African migrants stuck in Tunisia say racism persists after crackdown

African migrant, Josephus Thomas, takes part in a protest in Tunis

Fri, March 24, 2023 

TUNIS (Reuters) - Weeks after a violent crackdown on migrants in Tunisia that triggered a perilous rush to leave by smuggler boats for Italy, many African nationals are still homeless and jobless and some say they still face racist attacks.

Outside the United Nations refugee agency in Tunis, dozens of African migrants stood protesting this week by the temporary camp where they have lived, including with children, since authorities urged landlords to force them from their homes.

"We need evacuation. Tunisia is not safe. No one has a future here when you have this colour. It is a crime to have this colour," said Josephus Thomas, pointing to the skin on his forearm.

In announcing the crackdown on Feb. 21, President Kais Saied said illegal immigration was a criminal conspiracy to change Tunisia's demography, language the African Union described as "racialised hate speech".

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Barbara Leaf told Reuters on Thursday that Saied's comments had unleashed "attacks and a tidal wave of racist rhetoric", with rights groups saying hundreds of migrants reported being attacked or insulted.

Saied and Tunisia's foreign minister have rejected accusations that he or the government are racist and they announced steps to ease visa regulations for Africans and reminded police of anti-racism laws.

While the official crackdown appeared to end weeks ago, migrants say they still face abuse.

"People told me 'since you are in our country after the president's speech, don't you have any dignity?' I kept silent and they told me I am dirt," said Awadhya Hasan Amine, a Sudanese refugee outside the UNHCR headquarters in Tunis.

Amine has lived in Tunis for five years after fleeing Sudan and then Libya with her husband. Now 30, she has been living on the street outside the UNHCR headquarters since local people pelted her house in the capital's Rouad district with rocks.

"We want to live in a place of safety, stability and peace. We don't want problems in Tunisia," she said.

CRACKDOWN

Although some West African countries evacuated hundreds of their citizens earlier this month, many remain stuck in Tunisia, unable to support themselves let alone afford passage home or pay smugglers hundreds of dollars to ferry them to Europe.

"Tunisia is an African country. Why do they do racist things to us?" said Moumin Sou, from Mali, who was sacked from his job working behind a bar after the president's speech and was beaten up the next day by a man in the street who stole his money.

Sou wants to return home, he said, but many others are determined to travel on to Europe.

In the wake of the crackdown, in which police detained hundreds of undocumented migrants and authorities urged employers to lay them off and landlords to evict them, smuggler crossings to Italy have surged.

Tunisian National Guard official Houssem Jbeli said on Wednesday alone the coast guard had stopped 30 boats carrying more than 2,000 people. On the same day and the following day four boats sank, with five people drowned, authorities said.

(Writing by Angus McDowall, Editing by William Maclean)

Do Anti-ESG States Know They're Facing Some of the Worst Climate Change Hazards?

By The Daily Upside – Mar 24, 2023 
You’re reading a free article with opinions that may differ from The Motley Fool’s Premium Investing Services. 

Unless the data are dead wrong, it is increasingly clear that many of the U.S. states facing some of the greatest climate change hazards appear to be the ones most virulently opposed to environmental, social and governance (ESG) policies.

The data also show something else that we don't like to talk about: Americans are already dying due to climate change and have been since around 2005. U.S. cities from coast to coast are experiencing fatalities in the double digits yearly, especially south of the Mason-Dixon line, according to an in-depth project surveying more than 24,000 regions of the world, led by the United Nations Development Program and New York-based Rhodium Group, a provider of independent research, data and analytics tackling mission-critical global topics.

In Texas, the fatality rate due to climate change – for instance, from heat stroke or other underlying causes – is estimated to be 14 people a year per 100,000 of the population in both Dallas and Austin. Those numbers will rise to 38 and 39, respectively, by 2040, and leap to 130 and 131 people a year, respectively, by 2080, according to the data.

The situation in Phoenix is even more dire, with an annual fatality rate of 17 people per 100,000 of the population, climbing to 46 by 2040 and 148 people a year by 2080. In Atlanta, the fatality rate is estimated to be around 10 people a year per 100,000, with that number at 29 by 2040 and shooting to 100 people by 2080.

"The mortality impact is some of the most striking of the data," says Hannah Hess, associate director at Rhodium, who worked on the project. "When you look at the year 2040, it can seem really far out and distant in the future, but the people most affected by the heat are 65 and older – those are people in their 40s today who will be impacted."


By the same token, those in their 20s and 30s will be confronting even higher temperatures, and those who are currently in their teens or younger will be forced to contend with some of the most extreme climate challenges of anyone alive.

This week, President Biden cast his first veto since taking office, rejecting a bill that would have scuttled a Labor Department rule he put in place allowing money managers to account for climate change when making investment decisions for their clients' retirement savings. The Biden rule supplanted a Trump-era rule that sought to impede the consideration of ESG principles in investing, "even in cases where it is in the financial interest of plans to take such considerations into account."

In issuing the veto, Biden blasted "MAGA House Republicans" and others for risking Americans' retirement plan savings by making it illegal to weigh ESG principles. "Your plan manager should be able to protect your hard-earned savings, whether Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene likes it or not," he said, noting strong opposition from the Republican congresswoman from Georgia.

