Luna-25: Russia starts processing data from moon lander hoping to make history

Russia is aiming to become the first country to carry out a soft landing on the lunar south pole - a region thought to hold pockets of water ice.


Sunday 13 August 2023

A Soyuz rocket carrying the moon lander Luna-25 took off from the Vostochny cosmodrome on Friday. 

Russian experts monitoring their moon-bound unmanned spacecraft Luna-25 have switched on its scientific equipment and started processing the first data.

Russia is aiming to become the first country to carry out a soft landing on the lunar south pole - a region thought to hold pockets of water ice.

Space agency Roscosmos said in a statement on Sunday: "Luna-25 continues its flight to the Earth's natural satellite - all systems of the automatic station are working properly, communication with it is stable, the energy balance is positive.

"The first measurement data on the flight to the moon has been obtained, and the project's scientific team has begun
processing it."

Image:Specialists took part in preparations ahead of the launch

On Friday, Moscow launched the mission - its first moon-landing craft in 47 years - and is racing against India which blasted its lunar lander Chandrayaan-3 into space last month.


Luna-25, which is the size of a small car, took off on board a Soyuz rocket from the Vostochny cosmodrome in the far eastern Amur region, over 3,000 miles east of Moscow.

It is expected to touch down on the moon on 21 August.

Virgin Galactic takes first tourists to edge of space - as British ex-Olympian calls flight 'most exciting day of my life'

Related Topics:Space

Its mission is to collect samples of rock and dust to get an understanding of the environment for a potential base.

The lander plans to operate for a year on the south pole, where scientists at NASA and other space agencies have in recent years detected traces of water ice in the region's shadowed craters.

Rough terrain makes a landing there difficult.

But the prize of discovering water ice could be historic - as it may be used for fuel and oxygen, as well as for drinking water.

Read more on Sky News:

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Why billionaires are drawn to 'extreme tourism'

US astronaut Neil Armstrong found fame in 1969 for being the first person to walk on the moon.

But the Soviet Union's Luna-2 mission was the first spacecraft to reach the planet's surface in 1959, and the Luna-9 mission in 1966 was the first to make a soft landing there.

Friday's launch marks Russia's first lunar mission since 1976, when it was part of the USSR.

Martian days are growing shorter, but we don’t know why

By Joshua Hawkins
Published Aug 13th, 2023 

Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech

New data gathered from NASA’s Insight Lander has revealed that Martian days are getting shorter every year. While the length of days is only getting shorter by a series of milliseconds, those small changes mean the planet is rotating faster and faster each year, and researchers aren’t sure exactly why.

InSight was retired last December and captured a good deal of data about the Red Planet during its operations. Looking through that data, NASA has discovered some intriguing information – Mars rotations are growing faster, accelerating by around four milliarcseconds per year.

While that isn’t a huge change, any rotation speed change in a planet could be serious, especially as those changes can add up over hundreds and even thousands of years. Right now, Martian days have a length of 24 hours and 37 minutes. These days are often referred to as “sols” and are used when describing how long spacecraft have been orbiting or watching the planet.

Image source: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Learning that the speed at which sols pass on Mars is increasing has left scientists baffled, because they just aren’t sure what’s causing the increase. As for the data itself, being able to look back at everything InSight learned before its retirement is great, as we can always learn more about the details that might not have stood out at the time, especially as we capture more data about Mars with Curiosity and Perseverance – two rover-based missions still exploring the Red Planet.

NASA has a plan to send a manned mission to Mars in the 2030s, though that does rely on some other factors to make it possible – including the creation of a nuclear-powered rocket engine. However, learning exactly why the length of days is growing shorter on Mars could be important to understanding more about the planet’s history, as well as its future.

A paper with full details is available in the journal Nature.

Kansas newspaper co-owner, 98, dies after cops raid home with ‘illegal’ search warrant; cops seize paper’s computers, phones, equipment

Evan Rosen, New York Daily News
Sun, August 13, 2023 

A small-town Kansas newspaper said its 98-year-old co-owner died Saturday after local police raided her home, seized her computer and other equipment, and separately grabbed phones, computers and other material from the paper’s staff.

National press organizations have condemned the raids on the offices, staff and owners of the Marion County Record, a 154-year-old weekly paper serving Marion, Kan. and its namesake county, home to 12,000 people.

“We are shocked and outraged by this brazen violation of press freedom,” said a statement by Eileen O’Reilly, president of the National Press Club, and Gil Klein, president of the club’s Journalism Institute.

“A law enforcement raid of a newspaper office is deeply upsetting anywhere in the world,” the statement said. “It is especially concerning in the United States, where we have strong and well-established legal protections guaranteeing the freedom of the press.”

Joan Meyer, 98, who co-owned the newspaper with her son Eric, “collapsed Saturday afternoon and died at her home,” after becoming “stressed beyond her limits and overwhelmed by hours of shock and grief after illegal raids,” the newspaper reported.

The Record added that Meyer was “otherwise in good health for her age.”

During their raid on Meyer’s home Friday, police seized her computer and a router used by her Amazon Alexa personal assistant device, the newspaper said. Additionally, the paper reported, cops copied bank statements belonging to her son.

At the same time they raided Meyer’s home, officers raided the newspaper’s office in Marion, the paper reported. Police seized journalists’ personal phones and computers and other equipment and material from the newspaper office, the Record said.

Officers also raided the home of Marion’s vice mayor, Ruth Herbel, 80, and seized her mobile phone and computer, the newspaper said.

