A PHENOM REST IN POWER
Ryuichi Sakamoto, Japanese musician and film composer, dies


Sun, April 2, 2023 

TOKYO (AP) — Ryuichi Sakamoto, a world-renowned Japanese musician and actor who composed for Hollywood hits such as “The Last Emperor” and “The Revenant,” has died. He was 71.

Japan’s recording company Avex said in a statement Sunday that Sakamoto died on March 28 while undergoing treatment for cancer.

He was first diagnosed with throat cancer in 2014. In 2022, he revealed that he had terminal cancer, a year after he disclosed suffering from rectal cancer.

Sakamoto was a pioneer of the electronics music of the late 1970s and founded the Yellow Magic Orchestra, also known as YMO, with Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi.

Takahashi died in January.

Despite his battle with cancer, Sakamoto released a full-length album “12” on his 71st birthday in January, stating that composing had a “small healing effect on my damaged body and soul,” according to the official statement released with the latest album.

He was a world-class musician, winning an Oscar and Grammy for the 1987 movie “The Last Emperor.”

Sakamoto was also an actor, starring in the BAFTA-winning 1983 film "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence.”



He was mostly based in New York in recent years, though he regularly visited Japan.

Born in Tokyo in 1952, Sakamoto started studying music at the age of 10 and was influenced by Debussy and the Beatles.

The statement from Avex said that despite his sickness, when he was feeling relatively well, he kept working on his music in his home studio. “To his final days, he lived with music,” it said.

The statement expressed gratitude to the doctors who had treated him in the U.S. and Japan, as well as to all his fans around the world. It referenced the words Sakamoto loved: “Ars longa, vita brevis,” which refers to the longevity of art, no matter how short human life might be.

Sakamoto also left his mark as a pacifist and environmental activist. He spoke out against nuclear power following the March 2011 Fukushima nuclear plant meltdowns caused by an earthquake and tsunami.

He took part in rallies and made speeches in Tokyo, and was among a group of respected Japanese artists, like the Nobel-winning novelist Kenzaburo Oe, who were not afraid to take an unpopular stand on political issues.

In a July 2012 rally, he got up on stage and read from notes on an iPhone, warning Japan not to risk people’s lives for electricity.

“Life is more important than money,” he said in Japanese, then added in English, “Keeping silent after Fukushima is barbaric.”

He also appeared in advertising for Nissan electric cars, although he acknowledged he got a bashing for being so commercial. At his home in New York, he gets electricity from a company that relies on renewables, he said.

“How we make electricity is going to diversify, with fossil fuel and nuclear power declining,” Sakamoto told The Associated Press in an interview in 2012. “People should be able to choose the kind of electricity they want to use.”

Funeral services have been held with family and close friends, the Avex statement said.

Sakamoto is survived by his daughter Miu Sakamoto, a musician. She posted on her Instagram the years her father had lived — from Jan. 17, 1952, to March 28, 2023 — and a photo of a worn out, half-broken piano. He was separated from his former wife, singer and composer Akiko Yano.

___

Associated Press writer Juwon Park in Seoul, South Korea, contributed to this report.

Yuri Kageyama And Mari Yamaguchi, The Associated Press

  

Japan's Ryuichi Sakamoto, composer of 'The Last Emperor' score, dies aged 71

Elaine Lies
Sun, April 2, 2023 



 Japanese musician and composer Sakamoto waves during a photocall for the movie "Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda" at the 74th Venice Film Festival in Venice


By Elaine Lies

TOKYO (Reuters) - Ryuichi Sakamoto, the Oscar-winning Japanese composer famed for his scores for "The Last Emperor", "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence" and other epic films, has died aged 71.

Sakamoto was also known for his acting, and for his work with the pioneering electronic music band Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO) which he co-founded.

"He lived with music until the very end," Avex, the recording company he worked with, said on its website. He had been suffering from cancer, but kept working in his home studio whenever his health allowed, the statement added.

He died on March 28, Avex said.

Introduced to the piano as a toddler, Sakamoto lived for music. As a high schooler, he rode on Tokyo commuter carriages so packed nobody could move, amusing himself by counting all the different sounds the train made along the way.

Sakamoto, who described French composer Claude Debussy as his hero, studied ethnomusicology at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, with particular interest in the traditional music of Japan's Okinawa prefecture as well as Indian and African musical traditions.

"Asian music heavily influenced Debussy, and Debussy heavily influenced me. So the music goes around the world and comes full circle," he told WNYC public radio in 2010.

Embracing electronic music, he and fellow studio musicians Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi formed YMO in 1978. The band's groundbreaking use of a vast array of electronic instruments brought both domestic and global success.

Sakamoto's first score was for the 1983 film "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence", in which he also played the commandant of a prisoner of war camp, starring alongside David Bowie. The score went on to win a BAFTA.

His most celebrated work was 1987's "The Last Emperor" - a film in which he also acted. The score won an Oscar, a Grammy and a Golden Globe.

