WAR ON THE WORKING CLASS
Autoworkers used to be the best-paid workers in the U.S. What happened?

Andrew Van Dam and Jeanne Whalen

WASHINGTON POST
Fri, September 22, 2023 

A General Motors employee in Flint, Mich., in 2006, when American motor vehicle manufacturing jobs paid an inflation-adjusted average of about $44 an hour — over $10 more than today. (Carlos Osorio/Associated Press)

We knew autoworkers used to do pretty well. But we didn't understand just how high their pay had been - and how far they'd fallen - until we ran the numbers.

In the early 1990s, rank-and-file employees in motor vehicle manufacturing averaged $43 an hour in today's dollars, more than any of their private-sector, nonmanagerial peers in 165 other industries for which we have data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

But as the current United Auto Workers strike against Detroit's big automakers suggests, things have changed.

In the past year, workers in motor vehicle manufacturing earned about $32.70 an hour on average, or 30 percent less than they did at their 2003 peak, after adjusting for inflation. And that puts them somewhere in the middle of the pack among comparable workers - folks like production employees in manufacturing industries, nonmanagerial workers in service industries and construction workers.

As we dug deeper, we found several reasons for autoworkers' fall. Technology began to replace manufacturing as the nation's profit center. U.S. manufacturing jobs began to shift to nonunionized factories in the South. And the UAW made big pay concessions around the time of the Great Recession in 2008, when Detroit's Big Three automakers - General Motors, Ford and Chrysler, now part of Stellantis - were fighting to survive.

But while we'll address those soon enough, we started our search with the crux of workers' complaints: Many of them feel worse off than their parents and older relatives who worked in the industry.

Vincent Tooles, who assembles Jeep Wagoneers for Stellantis in Warren, Mich., said his father was making $32 an hour working for Chrysler in 2002, after 34 years of service. Tooles makes $20.60 after three years on the job.

"I feel like we're the only industry probably in the country that has [gone] down in pay over the last 30 years," he told us after a recent UAW rally near his factory.

While autoworkers weren't the only rank-and-file employees to see their pay drop in the past three decades, after adjusting for inflation, they were hit especially hard. In fact, they've seen their paychecks plunge further from 1993 to 2023 than any other of the 166 industries we tracked.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) pay data we're using here represents a broader group of motor-vehicle workers than just UAW members, who are concentrated in Big Three factories. It includes all workers - unionized and nonunionized - who play a hands-on role in producing complete light-duty vehicles and heavy-duty trucks. That means assembly line and metal fabrication workers, warehouse workers and those who handle and process materials.


It also includes supervisors who may be in charge of others but whose real focus is still production. Think warehouse or assembly-line supervisors, not accountants or Felicia from finance.

The data also includes compensation beyond the hourly pay rate, including some incentives and the impressive amount of overtime pay earned by autoworkers - an average of more than seven hours a week this year, according to BLS. That helps explain why the average pay can be above the hourly wage range for UAW workers at the Big Three, which is currently about $18 to $32 an hour for full-timers, and roughly $16 to $19 for temporary workers.

An important caveat: The BLS data we're using does not include bonuses such as the profit-sharing and quality-linked payments that UAW full-timers receive, typically once a year. Ford says those bonuses totaled $42,000 per worker over the past four years for its eligible UAW workforce. Temps don't get them.

Detroit automakers have increasingly shifted to offering UAW workers this kind of contingent compensation that is doled out when times are good but easier to cut than wages are when times are bad. If these bonuses were included in the BLS data, autoworker earnings would look better.

As we dug into the data and called around, it became clear there was no single culprit for the earnings drop - several big shifts brought autoworkers to this point.

Perhaps most obviously, the U.S. economy advanced beyond manufacturing. Around 1997, as the internet bubble inflated, software industry jobs surged past autoworkers to take the top spot for nonmanagerial pay, followed by computer systems design jobs and other tech work, though motor vehicle workers remained in the top five at around $44 an hour, adjusted for inflation.

But in the 2000s, their earnings started falling, after adjusting for inflation. The industry has plummeted to around 40th place in the rankings, behind industries such as commercial and road construction work, mining and office administration.

In 1994, the average rank-and-file worker in the private sector earned about half what autoworkers made. In the past year, the average nonmanagerial, private-sector worker made about $28.70 an hour, or 88 percent of what an autoworker gets.

To further explain the decline, we called labor data legend Erica Groshen, who was BLS commissioner from 2013 to 2017 and is now a senior economics adviser at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations.

Groshen pointed to geography, explaining that when automakers have erected new American factories in recent decades, "they have built their facilities in states where it is difficult to unionize."

And sure enough, when we ran the numbers we saw a clear shift in manufacturing from the union-heavy Rust Belt to the right-to-work Sun Belt.

In the late 1980s, about 4 in 5 autoworkers lived in the Midwest, according to our analysis of our beloved BLS Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages. But the South's auto industry gained ground in the 1990s and 2000s. And somewhere around 2018, we hit an inflection point. The Midwest was no longer home to most U.S. autoworkers.

Today the South hosts almost as many autoworkers as the Midwest, and it stands to get another boost as Tesla ramps up production in Texas. And the West continues to gain ground; California recently became the second-biggest state for autoworkers, parallel to the rise of nonunionized Tesla.

But the pay drag isn't just coming from this geographic shift. Michigan was consistently among the top-paying states for autoworkers, but autoworkers' weekly earnings there began falling around 2013, even before accounting for inflation.

One big factor in the pay plunge is the concessions the UAW made to the Big Three in their 2007 contract, when the three heavyweights teetered on the brink. Anyone hired after that contract went into effect became part of a "second tier" of full-time workers with lower wages and benefits. They also lost defined-benefit pensions, getting 401(k) accounts with a company contribution of 6.4 percent of workers' wages instead.

In 2009, after the economic crash, the companies were fighting for their survival. GM and Chrysler required federal bailouts to stay in business. As it helped restructure the companies, the government required the union to make further concessions, including giving up regular cost-of-living adjustments to wages. In addition, older workers were offered buyouts and early retirement packages to make room for younger, cheaper workers, according to Kristin Dziczek, an auto expert at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.

