Wednesday, October 30, 2024

Trump’s mass deportation plan would be ‘economic disaster’ for US

Donald Trump plans to carry out ‘the largest deportation operation in American history’.

YOU NEVER SEE WHITE FOLKS IN THE FIELDS



Edward Helmore
Wed 30 October 2024
THE GUARDIAN

If elected, Donald Trump plans to carry out “the largest deportation operation in American history”. After pushback on Joe Biden’s border policies, Kamala Harris has embraced border restrictions and the need to maintain limits on asylum seekers. But neither candidate captures the realities of US immigration.

US consumers are accustomed to cheap goods and services, and the economic rationale for large-scale immigration has been largely avoided. In a country that relies on a mobile, low-cost workforce, the loss of migrant workers would trigger productivity losses and a new round of inflationary pricing pressure.

“It would be an economic disaster for America and Americans,” says Zeke Hernandez, an economics professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, of Trump’s deportations threat. “It’s not just the immigrants would be harmed, but we, the people of America, would be economically harmed.”

Baby boomers are retiring, and with fewer immigrants, the workforce will struggle to sustain economic output: US employers will need to hire 240,000 people a month for the next five years just to replace those who are stepping out, according to one recent study.

Hernandez, author of a recent book, The Truth About Immigration, argues that immigrants contribute talent, investment, innovation, consumption and tax revenue. “If you lose those things, there are fewer jobs, the economy contracts and becomes less diversified.”

Of the undocumented migrants, between 8 and 9 million are in the workforce doing essential jobs that Americans disproportionately don’t want to do or work in sectors where there aren’t enough workers.

Typically, that’s farm work (one third of the labor force), construction work (about one quarter) and about half of the labor force in skilled work like drywalling, plumbing and insulation.

“Undocumented immigrants make up a huge proportion of household services, manufacturing work, kitchen staff in restaurants. Americans simply do not do those jobs, or there are not enough to go around. But if you lose those key ‘bottleneck’ workers, the native workforce also can’t do their jobs,” says Hernandez.

A study by the Center for Migration Studies estimates undocumented workers contribute $97bn in federal, state and local taxes, their removal from the workforce would have a substantial impact on local economies, including pushing nearly 10 million US citizens into economic hardship.

Families would also be profoundly impacted. About 5.8m US households are home to at least one undocumented resident and mass deportations would break up nearly 5m US families. The cost of bringing up US-born children whose caregivers are removed has been put at $116bn.

Taxpayers would have to foot the bill. Apprehending and deporting just 1 million of an estimated 11 million-12 million undocumented migrants in the US could cost taxpayers about $20bn, or $19,599 per person, according to a CBS News analysis of federal data – and take far longer than the term of a four-year Trump administration.

Business leaders have been fairly quiet on Trump’s plans – possibly fearing retribution – but some lobby groups have begun to tally the costs of mass deportation. The construction sector employs an estimated 1.5 million undocumented workers, or 13% of its total workforce – a larger share than any other, according to data the Pew Research Center.

Construction firms, already facing labor shortages, are warning that the loss of immigrant workers would push new home prices higher. The National Association of Home Builders considers foreign-born workers, regardless of legal status, “a vital and flexible source of labor”.

The CEO of the NAHB, Jim Tobin, told NBC that their loss would be “detrimental to the construction industry and our labor supply and exacerbate our housing affordability problems”.

The Business Roundtable notes that “immigrants have always been a key part of America’s innovative spirit. A vast majority of economists and business leaders agree that immigration is a net positive for the US economy” but says “the system for welcoming these highly valuable workers is broken”.

A 2023 study of previous efforts at mass deportation, such as President Barack Obama’s Secure Communities program from 2008 to 2014 that resulted in the deportation of almost half a million people, found that any benefits from reduced job competition that US-born workers face were counteracted by a decline in labor demand due to an increase in labor costs.

“Police-based enforcement policies aimed at reducing the number of undocumented immigrants should consider the potential negative spillover effects on the labor market outcomes of immigrants who remain in the US and on US-born workers,” a University of Denver study concluded.

The same effect was seen during the Trump and Biden administrations when the Covid pandemic caused about a million fewer immigrants to enter the US leading to labor shortages and reduced output, and contributing to inflationary pressure.

The post-pandemic spike in immigration contributed to inflation coming down, according to Hernandez. “Immigration allowed business to hire again and raise output to what the market demands, so prices normalized,” he says.

Nevertheless opponents of immigration have been “very effective at flooding the zone with false or dubious claims”, said Hernandez.

Biden’s policies, which Harris is now walking back, have created complications for the Latino communities in the US, resulting in declining support for Democrats and a frantic late-campaign effort to shore up their votes. In 2012, Latino support for Obama was at 71%. Eight years later Biden won 62%. A recent Times/Siena poll found Harris with 56%.