Fans posted tributes on social media.

"Rest in peace Maestro. Your music enriched our lives and changed our view of the world around us and within us," read one message on the Twitter account @elhichri0.

Sakamoto, who was an anti-nuclear campaigner and environmental activist, took a break from work in 2014 for about a year to be treated for throat cancer. Though cured of that after years of treatment, he announced on his website in January 2021 that he had been diagnosed with rectal cancer.

In December 2022, Sakamoto gave what was clearly meant to be a farewell concert for his fans, broadcast online.

"My strength has really fallen, so a normal concert of about an hour to ninety minutes would be very difficult," he said in an online message several days before.

"As a result, I've recorded it song by song and edited it together so it can be presented as a regular concert - which I believe can be pleasurable in the normal way. Please, enjoy."

(Reporting by Elaine Lies; additional reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka; Editing by Christopher Cushing, Edwina Gibbs and Andrew Heavens)

  

Climate activists protest RBC's fossil fuel investments


CBC
Sun, April 2, 2023 

Protesters in Halifax joined thousands across Canada to protest the Royal Bank's investments in fossil fuel projects (Jeorg Sadi/CBC - image credit)

Climate activists met outside a Royal Bank branch in Halifax on Saturday to protest the financial institution's investment in fossil fuel projects.

According to a press release, the activists joined thousands of protesters across Canada for what they called Fossil Fools Day.

The press release said the aim was to highlight how RBC's policies have failed to respect Indigenous sovereignty and are fuelling the climate crisis.

Groups involved in the protest include Decolonial Solidarity Halifax, Mi'kmaw Grassroots Grandmothers, Sierra Club, School Strike for Climate, Ecology Action Centre and Council of Canadians.

Deborah Luscomb, media liaison for the event, said that the protest was specifically to show support for the Wet'suwet'en territory in northwestern B.C. in its dispute over the Coastal GasLink pipeline.

"RBC is part of a huge colonizing machine in Canada, the biggest funder of fossil fuels in Canada," she said in an interview. "Canada is the biggest funder of fossil fuels in the world."

Jeorg Sadi/CBC

The press release states that "RBC continues to fund projects in Canada and around the world that lack free, prior and informed consent of Indigenous peoples, and fuelling the climate crisis as the world's 5th largest financier of fossil fuels."

"RBC talks, you know, they have a good talk about the climate and the environment and our Indigenous brothers and sisters, but their actions belie that talk," Luscomb said in the interview. "They put their money into damage. They put their money into power. They put their money into getting richer."

She said that the protest was meant to raise awareness and to request RBC to side with Indigenous communities and environmental needs.

Event organizer Andrew Glencross said the Coastal GasLink project would not exist without RBC money.

"The Royal Bank's role in all of this is that they are the money and that's why we're focusing on them," he said. "The only way we can force them to change their ways is to tarnish their image as a politically neutral organization."

RBC said in an email that it is "committed to achieving net-zero in its lending by 2050" and has established interim emissions reduction targets "that will help us drive action and measure progress."

Banks face rising shareholder pressure through climate resolutions as AGMs loom


The Canadian Press
Sun, April 2, 2023


TORONTO — It was only after his flight landed in Toronto last year that Wet'suwet'en hereditary chief Na’Moks learned that Royal Bank of Canada had cancelled its in-person annual general meeting with less than a day's notice.

The bank cited COVID-19 as the reason it moved the event entirely online, but those assembled to protest the bank’s climate record were left wondering if there was more to it andNa’Moks says he was insulted that executives weren’t willing to face him.

Undeterred, he is trying again this year. Na'Moks will head to Saskatoon for the bank's April 5 meeting, where he plans to share his concerns about its fossil fuel funding and encourage the assembled shareholders to support a resolution related to respecting Indigenous rights.

“Dave McKay, he’s the CEO, but he has to listen to the people that do business with him,” said Na’Moks.

The resolution he's pushing, put forth by the B.C. General Employees’ Union with the support of the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs, is just one of many Canada's big banks face as climate activists increasingly look to shareholder proposals to shift corporate policy.

“They’re a really important tool for investors to catalyze change," said Catherine McCall, executive director of the Canadian Coalition for Good Governance, which represents the interests of institutional investors.

“They can introduce issues to management and the board that are important, and they can signal how important they are to investors.”

RBC faced its first climate-related shareholder proposal in 2018, while this year it has five going to a vote. There are also three resolutions at Toronto-Dominion Bank going to a vote, two at Bank of Nova Scotia, and one each at Bank of Montreal, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and National Bank of Canada as activists increasingly focus on banks as key intermediaries in the climate fight.

“They're invested everywhere, and they lend everywhere,” said Jennifer Story, associate director of climate advocacy at the Shareholder Association for Research & Education (Share).

“So they have a phenomenal ability to accelerate change on behalf of corporate issuers in Canada and elsewhere, if they choose to leverage it.”