The search warrant used by authorities was signed by a local judge, Laura Viar, who ordered the seizure of equipment and information used in “the identity theft of Kari Newell,” a local restaurant owner.

Last week, the newspaper reported that Newell had forced their journalists out of a public forum at her restaurant with U.S. Rep. Jake LaTurner. LaTurner’s staff was apologetic, said a story in the Kansas Reflector, a news website.

But Newell was angry with the newspaper’s report on the situation, and said so on her Facebook page. “Journalists have become the dirty politicians of today, twisting narrative for bias agendas, full of muddied half-truths,” Newell said. “We rarely get facts that aren’t baited with misleading insinuations.”

Afterwards, an anonymous source contacted the paper and provided evidence that Newell had lost her license after a DUI in 2008, and had illegally operated her vehicle afterward. Local news reports said the DUI could affect Newell’s wish to obtain a liquor license for her business.

The Record checked the tip, but didn’t run a story. Eric Meyer said he also alerted local police to the situation. “We thought we were being set up,” Meyer told the Reflector.

Meyer accused authorities of “Gestapo tactics.”

The National Newspaper Association called on officials in Kansas to “immediately return any property seized by law enforcement so the newspaper can proceed with its work.”

But the Marion Police Department defended the raids in a Facebook post. “When the rest of the story is available to the public, the judicial system that is being questioned will be vindicated,” said the post. The department’s webpage says its staff includes Chief Gideon Cody and four full-time officers.

Melissa Underwood, the communications director of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, confirmed that an investigation into the matter has been launched

CPJ deeply disturbed by police raid on Kansas newspaper
August 12, 2023 

The Committee to Protect Journalists said on Saturday that it was deeply troubled by Friday’s police raid on a local U.S. newspaper office. Media organizations reported that police officers in Marion County, Kansas, took computers and phones — including personal cell phones — from the Marion County Record newspaper and the homes of its personnel.

Reports said that a search warrant issued by a district court magistrate gave police authority to search for devices that were used to access the Kansas Department of Revenue records and records relating to a local restaurant owner.

“The raid by police on the Marion County Record is deeply disturbing,” said CPJ President Jodie Ginsberg. “Local news providers are essential in holding power to account — and they must be able to report freely, without fear of authorities’ overreach.”

U.S. federal law provides protections against searching and seizing materials from journalists, with requests for material usually going through a subpoena process.

“This kind of action by police – which we sadly see with growing frequency worldwide – has a chilling effect on journalism and on democracy more broadly,” said Ginsberg. “The actions of the police and the judiciary in this case must be thoroughly and swiftly investigated.”

A Marion County Record report said the raids contributed to the death of the paper’s co-owner, 98-year old Joan Meyer, whom it said collapsed and died on Saturday afternoon following the police search of her home.

Cops Raid Newspaper After Reporters Start Looking Into Alleged Misconduct From Local Business Owner, Police Chief

The Marion County Record said it plans to file a federal lawsuit to 'make sure no other news organization is ever exposed to the Gestapo tactics we witnessed'

Published 08/12/23 

Yelena Dzhanova

Police in Kansas raided a local newspaper on Friday after its reporters got a tip about sensitive information concerning a local business owner, according to a report from the Kansas Reflector.

In a full-force showing Friday morning, the Marion Police Department, along with the city’s two sheriff’s deputies, showed up at the office of the Marion County Record, a family-owned weekly newspaper that was first published in 1869 and focuses on the central Kansas county of less than 12,000 people.

They took “everything we have,” owner and publisher Eric Meyer said, according to the Reflector.

They also raided Meyer’s home and seized his computers and various records and documentation. Police told Meyer that the electronics would be sent for examination to a lab.

"It’s going to have a chilling effect on us even tackling issues," Meyer told the Reflector. "A chilling effect on people giving us information."

When police raided Meyer's home, they also confiscated his 98-year-old mother's Alexa smart speaker, which she used to stream TV shows and ask for help, the Marion County Record reported in its own account of the raid.

When asked by The Messenger, police chief Gideon Cody declined to give a specific reason for the raid or reveal what investigation the raid was connected to, and instead referred to the Federal Privacy Protection Act, highlighting that the Act can be used when "there is reason to believe a journalist is taking part in the underlying wrongdoing."

The raid comes after reporters at the Marion County Record got a tip about sensitive information related to restaurant owner Kari Newell.

 

The Marion County Record said it plans to file a federal lawsuit to 'make sure no other news organization is ever exposed to the Gestapo tactics we witnessed'

Douglas Sacha/Getty Images

The Peabody Gazette-Bulletin, a sister publication of the Marion County Record, reported last week that Newell had ejected the outlet’s staff from a public forum with U.S. Rep. Jake LaTurner, who represents the second congressional district in Kansas. LaTurner did not immediately return The Messenger’s request for comment.

In a conversation with Marisa Kabas for her Substack, The Handbasket, Meyer said he has not yet heard from LaTurner's office.

A confidential source shared with the Marion County Record that Newell had at one point received a DUI and continued to drive without a valid license. The newspaper never published the information out of suspicion that they "were being set up," Meyer said, according to the Reflector.


Instead, Meyer contacted the police and told them what he found. When the police notified Newell, she complained, falsely saying the Marion County Record disseminated sensitive documents.

The Reflector reported that Newell had admitted that she got a DUI, saying she "foolishly" received one in 2008. She also said she operated a vehicle without a valid license "out of necessity."

