Residents in US state of Michigan attribute election loss for Democrats to genocide in Gaza


November 7, 2024 

Middle East Monitor –

A voter checks in with election officials before casting ballot for the US presidential and congressional elections at Dearborn High School in Dearborn, MI, United States on November 05, 2024. [Adam James Dewey – Anadolu Agency]

Voters in the US state of Michigan, notably in the Arab-American hub of Dearborn, sent a resounding message in the 5 November presidential election that was driven by opposition to the US stance on the Gaza Strip, Anadolu Agency reports.

Dearborn, where more than half of the population has Middle Eastern roots, views the current US government as supporting genocide. Residents shifted support from the Democrat Party to the Republican Party, which contributed to Donald Trump’s nearly seven-point win against Kamala Harris in the city.

Residents, who annually vote Democrat, demonstrated a stark change in this election.

In 2020, Trump received only around 30 per cent of the vote in Dearborn, compared to Joe Biden’s 69 per cent. This year, voters appeared to respond to what they view as a lack of action by Democrats against Israel in its more than year-long onslaught in Gaza, which has killed in excess of 43,000 victims.

“This community usually votes majority Democrat. They didn’t this time around,” resident Mohammad Abudrabo told Anadolu, reflecting his frustration. “I think regular people are not happy, and people who normally vote Democrat feel like they’re not being heard.”

He accused Democrats of losing “touch with reality”.

Abudrabo criticised the Democratic Party’s support for Israel, noting that “60 per cent of Democrats oppose the genocide. So just as a matter of politics, why would you not stop it?”

Ali Altimi emphasized the profound importance of Palestine for the community – regardless of party affiliation.

“Whether it’s Republican or Democrat, the biggest thing for us, and I think everyone in Dearborn shares this, is what’s happening in Palestine,” he said.

He indicated that even those who are not into politics or outside the Middle Eastern community are concerned about the financial aid flowing overseas while Americans struggle with inflation. “With prices increasing here, it’s like common sense,” he said.

Altimi hopes a change in leadership could improve the situation domestically and abroad. He said people are fed up and want economic stability. And they want the killings to stop In Palestine.

“So, I think that Gaza played a role in the Democrats losing.”

Since Israel launched war on Gaza on 7 October, 2023, most of the more than 43,400 Palestinians who have been killed have been women and children, and more than 102,300 others have been injured, according to local health authorities.

More than a year into the onslaught, vast tracts of Gaza lay in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.

Israel stands accused of genocide against Palestinians at the International Court of Justice.

“Q Day” Is Coming: Is the World Prepared?

Quantum computing is universally expected to render our most common data security methods obsolete.

Ian Munroe
November 7, 2024

There are concerns about the extent to which different countries will be able to protect themselves, the author notes. (Illustration by Paul Lachine)

While threats from phishing emails and other kinds of cyberattacks are more of a nuisance with each passing year, there’s a greater worry ahead: quantum computing is universally expected to render our most common data security methods obsolete. The only question is how soon.

“As of right now, every piece of information that we have is already lost,” says Shohini Ghose, a quantum physicist and professor of physics and computer science at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario. “The day the quantum computer was proposed was the day that we’'ve all become vulnerable. And I don’'t think we realize that, as yet — and if it sounds like panic and alarm, actually we are not panicking and being alarmist enough.”

This raises a couple of pressing questions: How should we respond? And how will that response shape a potentially transformative technology at a pivotal stage of development?

Recently, Ghose and a handful of other experts from around the world gathered near the Eiffel Tower at the headquarters of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization to tackle these questions. Other international organizations are also searching for answers.

Quantum computers harness the properties of subatomic particles to process information. The first such machine of its kind is generally considered to have been built in 1998. It consisted of two quantum bits, or “qubits,” the fundamental units of information with which these machines encode data. IBM’s Quantum System One, which was inaugurated near Bromont, Quebec in 2023, (and which looks vaguely like a streamlined floating garbage can), has a 127-qubit processor. Early in 2024, a California-based start-up announced it had developed a machine with more than 1,100 qubits.

Challenges abound. For one thing, qubits are notoriously sensitive to their environment and generally need to be kept at temperatures colder than that of outer space. But the progress so far has been enough to capture the attention of political leaders.