Two Democrats also backed the bill. Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who charged that Biden's veto was "absolutely infuriating" and denounced the administration's "radical" and "progressive agenda," and Jon Tester of Montana, who voted alongside the Senate's Republicans to overturn the Biden rule.


Both Georgia and West Virginia are forecast to sustain pronounced effects from climate change relative to northern states, like Montana.

The ESG fight, not surprisingly, is focused on money – primarily, how resources will be marshaled or redirected in anticipation of future shifts that are expected to devastate real estate, housing and jobs markets. "Without concerted and urgent action, climate change will exacerbate inequalities and widen gaps in human development," the UNDP projected at the end of last year.

A smattering of top money managers and private equity firms have begun to prepare for the transition, touting pro-ESG investing principles that aim to capture a profit. But they have also warned adopting these strategies poses heightened financial and reputational risks with the growing anti-ESG backlash.

The world's biggest private-equity firm, Blackstone, disclosed in a recent filing that pushback from states across the country over so-called "boycotts" of investments in the fossil fuel industry could affect the company's fundraising and revenue and will be perceived negatively by some stakeholders. Others signaling similar headwinds include KKR & Co., State Street, Carlyle Group, T. Rowe Price, TPG Inc., Ares Private Equity Group, Raymond James, and BlackRock.


While partisanship seems to be ruling the debate, it's worth looking closely at what is forecast for some of the states that are most assiduously pursuing anti-ESG legislation, many of which are expected to experience some of the most serious fallout of climate change. Among them are Texas, Arizona, Oklahoma, Idaho, Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, South Carolina and Florida.

Over the past few years, these states have sought to introduce or pass legislation barring companies from discriminating against investing in fossil fuel developers or energy companies contributing to climate change. Those succeeding in passing legislation against so-called "woke capitalism" include Texas, Arizona, Oklahoma, Idaho, Louisiana, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, South Carolina and Florida.

Other states that have tried or are still trying to pass anti-ESG legislation include North Dakota, South Dakota, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Arkansas, Nebraska, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, a Denver nonpartisan research organization. Meanwhile, Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Florida have more anti-ESG legislation pending, in addition to what they've already enacted, even though all of them are now dealing with fatalities from climate change.

Hess says research shows that some states' attitudes may change on climate change as "those places start to feel the impact," but, until then, states suffering the ongoing fatalities of climate change while fighting to ban ESG-friendly policies, sustainability practices and "social credit scores" to protect investments in fossil fuels is "an odd reality."

Worth noting are the states that have pursued anti-ESG legislation, but will not feel the impact of climate change as strongly as some of the states mentioned above. They are Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Indiana, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Utah, Wyoming, Montana, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Alaska.

The one state that will be hard hit by climate change but is working to bolster pro-ESG initiatives – and block any attempts to stop it from doing so – is California. According to the UNDP-Rhodium data, the state's cities are already sustaining some of the highest annual fatality rates in the country due to climate change. At present, the death toll is estimated to be around a dozen people per 100,000 of the population in San Francisco and Sacramento, but is seen rising to 30 and 33, respectively, by 2040, and 104 and 113 people a year, respectively, by 2080.

Other cities that are being impacted by climate change include Los Angeles, Houston, San Antonio, Las Vegas, Nashville, Memphis, New Orleans, Miami, Virginia Beach, Raleigh, Charlotte and Washington, DC, according to the data.

Interestingly, the data show a handful of states will see some benefits from climate change, at least in theory. Rising temperatures likely will contribute to fewer mortality rates in cooler cities such as Seattle, Portland, Denver, Kansas City, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Chicago, Indianapolis, Louisville, Cincinnati, Pittsburg, Philadelphia, New York and Boston. These benefits stem from the fact that, as temperatures rise, annual fatality rates resulting from cold weather will ease, Hess says.

Even with fewer fatalities in some regions, by the end of the century, the effects of climate change will eventually overtake much of the U.S., whether through rising temperatures, changes in precipitation, droughts, serious weather patterns, or what is expected to be an influx of displaced populations – also known as "climate refugees" – who will need to migrate to safer locations to survive. That means anyone living in safe zones will find their regions more and more crowded.

"Income will matter a lot in how people will be able to adapt and respond to the impact of climate," Hess says.

Test shows hydrogen blending slightly reduces gas power plant emissions



Julian Spector
Fri, March 24, 2023 at 1:30 AM MDT·4 min read

A gas plant in Michigan successfully burned a mix of hydrogen and methane to generate electricity in a recent field test. That’s an important proof point for efforts to turn hydrogen into a pillar of the clean energy transition — but mass adoption of the fuel is still far from certain.

Fossil gas still provides more electricity in the U.S. than any other source, but carbon-free wind and solar power are growing much faster. Those resources need help to deliver power 24/7. Some countries and companies have pinned their hopes on hydrogen, which can be synthesized with clean electricity through electrolysis, stored and then used for carbon-free energy.

Boosters of clean hydrogen say the light, colorless gas can decarbonize everything from home heating and cooking to power plants to long-distance trucking. These claims range from preposterous to plausible, but none of them have been borne out by widespread real-world adoption. Few have even been demonstrated at small scale. That’s where the new testing comes in — Wärtsilä calls the test a “world-first achievement,” since it's the largest test using this type of power equipment at an active power plant.