"A condition of the government assistance to Chrysler and GM was that they become 'cost-competitive' with the international automakers that also produced light vehicles in the United States," Dziczek recalls. "An additional provision mandated by the government was that the UAW could not strike until 2015."

Now that they are free to strike again, and emboldened by a tight labor market, the union is determined to claw back those concessions.

SKOOL IN DESANTISLAND
Sports Are In, Gender Studies Are Out at College Targeted by DeSantis

Patricia Mazzei
Updated Fri, September 22, 2023 

Atticus Dickson, a 19-year-old religious studies student at New College in Sarasota, Fla., on Sept. 20, 2023. (Michael Adno/The New York Times)


SARASOTA, Fla. — As the fall semester began at New College of Florida, a small public school known as proudly unconventional when Gov. Ron DeSantis set about overhauling it this year, new students were easy to spot.

Many were recruited athletes, clad in T-shirts branded with the school’s new mascot, a muscled, flexing banyan tree. They stood out from returning students, many of whom roamed the campus in bare feet or with vividly dyed hair.

“Will these people be OK with us being weird as we are?” said Emma Curtis, a 21-year-old fourth-year student, voicing a concern shared by others.

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The influx of athletes is just one of the sweeping changes that have come to New College since DeSantis and his allies vowed in January to transform the liberal arts institution, known as Florida’s “public honors college,” into a bastion of conservatism. More than a third of last year’s faculty members — about three dozen — are gone. So are about 125 students who chose not to return.

In a school that last year had about 700 students total, the freshman class of 338 is the largest ever; it also has a higher proportion of Black, Hispanic and male students than previous ones did, according to the administration. More than 200 students have been moved from on-campus dorms to off-campus hotels to make room for the recruited athletes and other new students.

The pronounced change in climate has led to a flurry of legal challenges. Alumni, faculty and students have sued, claiming free-speech violations that they say amount to academic censorship. The U.S. Department of Education is investigating a complaint that New College, in its new iteration, discriminated based on disability. A separate federal complaint accuses the new leadership of discriminating against LGBTQ students by creating a hostile environment that drove some of them out.

The board of trustees, controlled by DeSantis allies, and the interim president, Richard Corcoran, dismiss the critics as a disgruntled few and cast the overhaul as a success. State lawmakers sent about $50 million to the school this year, a big jump from recent years. New students were offered newly designated scholarships and laptops. Moldy dorms were shut down. And the school created an athletic department, with plans to field six teams.

“What was really missing more than anything else at New College was leadership,” Corcoran, a former Florida House speaker and state education commissioner, said in an interview. “We’ve been able to do something that wasn’t accomplished in 63 years at the college, and that was grow enrollment. We did it at a time of complete upheaval and negative publicity.”

Much of DeSantis’ criticism of New College before the overhaul centered on what he characterized as “woke indoctrination” on college campuses. One of the new leadership’s first acts was eliminating the college’s diversity office; soon after, the diversity chief and the academic librarian, both members of the LGBTQ community, were fired.

The board of trustees’ faculty representative quit after five professors were denied tenure because of what Corcoran called a move toward “a more traditional liberal arts institution.” Some new administrators hired into top posts did not have a background in academia, but rather connections to Republican state politics.

“The board wasn’t looking for reasonable change at a reasonable pace,” said Matthew Lepinski, the computer science professor who resigned from the board and then from the school. “They were interested in making change so fast that they didn’t care what they broke.”

The reconfigured board voted to abolish New College’s gender studies program, which one trustee called “more of an ideological movement” than an academic discipline. The school’s only full-time gender studies professor quit, writing in his resignation letter that Florida was “the state where learning goes to die.”

Gone are gender-neutral bathrooms, hallway art that in some cases featured nudity and student murals that had been completed in February and were expected to remain for several years. Student orientation leaders had to remove Black Lives Matter and Pride pins from their polo shirts. A student government election this week pitted a returning student against a new student backed by a newly formed campus chapter of the conservative organization Turning Point USA.

Dan Duprez, a former New College admissions officer, said he was troubled by the tactics used to grow the incoming class, noting that the grade-point averages and standardized test scores of new students were lower than those of past freshman classes. He recalled a colleague showing him an admissions essay that was a screenshot of cellphone notes, “riddled with incorrect spelling and grammar, saying, basically, ‘I just want to play ball.’”

“That person went on to be accepted,” Duprez said.

Administrators say they had little time to recruit the large incoming class that they wanted. Many top athletes had already committed to other schools, and critics say New College recruited students heavily from Christian schools. DeSantis has said he wants New College to model itself after Hillsdale College, a private Christian institution in Michigan.

Mariano Jimenez Jr., the athletic director and baseball coach, who used to work at a private Christian high school, said the school brought in academic counselors to keep athletes on track, as other schools routinely do: “We’re going to show that these athletes are going to be held to a high standard.”

Several athletes declined to speak to a reporter. The college declined a request to make athletes available for interviews.

One who did agree to a brief interview, Tyrone Smith, a 20-year-old basketball player, said he transferred from the University of South Florida in part because of New College’s academics. “The professors know your name,” he said.

Friction over the athletes’ arrival grew after many of them were assigned to apartment-style dorms, displacing more senior students. Other dorms were deemed unsafe because of mold, which Corcoran said should have been addressed by earlier administrations. Many students ended up in three nearby hotels.

Atticus Dickson, a 19-year-old religious studies student assigned to live at a Hyatt Place, described the inconvenience of having to catch a shuttle or hitch a ride just to get to class: “My job is on campus, and I stay on campus late.”

There have been other sources of uncertainty. Annie Dong, a 21-year-old art and psychology student in her fourth year, said the culture no longer felt as positive and welcoming.

“The community has changed,” she said. “There is also anxiety just being on campus.”

Parents and students reported classes being canceled shortly before the start of the semester, a claim Corcoran denied despite the faculty upheaval. Visiting faculty have been hired for this school year.

“I was doing an internship at an organic chemistry lab,” said Olivia Pare, a 20-year-old biology student entering her third year, who transferred. “The professor I was doing that with was denied tenure, and that was the last straw for me.”

More than 30 students have transferred to Hampshire College, a private liberal arts school in Amherst, Massachusetts, that offered to match New College students’ tuition.