In 2016, when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was jokingly asked jby a reporter to explain how the technology worked, he made international headlines by delivering a convincing answer to a room crammed with physicists. “A regular computer bit is either a one or a zero, either on or off. A quantum state can be much more complex than that, because as we know, things can be both particle and wave at the same time, and the uncertainty around quantum states allows us to encode more information into a much smaller computer. So that’s what’s exciting about quantum computing,” Trudeau said, to applause. “Don’t get me going on this, or we’ll be here all day.”

Governments around the world have invested more than US$40 billion in quantum research and development to date, according to consulting firm McKinsey and Company. The consultancy estimates the overall market for the technology could hit US$173 billion by 2040.

Rebecca Krauthamer, co-founder and chief product and technology officer at QuSecure, a post-quantum cybersecurity company, says the goal is to produce machines that are more than just bigger, faster classical computers. Comparing the former to the latter is “like comparing a microwave to a candle,” she says. “They’re just totally different worlds.”



Quantum computers will eventually be able to tackle those problems exponentially faster than can conventional computers. Digital signatures and blockchain could also be compromised.


This new world is being touted as a way to deal with pressing global challenges such as food security and climate change, among other problems. But as development accelerates, risks also come into view. “For all the amazing things they’ll do, one of the things they will also do is break many of the mechanisms we use for e-commerce and data protection presently. So we need to come up with new mechanisms which would protect us against such an event,” says Vikram Sharma, CEO and founder of Canberra, Australia-based QuintessenceLabs and a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on the Future of Cybersecurity. “If we don’t, it would potentially impact the correct functioning of our society.”

Some of the most commonly used encryption methods, known by the abbreviations RSA and ECC, hinge on the difficulty of completing mathematical tasks such as factoring large numbers. Quantum computers will eventually be able to tackle those problems exponentially faster than can conventional computers. Digital signatures and blockchain could also be compromised by the technology.

A recent KPMG survey of 250 major corporations found that 60 percent of those in Canada and 73 percent in the United States believe “it’s only a matter of time” until the technology is applied to disrupt current cybersecurity protocols. One result, a 2022 report from the World Economic Forum noted, may be that “all regulations and laws regarding privacy, data management etc. would be impossible to uphold[3] .” A likely erosion of public trust in digital technology could compound these problems.

Companies such as Sharma’s and Krauthamer’s are developing tools to protect digital information from “Q Day” — when a quantum computer powerful enough to compromise the encryption systems that secure our digital world emerges.

When that will happen is hotly debated. An annual survey of several dozen leading quantum experts in 2023 put the time frame at between five and 30 years, with an estimated chance of 31 percent, on average, that a machine capable of cracking conventional cryptographic schemes will be built within a decade. “The technology is clearly maturing, and there is no known fundamental barrier to realizing large-scale quantum computing,” the survey’s authors wrote. “Cyber-risk managers should consider it more a matter of ‘when’ than of ‘if.’”

Adding to these fears is the belief that we won’t know when Q-Day has arrived. During the Second World War, when a team of codebreakers at an estate home in southeast England managed to crack Nazi Germany’s Enigma cypher machine, “they didn’t blast that out as an announcement to the world. They kept that secret, right?” Krauthamer says. “And so we are also unlikely to know when a... ‘cryptographically relevant quantum computer,’ comes online because it’s a very powerful tool and those that have that tool first will likely want to keep it secret as long as possible.”

Governments have been pouring significant amounts of money into research and development inhopes of gaining a strategic advantage. China is believed to have invested by far the most, at US$15 billion, according to McKinsey. The Chinese government built a sprawling 37-hectare national laboratory devoted to quantum computing near Shanghai in 2017. Earlier this year, researchers published a paper in the Chinese Journal of Computers that described the technology as “an exciting yet formidable challenge to cryptographic security” and claimed they had found a new approach that “has shown better realistic attack capabilities” against widely used RSA encryption.



And while Q-Day could still be years out, some governments are believed to be using "harvest now, decrypt later” attacks that involve acquiring and storing huge amounts of encrypted data so they can later access it.