Power producer WEC Energy Group blended hydrogen with the natural gas it normally burns in a 19-megawatt Wärtsilä reciprocating engine at the A.J. Mihm plant in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The participants fired up the engine at different levels and with different amounts of hydrogen in the mix to measure how it performed and how emissions changed. The Electric Power Research Institute, a utility-funded research nonprofit, was on hand to document the findings, and it published a report on the test earlier this month.

Notably, the companies wanted to test what happens when existing, commercially operating engines burn some hydrogen: “No mechanical modifications that would impact the engine performance were made to the engine,” the EPRI report notes. That makes the findings relevant to the broader population of currently operating plants, though reciprocating engines are just one of the common types of gas generator.

The basic finding is that hydrogen blending works, up to a point.

A company called Certarus successfully set up two trucks filled with pressurized, cleanly produced hydrogen that was pumped through a temporary blending rig into the power plant. The engine then burned the blended gases to make electricity, and its efficiency stayed effectively unchanged compared to a pure natural-gas burn. This was all done without incident, because, as the report narrates in stirring prose, “both written and verbal forms of communication were employed to ensure safety was maintained.”

The study was limited in scope, however. The participants only tested up to a 25 percent blend by volume. That level was dictated by the safety specifications for this type of engine, a Wärtsilä spokesperson told Canary Media. A model designed to use 100 percent hydrogen is planned to be offered for sale in 2026.*

At that 25 percent level, the engine maxed out at 95 percent of its normal capacity. When burning a 25 percent hydrogen mix, carbon dioxide emissions only dropped by around 9 or 10 percent in the various tests (a similar test at a GE combustion turbine in Long Island reduced carbon emissions by 14 percent when firing a mix of 35 percent hydrogen).

WEC has promised to cut its carbon emissions from electricity production by 60 percent in 2025 and 80 percent in 2030, compared to a 2005 baseline. An optimistic read on this experiment would be that WEC now knows it can notch easy incremental carbon reductions for those fast-approaching deadlines, without sacrificing performance or paying for expensive engine overhauls.

As with anything hydrogen-related, it won’t be so easy. Though WEC could avoid the expense of modifying its engines, it would still need to pay for the hydrogen and blending equipment, and weigh those costs against the fairly marginal emissions benefits. (Update: A spokesperson for WEC told Canary Media that the company does not have immediate plans to adopt hydrogen blending into its power production operations.)

Moreover, mass adoption of clean hydrogen blending would require access to a steady supply of clean hydrogen, which is hard to come by at this stage. The Department of Energy notes that 95 percent of U.S. hydrogen production today derives from refining methane; that makes it a major greenhouse gas emitter.

It goes without saying that cutting 10 percent of emissions from power generation won’t get WEC to its 60 percent reductions. Higher levels of blending may be possible, but that still needs to be proven, and it may require greater degrees of modification. At best, this technique could work alongside other tools like renewables and energy storage to achieve the company’s goals. Indeed, WEC is already working on testing a novel long-duration energy storage technology from CMBlu Energy, another way to deliver clean power on demand (without burning anything).

The test, in other words, pushes hydrogen one small step forward in a long and uncertain journey toward relevance to the clean power system.


*Correction: This article originally stated that Wärtsilä plans to produce an engine that can run on 100% hydrogen by 2025. The target date is 2026. We regret the error.

Pentagon UFO chief says alien mothership in our solar system possible

By Zamone Perez

MILITARY TIMES
Thursday

(Canva via Getty)

There is a possibility that extraterrestrial motherships and smaller probes may be visiting planets in our solar system, the head of the Pentagon’s unidentified aerial phenomena research office noted in a report draft shared Tuesday.

“[A]n artificial interstellar object could potentially be a parent craft that releases many small probes during its close passage to Earth, an operational construct not too dissimilar from NASA missions,” Sean Kirkpatrick, director of the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, wrote in a research report co-authored by Abraham Loeb, chairman of Harvard University’s astronomy department.

Kirkpatrick, who was appointed as director of the AARO when it was founded in July 2022, previously served as the chief scientist at the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Missile and Space Intelligence Center. The AARO was established to investigate unidentified “objects of interest” around military installations, according to a Pentagon press release.

Loeb, on the other hand, gained notoriety when he proposed our solar system had been traversed by its first extrasolar visitor in October 2017. At that time, the PanSTARRS telescope in Hawaii detected an object moving at a speed that caused some scientists to suggest that it originated outside our system. The object’s orbit also hinted at other forces besides the sun’s gravitational pull influencing its movement.

Scientists dubbed the object “Oumuamua,” the Hawaiian term for “scout,” which Kirkpatrick and Loeb offer in their research paper as an example of a possible mothership with probe capabilities.

“With proper design, these tiny probes would reach the Earth or other solar system planets for exploration, as the parent craft passes by within a fraction of the Earth-Sun separation — just like ‘Oumuamua’ did,” the authors explained. “Astronomers would not be able to notice the spray of mini-probes because they do not reflect enough sunlight for existing survey telescopes to notice them.”

The research paper — titled “Physical Constraints on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena” — comes following a month of intense scrutiny of unidentified flying objects, a stirring trend ignited when a Chinese spy balloon captivated the nation by drifting across U.S. airspace. Three additional unidentified objects were subsequently found.