Share, on behalf of its institutional clients, has put forward a resolution for Scotiabank's April 4 AGM looking for more detail on how the bank will be assessing the transition plans of its high-emission clients.

Scotiabank said in its proxy circular response that the proposal was "overly onerous, prescriptive, and not aligned with industry practice," and that it was surprised to see it filed as it was in ongoing engagement about it.

It was only after talks stalled that Share decided to elevate the issue with a shareholder proposal, said Story.

“In essence the dialogue broke down, and we were disappointed in the lack of progress over almost a year and decided that this was the best route to take.”

Those pushing resolutions emphasize that it’s not so much about a simple pass or fail on these votes (they are non-binding even if they pass), but more about allowing them to engage with other shareholders, a way to communicate and create dialogue around the issues.

“There are ripple effects that go on throughout the year after the dust has settled at the AGM, that’s not the end point," said Matt Price, director of corporate engagement at Investors for Paris Compliance, which filed a resolution at TD pushing for more details on how it will achieve its 2030 financed emissions targets.

The proposals do also give the option for major shareholders to make a statement, with even small percentages of support representing billions of dollars of investments, said Richard Brooks at Stand.earth.

“The resolutions are meant to send a message to management,” said Brooks, head of the group's climate finance program, which submitted a proposal calling for RBC to set a deadline for when it will stop funding new fossil fuel developments.

The message is getting louder, he said, as bigger shareholders step into the fray.

The Public Sector Pension Investment Board, which has $231 billion in assets under management, said on March 22 that it would be using its voting power to promote corporate practices that address climate change, and that it's ready to vote against directors when boards fail to prepare.

And this year RBC also faces a proposal about setting absolute emission reduction targets from the New York City Comptroller, which oversees the city’s US$242 billion portfolio of pension funds.

“Absent a concrete plan to reduce absolute emissions in the real world in the near term, any net zero-plan rings hollow,” said Comptroller Brad Lander in a statement announcing the proposal, while noting that BMO and numerous international banks have already set hard targets on emission reductions.

RBC said in its response, recommending shareholders vote against it, that while it recognizes the importance of reducing absolute emissions, only intensity-based ones are “appropriate at this point in the bank’s transition journey.”

As with its response to Stand.earth’s proposal, RBC went on to note the need to continue to engage with clients in high emitting sectors, rather than simply reducing emissions by cutting off their funding, as part of an orderly transition.

“This is why RBC’s goal to achieve net-zero in our lending by 2050 is intended to balance the needs of people and planet.”

For Na’Moks, the bank’s talk is little more than greenwashing.

“It really bothers me when you read their statements of 'by 2050, we’ll do this'. You know how much damage is going to happen to this planet by 2050 if they continue the way they are?” he said.

“Things have to happen now. We've had decades to prepare, and make sure we're not in the climate crisis we're in, and it was all about money and they kept moving forward.”

He'll be looking for allies within RBC investors for the resolution on how the bank assesses how well clients have implemented free, prior and informed consent of Indigenous peoples, as well as on climate action.

“Money talks; that's the world right, that is their world,” said Na'Moks. “It will be the shareholders and those who do business with RBC that will make the difference. That’s how it operates. So they just need to listen.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 2, 2023.

Companies in this story: (TSX:RY; TSX:TD; TSX:BNS; TSX:BMO)

Ian Bickis, The Canadian Press

For want of a pipeline: Canadian LNG should power low-carbon revolution, report says

The Canadian Press
Sun, April 2, 2023 



WASHINGTON — As the world struggles to find the right balance between a carbon-free future and a present that still runs on fossil fuels, Canada could be leveraging its natural-gas riches to help fuel both, a new report suggests.

The report, to be released Monday by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, urges the federal government to finally get serious about building the infrastructure necessary to fast-track the extraction and export of liquid natural gas.

The carbon-credits clause of the 2015 Paris climate accord could be a "key driver of growth" for the LNG sector if Canadian natural gas were to become a viable alternative for coal-fired power plants around the world, it suggests.

"This initiative could not only support natural gas exports but an array of services, technology, and materials exports," writes Eric Miller, president of the D.C.-based Rideau Potomac Strategy Group and the report's author.

"Canada should use the global carbon market framework to build a stronger Canadian natural gas sector and a cleaner world."

In addition to several measures to develop and promote Canadian gas as a global low-carbon alternative, the report encourages Canada to retool its often convoluted regulatory processes and give Indigenous Peoples a greater stake in natural gas projects.

Canadian natural gas already has certain advantages beyond the fact that it's plentiful and cleaner than coal, Miller suggests: it's also produced under Canada's carbon-price regime, an advantage that could create a market premium in coming years as demand for cleaner fuel sources with a smaller carbon footprint continues to rise.

