More CEOs fear their companies won't survive 10 years as AI and climate challenges grow, survey says

COURTNEY BONNELL
Mon, January 15, 2024 




Richard Edelman, CEO of the Edelman global communication company, poses for a portrait after an interview with The Associated Press about the Edelman Trust Barometer report, at the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Monday, Jan. 15, 2024. The annual meeting of the World Economic Forum is taking place in Davos from Jan. 15 until Jan. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

LONDON (AP) — More executives are feeling better about the global economy, but a growing number don't think their companies will survive the coming decade without a major overhaul because of pressure from climate change and technology like artificial intelligence, according to a new survey of CEOs by one of the world's largest consulting firms, PwC.

The survey of more than 4,700 CEOs worldwide was released Monday as business elites, political leaders and activists descended on the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, and it showed a mixed picture of the coming years.

Of the executives, 38% were optimistic about the strength of the economy, up from 18% last year, when the world was mired in high inflation, weak growth, rising interest rates and more.

The CEOs' expectation of economic decline has dropped to 45% from a record-high 73% last year, and fewer saw their company as highly exposed to the risk of geopolitical conflict, according to the PwC Global CEO Survey. That's despite wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, including disruptions to global trade from attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels on commercial ships in the Red Sea.

Even with the improved economic outlook, the challenge isn't close to over, with the World Bank saying last week that it expects the global economy would slow for a third consecutive year in 2024.

The executives, meanwhile, felt worse about the prospects for their companies' ability to weather big changes. The survey shows 45% of the respondents were worried that their businesses wouldn't be viable in a decade without reinvention, up from 39% last year.

The CEOs say they're trying to make changes, but they are running up against regulation, a lack of skills among workers and more.

"Whether it is accelerating the rollout of generative AI or building their business to address the challenges and opportunities of the climate transition, this is a year of transformation,” Bob Moritz, global chairman of PwC, formerly known as PricewaterhouseCoopers, said in a statement.

Artificial intelligence was seen as both a way to streamline business operations and a weakness. Nearly three-quarters of the executives said “it will significantly change the way their company creates, delivers and captures value in the next three years,” PwC said.

More than half the CEOs said AI will make their products or services better, but 69% noted that their workers needed training to gain skills to use the developing technology. They also were concerned about how AI would increase cybersecurity risks and misinformation.

Organizers of the Davos gathering warned last week that the threat posed by AI-powered misinformation, such as the creation of synthetic content, is the world’s greatest short-term threat.

Another worldwide survey released around Davos, the Edelman Trust Barometer by public relations firm Edelman, says innovation is being managed badly and is increasing polarization, especially in Western democracies, where people with right-leaning beliefs are much more likely than those on the left to resist innovation.

“Innovation is only accepted if there is a sense that we’re looking at the big picture of how we take care of the people whose jobs are going to change, how scientists are going to talk to the people directly so they understand it," CEO Richard Edelman told The Associated Press on Monday. "And finally, that one way in another, AI is affordable and makes it easier for people to live.”

The online survey — which again showed that business is the most trusted institution among government, media, science and nongovernmental organizations — gathered responses from more than 32,000 respondents in 28 countries from Nov. 3 to Nov. 22.

Similar to AI, the PwC survey shows that the climate transition is both an opportunity and a risk. An increasing number of CEOs — nearly a third — say climate change was expected to shift how they do things over the next three years.

More than three-quarters of the executives said they have begun or completed changes to increase energy efficiency, but only 45% noted that they have made progress on taking the climate risks into account in financial planning.

The PwC survey of 4,702 CEOs in 105 countries and territories was conducted from Oct. 2 to Nov. 10.

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Masha Macpherson and David Keyton contributed to this report from Davos, Switzerland.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M WITH CHINESE CHARACTERS
Former chairman of state-owned bank China Everbright Group arrested over suspected corruption

ZEN SOO
Mon, January 15, 2024 



Tang Shuangning, right, then chairman of China Everbright Group and Everbright Securities Co., is pictured after toasting the IPO for Everbright Securities at Shanghai Stock Exchange in Shanghai, China on Aug. 18, 2009. The former chairman of state-owned Chinese bank China Everbright Group has been arrested on suspicion of embezzlement and bribery, prosecutors said in a statement Monday, Jan. 15, 2024, amid an intensified campaign against corruption.

 (Chinatopix via AP)


HONG KONG (AP) — The former chairman of state-owned Chinese bank China Everbright Group has been arrested on suspicion of embezzlement and bribery, prosecutors said in a statement Monday, amid an intensified campaign against corruption.

The investigation into Tang Shuangning, the former party secretary and chairman of China Everbright Group has ended and the case would be “transferred to the procuratorate for review and prosecution,” China’s Supreme People’s Procuratorate said in a statement.

Tang, 69, was expelled from the Chinese Communist Party earlier this month over violations of disciplines and laws, amid a crackdown on corruption in China’s financial sector. He retired in 2017.

Other allegations against him include weakening the party's leadership over the bank, failing to prevent and defuse financial risks, “privately reading publications with serious political problems and resisting organizational scrutiny,” the party-run newspaper Global Times cited the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) and the National Supervisory Commission as saying.

Another alleged transgression: promoting his calligraphy. Tang has published several volumes of calligraphy and poems.

Chinese president Xi Jinping earlier this month pledged to intensify a crackdown on graft in the finance, energy and infrastructure sectors, part of a longstanding campaign against corruption since he came to power since 2012.

As of April 2022, 4.7 million people had been punished for corruption, according to state-owned media reports.

Tang served as vice president of the China Banking Regulatory Commission from 2003 to 2007, before his appointment as chairman of China Everbright Group. He was first investigated in July.