On Feb. 16, Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and 12 other senators sent a letter to Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks and Deputy Director of National Intelligence Stacey Dixon calling for full funding for the AARO. The Biden administration’s previous funding request for fiscal year 2023 failed to fund anything beyond the office’s basic operating expenses, the lawmakers argued.

“AARO provides the opportunity to integrate and resolve threats and hazards to the U.S., while also offering increased transparency to the American people and reducing the stigma,” the lawmakers’ letter stated. “AARO’s success will depend on robust funding for its activities and cooperation between the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community.”

Observation Post is the Military Times one-stop shop for all things off-duty. Stories may reflect author observations.

Alien mothership lurking in our solar system could be watching us with tiny probes, Pentagon official suggests

Hannah Osborne

SPACE.COM
Sat, March 25, 2023 

Artist's illustration of a large alien spaceship above Earth.

Could an alien mothership be hovering around the solar system, sending out tiny probes to explore planets? According to a Harvard scientist and a Pentagon official, it's possible.

In a draft paper, the pair said it is feasible an extraterrestrial spaceship could be in our galactic neighborhood, exploring the region by the means of "dandelion seeds" — small spacecraft that can gather and send back information, similar to the way humans send out spacecraft to explore planets.

Avi Loeb, an astronomer at Harvard University, and Sean M. Kirkpatrick, director of the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) — established in July 2022 by the Department of Defense (DoD) to detect and study "objects of interest" — released the draft, Physical Constraints on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, on March 7. It is not an official Pentagon document but was carried out in partnership with the DoD. It has not been peer-reviewed.


Loeb is known for his research into 'Oumuamua — an interstellar visitor from beyond the solar system. Astronomers first detected the cigar-shaped object in 2017 and originally thought it was a comet. However, its elongated shape, its lack of coma (the cloud of gases that envelope a comet), and the fact that it was accelerating away from the sun raised questions about the comet theory. Loeb suggested instead that 'Oumuamua was an alien spaceship.

Six months before 'Oumuamua's close approach to Earth, a small interstellar meteor measuring around 3 feet (1 meter) wide smashed into Earth. This meteor, IM2, was not related to 'Oumuamua, but it got Loeb thinking.

Graphic illustration shows 'Oumuamua as a long and flat space rock against a starry background of space.
The interloper 'Oumuamua continues to puzzle astronomers and astrophysicists. 

(Image credit: Bjorn Bakstad via Getty Images)


That coincidence inspired him "to consider the possibility that an artificial interstellar object could potentially be a parent craft that releases many small probes during its close passage to Earth, an operational construct not too dissimilar from NASA missions," Loeb told Live Science in an email. "These 'dandelion seeds'... could be separated from the parent craft by the tidal gravitational force of the sun or by a maneuvering capability."

In the draft paper, Loeb and Kirkpatrick looked at Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs, the government's preferred term for UFOs) confined by known physics. The authors suggest the dandelion seed probes could reach Earth for exploration without being detected by astronomers as they would likely be too small to reflect enough sunlight for survey telescopes to detect.

"Equipped with a large surface-to-mass ratio of a parachute, technological 'dandelion seeds' could slow down in the Earth's atmosphere to avoid burnup and then pursue their objectives wherever they land," they wrote.

Aliens would likely want to explore rocky planets with an atmosphere in the solar system, the authors propose. From a distance, Venus, Earth and Mars would all look appealing, with Earth being of greatest interest once aliens found signatures of liquid water. The alien civilization that created the probes would not need to be on the mothership. It would be unlikely that it could even communicate with the probes.

The alien civilization may not even exist anymore. Most stars in the solar system formed billions of years before the sun. A habitable planet with intelligent life could have been sending out probes long before Earth formed. Searching for "resembles checking our mailbox for any packages that may have accumulated over time there, even if the senders are not alive anymore," Loeb said.

Related stories

— Sorry, E.T. fans: Interstellar visitor 'Oumuamua isn't an alien spacecraft. It's just passing gas.

— Will we ever know the true nature of 'Oumuamua, the first interstellar visitor?

— Could a spacecraft 'catch up' to interstellar visitor 'Oumuamua in just 26 years?

Since first suggesting 'Oumuamua was an alien spaceship, Loeb has faced criticism from the scientific community. One Perspective article published in Nature Astronomy in 2019 said the idea ‘Oumuamua was sent to Earth on purpose was "provocative" and "baseless."

In 2021, a letter published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics dismissed the idea on logistical impracticalities of interstellar travel: "Given the likely cosmological timescales required to traverse between stars, we conclude that it is unlikely that 'Oumuamua has been sent by an extraterrestrial civilisation and more likely that it is just an unusually shaped rock, which has happened to wander into the solar system."

Another study, published on March 22, 2023, explains 'Oumuamua's strange movements as the likely result of hydrogen off-gassing — again refuting the alien spacecraft theory.

Still, the Pentagon has taken a renewed interest in studying unidentified objects over U.S. airspace in the previous year. Since the AARO's founding last summer, the office has opened more than 360 new investigations into alleged UAP encounters reported by U.S. military personnel. About half of these have been explained as "balloons or balloon-like entities," while the other half lack sufficient data to conclusively resolve.

I'm a Stanford professor who's studied organizational behavior for decades. The widespread layoffs in tech are more because of copycat behavior than necessary cost-cutting.