It could well help power the switch from coal to gas around the world, Miller writes: converting just 20 per cent of Asia's coal-fired power to gas would save the equivalent of an entire year's worth of Canadian greenhouse gas emissions.

The challenges, the report acknowledges, are myriad.

First and foremost is Canada's glaring lack of the necessary infrastructure — pipelines and export terminals, particularly on the east coast — to get its gas to international markets.

Since 2008, no fewer than 18 new LNG export terminals have been proposed, Miller writes, including 13 in B.C., three in Nova Scotia and two in Quebec. Only the LNG Canada facility in Kitimat, B.C., is anywhere near completion.

The report blames a "lack of decisiveness" on energy policy over the last 20 years for the country's current inability to export its landlocked resources.

"Had Canada supported the construction of even a fraction of these terminals, it would have been at the centre of support for growing Asian and European markets that are in desperate need of LNG, and would be actively contributing to the displacement of coal."

Miller cites last summer's "missed opportunity" with Germany as an instructive example of Canada's problem.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz visited Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in August hoping to secure an agreement for liquified natural gas to ease its dependence on Russia, now a global pariah following the invasion of Ukraine.

But he left empty-handed. Months later, Germany signed a 15-year gas supply agreement with Qatar instead.

"This opportunity to supply Germany has now passed Canada by," Miller writes. "Qatar, not Canada, will now get the economic and employment benefits of producing and shipping gas to Germany."

A more robust LNG pipeline network would have the added advantage of being adaptable to the future use of hydrogen as a modern-day low-carbon alternative to fossil fuels, the report notes.

"Being able to piggyback on existing infrastructure would be an enormous advantage in hydrogen's scaling process," Miller writes.

"In addition to investing in hydrogen research, the government of Canada should move to understand what specifically would be involved in converting gas infrastructure to hydrogen and what the cost structure would look like."

Indeed, Canada and Germany did manage to reach an export agreement for hydrogen during Scholz's visit, which proposed to establish a transatlantic supply corridor that could be operating as early as 2025.

And during last month's visit by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Trudeau announced a new hydrogen deal with the EU that he vowed would "mobilize investment, support businesses, share expertise and get clean Canadian hydrogen to Europe."

Von der Leyen called Canada a "prime potential partner for hydrogen" in Europe, such as through an already-announced, long-term deal with Germany.

A better understanding of how a natural gas pipeline network could be converted to hydrogen would help "clarify the long-term economics" of building such infrastructure, the report says.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 2, 2023.

James McCarten, The Canadian Press

Femicides rising in Canada as a woman or girl is killed every 48 hours, shows report

More than 800 women and girls have been killed since 2018, according to the Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability.


Chris Stoodley
·Lifestyle and News Editor
Sun, April 2, 2023 

Femicide cases are drastically increasing in Canada, according to a new report that details hundreds of women and girls have been killed over the past five years.

In a report released on Thursday, the Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability (CFOJA) indicated that at least 850 women and girls have been killed since 2018.

"That means, at least, one woman or girl is killed by violence every two days," the CFOJA noted in its report. "One woman or girl is killed every 48 hours. Where information is known, men are the majority of those accused."

There were at least 184 killings in 2022, the highest number the organization has seen since it began documenting these deaths in 2018. The number of killings that year was 169, and has been growing each year since 2020.

While 2019 saw a slight drop to 148 killings, there were 172 deaths in 2020 and 177 a year later.

One highlight in this year's report shows there was a 27 per cent rise in deaths involving male suspects in 2022 compared to 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.

The 184 deaths noted in 2022 were tallied up from 170 cases. Eighteen of those cases do not have an accused suspect. For the other 152 cases, there were 173 people accused.

Out of the cases where the accused were identified, 82 per cent were male suspects and 18 per cent were female suspects.

For the 150 women and girls killed by male accused in 2022, the type of relationship between the parties were known for only 89 victims, or 59 per cent. Out of those, 52 victims — or 58 per cent — were killed by a current or former intimate partner.

For familial femicide, there were 20 cases in 2022 involving 24 victims and 20 accused.

Non-intimate femicide cases — where the relationships are primarily between acquaintances or strangers — accounted for 11 cases in 2022. Of those, there were 13 victims and 12 accused.

"We really wanted to address the issue so there would be better understanding publicly," Myrna Dawson, founder of the CFOJA and University of Guelph professor, shared in a news release.

On March 30, commissioner Michael MacDonald said it's time for men to start doing their part in acknowledging and calling out gender-based violence for what it is — an "epidemic." Femicide cases across Canada have reached a new high in 2022.

 (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darren Calabrese)

Advocates have been pushing for the federal government to include femicide in the Criminal Code of Canada, while some have called on provinces to address intimate partner violence.

In the final inquiry report for the 2020 Nova Scotia mass shootings, the Mass Casualty Commission urged the government to recognize "gender-based, intimate partner and family violence as an epidemic."

The CFOJA's report indicates there are 20 countries — including Brazil, Argentina and Mexico — that have legislated the term "femicide," or used it to classify some offences.