According to Ana Valdez, president and CEO of the Latino Donor Collaborative, says the negative myths around Latino immigration are just “pure rhetoric … Trump knows that most of the workforce the US needs to continue growing comes from Latinos.”

Valdez cites labor department statistics that show Latino workers in the labor force have grown from 10.7 million in 1990 to 29 million in 2020, and are projected to reach 36 million in 2030. In 2030, the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects they will account for one out of every five workers in the labor force, at 21.2%, or or 78% of net new workers by 2030.

Without those immigrant workers, the change in the standard of living for the middle class would be much more dramatic, Valdez says. “The reason we have avocados or chicken to choose from every day is because of immigration.”

Valdez, who worked in the Clinton administration, cites figure that show US Latinos generate $3.6tn in GDP and says the political discourse around the issue by both parties has equated all Latinos to undocumented immigrants and does not reflect the economic, data-backed reality.

“If Trump and Harris want to win the Latino vote, and if the winner wants to keep our support once they’re in office, they need to change their perspective and messaging to Latinos and recognize the full scope of our economic contributions,” she says. “Not doing so is reckless for their campaigns and the US economy.”
Cats basically are liquid after all – pet owners already know that

Vishwam Sankaran
Wed 30 October 2024 

Cats are able to utilise an unusual awareness of their own body shape and size to fit into the tightest of spaces, scientists say, after conducting a study into how felines are effectively able to behave like liquid.

Several animals are known to make decisions about their passability through spaces based on knowledge of their size and shape.

But the role played by this self-awareness in allowing cats to fit into spaces hasn’t been tested before, animal behaviour scientist Peter Pongracz from Hungary’s Eötvös Loránd University said.

African black-footed cat (Cleveland Zoo)

Cats show a remarkable range of cognitive abilities. They follow human signals to find food, for example, respond to cues and act on cat-directed speech.

In his new study, published in the journal iScience, Dr Pongracz assessed how 30 cats fit into incrementally decreasing openings that had either the same height or the same width.

He used a similar setup to the one employed recently to test this behaviour in dogs.

“While dogs slowed down and hesitated before they attempted to use an uncomfortably small opening, in the case of cats we did not detect this change in their behaviour before their attempt to go through even the narrowest openings,” he said.

The cats “jumping over” was considered as their refusal to use the opening.


Girl carries kitten in a fishbowl (AFP via Getty)

The cats did, however, slow down before passing through the shortest of the narrow openings. The felines seemed to assess their own anatomical features, following a cautious strategy when navigating these spaces. They also readily opted for a trial-and-error method to negotiate narrow apertures.

“Cats probably did not make detectable a priori size-based decisions when they approached narrow but comfortably tall openings, even if these were narrower than the chest width of the cat,” Dr Pongracz said.

In the case of the smallest, uncomfortably short opening, the cats seemed to rely on their “body-size representing capacity” to go through, the ethologist noted.

As the openings became shorter than their height at the withers, the cats hesitated approaching them.

“This indicates that for cats, the vertical and horizontal dimensions of an aperture represent different importance,” Dr Pongracz said.

“Cats are almost liquid! Cats selectively rely on body size awareness when negotiating short openings.”

The study raises several questions, such as why cats choose a trial-and-error strategy for tall but narrow apertures. It’s also unknown why they hesitate and seemingly rely on their body-size awareness to navigate the shortest openings.

The research also puts in doubt the assumption that cats may slow down to use their whiskers to assess the suitability of the narrowest openings.

Dr Pongracz hopes to test further whether cats rely on other forms of body awareness like their weight in similar challenging spatial tasks.


Enjoy these pictures of black cats in honour of their national day

Alex Cooper
Mon 28 October 2024

Moon (Image: Debbie Harrison)

To celebrate National Black Cat Day, we asked for pictures of your feline friends.

National Black Cat Day took place on Sunday October 27, and we had hundreds of submissions to our Facebook post.

Scroll through the gallery above for a selection of the Island's black cats, laying on sofas, behind plants and in cardboard boxes!

To see more, go to our Facebook page!
CAPITALI$M IS NOT SUSTAINABLE

Greenhouse Gases hit New Record Highs in 2023: UN

Greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere reached new record highs in 2023, locking in future temperature increases for years to come, the United Nations warned on Monday.

Publish Date: 28/10/24 13:33


Levels of the three main greenhouse gases, the climate-warming carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, all increased yet again last year, the U.N.'s weather and climate agency said.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said carbon dioxide was accumulating in the atmosphere faster than ever, up more than 10 percent in two decades.

The WMO's annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin comes ahead of the Nov. 11-22 COP29 U.N. climate summit in Baku.

"Another year. Another record. This should set alarm bells ringing among decision-makers," WMO chief Celeste Saulo said in a statement.

"We are clearly off track to meet the Paris Agreement goal."

Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, countries agreed to cap global warming at "well below" 2 degrees Celsius above average levels measured between 1850 and 1900, and 1.5C if possible.