China Everbright is one of about a dozen commercial banks founded in China in the early 1990s. Its shares are listed on the Hong Kong and Shanghai stock exchanges. It is controlled by Central Huijin, a state-owned investment company.

Tang's successor Li Xiaopeng was also suspected of graft, expelled from the party and removed from public office.

Others who have been punished for alleged corruption include Sun Guofeng, a former Chinese central bank senior official, who was sentenced to over 16 years in prison for accepting bribes.

Sun Deshun, former president of state-owned China CITIC Bank, was sentenced to life imprisonment for accepting over $130 million in bribes during his career.

Another finance executive, Zhang Hongli, who was a former senior executive of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, China's biggest bank, has also been investigated for graft.

They were Israel's eyes on the border - but their Hamas warnings went unheard

Alice Cuddy - BBC News, Israel
Sun, January 14, 2024

Female soldiers who guarded Israel's border


They are known as Israel's eyes on the Gaza border.

For years, units of young female conscripts had one job here. It was to sit in surveillance bases for hours, looking for signs of anything suspicious.

In the months leading up to the 7 October attacks by Hamas, they did begin to see things: practice raids, mock hostage-taking, and farmers behaving strangely on the other side of the fence.

Noa, not her real name, says they would pass information about what they were seeing to intelligence and higher-ranking officers, but were powerless to do more. "We were just the eyes," she says.

It was clear to some of these women that Hamas was planning something big - that there was, in Noa's words, a "balloon that was going to burst".

The BBC has now spoken to these young women about the escalation in suspicious activity they observed, the reports they filed, and what they saw as a lack of response from senior Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officers.

We have also seen WhatsApp messages the women sent in the months before 7 October, talking about incidents at the border. To some of them it became a dark joke: who would be on duty when the inevitable attack came?

These women were not the only ones raising the alarm, and as more testimony is gathered, anger at the Israeli state - and questions over its response - are mounting.

The BBC has spoken also to the grieving families who have now lost their daughters, and to experts who see the IDF's response to these women as part of a broader intelligence failure. The IDF said it was "currently focused on eliminating the threat from the terrorist organisation Hamas" and declined to answer the BBC's questions.

"The problem is that they [the military] didn't connect the dots," a former commander at one of the border units tells the BBC.

If they had, she says, they would have realised that Hamas was preparing something unprecedented.


Shai Ashram, 19, was one of the women on duty on 7 October. In a call with her family, where they could hear gunshots ringing in the background, she said there were "terrorists in the base and that there was going to be a really big event".

She was one of more than a dozen surveillance soldiers killed. Others were taken hostage.

Shai Ashram - her father says she loved being a soldier

As Hamas attacked, the women at Nahal Oz, a base about a kilometre from the Gaza border, began to say goodbye to one another on their shared WhatsApp group.

Noa, who was not on duty and was reading the messages from home, remembers thinking "this is it". The attack they had long feared was now actually happening.

Because of the locations of their bases, the women of this military unit - known as tatzpitaniyot in Hebrew - were among the first Israelis that Hamas reached after rampaging out of Gaza.
'Our job is to protect all residents'

The women sit inside rooms close to the border, staring for hours every day at live surveillance footage captured by cameras along the high-tech fence, and balloons that hover over Gaza.

There are several of these units next to the Gaza fence, and others at different positions along Israel's borders. They are all made up of young women, aged in their late teens to early 20s. They do not carry guns.

In their free time, the young women would learn dance routines, cook dinners together, and watch TV programmes. For many, their time in the military was their first time living away from their families, and they describe forming sisterly bonds.

But they say they took their responsibilities seriously. "Our job is to protect all residents. We have a very hard job - you sit on shift and you are not allowed to squint or move your eyes even a little. You must always be focused," Noa says.

An article published by the IDF in late September lists the tatzpitaniyot alongside Israel's elite intelligence units as those that "know everything about the enemy".

When the women see something suspicious they log it with their commander and on a computer system to be assessed by more senior officials.


Map of Gaza with partial view of Israel, showing border fence, IDF observation bases, armed group drill sites and sites of Hamas incursion

Retired IDF Maj Gen Eitan Dangot says the tatzpitaniyot play a major role in "pushing the button that says something is wrong", and that concerns they raise with a commander should be passed up the chain "to create an intelligence picture".

He says the look-outs provide key "pieces of the puzzle" in understanding any threats.

In the months leading up to the Hamas attacks, senior Israeli officials gave public statements suggesting that the threat posed by Hamas had been contained.

But there were many signs along the border that something was very wrong.

Short presentational grey line

In late September, an observer at Nahal Oz writes in a WhatsApp group of friends in the unit: "What there is another event?"

A reply quickly follows by voicenote: "Girl, where've you been? We've had one every day for the past two weeks."

The look-outs we speak to describe a range of incidents they observed in real-time in the months before 7 October, leading some to have concerns that an attack was coming.

"We would see them practising every day what the raid would look like," Noa, who is still serving in the military, tells the BBC. "They even had a model tank that they were practising how to take over.

"They also had a model of weapons on the fence and they would also show how they would blow it up, and co-ordinate how to take over the forces and kill and kidnap."

Eden Hadar, another observer from the base, remembers that at the start of her service, Hamas fighters were doing mainly fitness training in the section she looked over. But in the months before she left the military in August, she noticed a shift to "actual military training".


Stills from Hamas training video on how to break through the Israeli border fence

At a different base along the border, Gal (not her real name), says she was also watching as the training increased.

She watched, via surveillance balloon, as a replica model of an automated Israeli weapon on the border was built "in the heart of Gaza", she says.