Jeffrey Pfeffer
Sarah Jackson
Sat, March 25, 2023 

Stanford professor Jeffrey Pfeffer says copycat behavior is a key factor in the mass layoffs sweeping tech, finance, and other industries.

Nancy Rothstein

Industries like tech, media, and finance have slashed thousands of jobs in the past few months.


Companies have cited an economic downturn and a drop in demand for the job cuts.


A Stanford professor says there's another simpler reason: Companies are blindly copying each other.


This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jeffrey Pfeffer, the Thomas D. Dee II Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. It has been edited for length and clarity.

The idea that human behavior is influenced by what others do is really old. If you're a pedestrian and you see a stop signal, but no cars are coming and somebody steps into the street, you'll probably do it too. It's almost automatic behavior.

We should expect this to also be true in business. A lot of companies were hiring during the pandemic, so everybody decided to hire. Now, companies are laying off, and everybody decided to follow each other and lay people off. A lot of this is just imitation.

Companies don't throw out their capital equipment the minute market turns down. Hiring and firing like this is expensive. First you pay severance, then you go back into the market and pay recruiters and head hunters. You may also pay bonuses to get people to come work for you.

And when the economy turns down, you do this all over again. These are all extra expenses that companies wouldn't incur if they had a long-term idea of how many people they needed instead of hiring and firing with every economic fluctuation. If you think about it, companies are essentially buying high and selling low with their employees, which doesn't make sense.

A lot of companies doing layoffs cite the economic downturn, but many of them aren't going to run out of money if they avoid layoffs. This is a choice.

When people no longer have jobs, their purchasing power and purchasing activity goes down. So these layoffs help create the very economic downturn that they're supposedly protecting against.

The companies also try to justify the layoffs by saying there's been a drop in demand, but you could argue that one of the reasons for that is that all this talk about layoffs has scared everybody. That means fewer companies want to advertise, for example, which affects companies like Meta and Google. So it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

There was a time when companies cut employment only in times of severe economic stringency. But now they've become kind of routine, and there's very little consideration of the harm they cause.

Layoffs have a huge behavioral and physical negative effect on people. So while companies are trying to maintain their margins, they're exacting an enormous human toll.

Layoffs are stressful, and stress leads to a bunch of unhealthy behaviors. People's social identity and friends networks are often tied up with their jobs and where they work. Research has shown layoffs can cause a 15% to 20% increase in death rates for affected workers for the following 20 years, and they can drive the odds of suicide up by two times or more. We as a society will pay for the health consequences of these layoffs.

In many instances, layoffs don't increase stock prices or cut costs. Between things like the cost of severance and the loss of productivity, layoffs have pretty nasty and negative consequences for the company. It's not clear they actually increase profits.

The irony is that these same companies were talking a year ago about people as their most important asset, and now they're treating their employees pretty badly, laying them off via email or by abruptly cutting off their access to the company. These layoffs are a decision that reflects the company's values, and these companies have basically given their employees the middle finger.

US base drops Confederate name, honors decorated Native American soldier

W.G. Dunlop
Fri, March 24, 2023 


The United States on Friday renamed a military base to honor a decorated Native American soldier instead of a general who fought for the pro-slavery breakaway Confederacy.

Previously called Fort Pickett, the 41,000-acre Virginia National Guard installation is the first of nine bases to drop the name of a figure who served the Confederate States of America, which was made up of southern states that seceded and were defeated in the 1861-1865 US Civil War.

The base was renamed after Colonel Van T Barfoot, a World War II Medal of Honor recipient, its commander, Colonel James Shaver, said in a ceremony there.

"This will be the first army post in the continental United States to bear the name of a Native American soldier," Shaver said, referring to Barfoot's Choctaw heritage.

Members of Barfoot's family attended the ceremony and helped unveil a sign bearing the base's new name: Fort Barfoot.

"Having his service to this nation memorialized by this redesignation is a tribute to a man who epitomized what is great about our American soldiers," his daughter Margaret Nicholls said.

Barfoot, who served in World War II, Korea and Vietnam and reached the rank of colonel, died in 2012 at age 92.

He received the Medal of Honor -- the nation's highest military award for valor -- for actions including taking out two German machine gun nests, capturing 17 enemy soldiers, disabling a tank and aiding wounded troops in Italy in 1944.

- 'Step in the right direction' -

The base was previously named for Confederate major general George Pickett, who led three brigades in an assault on Union troops during the 1863 Battle of Gettysburg that became known as "Pickett's Charge."

Pickett -- who graduated last in his class from West Point and served in the Mexican-American war before resigning his commission to join the Confederacy -- lost over half his command in the attack, which was ordered by general Robert E Lee.

The Confederacy lost the battle and the war, but Pickett survived both and later worked as a farmer and insurance salesman.

The president of the Virginia NAACP civil rights organization welcomed the renaming of the base.

"Public property should not be named after Confederate folks, so I think it's a good step in the right direction to change it," Robert Barnette told AFP.

Calls to change the names of bases that honor Confederate figures gained momentum during nationwide protests against racism and police brutality that were sparked by the 2020 murder of George Floyd, an African American man who died at the hands of a white police officer in Minneapolis.

In the National Defense Authorization Act for 2021, Congress required the establishment of a commission to plan for the removal of Confederate-linked "names, symbols, displays, monuments, or paraphernalia" from Defense Department property, and gave the secretary three years to carry out its recommendations.