As long as emissions continue, greenhouse gases will keep accumulating in the atmosphere, raising global temperatures, WMO said.

Last year, global temperatures on land and sea were "the highest in records dating as far back as 1850," it said.

Given how long CO2 lasts in the atmosphere, current temperature levels will continue for decades, even if emissions rapidly shrink to net zero.

In 2023, CO2 concentrations were at 420 parts per million (ppm), methane at 1,934 parts per billion, and nitrous oxide at 336 parts per billion.

That marks hikes of 151 percent, 265 percent and 125 percent of the pre-industrial levels before 1750.

"These are more than just statistics. Every part per million and every fraction of a degree temperature increase has a real impact on our lives and our planet," said Saulo.

Carbon cuts 'miles short' of 2030 goal: UN

Robin MILLARD
Mon 28 October 2024 at 9:47 am GMT-6·3-min read


Emissions, largely from the burning of fossil fuels, have continued a relentless rise in recent years 
(GEORGE FREY/GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/Getty Images via AFP)

Greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere reached new record highs in 2023, the UN warned on Monday, with countries falling "miles short" of what is needed to curb devastating global warming.

Levels of the three main greenhouse gases -- heat-trapping carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide -- all increased yet again last year, said the World Meteorological Organization, the United Nation's weather and climate agency.

Emissions, largely from the burning of fossil fuels, have continued a relentless rise in recent years, even as rising temperatures unleash increasingly damaging and costly extreme weather across the globe.

A separate report by UN climate change found that barely a dent is being made in the 43 percent emissions cut needed by 2030 to avert the worst of global warming.

Action as it stands would only lead to a 2.6 percent reduction this decade from 2019 levels.

"Current national climate plans fall miles short of what's needed to stop global heating from crippling every economy, and wrecking billions of lives and livelihoods across every country," said UN climate chief Simon Stiell.

The two reports come just weeks before the United Nations COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan, and as nations prepare to submit updated national climate plans in early 2025.

"Bolder" plans to slash the pollution that drives warming will now have to be drawn up, Stiell said, calling for the end of "the era of inadequacy".

- 'Trainwreck' -

Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, countries agreed to cap global warming at "well below" two degrees Celsius above average levels measured between 1850 and 1900 -- and 1.5C if possible.

But so far their actions have failed to meet that challenge.

Existing national commitments would see 51.5 billion tonnes of CO2 and its equivalent in other greenhouse gases emitted in 2030 -- levels that would "guarantee a human and economic trainwreck for every country, without exception," Stiell said.

Carbon dioxide was accumulating in the atmosphere "faster than at any time during human existence", up more than 10 percent in two decades, the WMO said. The current atmospheric CO2 level was 51 percent above that of the pre-industrial era.

As long as emissions continue, greenhouse gases will keep accumulating in the atmosphere, raising global temperatures, WMO said.

Last year temperatures on land and sea were the highest in records dating as far back as 1850, it added.

WMO chief Celeste Saulo said the world was "clearly off track" to meet the Paris Agreement goal, adding that record greenhouse gas concentrations "should set alarm bells ringing among decision-makers".

- Climate 'feedbacks' -

The last time the Earth experienced a comparable concentration of CO2 was three to five million years ago, when the temperature was 2-3C warmer and the sea level was 10 to 20 metres (65 feet) higher than now, it said.

Given how long CO2 lasts in the atmosphere, current temperature levels will continue for decades, even if emissions rapidly shrink to net zero.

Just under half of CO2 emissions remain in the atmosphere, while the rest are absorbed by the ocean and land ecosystems.

Climate change itself could soon "cause ecosystems to become larger sources of greenhouse gases", WMO deputy chief Ko Barrett warned.

"Wildfires could release more carbon emissions into the atmosphere, whilst the warmer ocean might absorb less CO2. Consequently, more CO2 could stay in the atmosphere to accelerate global warming.

"These climate feedbacks are critical concerns to human society."

In 2023, CO2 concentrations were at 420 parts per million (ppm), methane at 1,934 parts per billion, and nitrous oxide at 336 parts per billion.

CO2 accounts for about 64 percent of the warming effect on the climate.

Barret said much of the world's warming trajectory hinges on how fast the world can transition to a low fossil fuel economy.

"The question is to what degree will we see that manifest at COP29 in action," Barrett added.


UN warns carbon cuts fall ‘miles short’ of what is needed to avoid devastating global warming

Rosie Frost
Mon 28 October 2024 


UN warns carbon cuts fall ‘miles short’ of what is needed to avoid devastating global warming

Greenhouse gas levels surged to record highs in 2023, committing the planet to rising temperatures for years to come, the UN’s weather monitoring body said on Monday.

According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO’s) greenhouse gas bulletin, carbon dioxide is accumulating in the atmosphere faster than at any time during human existence. Concentrations have risen by 11.4 per cent in just two decades.