One of them, Libby Harrity, 20, withdrew from New College as part of a deal for misdemeanor battery charges against her to be dropped. Christopher Rufo, a trustee appointed by DeSantis, had accused her of spitting at him during a campus protest in May. (Harrity denied his version of events.)

Harrity — who got a tattoo of New College’s quirky former mascot, a pair of empty brackets denoting a math concept known as the null set — said that she is grateful for Hampshire’s tuition match, although her housing and travel home will be more expensive.

“I’m hurt,” she said of her departure from New College. “They have come in and taken everything that made it good and charming and removed as much of it as possible.”

Curtis, an art and psychology student, stayed at New College, although she is considering dropping her psychology concentration. The dorm she expected to live in was closed, leaving her to scramble for alternative on-campus housing. She was one of six students whose murals — hers depicted sandhill cranes — were painted over without notice, which she said sent a painful message: “‘We don’t want your work here.’”

She let her pink hair dye fade and her mullet grow out before returning to school — for fear, she said, that administrators and new students would judge her. She is trying to get through her art coursework and graduate as soon as possible.

c.2023 The New York Times Company

THE NEW COLD WAR JOINS THE CULTURE WARS

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis drops 4 private school campuses from voucher programs because of UNFOUNDED ALLEGATIONS OF China ties

Leslie Postal, Orlando Sentinel
Fri, September 22, 2023

Matias J. Ocner/Miami Herald/TNS


ORLANDO, Fla. — Florida yanked four private school campuses, including the top-rated Park Maitland School, from its voucher programs because of “direct ties to the Chinese Communist Party,” Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office said late Friday.

The announcement by DeSantis — who has called the Communist Party of China the United States’ “greatest geopolitical threat” — did not provide any evidence of the ties it found between China and Park Maitland and two private schools in South Florida.

But Park Maitland, which serves students in preschool through eighth grade, says on its website that it is part of Spring Education Group, “a network of more than 230 private schools.” Spring Education, the website says, “is controlled by Primavera Holdings Limited, an investment firm (together with its affiliates) principally based in Hong Kong with operations in China, Singapore, and the United States, that is itself owned by Chinese persons residing in Hong Kong.”

DeSantis this spring signed a bill that prohibits private schools that take part in state voucher programs from being owned or controlled “by a person or entity domiciled in, owned by, or in any way controlled by a foreign country of concern or a foreign principal.” The new law lists China as one of the countries “of concern.”


Park Maitland officials could not be reached late Friday. The school, founded in 1968, has its main campus on U.S. Highway 17-92 in Maitland.

A news release from DeSantis’ office said the schools’ connections to China “constitute an imminent threat to the health, safety, and welfare of these school’s students and the public.”

For that reason, it suspended Park Maitland and Parke House Academy — a once separate private school in Winter Park now owned by Park Maitland and operating under the Park Maitland name — as well as Sagemont Preparatory School’s upper and lower campuses in Weston from the voucher programs, which provide state scholarships that can be used at private schools.

Sagemont also is part of Spring Education, according to its website, and also includes the same statement on its website about a controlling investment firm based in Hong Kong but owned by “Chinese persons.” Spring Education operates schools around the country, including ones in Arizona, California and Georgia, its website says.

“The Chinese Communist Party is not welcome in the state of Florida,” DeSantis said in a statement. “We will not put up with any attempt to influence students with a communist ideology or allow Floridians’ tax dollars to go to schools that are connected to our foreign adversaries.”

Park Maitland charges tuition of more than $20,000 a year for its first-to-eighth-grade program, according to its website. It boasts that it offers “a challenging and robust curriculum, innovative instruction, and a vibrant school community.”

It has an A+ rating and enrolls about 640 students, according to the school search website Niche.

Last school year, fewer than 50 of its students used state vouchers, according to Step Up For Students, which administers most of Florida’s scholarships. The school received more than $329,000 in scholarship money, Step Up’s data shows.

Its current scholarship numbers were not available, but Park Maitland may have more students using them this year because the scholarships, worth about $8,000 a year, were once targeted to low-income families but this year became available to everyone.

A spokesman for DeSantis did not respond late Friday to a request for more information on what the state discovered during what it called a “thorough investigation.”

The Chinese Communist Party has been a focus of DeSantis for the past two years, including his time on the presidential campaign trail.

In his economic plan revealed in August, DeSantis said he would “end our abusive relationship with the CCP, reverse our ever-increasing trade deficits, ban imports of goods made from stolen intellectual property, strengthen protections to stop child and forced labor, and end China’s preferential trade status.”

_____

(Orlando Sentinel staff writer Jeffrey Schweers contributed to this report.)

_____

UPDATED

Half-million-year-old wooden structure unearthed in Zambia

Victoria Gill - Science correspondent, BBC News
Thu, September 21, 2023 

Prof Larry Barham uncovering prehistoric wooden objects on the banks of the river


The discovery of ancient wooden logs in the banks of a river in Zambia has changed archaeologists' understanding of ancient human life.

Researchers found evidence the wood had been used to build a structure almost half a million years ago.

The findings, published in the journal Nature, suggest stone-age people built what may have been shelters.

"This find has changed how I think about our early ancestors," archaeologist Prof Larry Barham said.

The University of Liverpool scientist leads the Deep Roots of Humanity research project, which excavated and analysed the ancient timber.

The discovery could transform the current belief ancient humans led simple, nomadic lives.

"They made something new, and large, from wood," Prof Barham said.

"They used their intelligence, imagination and skills to create something they'd never seen before, something that had never previously existed."

The researchers also uncovered ancient wooden tools, including digging sticks. But what excited them most were two pieces of wood found at right angles to each other.

"One is lying over the other and both pieces of wood have notches cut into them," said Geoff Duller, professor of geography at the University of Aberystwyth and a member of the team.

"You can clearly see those notches have been cut by stone tools.

"It makes the two logs fit together to become structural objects."


The large logs were at right angles to each other, with notches cut into them with stone tools
Making fire

Further analysis confirmed the logs were about 476,000 years old.

Team member Perrice Nkombwe, from the Livingstone Museum, in Zambia, said: "I was amazed to know that woodworking was such a deep-rooted tradition.

"It dawned on me that we had uncovered something extraordinary."