She made this confession on her personal Facebook account using a changed name, according to the Reflector.

On that same Facebook account, Newell bashed journalists.

"Journalists have become the dirty politicians of today, twisting narrative for bias agendas, full of muddied half-truths,” she wrote, according to the Reflector. “We rarely get facts that aren’t baited with misleading insinuations.”

The message of the raid, in Meyer’s view, was to "mind your own business or we’re going to step on you," he told the Reflector.

Meyer told The Handbasket that the raid comes just weeks after the Marion County Record also began looking into misconduct allegations by Gideon Cody, the new chief of the Marion Police Department.


In The Handbasket, Meyer said one of the Marion County Record reporters has for weeks been investigating claims from multiple former coworkers of Cody, who allegedly shared that he was rumored to be demoted at his previous job over charges related to sexual misconduct.

When The Messenger reached Cody for comment, he declined to give details on the raid, citing a "criminal investigation."

He also did not address the allegations about him Meyer said his newspaper had been investigating. Additionally, he did not answer The Messenger's specific question asking whether the allegations had anything to do with why the raid occurred.

But Cody cited the Privacy Protection Act of 1980 in his response to The Messenger, saying "in generalities," journalists are protected from newsroom raids by law enforcement officials.

"It is true that in most cases, it requires police to use subpoenas, rather than search warrants, to search the premises of journalists unless they themselves are suspects in the offense that is the subject of the search," he said.

One of the circumstances in which it might be appropriate to raid a newsroom, Cody told The Messenger, is "when there is reason to believe the journalist is taking part in the underlying wrongdoing."

Cody did not specify whether he believes Meyer or the newsroom committed wrongdoing.

"The Marion Kansas Police Department believes it is the fundamental duty of the police is to ensure the safety, security, and well-being of all members of the public," he said. "This commitment must remain steadfast and unbiased, unaffected by political or media influences, in order to uphold the principles of justice, equal protection, and the rule of law for everyone in the community."

Meyer told The Handbasket that the files for Cody's investigation were on the computers seized by Marion police.

He added that he wasn't planning to publish anything on Cody just yet.

"I wouldn't feel comfortable printing individual allegations, but it is true that we were investigating him and we had decided not to run anything at this point," Meyer told The Handbasket. "We're not making any allegations against him, but we had investigated allegations."

The Marion County Record has plans to file a federal lawsuit, according to the article posted on its website.

"Our first priority is to be able to publish next week," Meyer said in the article. "But we also want to make sure no other news organization is ever exposed to the Gestapo tactics we witnessed today. We will be seeking the maximum sanctions possible under law."

Since the raid, Meyer said the newspaper has received an outpouring of support. Meyer told The Handbasket that the paper saw an "incredible swelling of people buying subscriptions."

Foundations seek to advance AI for good – and also protect world from threats

August 13, 2023

AP – While technology experts sound the alarm on the pace of artificial intelligence (AI) development, philanthropists – including long-established foundations and tech billionaires – have been responding with an uptick in grants.

Much of the philanthropy is focused on what is known as technology for good or ethical AI, which explores how to solve or mitigate the harmful effects of artificial-intelligence systems.

Some scientists believe AI can be used to predict climate disasters and discover new drugs to save lives.

Others are warning that the large language models could soon upend white-collar professions, fuel misinformation, and threaten national security.

What philanthropy can do to influence the trajectory of AI is starting to emerge.

Billionaires who earned their fortunes in technology are more likely to support projects and institutions that emphasise the positive outcomes of AI, while foundations not endowed with tech money have tended to focus more on AI’s dangers.

For example, former Google Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Eric Schmidt and wife, Wendy Schmidt, have committed hundreds of millions of dollars to AI grant making programmes housed at Schmidt Futures to accelerate the next global scientific revolution.

In addition to committing USD125 million to advance research into AI, last year the philanthropic venture announced a USD148 million program to help postdoctoral fellows apply AI to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

Also in the AI enthusiast camp is the Patrick McGovern Foundation, named after the late billionaire who founded the International Data Group and one of a few philanthropies that has made AI and data science an explicit grantmaking priority.

In 2021, the foundation committed USD40 million to help non-profits use AI and data to advance their work to protect the planet, foster economic prosperity, ensure healthy communities, according to a news release from the foundation. McGovern also has an internal team of AI experts who work to help nonprofits use the technology to improve their programs.

“I am an incredible optimist about how these tools are going to improve our capacity to deliver on human welfare,” said President of Patrick J McGovern Foundation Vilas Dhar.

“What I think philanthropy needs to do, and civil society writ large, is to make sure we realise that promise and opportunity – to make sure these technologies don’t merely become one more profit-making sector of our economy but rather are invested in furthering human equity.”

Salesforce is also interested in helping non-profits use AI. The software company announced last month that it will award USD2 million to education, workforce, and climate organisations to advance the equitable and ethical use of trusted AI.

Billionaire entrepreneur and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman is another big donor who believes AI can improve humanity and has funded research centres at Stanford University and the University of Toronto to achieve that goal.

He is betting AI can positively transform areas like health care (giving everyone a medical assistant) and education (giving everyone a tutor), he told the New York Times in May. The enthusiasm for AI solutions among tech billionaires is not uniform, however. EBay founder Pierre Omidyar has taken a mixed approach through his Omidyar Network, which is making grants to non-profits using the technology for scientific innovation as well as those trying to protect data privacy and advocate for regulation.