And while Q-Day could still be years out, some governments are believed to be using "harvest now, decrypt later” attacks that involve acquiring and storing huge amounts of encrypted data so they can later access it once a “cryptographically relevant” quantum computer exists. In one such suspected attack, internet traffic from Toronto to South Korean government websites was diverted by China Telecom en route to its final destination for six months in 2016. “It is absolutely happening now,” Krauthamer says. “I can’t get into the political side. But it is a sure thing.”

What’s more, the analytical power of a machine that can break current encryption protocols is also likely to be far greater than with conventional computers, she says, meaning the insights that can be gleaned from online data leaks will be “much more impressive.” That could also put anonymized data sets at risk of being decoded.

So a rush to protect sensitive data is unfolding. Google says that in 2022 it put in place post-quantum cryptography — which relies on algorithms based on different math that are believed to be able to withstand quantum attacks — for all of its internal communications. The White House has been urging federal agencies in the US to begin migrating to this new type of cryptography and in July, its Office of Management and Budget said the cost of doing so will top US$7.1 billion between 2025 and 2035.

In August of 2024, one US agency published a trio of algorithms it hopes system administrators will adopt “as soon as possible.” The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which promotes innovation and competitiveness in American industry, said these new post-quantum standards will “secure a wide range of electronic information, from confidential email messages to e-commerce transactions that propel the modern economy.” The algorithms were eight years in the making. Two were co-produced by researchers at IBM. The third was co-produced by an expert who has since joined that company. (A fourth algorithm that the agency is expected to publish is also being built in collaboration with IBM.)

Other countries are introducing requirements for sensitive sectors of their economies to begin the shift to post-quantum cryptography, Sharma says. Governments can also play an advisory role by putting out guidance and standards on how organizations can protect themselves from quantum attacks, he says, as NIST is doing. They can become early adopters too, and “showcase how large organizations can transition into this new security regime. And then the follow on to that could be that they say, ‘all right, if you want to do business with us, then we need you to equally conform to a certain level of security maturity.’”

In Canada, a national quantum strategy launched in 2023 pledges in part to identify what information held by the federal government “is at greatest risk” and to develop a plan to protect it. But Ghose says a much broader effort is needed. “We have to really mobilize to shift to much better encryption systems,” she says. “We have to mobilize all of our different sectors, and both the small businesses as well as the large industry players, to really think about this and rapidly translate to these newer standards that are not as vulnerable.”

On an international level, there are also concerns about the extent to which different countries will be able to protect themselves, and what exactly the gap between the haves and have-nots will mean.

“The big risk is a huge quantum divide between countries with quantum technologies, with huge national programs about quantum technologies, and countries that don’t have programs or don’t have quantum technologies,” says Luca Possati, an assistant professor at the University of Twente in the Netherlands who studies human-technology interaction. “The risk of divide and the consequences of a possible divide can be very dangerous ,” he adds. “But of course, it’s quite difficult to say what is going to happen because there are so many variables, we still don’t know actually all the potentialities of this technology.”


The opinions expressed in this article/multimedia are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of CIGI or its Board of Directors.

About the Author
Ian Munroe

Ian Munroe is a journalist with a focus on technology and international relations.

 AFGHANISTAN

Khalilzad sees Trump’s return as chance to fully implement Doha deal

• by Mujeeb Rahman Awrang Stanikzai
• 
  

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Zalmay Khalilzad, the former U.S. special envoy for Afghan reconciliation, expressed optimism that Donald Trump’s potential return to the presidency presents an opportunity to fully enact the Doha Agreement, a deal aimed at facilitating a peaceful resolution in Afghanistan.

“With Trump’s return to the U.S. presidency, there is an opportunity for full implementation of all the elements of the Doha Agreement in Afghanistan,” Khalilzad said in a recent statement.

The agreement, signed on February 29, 2020, in Doha, Qatar, by Abdul Ghani Baradar, then head of the Taliban’s negotiating team, and Khalilzad on behalf of the Trump administration, outlined terms for the release of 5,000 Taliban prisoners and a gradual withdrawal of American troops. The deal also laid the groundwork for intra-Afghan negotiations meant to shape the country’s future governance.