Several women also describe bombs being planted and detonated near the fence - known as Israel's Iron Wall - seemingly to test its strength. Footage from 7 October would later show large explosions before Hamas fighters race through on motorbikes.

For former observer Roni Lifshitz, who was still in service but not working when Hamas attacked, the most concerning thing she saw in the preceding weeks was the regular patrol of vehicles full of Hamas fighters, which would stop at watch posts on the other side of the fence.

Roni Lifshitz says she saw men taking pictures of the fence from the Gaza side

She remembers the men "talking, pointing at the cameras and the fence, taking pictures".

She says she was able to identify them as being from Hamas' elite Nukhba Force because of their clothing. Israel has said this was one of the "leading forces" behind the October attacks.

Roni's account matches that of another woman at the base who spoke to the BBC.
Heart emojis and GIFs

Some of the watchwomen also speak of growing incidents of attempted incursions.

Messages shared with us by one female soldier make reference in code to vans along the border, as well as to the IDF stopping people trying to cross into Israel, which she says was happening more frequently. Members of the unit congratulate each other on these interceptions with heart emojis and GIFs.

In a message observer Shahaf Nissani sent to her mum in July, she writes: "Good morning mummy. I finished a shift now and we had an [attempted border incursion] but this event was really nerve wracking… like it was an event that no one had ever encountered."

The women also started to see strange changes in patterns of behaviour along the border.

Gazan farmers, bird catchers and sheep herders began moving closer to the border fence, they say. The look-outs now believe these men were collecting intelligence ahead of the attacks.

An observation tower operated by Hamas at a position along the border with Israel

The Israeli look-outs say they began to see unfamiliar faces in Gaza before the Hamas attack

"We know each one by face and know exactly their routine and hours. Suddenly we started seeing bird catchers and farmers we don't know. We have seen them move to new territories. Their routine has changed," says observer Avigail, who requested anonymity to speak out over what she saw.

Noa also remembers them getting "closer and closer" to the fence.

"The birders would put their cages right on the fence. It's strange because they can put the cage anywhere. The farmers would also go down right next to the fence in an area that is not agricultural and there is no reason other than to gather information about the system and see how they can pass it. It seemed suspicious to us," she says.

"We talked about it all the time."

Not everyone we spoke to had been aware of the significance of what they were observing.

Hamas was always training for an attack, and some of the women didn't anticipate that it was preparing for anything on the scale of 7 October, one said.

Hamas attack on Israel kibbutz Be'eri captured by mothers' WhatsApp group


What is Hamas and why is it fighting with Israel in Gaza?


Israel Gaza: What Gaza's death toll says about the war

Several watchwomen who did fear a major attack was coming have told the BBC they felt their concerns were not being listened to.

When she noticed the vans on the border, Roni says the protocol was to alert her commander and then to keep watching until the vehicles were no longer in her section. She would then file it in a computer system where it would be "passed on".

But, she says, she has "no idea" where these reports actually went.

"Probably to intelligence but whether they do something with it or not, I don't really know," she says. "No one gave us an answer back about what we had reported and conveyed."

Noa says she couldn't count how many times she had filed reports. Within the unit, everyone "took it seriously and would pass it on but in the end they [people outside of the unit] didn't do anything about it".


Stills from Hamas video on how to disable an Israeli tank

Avigail says that even when senior officials came to the base "no-one would talk to us or ask our opinion or tell us a little about what was going on".

"They just came, gave a task and left," she says.

'Why are we here if no-one's listening?'

As a commander at her unit, Gal says observers would pass information to her which she then passed to her supervisor.

But she says that while this was included in "situation assessments" - when higher-ups at the base would discuss the reports filed by the observers - nothing seemed to be done beyond that.

Several of the women say they voiced their frustrations and worries with their families.

Shahaf's mother, Ilana, remembers her saying: "Why are we here if no-one's listening?"

"She told me that the girls see that there is a mess. And I asked, 'Are you complaining?'

"And I don't exactly understand the army, but I understood that it's not the base, it's the ranks above" that needed to take action, she says.

But despite Shahaf's worries, her family, like others, had full confidence in the army and the Israeli state, and believed that even if something was being planned, it would be dealt with quickly.

Shahaf, on the left, pictured here with her mother

"In the last months she said again and again there will be a war, you will see. And we laughed at her for exaggerating," Ilana recalls, taking deep breaths between words.

Shahaf was among the first people to be killed on 7 October, when Hamas overran Nahal Oz.

It would come to be the deadliest day in Israel's history, with some 1,300 people killed, according to the prime minister's office, and 240 taken hostage.

Air and ground assaults launched by Israel in response to the attacks have gone on to kill more than 23,000 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

While they did not know it at the time, the tatzpitaniyot were not the only ones raising concerns, and their observations were not the only intelligence that something was coming.

According to a report in the New York Times, a lengthy blueprint detailing Hamas's plans had been in the hands of Israeli officials for more than a year before 7 October, but was dismissed as aspirational.

A veteran analyst in Israel's intelligence agency Unit 8200 warned three months before the attacks that Hamas had conducted an intense training exercise that appeared similar to that outlined in the blueprint, but her concerns were brushed off, the newspaper reports.

The drills conducted by Hamas and other armed groups had also been posted publicly on social media.
The women 'didn't get attention they should have'

"The signs were bubbling," says retired Maj Gen Eitan Dangot. "When you collect all the signs, you would make an earlier decision and do something to stop it.

"Unfortunately this is something that was not done."

He says that while a full investigation has not yet been conducted, it is clear that the reports from the watchwomen "didn't get the attention they should have".

"Sometimes it has to do with the self-confidence of senior officers… 'OK, I hear you, but I know better than you. I have the experience. I am older than you. I have the strategic picture, and it cannot be what you are telling me,' for example.