Until now, evidence for the human use of wood has been limited to making fire and crafting tools such as digging sticks and spears.
Luminescence dating

One of the oldest wooden discoveries was a 400,000-year-old spear in prehistoric sands at Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, in 1911.

Unless it is preserved in very specific conditions, wood simply rots away.

But in the meandering riverbanks above the Kalambo Falls, close to the Zambia-Tanzania border, it was waterlogged and essentially pickled for millennia.

The team measured the age of layers of earth in which it was buried, using luminescence dating.

Grains of rock absorb natural radioactivity from the environment over time - essentially charging up like tiny batteries, as Prof Duller put it.

And that radioactivity can be released and measured by heating up the grains and analysing the light emitted.

Scientists created models to show how overlapping logs could have been used

The size of the two logs, the smaller of which is about 1.5m (5ft), suggests whoever fitted them together was building something substantial.

Unlikely to have been a hut or permanent dwelling, it could have formed part of a platform for a shelter, the team says.

"It might be some sort of structure to sit beside the river and fish," Prof Duller said:.

"But it's hard to tell what sort of [complete] structure it might have been."

The ancient wood was preserved in riverbed sediments

It is also unclear what species of ancient human - or hominid - built it.

No bones have been found at this site so far.

And the timber is much older than the earliest modern human - or Homo sapien - fossils, which are about 315,000 years old.

Woodworking tradition

"We don't know - it could have been Homo sapiens and we just haven't discovered fossils from that age yet," Prof Duller said.

"But it could be a different species - [perhaps] Homo erectus or Homo naledi - there were a number of hominid species around at that time in southern Africa."

Transported to the UK for analysis and preservation, the wooden artefacts are being stored in tanks that mimic the waterlogging that preserved them so beautifully for the last half-million years. But they will soon return to Zambia to be displayed.

"With this discovery, we hope to enrich our collection and use the finds to inform the interpretation of the woodworking tradition in Zambia," Ms Nkombwe said.

Continuing the work at the Kalambo Falls site, she added, "has the potential to deepen our knowledge of ancient woodworking techniques, craftsmanship, and human interactions with the environment".

SEE

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2023/09/archaeologists-discover-worlds-oldest.html

Workers uncover eight mummies and pre-Inca objects while expanding the gas network in Peru

FRANKLIN BRICEÑO
Fri, September 22, 2023

LIMA, Peru (AP) — Some archaeologists describe Peru’s capital as an onion with many layers of history, others consider it a box of surprises. That's what some gas line workers got when their digging uncovered eight pre-Inca funeral bales.

“We are recovering those leaves of the lost history of Lima that is just hidden under the tracks and streets,” Jesus Bahamonde, an archaeologist at Calidda, the company that distributes natural gas in the city of 10 million people, said Friday.

He said the company's excavation work to expand its system of gas lines over the last 19 years has produced more than 1,900 archaeological finds of various kinds, including mummies, pottery and textiles. Those have mostly been associated with burial sites on flat ground.

The city also has more than 400 larger archaeological sites that have turned up scattered through the urban landscape. Known as “huacas” in the Indigenous Quechua language, those adobe constructions are on top of hills considered sacred places.

The number of relics isn't surprising. The area that is now Lima has been occupied for more than 10,000 years by pre-Inca cultures, then the Inca Empire itself and then the colonial culture brought by the Spanish conquerors in 1535.

Bahamonde showed the bales of ancient men sitting, wrapped in cotton cloth and tied with ropes braided from lianas that were in trenches 30 centimeters (nearly a foot) below the surface.

The company’s archaeologists believe the finds belong to the pre-Inca culture called Ichma. The Ichma culture was formed around A.D. 1100 and expanded through the valleys of what is now Lima until it was incorporated into the Inca Empire in the late 15th century, scholars say.

Archaeologist Roberto Quispe, who worked in the trench, said the funeral bundles probably hold two adults and six minors.

Sometimes, the archeological finds prove to be from more recent times. In 2018, Quispe and other archaeologists working in the La Flor neighborhood found wooden coffins holding three Chinese immigrants buried in the 19th century.

Archaeologists found the bodies next to opium-smoking pipes, handmade cigarettes, shoes, Chinese playing cards, a Peruvian silver coin minted in 1898 and a certificate of completion of an employment contract written in Spanish and dated 1875 at a hacienda south of Lima.

The eight burial bundles were found near some braised chicken restaurants and a road that leads to Peru’s only nuclear power station.

“When the Spaniards arrived in the 16th century they found an entire population living in the three valleys that today occupy Lima ... what we have is a kind of historical continuation,” Bahamonde said.

Peru Archaeology

Archaeologists uncover bones and vessels discovered by city workers who were digging a natural gas line for the company Calidda in the district of Carabayllo on the outskirts of Lima, Peru, Friday, Sept. 22, 2023. Eight burial offerings from the pre-Inca Ychsma culture have been identified by archeologists so far, according to lead archeologist Jesus Bahamonde.

 (AP Photo/Martin Mejia)

Ancient Roman ‘fridge’ unearthed with wine and animal bones still inside, photos show

Aspen Pflughoeft
Mon, September 18, 2023 
7
While excavating an ancient Roman military camp in Bulgaria, archaeologists unearthed a rare — and relatable — find: a stocked refrigerator.

Archaeologists were excavating the ruins of Novae, a Roman-era military fortress, when they uncovered lead and ceramic water pipes, the University of Warsaw said in a Sept. 13 news release.

Next to the lead pipes, they found an ancient “fridge,” a food storage unit made with ceramic plates, lead archaeologist Piotr Dyczek said in the release. The fridge still had a meal inside, including wine drinking vessels, bowls and animal bones.

The exact age of the fridge and its contents have not yet been determined.

A similar fridge was found in Novae last October, McClatchy News reported. This cooling unit still had traces of cooked meat, animal bones and dish fragments inside.

“The discovery of such ‘refrigerators’ are rare, because they rarely survive reconstructions of buildings,” Dyczek said previously.

An aerial view shows some of the ruins at Novae.

Novae was built for Roman troops in the first century A.D. as a permanent base on the lower Danube River. The camp housed Italian military recruits until the middle of the fifth century.

Excavations at Novae also uncovered ruins of a wooden barracks building linked to the camp’s first permanently-stationed Roman troops, the camp’s earliest known well and a furnace from the fourth century, the release said.