Out of 35 countries, Canada is one of three that has not committed to the 1994 treaty, "Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence Against Women," according to the release.

"This is one example of how Canada lags behind other countries in its response to male violence against women and girls," Dawson added.

Inquiry into N.S. killings calls for bold change to tackle family violence 'epidemic'


Sun, April 2, 2023 

OTTAWA — The public inquiry into the April 2020 shootings in Nova Scotia is calling for an overhaul of the way society handles the "epidemic" of gender-based, intimate-partner and family violence.

In addition to creating better supports for victims of such violence, the Mass Casualty Commission says governments should pass laws to abolish mandatory arrest and charging policies.

Canadian law requires police to lay charges of assault in cases where they have reasonable grounds, regardless of the victims' wishes.


The commission says a "prevention-oriented public health approach to violence" should be adopted, which includes treatment for perpetrators.

And it says there must be a recognition that many men who commit mass violence have a history of domestic violence, and many mass killings begin with an attack on a specific woman.

One Halifax-based advocate says achieving what the report recommends will require bold, transformative and necessary change.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 2, 2023.

The Canadian Press

Train carrying Coors Light and Blue Moon derails in PARADISE,  Montana


Natalie Neysa Alund, USA TODAY
Mon, April 3, 2023 

A freight train carrying beer derailed in Montana Sunday, officials said, marking the latest of a string of rail incidents in the United States.

The derailment occurred near a river in in Paradise about 9 a.m., according to a press release from the Plains-Paradise Rural Fire District.

Officials said about 25 cars derailed in the crash.

As of late Sunday, the department reported there was no threat to the public and no hazardous material was released.

The railcars that spilled into the river were empty or carrying Coors Light and Blue Moon, the agency said.

The derailment took place near a river along Highway 135 about 70 miles northwest of Missoula.

No injuries were reported but people were being asked to avoid the area.

Minnesota train derailment: Residents forced to evacuate after train carrying ethanol derails, catches fire in Minnesota

Weather forecast: Northern Plains braces for potentially 'biggest snowstorm of the year'; blizzard warnings issued
A recent spate of train derailments

The Montana crash marks the latest in a wave of derailments over the past two months. Since a fiery Ohio derailment on Feb. 3, trains have derailed in Florida, West Virginia, Michigan, Oklahoma, Alabama, Nebraska and Washington state.

Most recently, a train derailed last week in Minnesota and forced the evacuation of nearby residents.

Data shows such derailments are not unusual.

Every day, the nation's railroads move millions of tons of raw materials and finished goods around the country on about 140,000 miles of rails, but their safety record is getting new attention amid scrutiny of the East Palestine derailment disaster.

Trains keep derailing all over the country: What's going on?

Contributing: Trevor Hughes and Thao Nguyen, USA TODAY; Associated Press

Natalie Neysa Alund covers breaking and trending news for USA TODAY. Reach her at nalund@usatoday.com and follow her on Twitter @nataliealund.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Montana train derailment: Cars carrying Coors Light, Blue Moon derail

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
Execs at Austal, which builds LCSs for U.S. Navy, indicted for fraud

Austal USA

The Associated Press
Sat, April 1, 2023 

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Three current and former former executives of a shipbuilder that constructs vessels for the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard have been indicted on accounting fraud charges accusing them of falsely inflating the company’s reported earnings, federal prosecutors said.

Craig Perciavalle, 52, Joseph Runkel, 54, and William Adams, 63, all of Mobile, Alabama, where Austal USA LLC is based, are accused of misleading shareholders and investors. They are each charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and wire fraud affecting a financial institution, five counts of wire fraud, and two counts of wire fraud affecting a financial institution, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a news release Friday.

LCS shipbuilder president resigns amid US and Australian financial investigations

Court records were not immediately available to show if the men had attorneys to comment on their behalf.-

Austal USA LLC is a subsidiary of Australia-based Austal Limited and builds littoral combat ships for the Navy. The ships are designed to operate in shallow coastal waters.

Perciavalle resigned as Austal USA’s president in 2021 following an investigation by federal and Australian authorities into practices dating back more than four years, the company said at the time. Adams is the former director of the littoral combat ships program, according to the SEC. Runkel is the director of financial analysis.

Prosecutors alleged the three men manipulated an accounting metric to hide growing costs in order to maintain and increase the share price of Austal Limited’s stock, hurting U.S. investors.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said in a news release that the three “engaged in a scheme to artificially reduce the cost estimates to complete certain shipbuilding projects for the U.S. Navy by tens of millions of dollars.”

Venezuela arrests nine CVG officials over corruption probe


 Venezuela's Attorney General Tarek Saab addresses the media 

on anti corruption probe, in Caracas

Sun, April 2, 2023 

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan authorities have taken nine officials from state-owned metals conglomerate Corporacion Venezolana de Guayana (CVG) - including from steel-maker subsidiary Sidor - into custody during corruption investigations, attorney general Tarek Saab said on Sunday.