“One of the things that we’re trying really hard to think about is how do you have good AI regulation that is both sensitive to the type of innovation that needs to happen in this space but also sensitive to the public accountability systems,” said Managing Director Anamitra Deb at the Omidyar Network.

Grantmakers that hold a more skeptical or negative perspective on AI are also not a uniform group; however, they tend to be foundations unaffiliated with the tech industry.

The Ford, MacArthur, and Rockefeller foundations number among several grantmakers funding nonprofits examining the harmful effects of AI.

For example, computer scientists Timnit Gebru and Joy Buolamwini, who conducted pivotal research on racial and gender bias from facial-recognition tools – which persuaded Amazon, IBM, and other companies to pull back on the technology in 2020 – have received sizable grants from them and other big, established foundations.

Gebru launched the Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research Institute in 2021 to research AI’s harmful effects on marginalised groups free from Big Tech’s pervasive influence.

The institute raised USD3.7 million in initial funding from the MacArthur Foundation, Ford Foundation, Kapor Center, Open Society Foundations, and the Rockefeller Foundation. The Ford, MacArthur, and Open Society foundations are financial supporters of the Chronicle.

Buolamwini is continuing research on and advocacy against artificial-intelligence and facial-recognition technology through her Al gorithmic Justice League, which also received at least USD1.9 million in support from the Ford, MacArthur, and Rockefeller foundations as well as from the Alfred P Sloan and Mozilla foundations. – Kay Dervishi

Refugees overqualified and underpaid in Germany

A new study has found that refugees in Germany have overall integrated well into the workforce. But many are overqualified for the jobs that they do.

Ben Knight | Thomas Kohlmann
08/12/2023

Obada Hijjo has not had an easy time since he arrived in Germany four years ago. Trained as a policeman in Turkey, the 30-year-old Palestinian initially worked for the police in the West Bank. But, when a case he was involved resulted in a threat to his life, he and his wife were forced to leave the country. Now he is stranded in Germany with "tolerated status" as a refugee , which means that he doesn't have official residency but is allowed to stay.

Despite his police training and a degree in political science and public administration, also from Turkey, Hijjo works as a taxi driver in Berlin. Germany lacks workers in both his areas of expertise, but the only other job Hijjo has had in his four years in the country is as a package deliveryman.

A trained police officer with a degree in politics, Hijjo is working as a taxi driver in BerlinImage: Ben Knight/DW

He can't work as a police officer, because he's not a German citizen, but two months ago, after an extended battle with German bureaucracy, he finally managed to get his political science degree recognized. "The German authority confirmed that I have done a degree in this area in a foreign country," he told DW. "Now I have an appointment at the job center at the end of the month. I'd like to be a public administration clerk."

It should have only taken nine months to get this recognition confirmed, Hijjo said, "but I kept having to get something else from the university. They kept saying, 'get this document, get that document, no, not that one, this one.' They didn't understand that I'm Palestinian, not Turkish. How am I supposed to go to Turkey? I only have a tolerated status, so I can't leave Germany. I got a bit of a headache with the authorities."

That experience is something Sanaa Abukalam can relate to. Having fled the war in Syria five years ago, she found herself in Dresden, eastern Germany, where she was soon confronted with everyday racism, including being berated by people on the streets. "A woman with a headscarf has so many problems," she told DW. "Racism here is such a problem."

Abukalam spent several years learning German, but she was unable to get her qualifications in alternative medicine recognized in Germany, and was grateful when she eventually found work in a shoe shop earlier this year. "It all took such a long time," she said. Her dream, she said, is to work as a social worker helping people like her.

Sanaa Abukalam has faced racism on the streets, and can't find a job in her chosen field

Unused potential

Such experiences are common among the hundreds of thousands of people who have sought asylum in Germany in the past few years. A recent study by the government-funded Institute for Employment Research (IAB), found that 41% of refugees who had been in Germany for six years said they were employed below the level they had before the arrived. The figure is even higher for Ukrainian refugees, more than half are working in jobs for which they're overqualified, the IAB found.

It seems clear that there's a particular mismatch between qualification and job among refugees, according to IAB researcher and co-author of the study Philipp Jaschke. "Part of it is down to the fact that a lot of jobs can be carried out in other countries without a formal job qualification," he told DW. "But there are a lot of jobs which you need a three-year qualification for in Germany."

Another reason is that refugees often don't have the language skills when they arrive in a foreign country. "Compared to other groups of migrants, refugees have often fled very spontaneously, because they've fled war, forced conscription and persecution, and so on," Jaschke said. "That means they're often very ill-prepared for the country they've come to."

How much immigration does Germany need? 02:14

Successful integration ...

Nevertheless, Herbert Brücker, the IAB's head of research, was keen to underline that the overall employment rates among refugees are very positive. "We thought in 2015: If we reach an employment rate of 50% after five or six years, we will be very good. And we were at 54% in 2021, despite the COVID-19 pandemic. So we have exceeded expectations," Brücker told DW.

And the longer refugees have been in Germany, the more they are employed: "Among people who have been here for seven or eight years, we have an employment rate of 62%. That's pretty good. That's only about ten, twelve percentage points less than in the German population."

The IAB has regularly assessed the integration of immigrants into the German labor market since 2016, and the current study was based on the self-reported data of asylum-seekers who arrived in Germany between 2013 and 2019. The total sample was 10,111 adults who were interviewed at least once and up to six times, including 8,799 working-age refugees (ages 18 to 64) who have arrived since 2013.