"Or sometimes it can also be chauvinism," he says.

"In intelligence, you have to sit at a round table and collect information and then build your puzzle. With these people, when you want to know what's really going on, you have to sit with them, to listen carefully to what they are telling you, what is their way of analysing it."

Brig Gen Amir Avivi, former deputy commander of the Gaza division, does not believe sexism was a factor, but agrees that more should have been done to address the lookouts' concerns.

How Hamas built a force to attack Israel on 7 October


Stories of the hostages taken by Hamas from Israel


How the dead are counted in Gaza

"I cannot say for sure exactly what happened but I can say what is expected," he says.

"What is expected is that when people on the border do their job and they have concerns and they see things that need to be looked at and assessed, you need to listen. Because they are the professionals. They are the ones who are really the eyes of the battalion and the brigade and the division."

He says the "biggest failure" was the "assumption that they [Hamas] are deterred" - the assumption that "yes they're training, yes they have a plan but they're not going to execute it".

The IDF has promised a future investigation, and responded to BBC requests by saying: "Questions of this kind will be looked into at a later stage."

The observers have different opinions about why their reports didn't get a bigger response, but Avigail shares the view of several we spoke to: "It's because we are the lowest soldier in the system… so our word is considered less professional."

"Everyone saw us only as eyes, they don't see a soldier," says Roni.

Short presentational grey line

Three months after the attacks, the surviving tatzpitaniyot and grieving families of those killed are struggling to come to terms with what happened as they wait for an investigation.

In Shai Ashram's bedroom, military berets are hung on a dressing table, upon which there are drawings and photos of her dressed in uniform.

Her dad, Dror, says he sometimes walks into the room and cries.

Shai's father Dror says he feels "jealous" when he sees other soldiers with their fathers

"She loved her job very much. She loved the army and she loved being a soldier," he says.

"I'm a taxi driver and I pick up people from the train station and when I see a soldier whose father is picking her up, it hurts me. I'm jealous."
'It is with me everywhere'

At her own family home, Noa looks every day at old social media videos of her friends singing and dancing at the base. She sleeps on the sofa every night, afraid to be on her own in her bedroom.

"It is with me everywhere - in nightmares and thoughts, in lack of sleep and lack of appetite," she says. "I am not the same person I was."

Scrolling through the WhatsApp chat she shared with other tatzpitaniyot, she points at their names, saying "killed" or "kidnapped".

At her base, Nahal Oz, the room where the tatzpitaniyot worked now lies in ruins, and the screens they looked through as Hamas prepared for its attack are burned and blackened.

As Hamas surged through Nahal Oz, they killed dozens of people.

Among the dead are many of the women who watched the border so closely for the Israeli state, and who had dared to fear - despite knowing the immense might and resources of Israel - that something like this might one day happen.

Additional reporting by Idan Ben Ari.

Design and visualisation by Tural Ahmedzade, Matt Thomas, and Gerry Fletcher.

Edited by Samuel Horti

Kenya embarks on its biggest rhino relocation project. A previous attempt was a disaster

BRIAN INGANGA and GERALD IMRAY
Tue, January 16, 2024 










Kenya Relocating Rhinos
Kenya Wildlife Service vet prepares injectinion drugs to dart 21 endangered black rhinos in Nairobi National Park, Kenya Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2024. Kenya has embarked on its biggest rhino relocation project ever and began the difficult work Tuesday of tracking, darting and moving 21 of the critically endangered beasts, which can each weigh over a ton, hundreds of miles in trucks to a new home. A previous attempt at moving rhinos in the East African nation in 2018 was a disaster as all 11 of the animals that were relocated died. 

(AP Photo/Brian Inganga)

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Kenya has embarked on its biggest rhino relocation project and began the difficult work Tuesday of tracking, darting and moving 21 of the critically endangered beasts, which can each weigh over a ton, to a new home.

A previous attempt at moving rhinos in the East African nation was a disaster in 2018 as all 11 of the animals died.

The latest project experienced early troubles. A rhino targeted for moving was not subdued by a tranquilizer dart shot from a helicopter. Wildlife rangers on the ground attempted to restrain the rhino with a rope but decided to release the animal to make sure it was not harmed.


Wildlife officials have stressed that the project will take time, likely weeks.

The black rhinos are a mix of males and females and are being moved from three conservation parks to the private Loisaba Conservancy in central Kenya, the Kenya Wildlife Service said. They are being moved because there are too many in the three parks and they need more space to roam and, hopefully, to breed.

Rhinos are generally solitary animals and are at their happiest in large territories.

Kenya has had relative success in reviving its black rhino population, which dipped below 300 in the mid-1980s because of poaching, raising fears that the animals might be wiped out in a country famous for its wildlife.

Kenya now has nearly 1,000 black rhinos, according to the wildlife service. That’s the third biggest black rhino population in the world behind South Africa and Namibia.

There are just 6,487 wild rhinos left in the world, according to rhino conservation charity Save The Rhino, all of them in Africa.

Kenyan authorities say they have relocated more than 150 rhinos in the last decade.

Six years ago, Kenya relocated 11 rhinos from the capital, Nairobi, to another sanctuary in the south of the country. All died soon after arriving at the sanctuary. Ten of them died from stress, dehydration and starvation intensified by salt poisoning as they struggled to adjust to saltier water in their new home, investigations found. The other rhino was attacked by a lion.

Some of the 21 rhinos in the latest relocation are being transferred from Nairobi National Park and will make a 300-kilometer (186-mile) trip in the back of a truck to Loisaba. Others will come from parks closer to Loisaba.