Prosecutors began investigating irregularities at CVG and Sidor on Friday, adding to investigations into alleged corruption at state oil company PDVSA and a government agency overseeing cryptocurrency transactions, both led by Tareck El Aissami who subsequently resigned as oil minister.

Nestor Astudillo and Pedro Maldonado, the presidents of Sidor and CVG respectively, are under arrest, as well as four company vice presidents and three managers, Saab said on Twitter.

The government of Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro on March 31 appointed an oversight board in CVG, according to the country's official gazette, which was read on state television.- 

Some 42 people have been arrested as part of investigations into corruption, Saab tweeted on Saturday night, without giving more details.

Last week 21 people - including officials, businessmen and a member of the National Assembly - were charged relating to losses incurred by PDVSA when tankers left the country with cargoes that had not been paid in full, the authorities said.

(Reporting by Mayela Armas; Additional reporting by Deisy Buitrago; Writing by Oliver Griffin; Editing by Josie Kao)

WSJ: McDonald's to close offices briefly ahead of layoffs


This photo shows a logo of a McDonald's restaurant in Havertown, Pa., on April 26, 2022. A report says McDonald’s has closed its U.S. offices for a few days as the company prepares to inform employees about layoffs.

Mon, April 3, 2023 

NEW YORK (AP) — A report says McDonald’s has closed its U.S. offices for a few days as the company prepares to inform employees about layoffs.

The Wall Street Journal cited an internal email from the Chicago-based fast-food giant saying U.S. corporate staff and some employees overseas should work from home while the company notifies people of their job status.

McDonald’s did not immediately reply to emailed requests for comment. The report said McDonald’s would inform its employees this week about staffing decisions that are part of a wide restructuring of the company announced earlier.

Though the U.S. labor market remains strong, layoffs have been mounting, mainly in the technology sector, where many companies over-hired after a pandemic boom. IBM, Microsoft, Amazon, Salesforce, Facebook parent Meta, Twitter and DoorDash have all announced layoffs in recent months.

Policymakers at the Federal Reserve have forecast the unemployment rate may rise to 4.6% by the end of this year, a sizable increase historically associated with recessions.

McDonald's has more than 150,000 employees in corporate roles. About 70% of those employees are based outside the United States.

RECORD PROFITS CAN'T FIND WORKERS

The company reported its global sales rose nearly 11% in 2022, while sales in the U.S. climbed almost 6%. Total restaurant margins rose 5%. In its latest annual report, it cited difficulties in adequately staffing some of its outlets.

In January, McDonald's said its “Accelerating the Arches” program would focus on “deliveries, Drive Thru, digital and development.”

“We’re performing at a high level, but we can do even better," CEO Chris Kempczinski said in a Jan. 6 letter to employees. He said the company was divided into silos and that the approach was “outdated and self-limiting."

As the company reshapes its strategy, he said, “we will evaluate roles and staffing levels in parts of the organization and there will be difficult discussions and decisions ahead.”

Scientists Fear ‘Catastrophic’ COVID Combination With Another Virus

David Axe
Sun, April 2, 2023 

Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast

The SARS-CoV-2 virus is highly contagious but the current dominant strains are not very lethal. Its much rarer cousin in the betacoronavirus family of pathogens, MERS-CoV, is highly lethal but not very contagious. Now imagine a blend of the two—a respiratory virus with the most dangerous qualities of both. Contagious and lethal.

It’s a real risk, according to a new study from China. And it’s a strong argument for a new, more widely effective vaccine.

Different viruses from the closely related families can combine through a process called “recombination” and produce hybrids called “recombinants.” This recombination requires the viruses to share an infection mechanism. For the first time, a team of scientists in China has identified the mechanism by which SARS and MERS could combine—by entering human cells via colocated receptors. Basically, the cells’ entry points for external molecules.

If a single person ever catches SARS and MERS at the same time through neighboring receptors and the two viruses combine, we could have a whole new pandemic on our hands—one that could be far worse than the current COVID-19 pandemic.

The recombination risk is one driver of a global effort to develop new vaccines that could prevent, or reduce the severity of, infection by a variety of SARS viruses, MERS, and any hybrid of them. A universal vaccine for a whole family of viruses.

Good news: Universal vaccines are in development. Bad news: They’re still a long way from large-scale human trials—and an even longer way from regulatory approval and widespread availability. Years, perhaps.

A team led by Qiao Wang, a virologist at the Shanghai Institute of Infectious Disease and Biosecurity, part of Fudan University in Shanghai, highlighted the SARS-MERS recombination risk in a peer-reviewed study that first appeared in the journal Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy on March 15.