Then-president Donald Trump opposed the renaming effort, tweeting in 2020 that his administration "will not even consider" changing the names of the bases, which "have become part of a Great American Heritage, and a history of Winning, Victory, and Freedom."

He vetoed the defense bill, but Congress overrode it in a blow to Trump, who by then had lost his bid for presidential re-election to Joe Biden.

wd/st

Empty for years, NYC's famous Flatiron Building — and its weird narrow passages — may get a fresh start with $190M sale

WE HAVE ONE IN EDMONTON SO DOES SAN FRANSISCO, FRANCIS COPPOLA STUDIOS OWNS IT


Empty for years, NYC's famous Flatiron Building — and its weird narrow passages — may get a fresh start with $190M sale

The Flatiron Building has been used as both a retail and office space throughout its 120-year history, and it achieved national landmark status in 1989


Jordan Hart
Sat, March 25, 2023 at 10:16 AM MDT·3 min read

The historic Flatiron Building went to a court-mandated auction on Wednesday after being practically empty for years.

Investor Jacob Garlick outbid previous owners to buy the landmark for $190 million, reports say.

One previous owner predicts renovations will cost Garlick around $100 million.

The Flatiron Building is one of New York City's most recognizable structures, and it now has a new owner after a public auction on Wednesday.

In an auction ordered by the New York Supreme Court, investor Jacob Garlick outbid the building's current owners and other big names in real estate to secure the Manhattan landmark for $190 million, Smithsonian Magazine reported.

Dozens of onlookers gathered in Lower Manhattan to watch the historic building go on the block with an opening bid of $50 million. It went for nearly four times that to Garlick following a 45-minute bidding war.

"It's been (a) lifelong dream of mine since I'm 14 years old. I've worked every day of my life to be in this position," Garlick, managing partner at firm Abraham Trust, told NY1. "We are honored to be a steward of this historic building, and it will be our life's mission to preserve its integrity forever."

The Flatiron Building was completed in the summer of 1902 at 175 Fifth Avenue, and has become an iconic tourist attraction for visitors of New York City. It's known for its triangular shape where the tip of the structure is as narrow as six feet wide.

But, more recently, its interior has been of little use as its previous owners struggled to agree on what renovations and the building's future should look like, per Smithsonian.

According to NY1, its last office tenants left four years ago, and the previous owners spent around $100 million reducing the building's carbon footprint and modernizing the landmark.

One witness to the auction, real estate broker Tom Brady, told NY1 that the sale was an "iconic moment." The last time the building went up for public auction was in 1933, and it sold for $100,000, according to a New York Times report.

"Look, you're talking about one of the most famous buildings in the world — iconic," Brady said. "One of the most photographed manmade structures in the entire world, and I think it's kudos to the new owner."

However, not everyone was thrilled at Garlick's latest acquisition. One of the Flatiron Building's previous owners, Jeffrey Gural of GFP Real Estate, said he wished Garlick "hadn't shown up" to the auction.

"I was kind of shocked, to tell you the truth. I never thought that someone would bid so much for the building. It's a beautiful building, but it needs $100 million of upgrades. It's basically empty," Gural said, according to NY1.

It's currently unclear what Garlick has planned for the 22-story building. Gural, his bidding competitor, told The Real Deal that the 255,000-square-foot property could be worth $1,500 per foot after renovations. Insider did the math, and that could mean the Flatiron will be worth over $380 million someday.

US Trade Rep fires back at GOP House member who said she has 'too nice a smile' to do her job: 'I don't need your pity'

Nicole Gaudiano
Fri, March 24, 2023 

US Trade Representative, speaks during the Senate Finance Committee Hearing on the Presidents 2023 Trade Policy Agenda at the U.S. Capitol on March 23, 2023 in Washington, DC.

• A US House member said the US Trade Representative had "too nice a smile" to do her job.

• Now Katherine Tai is winning kudos on Twitter for her quick response.

• "I don't need your pity. I stand up for the American people," she said.

US Trade Representative Katherine Tai is winning kudos on Twitter for her response to inappropriate remarks from from a GOP House member, who said during a congressional hearing that he feels "sorry" for her and  has "too nice a smile" to do her job.

"Well, let me just take off the nice a little bit," Tai said. "I don't need your pity. I stand up for the American people. And when I speak people listen because I represent the interests of the United States."

During a House committee hearing, Republican Rep. Greg Murphy of North Carolina told Tai that Republicans are frustrated because the US is distracted, China is advancing and it "just does not appear we are moving the needle on trade."

"I personally think you're too nice a person to be in the job that you're in," he said, adding that she's "handicapped" by administrators that she must report to. "Negotiators are usually very, very tough and sometimes mean people. They aren't nice people like you are. And if you look at what's happened with us, we are absolutely handcuffing the United States because we worry more about green things."

The US is at a disadvantage, he said, and "personally I feel sorry for you. You're stuck in the middle of that."

 

Tai laughed at first and said she knows to be nice to members of the House Ways and Means Committee. "I've never been faulted for being too nice," she said.

Then Murphy responded, "You have too nice a smile."

Tai replied, "I also don't need you to feel sorry for me. So, please don't."

Female members of Congress responded to the clip as it made the rounds on Twitter.