The moving of the rhinos to Loisaba is poignant given the region was once home to a healthy black rhino population before they were wiped out in that area 50 years ago, said Loisaba Conservancy CEO Tom Silvester.

Kenyan wildlife authorities say the country is aiming to grow its black rhino population to about 2,000, which they believe would be the ideal number considering the space available for them in national and private parks.

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Imray reported from Cape Town, South Africa.

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AP Africa news: https://apnews.com/hub/africa

After much delay, Colombia is finally tackling its hippo problem

DPA
Mon, January 15, 2024 

Drug lord Pablo Escobar brought four hippos to Colombia during the 1980s, to live alongside other exotic animals in his private zoo on a luxury estate outside Medellín. After his death, the hippos escaped and have since proliferated vigorously, endangering the local ecosystem. The government has now come up with a new plan to tackle the invasive species. Luis Bernardo Cano/dpa


Drug baron Pablo Escobar once brought four African hippos to Colombia for his own private zoo and now they are a multi-tonne problem.

Escobar, the head of the powerful Medellín cartel, was shot dead in 1993, but his hippos remain and have since become an outsize pest, disrupting the local ecosystem, destroying fields and endangering residents.

The government long delayed tackling the invasive species but has now come up with a range of solutions, starting with sterilization.

"Surgical sterilization is just one of the three measures envisaged by the Ministry of the Environment as part of the plan to manage and check hippos in Colombia," says Colombian Environment Minister Susana Muhamad, who presented the plan.

Further steps are to include the euthanization and relocation of the animals.

Drug lord, narcoterrorist and politician Escobar brought the hippos to Colombia during the 1980s, to live alongside elephants, giraffes, kangaroos and other exotic animals in his private zoo on the luxury estate Hacienda Napolés, outside Medellín.

When Escobar was killed by security forces in 1993, the hippos were left to fend for themselves and the past 30 years saw the original four reproducing vigorously and spreading nationwide.

More than 160 specimens are said to currently live around the Rio Magdalena river where they are finding plenty of food and water and the climate is favourable.

With no natural enemies and without intervention, the population could grow to 1,000 animals by 2035, the minister says. She warned that such a development could threaten the original diversity of species.

Hippos, after all, can pollute the soil and water, unbalance the ecosystem and endanger local residents.

So far, though, many people have become accustomed to the animals and even use them for tourism.

But the risk of an attack remains. "You have to be very careful," says biologist David Echeverri from the Cornare regional environmental centre. Even if they appear to be a calm species, hippos are actually unpredictable.

Their weight means they are able to capsize boats.

One way to slow their spread is sterilization, albeit a "complex and costly process" according to the Ministry of the Environment. "There is a risk that the animals will die, that they will have an allergic reaction to the anaesthetic or that the human team on site will be endangered," the minister says.

Sterilizing a hippopotamus costs an average of 40 million pesos (around $10,302).

The government wanted to sterilize 20 animals by the end of 2023 and 40 per year after that.

But further measures are needed beyond sterilization, leading the government to look to relocations. Talks are currently being held with Mexico, India and the Philippines. India has already offered to take in 60 animals.

There are also plans to assess how the animals can be euthanised under moral aspects and the ministry is working on an ethical euthanasia protocol for this purpose. No details have yet been released.

Leaders in the past have also attempted to address the burgeoning population. "There is not one measure that would be effective enough to guarantee that they stop reproducing," says Echeverri.

Simply shooting the hippos, which researchers have already recommended, is out of the question for the state of Antioquia and other animal-loving Colombians.

There was massive outrage nationwide when Pepe, a stray hippopotamus, was shot on ministry orders in 2009 and soldiers posed with the slain animal.

Meanwhile, sending the hippos to Africa could do more harm than good, specialists fear.

"When we transport animals or plants from one place to another, we also transport their pathogens, bacteria and viruses," says biology professor María Ángela Echeverry from the Javeriana University in Bogotá. "We could bring new diseases to Africa."

These complexities are partly why the country has been waiting a long time for a plan to tackle this problem.

"None of the three measures is effective on its own, but it is important that they are implemented simultaneously," says the minister. "We are in a race against time here."

A hippo roaming around the Hacienda Naplés, the former luxury estate of Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar. Sinikka Tarvainen/dpa

Fishermen on Colombia's Rio Magdalena river. Drug lord Pablo Escobar brought four hippos to Colombia during the 1980s, to live alongside elephants, giraffes, kangaroos and other exotic animals in his private zoo on the luxury estate Hacienda Napolés, outside Medellín. After his death, the hippos escaped and have since proliferated vigorously, with many said to live around the river. Luis Bernardo Cano/dpa

A hippo statue inside the Hacienda Nápoles, the former estate of Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar and home to his private zoo, now a popular spot for observing hippos. Luis Bernardo Cano/dpa

Fukushima nuclear plant operator in Japan says it has no new safety concerns after Jan. 1 quake


MARI YAMAGUCHI
Tue, January 16, 2024 


 Nuclear Fukushima
FILE - This aerial photos shows Shika nuclear power plant in Shikamachi, Ishikawa prefecture, Japan, on Jan. 2, 2024. Two reactors at the Shika nuclear power plant on the western coast of the quake-struck Noto peninsula survived the deadly Jan. 1, 2024 earthquake in Japan’s north-central region. But its operator, Hokuriku Electric Power Co., later reported temporary power outages due to damage to transformers, the spilling of radioactive water from spent fuel cooling pools and cracks on the ground, but no radiation leaked outside. (Kyodo News via AP, File)

TOKYO (AP) — The operator of the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan said Tuesday it has no new safety worries and envisions no changes to the plant’s decommissioning plans even after a deadly earthquake on Jan. 1 caused minor damage to another idled nuclear plant, rekindling concerns and prompting a regulatory body to order a close examination.