SARS-CoV-2 tends to favor a receptor called ACE2, while MERS-CoV tends to favor the DPP4 receptor, Wang and their coauthors explained. Our cells tend to have one or the other, not both. In the very unlikely chance someone catches both SARS and MERS at the same time, the viruses should stay safely in their separate cells.

But Wang and company identified a few cell types, in the lungs and intestines, that have both ACE2 and DPP4 receptors, thus “providing an opportunity for coinfection by both SARS-CoV-2 and MERS-CoV.” Wang and a teammate did not respond to a request for comment.

This hypothetical coinfection—SARS-CoV-2 and MERS-CoV mixing and mutating in the same cells—“may result in the emergence of recombined [betacoronavirus],” Wang and their coauthors wrote. Call it “SARS-CoV-3” or “MERS-CoV-2.”

Either way, this new virus “may bear high SARS-CoV-2-like transmissibility along with a high MERS-CoV-like case-fatality rate, which would have catastrophic repercussions,” Wang and their teammates wrote.

Did AI Just Help Us Discover a Universal COVID Vaccine?

How bad could it be? The most contagious forms of SARS-CoV-2, the XBB subvariants—a.k.a., “Kraken”—is by far the most transmissible respiratory virus anyone has ever observed. It’s not for no reason that XBB subvariants quickly outcompeted rival subvariants in order to become globally dominant in just a few weeks early this year.

But Kraken is less severe—that is, less likely to kill—than earlier forms of SARS-CoV-2. Vaccines and natural immunity help a lot, but there are also signs that the novel-coronavirus is slowly evolving toward higher transmissibility but lower severity. At its worst in 2021, COVID killed nearly 5 percent of infected persons in the worst-hit countries such as Peru and Mexico. Today, the global fatality rate is around 0.9 percent.

MERS, by contrast, spreads much more slowly. It mostly affects camels. When it infects people, it’s usually when those people are in close contact with the animals. Human-to-human transmission is extremely rare. “Only a few such transmissions have been found among family members living in the same household,” the World Health Organization noted.

In 27 small outbreaks since 2012, fewer than 900 people have died of MERS. Compare that to the 6.9 million people who have died of SARS-CoV-2 since late 2019. The problem, with MERS, is that those 900 or so deaths represent a third of infections. That is to say, MERS is at least six times more lethal, on a case-by-case basis, than SARS was at its worst.

So if a SARS-MERS recombinant inherited the former’s transmissibility and the latter’s lethality, it could quickly kill millions. That’s why Wang and their coauthors are, in their own words, “calling for the development of pan-CoV vaccine.”

Don’t panic. Epidemiologists who weren’t involved in Wang and company’s study didn’t necessarily agree with the Chinese authors’ sense of possible imminent doom. “The lifecycle of a virus is delicate and recombination between different viruses is typically uncommon,” Lihong Liu, a Columbia University COVID researcher, told The Daily Beast. “We have not seen any recombination between SARS-CoV-2 and MERS during the COVID-19 pandemic, despite the millions of SARS-CoV-2 infections worldwide. Therefore, it is expected that such an event is unlikely to occur in the future.”

Michael Letko, a Washington State University virologist, told The Daily Beast that Wang’s team is actually half-right. Yes, there’s huge risk from a possible recombinant. But not necessarily a SARS-MERS recombinant. It’s more likely the novel-coronavirus will recombine with a Russian bat virus called Khosta-2, Letko said.

Khosta-2 is even more closely related to SARS-CoV-2 than MERS is, Letko pointed out. Not only is Khosta-2 fond of the same ACE2 receptor that the novel coronavirus prefers, the two viruses also replicate roughly the same way. “The machinery the viruses use to copy their genetic material can get confused, leading to mixing and matching of the genomes,” Letko said of SARS-CoV-2 and Khosta-2. That raises the recombination risk.
Prevention plan

JANUARY 2020 CHINA RELEASED THIS GENETIC CODE FOR COVID

But exactly which cousin virus might combine with SARS-CoV-2 is beside the point. Barton Haynes, an immunologist with Duke’s Human Vaccine Institute, told The Daily Beast. There are dozens of betacoronaviruses. We should develop a vaccine that works against all of them. “If a vaccine could do all this, then one would also likely be able to protect against any … recombinant virus, as well,” Haynes said. SARS-MERS. SARS-Khosta-2. MERS-Khosta-2. Whatever.

There are around two dozen pan-coronavirus vaccine projects underway all over the world. Haynes and his colleagues at Duke have been working on one since 2020—and it could be among the first to produce a deployable vaccine. Animal testing and small-scale human trials are already underway. But if history is any guide, it could be years before the Duke vaccine or any other pan-CoV jab is ready for widespread deployment.

The wait is worth it, Haynes said. “The current goal of pan-coronavirus vaccines that are currently being tested in monkeys and humans is to make vaccines that both prevent infection by any new COVID variant that might arise, to make vaccines that will prevent any new CoV-2-like CoV outbreak that may arise from bats or other animals as well to protect against any MERS-like virus that may arise.”