... but lower earnings

Sixty-five percent of employed refugees who have been in Germany for six years worked full-time in 2021. The median gross monthly wage of full-time employed refugees increased from €1,660 ($1,820) in the first two years after arrival in Germany to €2,037 in the sixth year.

Refugees tend to be significantly younger than the average age of German employees, and those starting their working life earn less than the more experienced.

"Among 18-to-25-year-olds, the earnings of refugees are 75% of those of their colleagues of the same age in Germany. The gap is not that large, and it will also level out over time. But there is still a lot of room for improvement," Brücker said.

Edited by: Rina Goldenberg

School choice debate not over as Nevada’s governor has a plan to fund private school scholarships



Newly sworn in Gov. Joe Lombardo speaks during his inauguration ceremony in the Carson City Community Center in Carson City, Nev., on Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2023. Lombardo is requesting that the state’s interim finance committee allocate $3.2 million in unallocated federal COVID-19 relief funds to maintain existing private school scholarships that his office says will soon run out.

Jason Bean/The Reno Gazette-Journal 

August 12, 2023

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo has what he calls a short-term plan to shore up a private school scholarship program, after Democratic legislators this week rejected a proposal that involved using unallocated federal money.

The Republican governor announced late Friday that the AAA Scholarship Foundation — a private scholarship organization at the center of Nevada’s school choice debate — has volunteered to use reserve funds to ensure that no students who qualify under state law lose access to scholarships this year. He said he was grateful to the organization.

“However, unless legislative Democrats work with us on a long-term solution, children will be forced out of their schools and back into the very schools that failed to meet their unique educational needs,” he said.

The state’s Interim Finance Committee voted along party lines Wednesday, with Democrats opposing the governor’s previous proposal to use $3.2 million in federal coronavirus relief funds to maintain existing scholarships. The decision at the close of a marathon 12-hour hearing was another setback in Lombardo’s efforts to make school choice a priority in the state’s increasingly rare split-party government.


Nevada legislators reject use of federal coronavirus funds for private school scholarships

School choice generally refers to taxpayer-funded programs that pay for or expand access to other educational options including private or charter schools, home-schooling or hybrid models, though it can take many forms.

The debate over it has amplified divisions between Nevada’s relatively moderate Republican governor and the Democratic-controlled Legislature — echoing similar discord in statehouses around the country.

Nevada ranks toward the bottom of national rankings in per-pupil funding. Urban and rural schools face teacher shortages, underfunding, aging infrastructure and overcrowded classrooms. Most teacher unions and Democrats oppose school choice.

Proponents of school choice say it gives students more options, especially for those who don’t benefit from traditional public schools. Democratic lawmakers contend that using public funds for private schools will gut already resource-strapped public schools.

Lombardo originally wanted to expand eligibility and provide an additional $50 million for the state’s Opportunity Scholarship program, passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature in 2015. The program allows businesses to receive tax credits on donations that go toward the private and religious school tuitions of mostly low-income students.

To get a scholarship for the upcoming school year, the governor’s office said eligible parents have to apply to the AAA Scholarship Foundation directly. The deadline is Sept. 11.

Leading Democratic legislators have argued that reserve funding within the Opportunity Scholarship program should be adequate to cover all currently enrolled students. They described the program as broken, noting that one scholarship-granting organization out of six obtained an outsized share of funding on a first-served basis.

Iran to use $6 billion in unfrozen funds to purchase commodities exempted from US sanctions: Central bank head

Funds unfrozen under Iran, US deal involving prisoner swap

Anadolu staff |13.08.2023 - 


TEHRAN

Iran's top banker announced Saturday that Iranian funds frozen in South Korea have been released following a prisoner swap deal with Washington.

Mohammad Reza Farzin, the head of the Central Bank of Iran, said in a social media post that the released amount will be deposited to Iranian bank accounts in Qatar.

He hastened to add that the funds will be used for purchasing commodities that are exempted from US sanctions.

Iran's Foreign Ministry confirmed Thursday a prisoner exchange deal with the US, ending two years of negotiations, with each side releasing five prisoners.

A statement noted that Tehran received a "necessary guarantee" for Washington's "commitment in this regard," referring to the release of around $10 billion in funds blocked in South Korea and Iraq.

Iran's state media cited officials who said the American prisoners will be freed from Evin Prison "within the framework of an agreement mediated by a third country" and only after the funds are transferred to Iranian bank accounts in Qatar.

Farzin said the country had nearly $7 billion stacked in South Korean banks in the Korean currency, won, but due to the devaluation of the currency in recent years, the amount tumbled to $6 billion.

He said a third party, in a veiled reference to Qatar, has agreed to change the funds from won to euro and deposit them into six Iranian banks in Qatar.

Pertinently, Qatar and Oman played a key role in facilitating the prisoner swap agreement as well as the unblocking of Iranian funds in South Korea and Iraq.

The White House said Friday there would be restrictions on how Iran intends to use the funds, with spokesman John Kirby saying the US would have "full visibility" where they are directed and used.

The deal came less than one week after the Iranian parliament approved a bill to refer the case of frozen funds in Seoul for arbitration after President Ebrahim Raisi wrote a letter to speaker Baqer Qalibaf.