The magnitude 7.6 quake on New Year's Day and dozens of strong aftershocks in Japan's north-central region have left 222 people dead and 22 unaccounted for. The main quake also caused a small tsunami.

Two reactors at the Shika nuclear power plant on the western coast of the quake-struck Noto peninsula survived. But its operator, Hokuriku Electric Power Co., later reported temporary power outages due to damage to transformers, the spilling of radioactive water from spent fuel cooling pools and cracks on the ground, but no radiation leaked outside.

“At the moment, we believe there won't be any change to our (Fukushima Daiichi decommissioning) plan because of the Noto quake,” said Akira Ono, the head of the Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings' decommissioning unit for Fukushima Daiichi.

He said TEPCO's assessment confirmed the integrity of all Fukushima Daiichi reactor buildings even in the potential case of a quake 1.5 times as powerful as the one that struck in March 2011.

The magnitude 9.0 earthquake and subsequent tsunami that year destroyed key cooling systems at the plant, triggering triple meltdowns, spewing radioactive materials to surrounding areas and leaving some areas still unlivable.

Ono added that TEPCO's Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant, the world's largest, which holds seven reactors in its complex and is located 118 kilometers (73 miles) east of the epicenter, had no major problems and would not require additional safety measures. But he said the utility would wait for nuclear safety regulators to review the impact of the Noto quakes.

He also acknowledged that the New Year's Day earthquake caught many people “off guard” and was a wake up call for Fukushima Daiichi, where multiple operations are carried out, so it will be better prepared to contain potential risks from the used equipment or facilities that remain at the complex when another major quake or a tsunami hits.

TEPCO has since been working on the plant's decommissioning, a daunting task expected to take decades to finish if it's achieved. Ono said facilities that have been built at the Fukushima Daiichi plant since the disaster have been designed under strict safety standards set by the Nuclear Regulation Authority.

“I believe there will be no major impact on them" from the Noto quake, Ono said.

The NRA at a meeting last week asked for further investigation even though initial assessments showed there was no immediate risk to the Shika plant. NRA officials said Shika's operator should consider the possibility of additional damage to transformers and other key equipment as aftershocks continue.

The NRA order reflects Japan’s greater vigilance over safety risks after the 2011 Fukushima meltdowns.

TEPCO is eager to restart its only workable Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant after more than 10 years of stoppage, following the NRA's lifting of a more than two-year ban over its lax nuclear safeguard measures at the site.

1,100-year-old feast — with a relatable menu — unearthed at Mayan palace in Mexico

Aspen Pflughoeft
Mon, January 15, 2024

Hidden within a Mayan palace in Mexico sat the remnants of a decadent feast. The 1,100-year-old menu — once open only to the elites and deities — is still eaten today.

Archaeologists unearthed the leftover food at the palace of the ancient Mayan city of Palenque, Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History said in a Jan. 10 news release.

The multi-story complex was home to the city’s elites and was renovated several times over its centuries of use, according to the institute.


The leftover food was found beneath a staircase and near one of the palace’s most important buildings. Archaeologists identified the remains as ritual offerings from between 600 and 850 A.D., the period when the city was at its peak.

The Mayans held ritual feasts to share food between the elites and their deities when important sections of the palace were renovated, experts said. During these rituals, some food was placed in a hole and buried.

Some of the 1,100-year-old food found at the palace.

The palace’s ritual menu included a lot of freshwater crab, especially crab claws, and other local seafood such as sardines, prawns and snails, archaeologists said. Photos show the leftovers from over 1,100 years ago.


A close-up photo shows some of the crab claws found in the palace.

To the ancient Mayans, crabs were a symbol of regeneration because of the animal’s ability to regrow a lost claw, the institute said. Crab remains are a rare find at Mayan archaeological sites due to their fragile nature.

One of the ritual deposits also included some ceramic items, archaeologists said.

Palenque Archaeological Zone is in southern Mexico, about 500 miles southeast of Mexico City, and near the border with Guatemala.

Google Translate was used to translate the news release from Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH).

Azerbaijan arrests journalist, charges another as press crackdown continues

Reuters
Mon, January 15, 2024 

BAKU (Reuters) - Azerbaijani police on Monday arrested one journalist and ordered pre-trial detention for another, the latest reporters to face legal trouble since a crackdown on the country's independent media that began in November.

The organisation Reporters without Borders (RSF) ranks Azerbaijan 151st of 180 countries in its World Press Freedom Index.

Shahin Rzayev, a political observer with JAM News, an outlet that covers Azerbaijan and its neighbours Georgia and Armenia, was arrested and ordered to be held for 15 days on charges of "petty hooliganism," Azerbaijan's interior ministry said.

Separately, a Baku court ordered Elnara Gasimova, a reporter with the Abzas Media investigative news site, to be held in pre-trial detention until April 3 on charges of smuggling.

She is the sixth Abzas Media reporter to be charged under anti-smuggling laws since November. At the time, police said they had found 40,000 euros ($44,000) in cash in the outlet's Baku offices.

Also in November, Azerbaijani police arrested Aziz Orujev, head of the Kanal 13 online video channel, and later charged him with smuggling.

International press freedom groups have demanded the release of the Abzas Media staff, describing the arrests as an attempt to silence their anti-corruption reporting.

Azerbaijan is holding early presidential elections next month, with incumbent Ilham Aliyev widely expected to win.

(Reporting by Nailia Bagirova in Baku; Writing by Felix Light in Tbilisi; Editing by Mark Porter)

West Bank Palestinians decry Israel's raids as 'revenge'

Hiba Aslan
Sun, January 14, 2024 

Nur Shams camp shows the scars of Israeli raids (Zain JAAFAR)

Amid the warren of Nur Shams refugee camp in Tulkarm, in the occupied West Bank, armed Palestinian militants wander around and greet passers-by from the ruins left by an Israeli raid.