A collection of wine pottery vessels found at Novae.

Archaeologists also unearthed a rare set of wine drinking vessels with a black coloring and a small, silver pendant in the shape of a detailed mouse. Photos show these artifacts.

A detailed mouse pendant found at Novae.

Novae is in the northern Bulgarian city of Svishtov, about 155 miles northeast of Sofia and along the Bulgaria-Romania border.

Ancient temple for Aphrodite and opulent treasures found in underwater ruins. See them

Moira Ritter
Thu, September 21, 2023 

Some 2,500 years ago, the opulent city of Thonis-Heracleion reigned as Egypt’s only port on the Mediterranean coast, serving as the entry for all ships coming from the Greek empire.

When earthquakes hit the region in the eighth century, the city disappeared in almost an instant, sinking into the sea. In the centuries that followed, Thonis-Heracleion was all but forgotten, existing only in ancient texts and rare archaeological finds.

Then, in 2000, a team of archaeologists led by Franck Goddio finally succeeded in locating, mapping and beginning to excavate the ancient city from its underwater location, according to Goddio’s website. Since his initial discovery, Goddio and other experts have continued exploring the ancient ruins.

The team’s latest discoveries included a temple dedicated to the Greek goddess Aphrodite dating to the fifth century B.C., Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities said in a Sept. 19 news release. Inside the temple’s remains, experts found bronze and ceramic artifacts as well as the remains of wooden beams from ancient buildings.

Among the discoveries was a duck-shaped bronze jug, according to officials in Egypt. Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities

Archaeologists also excavated a trove of artifacts from the city’s Western Temple of Amun, according to officials.

Archaeologists discovered gold jewelry in the ruins of the city’s Western Temple of Amun, officials said. Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities

Among the discoveries was a pair of gold earrings in the shape of a lion’s head, a gold pendant, alabaster containers used to hold perfume and cosmetics, a set of silver dishes used for religious and funerary rituals, a limestone handle and a duck-shaped bronze jug.

A set of dishes used for religious and funerary rituals was also found in the underwater ruins, archaeologists said. Egypt Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities

Officials said the sunken city is about 4 miles off the coast of Abu Qir, which is on the northern coast of Egypt about 10 miles northeast of Alexandria.

Sunken temple reveals ‘treasures and secrets’ in mysterious underwater city

Jabed Ahmed
Fri, September 22, 2023 

They lay hidden on the ocean bed for more than 1,000 years, but now the treasures and secrets of an ancient city off the coastline of Egypt are being uncovered.

The remains of a massive temple and a sanctuary dedicated to the Greek goddess of Aphrodite have been discovered in the underwater port city of Thonis-Heracleion by a team led by the European Institute for Underwater Archaeology (IEASM).

The team explored the city’s south canal, where huge blocks of stone from the Amun temple were believed to have crumbled “during a cataclysmic event dated to the mid-2nd Century BC”, according to the IEASM.

The search also revealed gold and silver treasure from the sunken temple, including artifacts that were used to bless the pharaohs as they ascended to the throne. It also found the sanctuary to Aphrodite along with ancient Greek weapons.

The discoveries suggest that Greeks were allowed to relocate, live and worship in the ancient Egyptian city, now located in the Bay of Aboukir near Alexandria.

“Precious objects belonging to the temple treasury have been unearthed, such as silver ritual instruments, gold jewellery and fragile alabaster containers for perfumes or unguents,” IEASM said in a statement. “They bear witness to the wealth of this sanctuary and the piety of the former inhabitants of the port city.”

The Amun temple was where pharaohs came to receive the titles of their power as universal kings, the institute said.

Founded around 2,500 years ago near the mouth of the Nile, Thonis-Heracleion, was once the biggest port city in the Mediterranean Sea.

Under the floor level of the Amun temple, wooden structures were discovered dating back to the 5th Century BC (Christoph Gerigk/Franck Goddio/Hilti Foundation)

Until the port of Alexandria was established, it was a significant political site, a hub of ritual ceremonies for the ruling class and a required point of entry into Egypt for all ships coming from Greece.

The discoveries were made with the use of new geophysical mining technologies that can detect cavities and objects buried under layers of clay several metres thick.

“It is extremely moving to discover such delicate objects, which survived intact despite the violence and magnitude of the cataclysm,” said Frank Goddio, the president of the European Institute for Underwater Archaeology.

It is believed that rising water, a series of earthquakes, and a tidal wave contributed to sinking of the city of Thonis-Heracleion in the 8th Century AD. The city’s name and story had become lost through the centuries, only being mentioned in passing in ancient classic texts and rare inscriptions.

Mr Goddio and his team have been working for the past two decades to uncover the secrets of the lost city after it was discovered in 2000.

Iran says thousands of ancient clay tablets returned from US

AFP
Fri, September 22, 2023 

An Achaemenid-era clay tablet displayed at Iran's National Museum in October, 2019 after the fourth batch were returned from the United States (ATTA KENARE)

Iran says it has received thousands of Achaemenid-era clay tablets from the United States in the fifth such instalment, following a drawn-out legal effort to repatriate the antiquities.

"After the two-year follow-up of the government... the Achaemenid tablets confiscated by the American government were returned to the country," said a statement posted on Iran's presidency website late Thursday.

The 3,506 tablets were repatriated on the plane that also brought home the Iranian delegation from New York after it attended the United Nations General Assembly.

This is the fifth batch of such antiquities returned to the Islamic republic.

"We hope that the rest of these tablets will be returned as soon as possible", Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said Thursday night after returning from New York.

Found at the ruins of Persepolis, the capital of the Persian Achaemenid Empire which ruled from the 6th to 4th centuries BC in southern Iran, the repatriated tablets display how the ancient society was organised and its economy managed.

The tablets were returned to Iran by the University of Chicago's Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, West Asia & North Africa, formerly known as Oriental Institute.

In the 1930s, the university had received on loan around 30,000 tablets or tablet fragments found at Persepolis for research purposes, Iranian media previously reported.

A large portion of the tablets were returned in three batches between 1948 and 2004 before the rest were blocked by legal action initiated by American survivors of an attack in Israel in 1997 carried out by the Palestinian group Hamas.