That should cover all the bases, at least when it comes to betacoronaviruses including SARS-CoV-2, MERS-CoV and Khosta-2. If our luck holds and we dodge a dangerous SARS recombinant for a few more years, we just might have a universal vaccine—Duke’s or another—that could prevent mass death in the event that hybrid finally appears.

Of course, that “universal” vaccine wouldn’t be truly universal. It wouldn’t save us from RSV, monkeypox, polio or—perhaps most worryingly—bird flu. For those viruses, we need totally different jabs.

Erdogan says Putin may visit Turkey in April for power plant inauguration

WHY IS TURKEY STILL IN NATO; US AIR BASES

Russian President Putin meets with his Turkish counterpart Erdogan in Moscow

Wed, March 29, 2023 

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin may visit Turkey on April 27 for the inauguration of the country's first nuclear power reactor built by Russia's state nuclear energy company Rosatom.

"Maybe there is a possibility that Mr Putin will come on April 27, or we may connect to the inauguration ceremony online and we will take the first step in Akkuyu," Erdogan said in televised comments on private broadcaster ATV.

Turkey will load the first nuclear fuel into the first power unit of the Akkuyu nuclear power plant and officially grant it nuclear facility status on April 27, Erdogan said in an earlier announcement on Wednesday.

The Kremlin on Monday denied Turkish reports that Putin was planning to visit Turkey.


The Kremlin said on Saturday that Putin and Erdogan discussed during a phone call the successful implementation of joint strategic projects in the energy sector, including the construction of the Akkuyu nuclear power plant.

The $20 billion, 4,800 megawatt (MW) project to build four reactors in the Mediterranean town of Akkuyu will allow Turkey to join the small club of nations with civil nuclear energy.

Turkey previously announced plans to launch the first reactor at Akkuyu in 2023.

Earlier this month, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Putin over alleged war crimes in Ukraine, prompting outrage from the Kremlin. But Turkey is not a party to the Rome Statute, which created the ICC.

(Reporting by Huseyin Hayatsever; Editing by Tom Perry and Stephen Coates)

Opinion

Native Graduates Have the Right to Wear Eagle Feathers, Tribal Regalia

Chuck Hoskin Jr
Sun, April 2, 2023 

(Photo/Courtesy)

Guest Opinion. Education has always been sacred to the Cherokee people. Investing in education was one of the first and highest priorities for Cherokee Nation after the Trail of Tears. Despite the extreme hardships of that time, we quickly established schools in our new land. Within a few years, we had built the first primary schools and institutes of higher education on our reservation.

Our strong commitment to education continues today. Each year, we make substantial donations to school districts in and near our reservation, including a record $7.8 million this year, from tribal car tag revenue. We provide thousands of scholarships to Cherokee students pursuing higher education, and we invest millions in other forms of education like Career Tech and job training.

We do this because, like many Native American nations and people, educating our children is one of our highest values. When Native students complete an educational milestone, like graduating from high school or college, their families often want to celebrate and honor that achievement with a special symbol.

Every year American Indian high school students across Oklahoma, including many Cherokees, are gifted traditional regalia to be worn at graduation ceremonies. Tribal regalia, including items like eagle feathers, jewelry, beaded caps, stoles, moccasins or other symbols, are protected expressions of our cultural and religious beliefs.

For example, an eagle feather symbolizes trust, honor, strength, wisdom, power and freedom. It is a deeply revered object, especially when gifted to mark a significant personal achievement. This can be for leadership or academic accomplishment, as a sign of maturity, and to signify an important educational journey.

These traditions are safeguarded under the Oklahoma Religious Freedom Act. Most schools understand and respect the cultural and legal rights of Native students. Unfortunately, we still see incidents of schools in Oklahoma refusing to allow them.

Cherokee Nation firmly stands behind the rights of Native American students to wear tribal regalia and items of religious or cultural significance during graduation ceremonies. Public schools in Oklahoma must create a safe and inclusive environment where Native American students can freely express their cultural identity without fear of discrimination or punishment. We are proud of our youth, and Cherokees must have the spiritual freedom to show who they are at this important point in their lives.

Cherokee Nation is committed to vigorously defending the rights of Cherokee students, and we call upon all public schools in Oklahoma to clearly state that tribal regalia is allowed for Native American students during graduation ceremonies.

Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin, Jr.

In this, we stand united with other tribes in Oklahoma. The Inter-Tribal Council, representing the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee and Seminole Nations, passed a resolution calling on public school districts to protect students’ right to wear regalia or other culturally significant items during graduation ceremonies.

Receiving an eagle feather or other tribal regalia for a graduation ceremony can be as significant as earning the diploma itself. These practices honor the graduate and their family, community and tribe. We appreciate the work by our public school districts to ensure that these events are conducted in a safe and respectful manner.

Chuck Hoskin, Jr. is the principal chief of the Cherokee Nation.