The city, home to two refugee camps, shows the scars of the increasing number of Israeli military operations in the West Bank targeting militant strongholds.

Israeli raids were not uncommon before the war triggered by Hamas's bloody October 7 attack, but the conflict has caused a marked intensification.

The Israeli army says it is "conducting night-time counterterrorism operations to apprehend suspects, many of whom are members of the terrorist organisation Hamas", and that there have been "over 700 attempted attacks" in the West Bank since the start of the war.

But Said, a 23-year-old Palestinian militant in Nur Shams, said the operations were an attempt at "revenge" against Palestinians.

"They can't get over what happened on October 7, they didn't anticipate it," he told AFP, weapon in hand.

The young militant is a member of the "Tulkarm Brigade", an armed Palestinian organisation that brings together various militant factions.

Since the start of the war in Gaza, Israeli forces have conducted eight raids in Tulkarm, including four in December, a militant in the camp told AFP on condition of anonymity.

On October 20, the Israeli army announced the death of a border guard after a confrontation with armed men in the camp.

More than 330 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by the Israeli army or settlers since October 7, including at least 35 in Tulkarm, according to an AFP tally based on figures from the Palestinian health ministry.

Tulkarm, in the northern West Bank, sits directly on the border with Israel.

- 'Home turned upsidedown' -

The Hamas attack resulted in around 1,140 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

In response, Israel vowed to destroy the militant group and launched a massive bombardment and ground invasion of the Gaza Strip which have killed nearly 24,000 people, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

At a bend in an alley, Assoum, a 26-year-old militant, was navigating his vehicle between piles of rubble.

"Nothing will stop us," he said, adding that support for the brigade was widespread. "The entire camp is a battalion."

Said and Assoum are both former prisoners of Israel and said they wanted to "bring an end to the occupation".

On December 26, while demolishing the home of a wanted individual, the Israeli army caused severe damage to the home of Yousef Zendiq, 50.

"My house is uninhabitable" and "my clothes are in the car" said the father of four.

With nowhere to live, he set up a tent.

A week ago, the Israeli army raided the home of one of his relatives, Sabhia Zendiq, 65, and arrested her along with her husband, before releasing them.

When she returned home, she found her home turned upside down.

Israeli soldiers "entered the house and came back with a bag of children's toys, including some plastic guns, and declared 'you are terrorists'", she said.

"They want revenge," her husband said. "What they can't do in Gaza they do here."

- 'A little Gaza' -

Sitting amid the rubble, Tamim Khreis, a school principal, was sipping coffee with friends.

The 42-year-old charged that the Israelis "want to destroy people, displace them and break their resilience".

Sitting with Khreis, his friend Abdelkader Hamdan interrupted to say: "Before,(the Israelis) drove them out," referring to what Arabs call the Nakba ("Catastrophe") of 1948 when the establishment of the State of Israel forced 760,000 Palestinians from their homes.

"Today they are pursuing them in the place where they were expelled to," Hamdan said.

On Al-Manshiya street, all that remained of a two-storey building that once housed a kindergarten and a wedding hall were children's drawings on the outer walls and a stone plaque with the logo of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

Saleh, 10, was playing nearby with his friends. "It's a nursery school, what do they want with it?" he asked.

"Al-Manshiya is like a little Gaza."

Devil’s dung or dinner delight? The story behind hing, one of India’s most divisive ingredients

Shalbha Sarda, CNN
Mon, January 15, 2024

An appetizer or an abhorrent? A medicine or a pesticide?

Asafoetida sounds innocent enough – it’s a wild fennel plant native to Afghanistan, Iran and Uzbekistan.

The resin from its roots is used in Indian cooking – usually after it’s ground into powder and mixed with flour. To say it has a powerful smell would be an understatement. In fact, its scent is so pungent it might just be the most divisive ingredient in the country.

‘Asa’ means gum in Persian, and ‘foetida’ means stinky in Latin. But in India, it’s just called hing.

If you accidentally get hing on your hands, it lingers no matter how many times you wash them. Put an unadulterated pinch on your tongue, and your mouth will start burning.

At the Khari Baoli market in old Delhi, for instance, hing even manages to ‘out-smell’ all the other spices.

“Hing is the mother of all base notes of Indian cooking,” say Siddharth Talwar and Rhea Rosalind Ramji, co-founders of The School of Showbiz Chefs.

“It bridged the gap of flavors of onion and garlic that were prohibited due to religious beliefs in the largely vegetarian Indian communities such as Jain, Marwari and Gujarati. Despite the culinary diversity of India, hing is a constant.”

Jains, for example, eschew onion, garlic and ginger in addition to not eating meat.

Ramji admits that the smell can be a challenge: Raw hing has been compared to rotten cabbage. It’s even been given the nickname “devil’s dung.”

But a small amount goes a long way. Talwar advises that you put a miniscule amount of hing into hot oil.

Most people buy a powdered version that is mixed in with rice or wheat flour. However, more adventurous cooks will buy the solid crystal form, which looks like rock salt.

The history of hing

Some scholars credit Alexander the Great for first bringing hing to India.

“The popular theory is that Alexander’s army encountered asafoetida in the Hindu Kush mountains and mistook it for the rare silphium plant, which has similar characteristics to asafoetida,” explains culinary historian Dr. Ashish Chopra.

“They painstakingly carried the plant with them to India … only to find out later that it wasn’t what they (expected). Nevertheless, Indians have had their encounter with hing now; it came, it saw, and it stayed.”