"I sat in the room with @AmbassadorTai as we negotiated the strongest labor, environmental, and enforcement provisions in U.S. history. No one is a tougher and more capable negotiator on behalf of America's trade interests and values," tweeted Rep. Terri Sewell, an Alabama Democrat.

Rep. Jan Schakowsky, an Illinois Democrat, wrote: "You tell 'em sister."

"You don't need his crocodile tears," she added. "Thank you for your tireless work on behalf of our country."

A member of Biden's Cabinet, Tai is the principal trade advisor, negotiator, and spokesperson on U.S. trade policy.
She previously served as chief trade counsel and Trade Subcommittee staff director for the House Ways and Means Committee and as chief counsel for China trade enforcement at the Office of the US Trade Representative, according to her biography.

She earned degrees from Yale University and Harvard Law School and is fluent in Mandarin.

Credit Suisse accessed billions in liquidity last weekend - finance minister

Sat, March 25, 2023 

ZURICH (Reuters) - Credit Suisse tapped the Swiss National Bank for "a large multi-billion amount" last weekend to secure its liquidity, the country's finance minister Karin Keller-Sutter told Swiss broadcaster SRF on Saturday.

The troubled Swiss bank had said last week it intended to borrow up to 50 billion Swiss francs from the country's central bank to boost its liquidity.

"Last weekend, a large multi-billion amount was withdrawn by Credit Suisse for liquidity protection," Keller-Sutter said.

She said this was because customers had again withdrawn money, but also because counterparties were demanding guarantees when they are doing business with the bank.

Keller-Sutter said "it is to be assumed" that the figure was above 50 billion Swiss francs ($54.35 billion), but said the Swiss National Bank had the exact number.

"The important thing is that the situation has stabilised," she said.

Last Sunday, UBS agreed to buy its rival Credit Suisse for 3 billion Swiss francs in stock and agreed to assume up to 5 billion francs in losses in a merger engineered by Swiss authorities to prevent more market turmoil in global banking.

($1 = 0.9199 Swiss francs)

(Reporting by Noele Illien; Editing by Jane Merriman)

Bond giants Pimco and Invesco are facing losses of hundreds of millions on rotten Credit Suisse debt

George Glover
Sat, March 25, 2023 

Some of the world's biggest bond investors have suffered massive losses after Credit Suisse imploded.

NurPhoto/Getty Images

• Some of the biggest names in fixed income are nursing their wounds after Credit Suisse's rescue.

• Bond giants Pimco and Invesco lost hundreds of millions of dollars, according to data from Bloomberg.

• They held Credit Suisse's AT1 bonds – which were marked down to zero by the Swiss regulator a week ago.

Some of the biggest names in fixed income investing have lost millions of dollars following the rescue of Credit Suisse by its rival UBS last week.

Pimco and Invesco both suffered massive losses because they held the failed Swiss bank's Additional Tier 1 bonds, according to data from Bloomberg.

FINMA, which is Switzerland's top financial regulator, marked the value of all Credit Suisse AT1s down to zero when UBS's takeover of the struggling bank was confirmed.

That wiped out 16 billion francs ($17 billion) worth of value overnight – and left the bond giants nursing their wounds.

AT1s, which are also known as contingent convertible bonds or CoCos, are a riskier type of bank bond that offers a higher yield than assets that are typically considered safer, like government debt.

But the reason for those greater returns is that there's more risk attached to them – because the bank can choose to convert them into shares to prop up its capital and reduce its debt if its financial health falls beneath a certain level.

Pimco had $807 million worth of Credit Suisse CoCos written off when the bank was rescued, according to Bloomberg – while Invesco held around $370 million worth of AT1 debt at the time of the takeover.

Asset management giant BlackRock also held Credit Suisse CoCo bonds worth $113 million at the end of last month, per the Bloomberg data, and may have had all of that wiped out Sunday.

Ten individual fixed-income funds also had over $100 million invested in the bank's AT1s, according to a CNBC article that cited data from Refinitiv.

First Trust, Nuveen, and Vanguard also had significant exposure to the CoCo bonds, that data shows.

The litigation firm Quinn Emanuel said Monday that it had put together a team of lawyers and was approaching AT1 bondholders about potentially pursuing legal action over FINMA's move.

But the only comparable previous case suggests that Pimco and Invesco are going to struggle to get their money back.

In 2017, Spain's Banco Popular collapsed and both its shareholders and AT1 bondholders were wiped out as part of its rescue by rival Banco Santander.

Some of the Spanish bank's CoCo bondholders instructed Quinn Emanuel to pursue legal action on their behalf – but failed to win their case against the regulator.

Read more: Credit Suisse's rescue had a sting in its tail for the banking crisis. Here's what you need to know about AT1 bonds.

A home-improvement contractor from Connecticut who went to fight in Ukraine posted a video of his location online, revealing his unit's location, and then admitted he falsified his military record


John L. Dorman
Sat, March 25, 2023 

Soldiers walk amid destroyed Russian tanks in Bucha, in the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, April 3, 2022.

AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd, File

Infighting has plagued some US volunteers who've fought in Ukraine, per a New York Times report.


The squabbles have not only threatened the war effort, but have exposed deeply consequential lies.


Some volunteers have left the war effort in Ukraine after questions arose about their backgrounds.

After Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine last year, groups of Americans — many of them US military veterans — committed themselves to fight in the conflict to aid the Ukrainian government in battling back Moscow's advances.

But a recent New York Times report detailed how many of those volunteers became mired in infighting, jeopardizing the success of the war effort, while some poured money down the toilet after purchasing less-effective military gear and others have sought to make money off the conflict.

The Times spoke with over 30 volunteers, fighters, and officials in both the US and Ukraine about these situations.

In one case, a retired Marine lieutenant colonel may have potentially exported military technology illegally, while in another case, an ex-Army soldier came to Ukraine to aid in the war effort but later defected to Russia.

And a Connecticut man who went to fight in Ukraine and has posted his location on the battlefield admitted to The Times that he falsified his military record, previously claiming to be a Marine.

While some volunteers who went to Ukraine were killed in the war, the spotlight on the role of volunteers has grown exponentially as the conflict has moved past the one-year mark.

Foreign Legion volunteers in Ukraine.Courtesy of Hieu Le/Facebook

'I had to tell a million lies to get ahead'

In the interviews conducted by The Times, individuals told the newspaper of errors and disputes that have limited the effectiveness of the volunteer effort since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

At the start of the war, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy encouraged allies to help the country defend itself against Russian forces. While some individuals joined the International Legion, which was created by Ukraine last year as a foreign military unit, others aided in fundraising efforts for the conflict.

However, some individuals who may have otherwise raised red flags were apparently able to embed themselves in the Legion and other groups — blatantly misrepresenting facts about their backgrounds, according to the Times.

James Vasquez, a home-improvement contractor from Connecticut who made waves when he left for Ukraine last year, was hailed as an ex-Army staff sergeant who had decided to aid the country in fighting for its freedom.

But according to The Times, Vasquez not only revealed the exact location of his unit after publishing a video online he misrepresented his service record. Vasquez was never sent to Kuwait or Iraq, according to a Pentagon spokeswoman who spoke with The Times, and apparently misrepresented his duties and rank during his short stint in the Army Reserves.

But Vasquez had no issues gaining access to weaponry while in Ukraine, which included American rifles. But he was unsure where they originated.

"I'm not exactly sure," he told The Times in a text exchange. "We have plenty."

Vasquez fought in Ukraine until last week, when The Times probed him about his military record; he then deactivated his Twitter account and stated that he was considering leaving the country because he had been fighting alongside soldiers without a requisite military contract.

He told The Times that he had been booted from the Army, but would not delve into the reasoning. Still, he revealed that for years he'd been dishonest about his military record.

"I had to tell a million lies to get ahead," he told The Times. "I didn't realize it was going to come to this."

Malcolm Nance, a former United States Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer and intelligence and foreign policy analyst.  Malcolm Nance

Another major issue that has arisen is wasteful spending, driven not by malice but by individuals unaware of the efficacy of certain tools.

For example, Mriya Aid, which is commanded by a Canadian lieutenant colonel, used roughly $100,000 in donated money to purchase night-vision devices, but they wound up being less effective than ones that were made in China, per documents reviewed by The Times.

After the volunteer group, Ripley's Heroes, had spent roughly $63,000 on night and thermal vision devices, some of the equipment fell under US export restrictions.

And Ripley's Heroes also purchased $25,000 for remote-control reconnaissance cars in 2022, but they have yet to be delivered, tied up by Polish authorities due to legal concerns, the Times reported.
'A verified con artist'

After the International Legion was formed, volunteers were quickly processed in roughly 10 minutes or less, according to a Legion official who spoke with The Times.

Such missteps may have accelerated problems in the unit.

A Polish fugitive who had been imprisoned in Ukraine over weapon violations eventually earned a spot leading troops, according to The Times.

And while Ukrainian officials estimated that there were possibly 20,000 Legion volunteers, that number was officially much smaller.

Individuals with knowledge of the Legion told The Times that there are roughly 1,500 members in the unit. (A recent Vice article detailed how thousands of volunteers have left Ukraine since the start of the conflict.)

One of those members was John McIntyre, a former US Army private first class who was cut from the Legion for "bad behavior," per The Times. He then left for Russia and the outlet said he was purported to have given some kind of intelligence information to Moscow.

Malcolm Nance, an ex-Navy cryptologist and well-known cable news commentator, told Insider's Alia Shoaib and Bethany Dawson that McIntyre was "a highly unstable character" who "was known to be a professional fuckup and mentally ill."

Nance told the paper he came to Ukraine to offer some structure to the Legion. But he became wrapped up in some of the infighting surrounding the conflict, calling out a one-time ally as "fat" and slamming an associate as "a verified con artist," according to The Times.

Nance is no longer in Ukraine but hasn't stopped his fundraising efforts with another group of allies, which includes Ben Lackey, who was once in the Legion.

Lackey told Legion members that he was a Marine and said that he had been an assistant manager at LongHorn Steakhouse. But the Pentagon told The Times that Lackey didn't have any military experience, and the steakhouse chain disclosed that he was a server and not an assistant manager.

While speaking with The Times, Lackey said he had never been a Marine, but revealed he said so in order to become a member of the Legion.

IN CONTRAST SEE:

Meet the motley crew of anarchists and anti-fascists fighting Russia in Ukraine 

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2023/03/meet-motley-crew-of-anarchists-and-anti.html