The increase in CO2 in the atmosphere in 2023 was higher than that seen in 2022 though lower than the three years before that. It was the second-largest annual rise of the last decade. Large forest fires and a possible reduction in the carbon absorbed by forests combined with stubbornly high CO2 emissions from human activity fueled the increase.

The WMO says globally averaged surface concentrations of the greenhouse gasses CO2, methane and nitrous oxide all increased in 2023. CO2 concentrations reached 151 per cent of pre-industrial levels, methane 265 per cent and nitrous oxide 125 per cent.

The news comes ahead of the COP29 climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan next month. WMO secretary-general Celest Saulo says it should “set alarm bells ringing” for decision-makers.

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“We are clearly off track to meet the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to well below 2°C and aiming for 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

“These are more than just statistics. Every part per million and every fraction of a degree temperature increase has a real impact on our lives and our planet.”
National climate plans fall ‘far short’ of necessary emissions cuts

On Monday, the UN also published a separate report taking stock of countries’ current nationally determined contributions or NDCs.

It found that national policies to cut greenhouse gas emissions fall significantly short of what is needed to limit catastrophic global warming.

To stay within the Paris Agreement target to limit warming to 1.5C, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says emissions need to be cut by 43 per cent by 2030.

Current policies would see global emissions cut by 51.5 gigatonnes of CO2 by the end of the decade - just 2.6 per cent lower than what they were in 2019.


Current national climate plans fall miles short of what’s needed to stop global heating from crippling every economy, and wrecking billions of lives and livelihoods across every country.

As counties work on new, stronger NDCs, which are due in February next year, the report shows marginal progress has been made from last year with pledges falling far short of what is needed. It puts increasing pressure on world leaders to make ambitious progress at COP29 in Baku this November.

“The report’s findings are stark but not surprising - current national climate plans fall miles short of what’s needed to stop global heating from crippling every economy, and wrecking billions of lives and livelihoods across every country,” says Simon Stiell, UNFCCC executive secretary.

Related

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COPs are struggling to keep 1.5C alive. Are there better forms of climate diplomacy?

“By contrast, much bolder new national climate plans can not only avert climate chaos - done well, they can be transformational for people and prosperity in every nation.”

Stiell added that the report’s findings should mark a “turning point”, serving as a “blunt reminder of why COP29 must stand and deliver”.

It comes after a stark warning last week from the UN Environment Programme, which said the chances of limiting global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels were "virtually zero".
NANNY STATE

The Chinese government are calling women, asking when their last period was, and urging them to get pregnant

Maya Oppenheim
Wed 30 October 2024 at 5:29 am GMT-6·2-min read

China has a plunging birth rate that keeps declining in the face of attempts to encourage citizens to have more babies (Vasileios Economou/iStock)


Women in China say they are receiving phone calls from government workers to ask if they are currently expecting a child and to urge them to get pregnant.

Jane Huang, a mother-of-one, said a government official who called her went so far as to probe her about when her most recent period was.

The 35-year-old, who lives in the province of Fujian, said the worker who called also suggested he could call her in the future to remind her when she should have another child.


“I laughed so hard when I told my husband about it,” Ms Huang told the china/politics/article/3284192/chinese-government-workers-call-women-urge-pregnancy-latest-birth-rate-push">South China Morning Post.

“The surveyor must be from the previous generation, who did not realise that she was talking to a whole different generation that values privacy, quality of life and choices much more”.

District-level officials from three coastal provinces, who did not want to be named, told the publication that Ms Huang’s feelings about the calls were “very common”.

CNA reports a post shared on the Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu, which states “I got a call from a grassroots (worker) this morning asking if I was pregnant” has received a great deal of traction - gaining more than 11,000 likes and thousands of comments.

The surveyor must be from the previous generation, who did not realise that she was talking to a whole different generation that values privacy, quality of life and choices much more

Jane Huang

China has a plunging birth rate that has continued to decline despite attempts to encourage citizens to have more children.

The country rolled out a stringent one-child policy in 1979 to curb the fast growing population – with the country’s birth rate plummeting since the late 1980s.

China was the country with the largest population in the world until irt was surpassed by India in April 2023 - with China axing the one-child policy in 2015 and instead introducing financial incentives for couples to have at least two children.

The situation in China reflects wider global trends, with fertility rates slowly declining around the world and falling by more than half since the early 1960s.

In 2022, the global total fertility rate was 2.3 children per woman, while it was 1.5 in the European Union.

On Monday new government data revealed the fertility rate in England and Wales has dropped to its lowest level since records began in the 1930s. Figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show the total fertility rate – the average number of children a woman has in her lifetime – was 1.44 children per woman in 2023, the lowest since records started in 1938.
‘That’s so gay’ haunted me at school – why is it still so common now?