Blaming Tehran for supporting the armed group, the plaintiffs demanded the seizure of the tablets and their sale put towards the $71.5 million that Iran was ordered to pay in the case.

The proceedings only ended in February 2018 when a US Supreme Court decision banned the seizure of the works.

But the reimposition of US sanctions on the Islamic republic since August 2018 has complicated the return of the antiquities to Iran.

In October 2019, the National Museum of Iran put on display around 300 similar tablets out of 1,783 that were returned from the United States earlier that year in the fourth stage of restitution.

MERRY MABON

 FALL EQUINOX

THEY ARE A STALINIST STATE

Days after Biden's visit, Vietnam detains energy expert

Reuters
Wed, September 20, 2023

HANOI (Reuters) - Vietnam detained an energy expert a few days after U.S. President Joe Biden visited and announced multiple joint initiatives including on protecting human rights, the 88 Project charity said on Wednesday.

Hanoi police took Ngo Thi To Nhien, Executive Director of the Vietnam Initiative for Energy Transition (VIET), an independent think tank focused on green energy policy, into custody on Sept. 15, the charity said in a statement.

The authorities have made no announcement about the detention and no local media has reported it. The government did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

A person familiar with the matter confirmed to Reuters that Nhien had been detained.

Another five energy and climate experts are currently detained in Vietnam, Project 88 said, as the Communist-ruled country has been negotiating with international partners to speed up policies to tackle climate change.

At the time of her detention, Nhien was cooperating with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)'s Vietnam office on implementing the Just Energy Transition Partnership, a $15.5 billion pledge by G7 and other countries to help Vietnam reduce its use of coal, the charity and the source said.

UNDP Vietnam was not immediately available for a comment.

Biden left Vietnam on Sept. 11 after having upgraded diplomatic relations and sealed multiple deals with Hanoi's leaders, drawing criticism from human rights organisations who accused him of sidelining issues of human rights.

The White House fact sheet about the visit weighed in at over 2,600 words, including 112 words on human rights. It mentioned "enhanced commitment to meaningful dialogue" on promoting and protecting human rights, without elaborating.

Reuters reported on Tuesday that as part of the agreement, two detained rights activists were released and another two who had been barred from leaving Vietnam would be allowed to relocate to the United States.

Before Biden's visit, Vietnam was holding at least 159 political prisoners and detaining 22 others, Human Rights Watch said earlier this month.

"Nhien's detention demonstrates that the Vietnamese government is using political prisoners as bargaining chips in diplomatic negotiations," said Project 88 co-director Ben Swanton.

The U.S. embassy in Hanoi did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

(Reporting by Francesco Guarascio)

What to Know About Vietnam’s Persistent Crackdown on Environmentalists
Koh Ewe

TIME
Thu, September 21, 2023 

A demonstration during global climate strike week, in Hanoi on Sept. 27, 2019. 

Credit - Nhac Nguyen—AFP/Getty Images

The head of an energy research think tank was detained by Vietnamese authorities last week, the latest in a string of arrests of prominent environmentalists that highlights the government’s growing irascibility to environmental activism in Vietnam.

According to human rights advocacy group The 88 Project, Ngo Thi To Nhien, the executive director of independent Hanoi-based think tank Vietnam Initiative for Energy Transition, was arrested on Sep. 15 for “unknown reasons.”

Nhien, whose think tank aims to accelerate the shift away from fossil fuels toward renewables in Vietnam, had previously worked with international organizations like the World Bank and the United Nations. She is believed to be the sixth environmental figure detained in two years, amid a nationwide crackdown on some of the most recognizable faces of the country’s environmental advocacy scene, including those leading registered non-profits.

Read More: Asia Is Home to 99 of the World’s 100 Cities Facing the Greatest Environmental Challenges

“Over the past two years, Vietnam’s one-party state has imprisoned the entire leadership of [the] country’s climate change movement on false charges of tax evasion,” Ben Swanton, co-director of The 88 Project, tells TIME, adding that the spate of arrests reveals a Vietnamese government that thinks it “can do whatever [it] wants.”

Next week, Hoang Thi Ming Hong, former director of the Center of Hands-on Actions and Networking for Growth and Environment, is set to be tried for tax evasion—a charge that critics say is commonly used as a political tool to penalize dissenters. Hong’s detention in May sparked concern from the international community about shrinking civil liberties in the country. Her NGO, founded in 2013 and shut down last year, focused on encouraging young Vietnamese to tackle environmental issues ranging from pollution to illegal wildlife trade.

“What’s become shockingly clear is the government has decided anyone leading efforts to combat climate change and promote environmental action is somehow politically opposed to the ruling Vietnamese Communist Party and government,” says Phil Robertson, the deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch.

“This absurd conclusion is a telling indication of both the authoritarianism and the paranoia of the country’s leaders.”
Why environmental issues?

Environmental issues have in recent decades become politicized in Vietnam, where grievances over the environment have often extended into criticisms of the government. Between the late 2000s and early 2010s, an ambitious bauxite mining project launched by the government sparked heated opposition from local residents who were concerned about its environmental impact and Chinese involvement in the project; in 2016, a chemical spill along Vietnam’s central coastline, now known as one of Vietnam’s worst environmental disasters, followed by an evasive government response to the fallout, triggered rare large-scale protests that was ultimately quashed with arrests by authorities.

“While the enormous strain being placed on Vietnam’s ecosystem is a matter of urgent public concern, the activism that brings attention to environmental issues sometimes also highlights ineffective environmental governance and illegal business practices,” says Jonathan D. London, a professor and Vietnam scholar at Leiden University in the Netherlands. “This, in turn, is often viewed by authorities as a broad critique of and open challenge to one-party rule.”

In addition to activists, environmental lawyers, academics, and journalists have all found themselves targeted for their work. “Authorities have become increasingly intolerant in recent years, and researchers are very cautious,” says Ole Bruun, a social science professor at Roskilde University in Denmark who has researched environmental activism in Vietnam.“When someone transcends the fine line between activism and NGO work and at the same time criticize[s] government, the authorities will crack down.”