Kashmiris demand implementation of UN resolution

by News desk
August 13, 2023
in Pakistan


Secretary General of World Kashmir Awareness Forum (WKAF), Dr Ghulam Nabi Fai, has said that Kashmiris demand the implementation of the UN resolution of August 13, 1948 that acknowledged their right to self-determination. According to Kashmir media service, Dr Ghulam Nabi Fai in a statement issued in Washington said that Kashmiris in Jammu and Kashmir, the US and worldwide will observe the 75th anniversary of the unimplemented UN Commission for India and Pakistan (UNCIP) resolution of August 13, 1948.

He said, that resolution states that ‘the Government of India and the Government of Pakistan reaffirm their wish that the future status of the state of Jammu and Kashmir shall be determined in accordance with the will of the people.’ He said, there was much in the resolution that was controversial between India and Pakistan but the proposal of a plebiscite was not.
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“That is clear from the statement made on January 28, 1948 by Ambassador Fernand van Langenhove of Belgium as the President of the Security Council. He said that ‘the documents at our disposal show agreement between the parties on the following points: the plebiscite must be conducted under conditions which will ensure complete impartiality; and the plebiscite will therefore be held under the aegis of the United Nations,” he added.

Dr Fai reminded that the US, the UK, and France have traditionally been committed supporters of the plebiscite agreement as the only way to resolve the Kashmir dispute. They sponsored all of the Security Council resolutions which called for a plebiscite. Their commitment was indicated by a personal appeal made by America’s President Harry Truman and Britain’s Prime Minister Clement Atlee that differences over demilitarization be submitted to arbitration by the Plebiscite Administrator, a distinguished American war hero: Admiral Chester Nimitz.—APP

Native Hawaiians organize aid for Maui fire victims as government lags

By Reis Thebault
Published August 12, 2023

LAHAINA, Hawaii — The boats kept coming. One by one, cruisers and catamarans eased toward the beach in Kahana, a small and tightknit neighborhood just north of Maui’s hardest-hit areas.

Each one was laden with supplies: generators, propane tanks, trash bags full of clothing and ready-to-eat meals. And each one was greeted by two dozen people, the first among them wading waist-deep into the ocean to retrieve provisions from the boat and pass them down the chain, which wound its way to shore.

Hawaii utility faces scrutiny for not cutting power to reduce fire risks

The entire operation buzzed with urgent efficiency. But this was not the National Guard, nor the Federal Emergency Management Agency, nor state or local government. This was scores of residents, led mostly by Native Hawaiians, who had battled immense grief and unreliable communications to coordinate a large-scale disaster relief effort serving everyone in need after Tuesday’s ruinous Maui fire.

And this, a parade of boats that brought desperate locals thousands of pounds of supplies, was one of many.

“There’s no government agency helping us — this is it,” said Jareth Lumlung, a Native Hawaiian who helped arrange the de facto donation hub. “This is our home, our community.”

Local residents gather to distribute supplies to those in need after the Maui fire in the Kahana community of Hawaii on Friday. (Mengshin Lin for The Washington Post)


Wildfires across Hawaii have killed more than 50 people, displaced hundreds of families and trapped thousands of tourists. These maps show where the wildfires are burning. As blazes continue, follow live updates.


In the days since the ferocious wildfire decimated whole swaths of Maui, including the historic west island town of Lahaina, those who live here have said they’ve received little help from the county and state, small entities that are struggling to respond to an unprecedented calamity.

For people whose cultural traditions have been threatened by American colonization and the state’s embrace of tourism and development, government help was never expected. Instead, the community has relied on itself.

Many, Native Hawaiians in particular, see the absence of visible official support as a continuation of long-standing frustrations and pain, which began with the destructive arrival of Europeans and lives on in struggles over water rights.

The displacement of Native Hawaiians is a particularly acute concern now, as much of the island has been targeted for gentrification, driving up the costs of living and forcing many Native Hawaiians to move to mainland cities like Las Vegas.

After five hours in ocean, Maui fire survivor is ‘blessed to be alive’

Government officials have said they were focused on putting out the flames, housing and feeding survivors in evacuation centers outside the burn zone, protecting damaged areas, clearing roads in and around the town, and helping to restore essential utilities. Some of the aid is out of reach of survivors, however, because they lack transportation or working phones to alert them about services. In Lahaina, the private efforts have been more visible, survivors said.

Gov. Josh Green (D) estimated that nearly all of Lahaina had been destroyed. But in the Kahana neighborhood, the town’s spirit remained completely alive.

“If you take away all Hawaiians, there’ll be no more Hawaii,” Lumlung said. “It’ll be just a place. This is what it’s all about right here. We’re all raised the same way; this is something that’s just naturally instilled. You don’t have to be asked to do these things.”

Residents gather at Napili Plaza in Lahaina, Hawaii, to connect to Starlink satellites Friday. (Mengshin Lin for The Washington Post)

The supply boats began arriving Wednesday, as first responders were still battling the blaze and recovering bodies amid burned-out homes and businesses. Two days later, they hadn’t slowed. On Friday, they began arriving early, and volunteers had tents set up to sort the goods: a pile of men’s pants here, a pyramid of diapers there and vast mounds of bottled water.

“We lost everything. We lost our town,” said Jerica Naki, whose home in Lahaina was destroyed. “That’s why we’re here.”

On this day, the volunteer boats largely came from neighboring islands, Oahu and Molokai, northwest of Maui in the Hawaiian archipelago, traveling far on choppy seas. Naki was helping sort donations and she described an emotional whirlwind, from escaping with nothing to seeing a staggering amount of volunteer support for those who have been displaced like her.