Critics have argued that the Doha Agreement contributed to the rapid collapse of the former Afghan government, particularly in the wake of the swift U.S. military withdrawal. The accord’s ambitious goals for peace and cooperation faced significant hurdles after the fall of the government and the subsequent rise of the Taliban to power.

The agreement was structured around three main parts:

Part A involved Afghanistan’s commitment not to host or cooperate with international terrorist groups and the U.S.’s pledge to support Afghan security forces.

Part B stipulated the phased reduction of U.S. military presence, with a target of withdrawing all forces within 14 months, contingent on Taliban compliance. It also called for prisoner releases and the initiation of intra-Afghan dialogue.

Part C outlined U.S. commitments to seek UN Security Council endorsement and maintain positive bilateral relations focused on reconstruction and economic cooperation.

Despite these detailed provisions, the Doha Agreement’s promises of sustainable peace and political settlement remain largely unfulfilled. Analysts and former officials, including Khalilzad, now watch Trump’s political prospects with renewed interest, debating whether his leadership could revive the agreement’s intentions or exacerbate challenges in U.S.-Afghan relations.

OSHA investigating after Target employee dies on aerial lift at central Pa. store

Updated: Nov. 05, 202
By John Beauge | Special to PennLive

PENNSDALE—The Occupation and Safety Administration is investigating the workplace death of a Target store employee Saturday in Lycoming County.

Brianna Burley-Inners, 26, of South Williamsport, was trapped between a “manlift,” or movable work platform, and door frame while working on the security system in the ceiling in the store near Pennsdale, state police said. Manlifts are machines that enable workers to perform tasks at heights. They have an enclosed platform attached to a lifting mechanism that raises and lowers workers and their tools.

She was last seen by co-workers about 11:30 p.m., they said. As workers were checking out about midnight the lead employee radioed Burley-Inners to see if she was on her way, they said.

RIP

164 workers died in occupation-related accidents in Turkey in October: report

ByTurkish Minute
November 7, 2024

A total of 164 people died in workplace accidents in Turkey in October, according to a monthly report prepared by the Health and Safety Labor Watch (İSİG), the Stockholm Center for Freedom reported.

Four minors were among the reported work-related fatalities.

Construction was the leading sector to record fatalities among workplace accidents, representing 30 percent of the deaths. Agriculture was second, with 18 percent, followed by transportation with 11 percent.

The most frequent cause of death was falling from a height, which accounted for 19 percent of all workplace deaths, while experiencing a heart attack represented 18 percent and traffic accidents accounted for 15 percent.

Lax work safety standards have been a significant cause of concern for decades in Turkey, where workplace accidents are a nearly daily occurrence. İSİG reported nearly 2,000 work-related deaths in 2023.

According to İSİG, more than 30,000 occupational accidents have been reported since the Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in November 2002.

İSİG General Coordinator Murat Çakır earlier said the reason for the large number of fatalities in work-related accidents has to do with the policies of the AKP, which he said aim to turn Turkey into a source of cheap labor for Europe.

According to Çakır, workers feel obliged to work under unsafe conditions, fearing that they will otherwise be unable to support their family.

İSİG began to record occupational fatalities in 2011. The group records the number of workers who die due to the lack of workplace safety and campaigns for stricter workplace safety measures.

A yearly report produced by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) on labor rights revealed that Turkey is one of the 10 worst countries in the world for workers in industrial sectors. According to the Brussels-based ITUC, workers’ freedoms and rights have been further denied since police crackdowns on protests in Turkey in 2023.

Emissions from private jets are skyrocketing. Monitoring them is about to get much harder

Private jet travel has increased dramatically at Van Nuys Airport, which was originally designed for propeller craft only but now has a tremendous amount of private jet traffic. A jet taxis to take off from the airport in 2022.
(Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

By Noah Haggerty

Staff Writer 

Nov. 7, 2024 

Carbon dioxide emissions from private jets have increased by 46% in the last five years, according to a study published Thursday in the journal Nature Communications Earth & Environment.

The researchers analyzed over 26,000 airplanes and 18 million trips — representing most private flights between 2019 and 2023 — and found that more than two-thirds of all private jets were based in the U.S.

“I think [the paper] is going to be a benchmark for future studies,” said Christopher Jones, a carbon footprint researcher and director of the CoolClimate Network at UC Berkeley, who was not involved in the work. “They have really interesting analysis on where people are flying ... It’s a really interesting paper — thought-provoking.”