Read More: Press Freedom Is Under Attack Across Southeast Asia. Meet the Journalists Fighting Back
Diplomatic repercussions

As environmental advocacy at home continues to be met with crackdown, experts say that the Vietnamese government’s heavyhanded approach to silencing critics is set to remain a sore spot in the country’s growing diplomatic engagements.

In June, the German government voiced concerns about the detention of Hong, the environmental expert, criticizing her arrest as contradicting the agreement to involve civil society in the Just Energy Transition Partnership between Vietnam, the G7 member states (including Germany), Denmark, and Norway—a deal struck last December that would see Vietnam receiving $15.5 billion in financial support to wean off coal and reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Faced with international pressure and an ambitious energy transition goal, the Vietnamese government has relented to an extent. Nguy Thi Khanh, a renowned climate activist and founder of the non-profit Green Innovation and Development Centre, whose arrest last year was met with outcry both at home and abroad, was quietly released in May—five months ahead of her scheduled release date. No official reason was given for her early release, but observers speculated at the time that it was to reassure other environmental advocates in the country whose expertise were needed for Vietnam’s energy transition plan.

Former journalist Mai Phan Loi, who founded the environmental non-profit Center for Media in Educating Community, was also released from prison this month after being sentenced to four years for tax evasion in January 2022. His early release came shortly before President Joe Biden visited Hanoi as the U.S. and Vietnam upgraded bilateral ties. Loi’s release was reportedly a result of behind-the-scenes campaigning by officials from the U.S. embassy in Vietnam. A bipartisan letter, written by several members of Congress to Biden before his Hanoi trip, also urged the President to challenge human rights violations in Vietnam.

But in the joint statement made by Biden and his Vietnamese counterpart Nguyen Phu Trong, human rights were “barely mentioned,” noted Swanton from The 88 Project. And Bach Huong Duong, Loi’s colleague and the director of the Center for Media in Educating Community, who was sentenced to 27 months in prison for tax evasion, remains behind bars.

Despite widespread condemnation, Vietnam’s concerning human-rights record is unlikely to significantly hinder the country’s warming ties with the West, says Bruun, the academic—especially with Vietnam being seen as an increasingly attractive diplomatic partner amid rising concerns about China.

Read More: U.S. General’s Prediction of War With China ‘in 2025’ Risks Turning Worst Fears Into Reality

“The Western world has chosen to turn a blind eye to many unpleasant developments in the country, including the incredibly poor environmental performance,” he says. “I fear that great power conflict will make it easier for Vietnam to get away with rising repression and human rights violations.”

Exclusive-Vietnam activists to seek US refuge after Biden administration deal -US officials

Trevor Hunnicutt
Mon, September 18, 2023 


U.S. President Biden visits Vietnam

By Trevor Hunnicutt

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two Vietnamese activists who the Biden administration believes were wrongly detained by the country's Communist government are relocating to the United States under an agreement negotiated ahead of the president's recent visit to Hanoi, U.S. officials told Reuters. A human rights lawyer who campaigned for accountability for police abuses, a Catholic parishioner evicted from his home, and their families are exiting Vietnam for the United States, one of the officials said.

In the United States, the families are expected to seek resettlement under the "Priority 1" refugee program. The activists were not imprisoned, but had been barred from leaving Vietnam.

Vietnam's government had also agreed to release two imprisoned Vietnamese activists sought by the United States prior to Biden's visit last week, a U.S. official said, and signed a private agreement to make progress on religious freedom, non-governmental organization (NGO) operations in the country, prison conditions and labor laws, one of the officials said.

The topics of the private agreement, which Reuters has not independently reviewed, were not previously reported. They were inked as Vietnam agreed to lift Washington to Hanoi's highest diplomatic status alongside China and Russia on a trip in which Biden endorsed the country's vision as a high-tech leader.

The agreements come as the Biden administration faces criticism over its diplomacy with Vietnam, India and Saudi Arabia, whose governments deny political freedoms enjoyed in the West, and over its negotiations around a prisoner exchange with Iran.

The Vietnamese prisoners included a legal scholar focused on religion who was released to Germany and another individual sentenced for tax evasion related to his NGO.

The officials would not identify any of the four people, citing diplomatic and security sensitivities, but the two ex-prisoners' names are known. Legal advocate Nguyen Bac Truyen confirmed his release and his travel with his wife to Germany earlier this month. The release of independent journalist Mai Phan Loi was also confirmed earlier this month.

'REPRESENTATIVES OF A MUCH LARGER GROUP'

The Vietnamese human rights community sees the situation there as dire.

Vietnam is holding at least 159 political prisoners and detaining 22 others, Human Rights Watch said earlier this month. They have sentenced 15 people to long prison terms without a fair trial this year, the advocacy group said.

Vietnam is also drafting new rules that would curtail freedom of expression online, banning social media users who publish news-related content without being registered as journalists, according to people familiar with the plans.

"It's outrageous that President Biden chose to upgrade diplomatic ties with Vietnam at a time when the one-party state is in the middle of a brutal crackdown on activism, dissent and civil society," said Ben Swanton, co-director of Project 88, a rights advocacy focused on Vietnam.

Vietnam often releases such prisoners before presidential visits. Biden administration officials pushed for the exit visas as an additional step during final negotiations over the joint statement and trip logistics, according to one of the U.S. officials.

The people are "representative of a much larger group that we believe should be free," the U.S. official said.

"While we wish that we could have gotten many more people out ahead of the president's visit, we do believe that this increased partnership and the strengthened relationship gives us the vehicles and the processes we need to keep working on these issues with Vietnamese friends."

U.S. officials said they hope those conversations will happen both in annual rights dialogues with the Vietnamese - which have sometimes been dismissed by some rights activists and officials as an insubstantial exchange of talking points - as well as in ongoing talks between U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his Vietnamese counterpart, Bui Thanh Son.

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt in Washington; Additional reporting by Francesco Guarascio in Hanoi. Editing by Heather Timmons and Bill Berkrot)

Vietnam Sees Closer US Economic Ties Post-Diplomatic Upgrade

Mai Ngoc Chau and Nguyen Xuan Quynh
Tue, September 19, 2023 


(Bloomberg) -- Vietnam’s Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh is pressing for closer economic and technological ties with the US during his trip to America a week after the two countries upgraded diplomatic ties.