The professor adds that hing was used in some Greco-Roman cooking but didn’t last long. These days, it’s mostly absent from Western food, with one notable exception: Worcestershire sauce.

But as global food patterns and appetites change, some chefs are trying to remake their recipes by skipping onion and garlic in favor of asafetida.

According to Talwar, “hing can enhance the umami taste sensation essential for stews and stocks.”

“The concept of umami was first introduced by Japanese food experts, but is now the fifth base note in gastronomy after sweet, bitter, sour and salty.”

American company Burlap & Barrel even sells a Wild Hing blend made with turmeric, marketed toward people with garlic sensitivity or those following a low FODMAP diet.

But the flavor isn’t the only reason you find jars of the proverbial genie on many spice racks of the world. According to the National Library of Medicine, asafoetida has been used as a cough expectorant, an anti-spasmodic and to kill parasites or worms. Some tout it as an effective Ayurvedic remedy for stomach gas.

Furthermore, not everyone has purchased hing for the purpose of eating it.

African and Jamaican people sometimes wore amulets of asafoetida, believing it could repel demons. In 1918, in the US, some people wore sachets or bags containing asafoetida to ward off the Spanish flu.

These days, its repulsive properties are put to better use as a pesticide in organic farming.

Surprisingly, even though India is the world’s highest consumer of asafoetida, it had never been grown in the country until recently.

About three years ago, in the cold desert side of the Himalayan region, farmers announced they were trying to cultivate their own hing.

The process of growing asafoetida can be slow. But if India manages to cultivate its own, that might mean saving some $100 million per year importing the product itself.

And, perhaps more importantly, Indians could have a favorite flavor that is wholly from India.

IT STINKS WHEN BURNT AS A PERFUME IN THE MAGICKAL RITUAL OF SATURN WHICH IS THE RULER OF THIS PLANT

ASSASSINATION

Wave of transgender slayings in Mexico spurs anger and protests by LGBTQ+ community

MEGAN JANETSKY
Mon, January 15, 2024 



A member of the LGBTQ+ community holds a portrait of transgender activist Samantha Gomes Fonseca during a rally to protest her murder in Mexico City, Monday, Jan. 15, 2024. Gomes was shot in Mexico City Sunday. 

(AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Authorities in Mexico said at least three transgender people were killed in the first two weeks of 2024, and rights groups were investigating two additional such cases. The slayings marked a violent start to the year in a country where the LGBTQ+ community is often targeted.

The latest death came on Sunday, when transgender activist and politician Samantha Gómez Fonseca was shot multiple times and slain inside a car in the south of Mexico City, according to local prosecutors.

The killings spurred outrage among members of the LGBTQ+ community who protested in Mexico City’s main throughway on Monday.

Around 100 people marched chanting: “Samantha listen, we’re fighting for you” and carrying signs reading “your hate speech kills.” Another group of protesters earlier in the day spray painted the words “trans lives matter” on the walls of Mexico’s National Palace.

Fonseca, the activist and politician slain on Sunday, originally intended to march alongside other activists to call for greater acceptance of transgender people in society. After her death, the march quickly turned into a call for justice and for more comprehensive laws around hate crimes.

Paulina Carrazco, a 41-year-old trans woman among the marchers, said it felt like “the violence was knocking on our front door.”

“We are scared, but with that fear we’re going to keep fighting," Carrazco said. “We're going to do everything in our power so the next generations won't have to live in fear.”

Gay and transgender populations are regularly attacked and killed in Mexico, a nation marked by its “macho” and highly religious population. The brutality of some of the attacks is meant to send a message to Queer people that they are not welcome in society.

Over the past six years, the rights group Letra S has documented at least 513 targeted killings of LGBTQ+ people in Mexico. Just last year, the violent death of one of the most recognizable LGBTQ+ figured in Mexico, Ociel Baena, sparked a similar wave of outrage and protests.

Some like 55-year-old Xomalia Ramírez said the violence was a partly consequence of comments made by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador last week when he described a transgender congresswoman as “man dressed as a woman.”

While López Obrador later apologized, marchers like Ramírez, a transgender woman from the southern state of Oaxaca, said it was too little too late.

Ramírez said women like her struggle to find work and when they do, their gender identity is regularly ignored. Working as a Spanish teacher, she said her bosses force her to wear men’s clothes to work.

“If I want to work, I have to disguise myself as a man,” Ramírez said. “If I don’t, I won’t eat.”

“These comments by the president have created transphobia and resulted in hate crimes against the trans community,” Ramírez added.

Last week, a transgender activist, Miriam Nohemí Ríos, was shot to death while working in her business in the central Mexican state of Michoacán.

On Saturday, authorities in the central state of Jalisco said they found a transgender person's body laying in a ravine with gunshot wounds.

Two other cases, were not immediately confirmed by law enforcement, but were registered by rights groups who said they often struggle to get details from officials in their efforts to document hate crimes.

One transgender woman known as “Ivonne” was slain alongside her partner in the southern state of Veracruz, according to the National Observatory of Hate Crimes Against LGBTI people.

Meanwhile, Letra S. documented the killing of transgender stylist Gaby Ortíz, whose body was found in the Hidalgo state. Local media, citing local authorities, said her body was found on the side of the road next to “a threatening message” written on a piece of cardboard.

Law enforcement said they would investigate the violent deaths but the activists said they doubted anything would come of the cases. Due to high levels of corruption and overall disfunction in Mexico's government, around 99% of crimes in Mexico go unsolved.

“It's very likely that cases like this will end in impunity,” said Jair Martínez, an analyst for Letra S.

——

Associated Press reporter María Verza contributed to this report.