ALSO THE PERJORATIVE; ' FAGGOT'

Mia Bladon
Wed 30 October 2024 

(Image: Pixabay)


The bell rings on an icy winter’s morning. I step through the school gates, dressed in my crisp white shirt, pleated skirt and school blazer. To my right, a group of boys are laughing and mocking each other: “That’s so gay, mate!”

What they don’t know is that I’m a young, closeted lesbian. What they don’t realise is that their appropriation of the label “gay” as a derogatory term, under the guise of “banter”, will later come to haunt me, damaging my mental health as I come to terms with my own sexuality.

It took me years to figure it out, but today I proudly identify as a lesbian. I know now that being a lesbian is a beautiful and wonderful thing. However, I didn’t always feel this way.


As I navigated the already turbulent rollercoaster of adolescence, I was also struggling to manage compulsory heterosexuality and internalised homophobia. This self-hatred and the feelings of discomfort and shame that were directed inwards prevented me from accepting my identity for a long time. In fact, it took me until the age of 20 to finish unpicking the ruthless knots of comp-het that had been tangled up inside of me after years and years of hearing the terms ‘gay’, ‘lesbian’ and ‘queer’ used in a mocking or downright derogatory, hateful way.

I know I’m not alone. So many LGBT+ people of my generation will remember hearing queerness be falsely associated with embarrassment and humiliation, at the expense of juvenile laughter and mockery, and can likely relate to the harm it did to my mental health and the emotionally painful and prolonged journey of becoming comfortable with my identity.

But what I didn’t know was that school pupils today are experiencing the same things we did. New research from Just Like Us has shown that a shocking 78% of primary school pupils aged 9 to 11 say they’ve heard homophobic language, and 80% of secondary school pupils said the same.

Now, young people aren’t just hearing this language in the playground or outside the school gates, they’re also hearing it on social media. Pupils involved in the research cited TikTok trends, and parents have noticed their children playing “games” involving homophobic language that they’ve picked up online.
“Hearing ‘gay as an insult also stifles straight and cisgender young people’s ability to feel free to be themselves”

Not only is this incredibly damaging for LGBT+ pupils struggling with intense shame around their identities, like I did, it’s shaping how all young people view the world. Hearing gay as an insult also stifles straight and cisgender young people’s ability to feel free to be themselves too. For example, the same research found that a primary school age boy was labelled “gay” because his hair was long.

Using LGBT+ identities as insults feeds into societal prejudice against queer people. Dismissing the flippant use of “gay” or “queer” as “just a joke” insinuates that these identities are not deserving of respect and dignity.

All pupils should have the chance to learn about the diversity of our world, and that difference is something to be celebrated. If schools don’t tackle the issue of homophobic language, they are failing non-LGBT+ young people too.

Nowadays, I am a Just Like Us ambassador, which means I go into secondary schools to give talks to students on what it’s like growing up LGBT+. I have spoken to pupils about my experience growing up as a femme lesbian in a household in which LGBT+ topics weren’t openly discussed, as well as my experience moving away from home to university and feeling the freedom to fall in love with another girl for the very first time.

One of the many reasons that Just Like Us ambassadors give school talks like these is to normalise LGBT+ experiences. I endeavour to contribute to the destigmatisation of terms such as “lesbian”, “gay” and “queer”, letting pupils know that these words should only be used in a kind and respectful way.

These messages of respect, thoughtfulness and tolerance that my fellow ambassadors and I are conveying through our school talks are the messages that my peers at school needed to hear on that icy winter’s morning when the school bell rang.

After all, in a world where we are constantly expected to define ourselves through descriptors and labels, it would be cruel and unfair to mock that teenage girl, in her white shirt and pleated skirt and blazer, stepping through the school gates.

Mia is an ambassador for Just Like Us, the LGBT+ young people’s charity. Just Like Us needs LGBT+ ambassadors aged 18-25 to speak in schools – sign up now.

The post ‘That’s so gay’ haunted me at school – why is it still so common now? appeared first on Attitude.
What made iconic Aboriginal Australian weapons so deadly?

Vishwam Sankaran
Wed 30 October 2024

What made iconic Aboriginal Australian weapons so deadly?


A first-of-its-kind study has finally revealed how Indigenous Australians delivered deadly strikes with their two iconic weapons.

The research, published in the journal Scientific Reports last week, shows how Aboriginal Australians deployed the kodj and the leangle.

Kodj is an indigenous invention that is part hammer, part axe and part poking weapon, and its design is likely thousands of years old. The leangle is a fighting club with a hooked striking head that is used along with a parrying shield, both typically carved from hardwood.


Researchers at Griffith University in Australia used modern biomechanics technology to determine where the striking power of these weapons comes from, and what makes their ancient designs so deadly.

For the study, Larry Blight, an Indigenous Menang Noongar man from Western Australia, made a kodj using wattle wood for the handle and a sharpened stone for the blade.

The leangle and parrying shield were made from hardwood by Brendan Kennedy and Trevor Kirby from Wadi Wadi Country.