The researchers also found that 291 of the flights were to the 2023 COP28 climate conference, releasing a collective 3,800 tons of carbon dioxide.


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Around the turn of the century, the Federal Aviation Administration pioneered the technology that allows researchers to track private jets — but now, the agency is allowing aircraft operators to obscure their ID, which could potentially make similar studies impossible.

“We’ve been lucky to do this study now,” said Stefan Gössling, the lead author and a professor of tourism research at Linnaeus University in Sweden. The current availability of comprehensive data motivated Gössling and his colleagues to undertake the first-of-its-kind assessment of global private jet travel.

With the U.S. aiming to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in its aviation industry by 2050, the study authors say the results demonstrate the need for increased regulation.

However, since private jets make up only a fraction of a percent of total greenhouse gas emissions, Jones says the issue is ultimately more of a moral concern about wealth inequity than a pressing front on the race to a carbon-neutral world.

“Their personal carbon footprints ... don’t add up to as much as you think,” Jones said. “There’s only so much food, so much stuff and houses and flights you can take in a year.”

“It gets people very upset to think of these rich individuals flying around with no regard to their carbon footprint. I think it deserves some attention, but also it may be a distraction from some of the much bigger problems out there,” he said.

Air travel emissions come disproportionately from the well-off. A premium class seat is responsible for releasing five to nine times more carbon than an economy class seat.

And private jets — used by only 0.003% of the population — accounted for almost 2% of the industry’s emissions. The worst offenders, Gössling says, can pollute 550 times more than the average person in a given year through private jet travel alone.

Although the study did not assess the cause of the increase, others have found the COVID-19 pandemic has played a significant role, as wealthier individuals, hoping to avoid potential exposure to the disease, opted for private flights instead of commercial.

The study authors also note that reducing emissions is particularly difficult amid continued growth in economic output and wealth.

Weaning planes off carbon-based fuel would be far more difficult than for cars. Right now, batteries are simply too heavy to power commercial and private airplanes.

Instead, the FAA says achieving this will require developing airplane technology that emits less, reducing the amount of fuel burned through better air traffic management, and ultimately investing in carbon capture technology to offset the unavoidable emissions.

Although emissions from private aviation make up only a small fraction of total emissions for all sectors across the globe, Gössling says holding the ultra-wealthy accountable is still important.

“I’ve already heard a great number of people saying, ... ‘It’s not even, say, half of Denmark’s annual emissions. It’s tiny,’” he said.


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“But if what the 1 percent — or the very tiny fraction of people able to travel on private aircraft — is doing is not relevant, then obviously nothing is relevant because everybody else will just point at this tiny group and say, ‘Look, they are polluting much more than I do.’”

In recent years, private jet owners and passengers have come under increasing scrutiny.

Many countries require that aircraft publicly broadcast their location in order to coordinate air traffic control, which has allowed companies like FlightAware and private citizens to report the locations of specific planes — and scientists to analyze their emissions.

In 2020, a high schooler created an automated account on X, known then as Twitter, that tracked Elon Musk’s private jet. He went on to create accounts for Mark Zuckerberg and Taylor Swift as well.

The result was an onslaught of social media criticism of the billionaires and memes about their excessive travel. During the 2024 Super Bowl, X users followed the drama as Swift raced from a show in Tokyo to the Las Vegas stadium (after a layover at LAX) with just 14 hours in between the two events.

The previous Super Bowl drew in 200 private jets to the Phoenix area, according to the new study. The Cannes film festival pulled in almost 650, and the FIFA World Cup attracted over 1,800.

It wasn’t uncommon for jets to travel to multiple events, either. Two Super Bowl-goers also attended COP28, and 61 jets at the climate conference also traveled to Cannes.

The increased focus and visibility of private jets has led to backlash among their passengers.

Both Musk’s and Swift’s teams threatened legal action against the creator of the jet trackers, Jack Sweeney, for violating their privacy.

The push for privacy led the FAA to introduce a new feature that allows U.S-registered aircraft to obscure their identity in 2019.

The move — if adopted en masse by the private aircraft — could block scientists like Gössling from determining what model aircraft it is — which researchers need to calculate carbon dioxide emissions.