US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told the premier in a Washington meeting she will push for designating Vietnam market economy status, according to a post on Vietnam’s government website. The US said it would “expeditiously consider” the request during President Joe Biden’s visit to Hanoi last week. The US currently classifies Vietnam as a “non-market economy,” which can be disadvantageous to Vietnamese exporters during anti-dumping petitions.

Chinh, in a meeting with US Trade Representative Katherine Tai, asked the US to further open its market for Vietnamese goods, such as textiles, footwear and agricultural products, and not apply trade defense measures on products from the country, according to the statement.

The prime minister’s US visit comes as his government works to boost a struggling export-dependent economy amid a global slowdown in demand for Vietnamese goods. Vietnam’s exports dropped for a sixth straight month in August, the longest slump in 14 years.

Chinh observed announcements of agreements involving Synopsys Inc. and Cadence Design Systems Inc. to help develop Vietnam’s semiconductor ecosystem.

The State Department last week announced a partnership with Vietnam under the CHIPS Act, which provides $500 million for incentives over five years and aims to ensure semiconductor chip supply chain security. The US initially will review Vietnam’s nascent semiconductor ecosystem.

Vietnam’s role as a tech leader is good for US security and resilience of its supply chains, particularly for critical technology, Mira Rapp-Hooper, director of Indo-Pacific on the National Security Council, said during a virtual briefing Sept. 13 Vietnam time.

Intel Corp. operates a chip assembly and test manufacturing facility in Ho Chi Minh City. US-based Amkor Technology Inc. is building a $1.6 billion factory in northern Bac Ninh province, while Synopsis and Marvell Technology Inc. are establishing semiconductor design centers in Vietnam. Some 50 chip design companies have set up operations in Vietnam in recent years.

Chinh has directed government ministries to develop strategies to attract more semiconductor investments and target 50,000 engineers in the chips sector by 2030, the government said.

--With assistance from Nguyen Dieu Tu Uyen.


Vietnam PM courts U.S. companies, seeks investment in chip sector
Reuters
Mon, September 18, 2023 


 Illustration picture of semiconductor chips

HANOI (Reuters) - Vietnam's Prime Pham Minh Chinh has visited the headquarters of Nvidia and Synopsys, encouraging them and other U.S. tech firms to invest further in the Southeast Asian country's semiconductor industry.

"Vietnam is willing to open its doors to all investors to invest and do business there," a government statement quoted Chinh as telling a technology business forum in San Francisco during his visit to the United States.

Chinh's trip comes on the heels of a visit by U.S. President Joe Biden to Hanoi this month during which the two leaders announced improved bilateral relations and plans to deepen cooperation in several areas, including chips, AI and critical minerals.

Chinh pledged to facilitate future investments by Nvidia and Synopsys in Vietnam, the statement said.

The statement quoted Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang as telling Chinh that "Nvidia wants to cooperate with Vietnam in semiconductor, information technology and artificial intelligence."

Synopsys, which has plans to build chip design centres in Vietnam, on Monday signed memorandums of understanding with Vietnam's information ministry and with the investment ministry.

Nvidia, a top supplier of servers to Vietnam, and Synopsys did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.

U.S. chipmaker Intel has its biggest factory for assembling, packaging and testing chips in southern Vietnam, while rival Amkor is building a large factory for semiconductor assembly and testing near Hanoi.

Chinh is in the U.S. for the United Nations General Assembly this week, after which he plans to visit Brazil.

(Reporting by Khanh Vu; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)

Bill Gates Says Planting Trees to Solve Climate Crisis Is 'Complete Nonsense'

Sissi Cao
Thu, September 21, 2023 

Bill Gates speaks onstage at The New York Times Climate Forward Summit 2023 at The Times Center on September 21, 2023, in New York City. Bennett Raglin/Getty Images for The New York Times

Bill Gates is a major donor to causes fighting climate change, both on a societal and personal level. Every year, he writes a $10 million check to a company to buy clean energy for others as a way to offset carbon emissions generated by himself. But his money only goes to climate solutions proven by technology, not untested approaches such as planting trees.

At the New York Times Climate Forward Summit today (Sept. 21) in New York City, Gates said he is the largest individual client of Climeworks, a company that develops technologies for capturing carbon dioxide directly from the air. In addition to carbon capture, the company does “a variety of things” for Gates, he said, such as buying electric heat pumps for low-income households and solar panels.

“But I don’t use some of the less proven approaches. I don’t plant trees,” Gates said during an onstage interview with New York Times climate correspondent David Gelles. Gelles remarked that many people believe, if we just plant enough trees, it will take care of the climate issue altogether.

“And that’s complete nonsense,” Gates said. “I mean, are we the science people or are we the idiots? Which one do we want to be?”

After a brief, awkward silence, Gelles quipped he was going to call his friend, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, and ask what he thinks. In 2020, Benioff and his wife, Lynne, started an initiative to plant a trillion trees on Earth by 2030 as part of his solution to the climate crisis.

Climate scientists have found that simply planting a lot of trees would have a minimal effect on halting global warming because it takes a long time for trees to reach maturity and absorb enough carbon to make a difference. An analysis earlier this year by MIT and the nonprofit Climate Interactive found planting a trillion trees would prevent only 0.15 degrees Celsius (0.27 Fahrenheit) of warming by 2100.

Climeworks’s carbon capture plant can capture up to 4,000 tons of CO₂ from the air annually on a 0.42-acre land; that’s almost 1,000 times more effective than trees on the same land, according to the company’s website. Climeworks sells monthly carbon offset plans priced from $28 to $112 to individual customers. The more you pay, the more CO2 from the air the company will remove in your name.

Gates argued for a tech-driven approach to tackle climate change. His family nonprofit, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is a major donor to climate causes. And his climate-focused investment firm, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, backs more than a dozen startups developing clean energy solutions.

“I’m the person who is doing the most on climate in terms of the innovation and how we can square multiple goals,” Gates said.

He stressed the role of innovation in government-driven climate initiatives because policies, such as subsidies and carbon taxes, are often either unviable or insufficient.

“I believe we should spend a lot of money on climate change. I believe we should have very high carbon taxes. But the political realities are such that, without innovation, it’s unlikely, particularly in middle-income countries, that the brute-force approach will be successful,” Gates said.