These maps show where wildfires are burning in Hawaii

“A lot of us are born and raised here,” Naki said, looking around as the chain of volunteers hauled in boxes of tinned sausage. “There’s a lot of pride in Lahaina, so it hurts, a lot. But this is all we have here now, each other, and we’re making do.”

Local residents divide rations of gasoline near where a boat full of supplies was offloaded in the Kahana area of Hawaii on Friday. (Mengshin Lin for The Washington Post)

As the response has worn on, the greatest needs have shifted. There is now plenty of nonperishable food and bottled water. Generators, fuel and Starlink satellite internet systems would be most useful, volunteers say.

Sheryl Nakanelua knew instinctively where she needed to go when she fled her Lahaina home as flames spread. She made her way to Kahana and set up a tent across from Lumlung’s house, where she’ll stay until her family is let back into her subdivision, one of the few that was spared.

“This is our family place, it’s home,” she said of the Kahana neighborhood. “This is the best part to be at. It’s what’s keeping us positive.”

Other such spots have popped up. Napili Plaza, once a destination for groceries, ribs and tattoos, is now a donation drop-off center. And some 100 cars lined up for free gas near the town’s former railroad station. Coordinating the boats and other donation sites is a massive task that involves maddening games of phone tag in a place largely without cell service and requires a relentless dedication and extensive Rolodex.

Residents like Zane Schweitzer have both. Schweitzer, whose family has lived around Lahaina for generations, has spent nearly every hour of the last 48 working his walkie-talkie and phone, frantically arranging aid from around Maui, Hawaii and the mainland. Working with the Oahu-based youth nonprofit Na Kama Kai, he helped coordinate one of Friday’s largest deliveries.

Officials said most of Lahaina, the historic town in West Maui, was destroyed when hurricane winds pushed fires to the coast. (Mengshin Lin for The Washington Post)

On the south side of Lahaina, in Olowalu, Eddy and Sam Garcia are transforming their groundbreaking sustainable farm into a shelter for those who have lost their homes. The married couple, who themselves have lost farmland and fruit crops worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, are setting up temporary housing, a massive solar power system and a satellite internet connection that they’ll open to anyone who needs it.

“In the immediate moment, people need shelter, they need food, they need water, they need a place to get on the internet so they can look for their loved ones,” said Eddy Garcia, who grew up in Lahaina. “We’re shifting all of our attention to trying to feed and house our neighbors.”

The Olowalu farm is uniquely well prepared to handle this sort of disaster. Run by the Garcias’ nonprofit, Regenerative Education Centers, it was already operating off the grid, with its own power, plumbing and food. The nonprofit has launched a fundraiser to help pay for the fire effort, which will continue as long as there’s a need.

How the Maui fires compare with some of the deadliest U.S. wildfires

The property, even after being raked by the fire’s severe winds, is verdant and shaded by tall mango trees. On Friday, volunteers and staff readied the farm to fill any needs. They butchered and smoked a wild pig, set up new solar panels and scoured the internet for portable toilets. Eddy Garcia whirred with adrenaline, his satellite-connected cellphone ringing every few minutes with someone offering help.

For locals like him, helping his neighbors is not only about their survival, but about preserving the island’s identity and keeping it livable for those whose families have been here for generations.

“It’s not about these giant hotels on the beach and all the big companies, but trying to take care of local people,” he said. “This is not a visitor’s destination spot, this is the Kingdom of Hawaii. That hit the heart of it in Lahaina. It hurts to even talk about it.”

His phone rang again and he stood up to leave.

“I’m like a ball of rubber bands right now,” he said, “and the only thing keeping me going is I got to organize these things.”

More on the raging Hawaii wildfires

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Emergency response questioned as Hawaii residents survey wildfire ruins


What we know about the cause of the Maui wildfires


These maps show where wildfires are burning in Hawaii


Death toll from Maui wildfires rises to 89 as officials struggle to identif...


How the fire devastated West Maui, hour by hour


Hawaii utility faces scrutiny for not cutting power to reduce fire risks


Maui fires not just due to climate change but a ‘compound disaster’


Native Hawaiians organize aid for Maui fire victims as government lags


See the historic sites of Lahaina before and after the Maui wildfires


After 5 hours in ocean, Maui fire survivor feels ‘blessed to be alive’


Photos: The scene as deadly wildfires devastate parts of Hawaii


Hawaii officials warn final count will take time as death toll in Maui reac...


How the Maui fires compare with some of the deadliest U.S. wildfires


Cascading environmental impacts feared from ‘wasteland’ of Maui fires
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It's Time to Cancel the Mountain Valley Pipeline—Just Ask the People of Maui


Davilynn Severson and Hano Ganer look for belongings through the ashes of their family's home in the aftermath of a wildfire in Lahaina, western Maui, Hawaii on August 11, 2023.
(Photo: Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images)

After Hawaii saw the worst disaster in its history and people perished in a massive climate change-driven wildfire, the 4th Circuit felt they had no other choice but to dismiss lawsuits designed to protect our environment.


MAURY JOHNSON
Aug 12, 2023Common Dreams

In late 2014, hundreds of landowners were thrust into a nearly decadelong fight against a conglomerate of megacorporations who wanted to build two fracked gas pipelines from the fracking fields of northern West Virginia across Virginia and ultimately end in North Carolina. The Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) was being proposed by Dominion and Duke Energy, two of the nation’s largest fossil fuel energy companies. This unnecessary pipeline was proposed to cross central West Virginia into the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. It would then split in central Virginia, with one of its tentacles heading toward Norfolk, Virginia, and the other ending near Lumbee, North Carolina.