The kodj and leangle with parrying shield (Laura Diamond et al, Scientific Reports)

The researchers used wearable instruments to track human and weapon movement, including shoulder, elbow and wrist motions, as well as the power generated during kodj and leangle strikes.

They then studied the kind of coordinated movement and energy expenditure needed by humans to use these weapons effectively.


Swing of leangle delivers deadly blow (Laura Diamond et al, Scientific Reports)

“We present the world’s first evaluation of striking biomechanics and human and weapon efficiency regarding this class of implement,” they said in the study.

The leangle was found to be far more effective at delivering devastating blows than the kodj, which the researchers said was an easier-to-manoeuvre multi-functional tool but still capable of delivering severe blows.

“There were no previous studies describing human and weapon efficiency when striking with a handheld weapon, so we were starting from scratch,” study co-author Laura Diamond said.

“Although the design is critical for weapon efficiency, it is the human who must deliver the deadly strike.”

The findings also shed more light on archaeological evidence of ancient interpersonal violence documented over the years in Australia.

Biomechanics during kodj strike (Laura Diamond et al, Scientific Reports)

Such evidence mainly comprises fossil human skulls with depressions or “parrying fractures” to arm bones above the wrist.

These injuries are akin to what one might get while defending against weapons similar to the ones used in this experiment, scientists said.

They said they hope the methods employed in the study can be used to analyse the striking physics of other archaic weapons from other parts of the world.
Push for black and Asian soldiers’ input in world wars to be taught in UK schools

Aamna Mohdin 
Community affairs correspondent
THE GUARDIAN
Wed 30 October 2024

Khudadad Khan was awarded the Victoria Cross by King George V in 1915. He was the first Indian soldier ever to receive the award.Photograph: Popperfoto/Getty

Politicians and community leaders are calling for the history of black and Asian soldiers who fought for Britain in the world wars to be taught more widely in schools to help tackle ignorance, racism and anti-Muslim prejudice.

Speaking on the 110th anniversary of the first Muslim to be awarded the Victoria Cross, leading minority ethnic voices have said that raising awareness of black and Asian service men and women could help tackle racism and anti-Muslim prejudice after this summer’s riots.

Qari Asim, an iman in Leeds and the chair of the Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board, the Labour MP Calvin Bailey, who chaired the RAF ethnic minorities network, and Sayeeda Warsi, whose two grandfathers fought in the second world war, have come together to highlight the story of Khudadad Khan.


Khan, a machine gunner, was injured on 31 October 1914, while trying to prevent German troops taking vital ports in France and Belgium. As the line was pushed back, Khan, who was wounded and outnumbered, held off the German advance long enough for Indian and British reinforcements to arrive. He was the sole survivor of his team.

Khan was presented with the Victoria Cross by King George V in 1915 while recovering from his injuries at a hospital in the UK. He was the first Indian soldier ever to receive the award. After the war he returned to Pakistan, then India before it had been partitioned. His Victoria Cross is now displayed as part of the Ashcroft Collection at the Imperial War Museum in London.

Campaigners are calling for stories like Khan’s to feature prominently at next year’s commemorations of the VE Day 80th anniversary.

Asim said: “It was frightening this summer to see a toxic minority attacking mosques and threatening Muslims in their community. If they knew this country’s history – what Khudadad Khan and thousands of other Muslim soldiers did for Britain in the world wars – perhaps they would think differently.

“We should do more to raise awareness, among Muslims and non-Muslims alike, of this service and sacrifice. We are all part of Britain’s history and that’s something we can commemorate together.”

Bailey said: “Khudadad Khan’s bravery is a symbol of the shared history that explains who we are today. The service of men and women from Africa, Asia and the Caribbean was a massive part of the victories in both world wars. This is one of the many great stories that need to become well known.

Lady Warsi said: “We saw the very worst of Britain this summer, as an angry few turned their anger first on ethnic and faith minorities, and then on the police doing their job to protect people.

“Next month we will remember the men and women whose service and sacrifice helped defend our freedoms. Those armies in the world wars included men like Khudadad Khan and soldiers from Africa and the Caribbean; they included both my grandfathers too. Then, as now, Britain is at its best when we stand together.”

Research earlier this year by Focaldata for British Future found that more than three quarters of the public (77%) agreed it is important for integration today that children are taught in school about this shared history, while 85% agreed all those who fought for Britain in the world wars should be commemorated regardless of where they came from.

Most of the public (54%) agreed that the contribution of Commonwealth soldiers in the first and second world wars is not talked about as much as it should be.

Sunder Katwala of British Future said: “The story of Khudadad Khan and others like him should be on the school curriculum. And commemorating all those who served, from all backgrounds, could make Remembrance Sunday a moment that brings people together across communities.”
Ikea pledges millions over use of forced labour in East Germany

RFI
Wed 30 October 2024

Ikea has pledged €6 million to atone for the use of forced labour in Communist East Germany.

