the car could cause a derailment.

Norfolk Southern said in a statement that after the railroad discovered “additional cases of unusual wheel movement,” it acted quickly to notify accident investigators and the rest of the industry. The Association of American Railroads trade group responded Thursday by issuing an advisory about the suspect cars.

The trade group said the problem was linked to new wheel sets that were installed on specialized steel coil cars beginning in August. The association said all of the cars with those wheels should be inspected and have their wheels replaced immediately.

It wasn’t immediately clear how many railcars might be affected or their location, Association of American Railroads spokeswoman Jessica Kahanek said.

Railroad safety has been in the spotlight since a fiery Norfolk Southern derailment in Ohio last month. Roughly half of the town of East Palestine had to be evacuated after several hazardous materials cars caught fire. The railroad's CEO was answering questions about that wreck at a Congressional hearing on Thursday.

Besides the Springfield derailment, two others have been reported across the country in the past week, although none of those involved hazardous materials.