A second fracked gas pipeline called the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) was proposed by EQT, Next Era Energy, and an assortment of lesser fossil fuel companies, and would cross some of the steepest and environmentally fragile areas in the Appalachian Mountains in West Virginia and southwest Virginia. In 2019, the builders of the MVP proposed the MVP Southgate project, an extension that would cross some of the most environmental injustice communities in Virginia and North Carolina.

Both of these projects were met with fierce opposition by those living along their nearly 1,000 miles of collective proposed pathways, as well as allies and organizations across the nation. The resistance from this coalition proved to be too much for the larger, 600+ mile ACP project and in July 2020 the developers canceled the project. Suddenly the fossil fuel companies realized that their power over the people was being threatened like never before. It was only about just a few months earlier that they had seen the cancellation of the Constitution Pipeline in New York and the Keystone XL pipeline across the central part of the U.S. In 2021 they also saw the cancellation of the Penn East pipeline in Pennsylvania and New Jersey as well as the Pacific Connector Pipeline and Jordan Cove LNG project in Oregon. They also witnessed mass resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rock. Panic must have set in for the corporations that make up the American Petroleum Institute.

The MVP is a climate time bomb. It is literally a public safety hazard and an enormously corrupt and democracy-ending project.

Imagine that. People, just regular people, were challenging the industry’s grip on the U.S. government—and winning. This was a direct assault to their year-in-and-year-out massive profits. The people were fighting for their property rights, for their water, for Indigenous rights, and for the environment. In West Virginia and Virginia, a rag-tag group of citizens formed the POWHR (Protect OUR Water Heritage & Rights) Coalition to fight the MVP. At first, that coalition was largely ignored by most everyone. But we just did not give up. Eventually, people across the nation started to listen and join with our coalition to fight the MVP. This growing coalition and its allies proved to be too powerful for the developers of the MVP, so they pulled out their pocketbooks and started donating massive amounts of money to some key U.S. senators, namely Democrats Chuck “NextEra” Schumer of New York and Joe “Dirty Deal” Manchin of West Virginia.

In late 2022, these two powerful senators reached a deal with President Joe Biden to include a legislative mandate to rescue the MVP as part of Manchin’s support of the not-such-a-great climate bill called the Inflation Reduction Act. The people said not so fast. We rallied against this so-called “Dirty Deal” and killed it multiple times in late 2022. Then came the debt ceiling crisis in early 2023. Manchin and fellow Republican senator from West Virginia, Shelly “For Sale” Moore Capito, convinced the debt ceiling negotiators to include Section 324 in the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA). Section 324 would strip citizens’ rights to object to permits and deem the pipeline to be “in the national interest.” It was opposed by many senators and House progressives but the corruption in government proved too much for them to overcome.

You might think that the people had lost. They had more to say. On June 8, under smoke-filled skies, dozens of MVP-affected citizens and their allies from across the nation rallied at the White House. Their message: We demand that the administration declare a climate emergency and cancel the MVP and other recently approved fossil fuel projects like the Willow project in Alaska and the expansions of LNG projects in Texas and Louisiana’s Gulf Coast. The opponents of the MVP also continued their challenges to the pipeline, which already has a track record of hundreds of violations. Our coalition also continued to challenge not only the constitutionality of Section 324 of the FRA, but also the eminent domain provisions of the Natural Gas Act.

Unfortunately on Friday, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals concluded they had only one recourse and dismissed the MVP opponents’ challenges to the already pending permit challenges. But they did not do it quietly. On Friday, I shared this press statement referencing Judge Roger L. Gregory’s concern about Section 324 of the FRA:

Today is a very sad day, the very day after Hawaii saw the worst disaster in its history, where dozens, if not hundreds of people perished in a massive climate change-driven wildfire, that the 4th Circuit Court felt they had no other choice but to dismiss lawsuits designed to protect our environment. Judge Gregory was correct when he stated,

…Section 324 is a blueprint for construction of a natural gas pipeline by legislative fiat. If that provision is likewise constitutionally sanctioned, the Congress will have found a way to adjudicate by legislating for particular cases and for particular litigants, no different than the governmental excesses our Framers sought to avoid. For that reason, I fear Congress has employed this Court’s constitutionally directed deference to legislative prerogatives to undermine the Constitution and in the process, it has made the Court an accessory to its deeds. If that is so, I wonder if Section 324 is a harbinger of erosion not just to the environment, but to our republic.

I share Judge Gregory’s real concern for our environment and our democracy.

Where does this leave us? The MVP is a climate time bomb. It is literally a public safety hazard and an enormously corrupt and democracy-ending project. If it is allowed to be built under these circumstances the entire nation will suffer from the precedent-setting way it was legislated to competition by “legislative fiat.” Exempting any single project of any kind from long-held environmental rules is a slippery slope down the road toward oligarchy. That is why partisan politics must be set aside and the courts and Congress must put a halt to such practices. They must act quickly because our survival depends upon it. Just ask the people on Maui.
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.


MAURY JOHNSON
Maury Johnson is a southern West Virginia landowner, whose organic farm has been impacted by the Mountain Valley Pipeline. He is a member of Preserve Monroe and the POWHR (Protect Our Water, Heritage, & Rights) Coalition both who have been fighting the MVP and other harmful projects across WV/VA&NC for 8 years.