Ikea has pledged to contribute €6 million to a hardship fund for victims of the former East German dictatorship, acknowledging that some of its suppliers had used political prisoners as forced labourers.

The Swedish furniture company formally committed to the fund on Wednesday, handing a declaration of intent to Evelyn Zupke, Germany’s commissioner for the victims of East Germany’s communist-era injustices.

The agreement comes after “close exchanges over several years” between Ikea, the victims’ organisation UOKG and Zupke, who became the government commissioner on the issue in 2021.

"For me, Ikea's commitment to supporting the hardship fund is an expression of a responsible approach to the dark chapters of the company's history," Zupke said.

Ikea first acknowledged in 2012, after an independent investigation, that some of its suppliers in East Germany had employed political prisoners to produce goods for the company in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

When it took office in 2021, Germany's three-way coalition government pledged to establish a hardship fund for victims of crimes committed under the East German government before German unification in 1990.

The German parliament is due to vote on the establishment of the fund in the coming weeks.

Kadnar said Ikea had long ago assured the people affected that it would atone for the mistreatment they faced.


Read more on RFI English

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Volcanoes 'hidden source' of CO2 in past climate change: study

Bénédicte Rey
Wed 30 October 2024 

Huge underground fields of magma have been linked to four of the five big mass extinctions on Earth (MAXIM FESYUNOV) (MAXIM FESYUNOV/AFP/AFP)

Massive fields of magma underneath ancient volcanoes spewed out carbon dioxide long after eruptions on the surface had ended, potentially explaining why past global warming episodes lasted longer than expected, a study said Wednesday.

Humans are emitting far more planet-heating carbon-dioxide (C02) than all the world's volcanoes put together. But scientists hope that by studying climate change in Earth's distant past, they can understand how the world heats up -- and crucially, how it can cool down again.

Scientists have long been puzzled by how long it took Earth's atmosphere to recover from a mass extinction event 252 million years ago that ended the Permian period.


It was the most severe extinction event in our planet's history, wiping out roughly 90 percent of marine species and 70 percent of those on land.

Scientists believe the upheaval was caused by huge volcanic eruptions in Siberia. The eruptions created what are called large igneous provinces -- huge underground regions of magma and rock -- which have been linked to four of the five big mass extinctions since complex life appeared on Earth.

It took Earth's climate nearly five million years to recover.

But according to scientific models, the world should have regrouped much more quickly.

"Earth's natural thermostat seems to have gone haywire during and after this event," said Benjamin Black, a researcher at Rutgers University in the United States and lead author of a new study in the journal Nature Geoscience.

- 'This gives me hope' -

To find out more, the US-led team carried out chemical analyses of lava, used computer models to simulate inner-Earth processes and compared climate records preserved in rock.

Their results suggested that even once volcanic activity had ended during past episodes, magma kept releasing carbon dioxide deep in the Earth's crust and mantle, which continued heating the globe.

"Our findings are important because they identify a hidden source of CO2 to the atmosphere during moments in Earth's past when climate has warmed abruptly and stayed warm much longer than we expected," Black said in a statement.

"We think we have figured out an important piece of the puzzle for how Earth's climate was disrupted, and perhaps just as importantly, how it recovered."

Black told AFP that the process described in the study "definitely cannot explain present-day climate change".

All the world's volcanoes currently "release less than one percent as much carbon to the atmosphere as human activities," he explained.

The type of volcanism the team investigated was last seen on Earth 16 million years ago, Black said, and was so enormous it could "cover the continental United States or Europe half a kilometre deep in lava".

But if the findings are confirmed, it could show that Earth's thermostat is working better than scientists had thought.

"This gives me hope that geologic processes will be able to gradually draw anthropogenic CO2 back out of the atmosphere," Black said.

"But it will still take hundreds of thousands to millions of years, which is obviously a long time for human beings."

ber/dl/tw
World's most indebted oil firm is headache for new Mexico leader
Former President, Andrés Manuel López Obrador celebrates with successor Claudia Sheinbaum [Getty Images]


Will Grant - BBC Mexico correspondent
Mon, October 28, 2024 


After handing the reins of power to Claudia Sheinbaum on 1 October, Mexico’s outgoing president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, hoisted her arm aloft in a joint show of victory.

López Obrador – a hugely popular but controversial figure in Mexico – bequeathed more than just the presidential sash to his political protégé.


She inherits a nation, and an economy, that is performing well in some areas, and facing significant challenges in others.

The good news from her government’s perspective is that Mexico has strengthened its trade position with its neighbour to the north, displacing China as the US’s biggest trading partner.

Mexico has benefitted from “nearshoring” – that is, the relocation of US and Asian firms from China to northern Mexico to bypass punitive US tariffs on Chinese exports.

“Mexico has always been attractive to capital flows because of our geographical position, our free trade agreements with North America, our work force,” former Mexican trade negotiator Juan Carlos Baker Pineda told me before the election.

“But over the past few years, it increasingly seems that if you [a foreign firm] want to do business with the US you need some kind of footing in Mexico.”

The outlook is optimistic, he believes, pointing to Amazon’s recent announcement that it will invest $5bn (£3.8bn) in Mexico over the next 15 years, and an additional $1bn investment by German carmaker Volkswagen. Mr Baker Pineda also cites promising plans from South African, Japanese and Chinese firms.


Critics are less convinced that the relocation of manufacturing from Asia to northern Mexico benefits the Mexican economy rather than just bolstering the companies involved. The key, Mr Baker Pineda believes, lies in creating the right “corporate and government decisions in this country to sustain this trend in the long-term”.

When it comes to the immediate economic problems President Sheinbaum faces, the most pressing is state-run energy firm Pemex. It has debts of around $100bn, making it the world’s most indebted oil firm.

“The debt is a problem not just for Pemex but for Mexico,” says Fernanda Ballesteros, Mexico country manager for the Natural Resource Governance Institute.

In recent years, the López Obrador administration has reduced the amount of tax Pemex has had to pay the government. This has been cut by 60% to 30%.

At the same time, the outgoing government gave Pemex a number of cash injections, which López Obrador says he would like to see continue.

However, a steady decline in productivity at Pemex in recent years has further complicated the financing of the state-owned energy giant, which employs around 1.3 million people according to the government’s own statistics.

State-owned oil firm Pemex is struggling under a debt mountain [Getty Images]

“President López Obrador’s policies and priorities were to double down on fossil fuels and give unconditional support to Pemex,” says Ms Ballesteros. The company is now poorly positioned, she argues, for the necessary transition to cleaner and more efficient energies in the coming decades.

“Over the past six years, 90% of Pemex’s infrastructure investments have gone towards a new refinery in Dos Bocas in Tabasco state, and the acquisition of a refinery in Deer Park in Texas.”

The government says it is on course to achieve its goal of total self-sufficiency in fuels by the first quarter of 2025. However, Pemex’s ongoing economic difficulties mean the Sheinbaum administration has its hands tied over servicing the colossal debt.


Environmental expert Eugenio Fernández Vázquez says that Pemex is a “big challenge” for Sheinbaum. “Not just in dealing with the oil industry, which is huge in terms of Mexico’s GDP, but also in taking Pemex’s massive debt burden off the public’s shoulders,” he explains.

Sheinbaum must strike a difficult balance, he adds, in getting Pemex to sell more of its products “which are obviously fossil fuels and oil-based, while at the same time addressing Mexico’s climate change responsibilities and dealing with urgent issues in our cities, like air pollution”.

For a president championed as Mexico’s most environmentally conscious leader – before entering politics, Sheinbaum was an accomplished environmental engineer – that must rankle. Especially while also spending billions in public money to prop up a greenhouse gas-emitting behemoth.

Back in the realm of Mexico’s complex relationship with its northern neighbour, President Sheinbaum faces two very different prospective partners in Washington - either the first female president of the US in Kamala Harris or a second Trump presidency.


Whoever wins in November, there are some tricky cross-border issues to address, whether on trade or undocumented immigration, the illegal traffic of guns into Mexico, or fentanyl into the US.

Furthermore, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) free trade deal is up for renegotiation in 2026, with everything from minor tweaks to major rewrites possible.

USMCA was introduced in 2020, when it replaced the previous North American Free Trade Agreement between the three countries.

Sheinbaum also has to keep an eye on the peso. In the days after her election victory in June, the currency tumbled against the dollar.

This was largely in response to a decision by the outgoing president to press ahead with a wholesale reform of the country’s judicial system under which all 7,000 judges and magistrates in Mexico will be chosen by popular vote. The plan is also supported by Sheinbaum.

Washington’s disapproval of the measure, as publicly expressed by the US Ambassador to Mexico, Ken Salazar, suggested it could complicate, even jeopardise, parts of the USMCA renegotiation. Relations between Ambassador Salazar and the new administration are already notably frostier.

The peso has been under pressure this year [Getty Images]

Diplomatic spats aside, marrying the new constitutional rules with the legal requirements of the free trade agreement could prove far thornier than first anticipated.

Still, these are the very first days of President Sheinbaum’s administration. As part of her predecessor’s legacy, she enjoys an almost unprecedented level of support with the ruling party in an unassailable position across the country.

Her key election promise – to extend López Obrador’s social programmes in pensions, family stipends and student grants, and build what she calls the “second floor” of his political project – secured her the backing of millions of Mexicans.

She can also count on a loyal congress and, following the reform, potentially the control of the judiciary, too.

Taking office in such a powerful position is a luxury, one which supporters and critics alike expect her to use to properly address some of Mexico’s main economic obstacles.