As of April, the study authors say, 283 aircraft were currently obscuring their identity, representing roughly 1% of the private jet fleet.

But Sweeney — who has linked certain planes to celebrities by assessing the aircrafts’ paint jobs, aligning flight paths to public schedules and finding gaps in the FAA’s privacy measures — remains undeterred. “Put simply, it will not ... stop the tracking,” he wrote on X.

 

Cuba left reeling after Category 3 hurricane ravages island and knocks out power

People at a bus stop shield themselves with cardboard (Ramon Espinosa/AP)

Thu, 07 Nov, 2024 - 15:59

Andrea Rodriguez, Associated Press

Cuba was left reeling on Thursday after a fierce Category 3 hurricane ripped across the island, knocking out the country’s power grid, downing trees and damaging infrastructure.

No deaths were immediately reported.

Hurricane Rafael crossed a western portion of Cuba on Wednesday about 45 miles west of Havana, where Jose Ignacio Dimas returned home from his night shift as a security guard to find his apartment building in the historic centre of the city had collapsed.

“The entire front wall of the building fell,” he said in a tight voice as he scanned the damage early Thursday. Like many buildings in the capital, it was aging and lacked maintenance.

Some 50,000 people took shelter in Havana, with thousands more doing the same in regions south and just west of the capital since they lived in flood zones or in flimsy homes.

The main road from Havana to the southern coastal city of Batabano was strewn with dozens of utility poles and wires.

Lazaro Guerra, electricity director for the ministry of energy and mines, said power had been partially restored in the island’s western region and that generation units were powering back up.

But he warned that restoring power would be slow-going as crews took safety precautions.

As Rafael ploughed across Cuba on Wednesday it slowed to a Category 2 hurricane as it chugged into the Gulf of Mexico before heading toward Mexico, according to the National Hurricane Centre in Miami.

People drive along a road littered with fallen power lines (Ramon Espinosa/AP)

Late Thursday morning, the hurricane was about 200 miles west-northwest of Havana. It had maximum sustained winds of 100 mph and was moving west-northwest at nine mph.

Earlier in the week, Rafael brushed past Jamaica and battered the Cayman Islands, downing trees and power lines and unleashing heavy flooding in some areas.

Authorities in Jamaica are searching for a couple last seen inside a car that was swept away by floodwaters, police told Radio Jamaica News.

Thousands of people in Jamaica and Little Cayman remained without power as crews worked to restore electricity after the storm.

Rafael was expected to keep weakening as it spins over open waters and heads toward northern Mexico, although the hurricane centre said there was “above average uncertainty” in the storm’s future track.

A man walks through the wind and rain (Ramon Espinosa/AP)

Meanwhile, many Cubans were left picking up the pieces from Wednesday night, after a rocky few weeks in the Caribbean nation.

In October, the island was hit by a one-two punch.

First, it was hit by island-wide blackouts stretching on for days, a product of the island’s energy crisis. Shortly after, it was slapped by a powerful hurricane that struck the eastern part of the island and killed at least six people.

The disasters have stoked discontent already simmering in Cuba amid an ongoing economic crisis, which has pushed many to migrate.

Classes and public transport were suspended on parts of the island and authorities cancelled flights in and out of Havana and Varadero. Thousands of people in the west of the island had been evacuated from their homes as a preventative measure.

Rafael is the 17th named storm of the season.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted the 2024 hurricane season was likely to be well above average, with between 17 and 25 named storms.

The forecast was for as many as 13 hurricanes and four major hurricanes.

Cuba's electrical grid collapses as Hurricane 

Rafael lashes island

Reuters
Published on Nov. 7, 2024

The hurricane moved 250 km north and west of Havana Thursday morning

By Dave Sherwood

HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuban authorities struggled to return power to the island on Thursday morning after Hurricane Rafael knocked out the country's electrical grid, leaving 10 million people in the dark.

The grid collapsed on Wednesday afternoon as Rafael tore across Cuba with top winds of 115 mph (185 kph), damaging homes, uprooting trees and toppling telephone poles.

The hurricane had moved 155 miles (250 km) north and west of Havana by Thursday morning, spinning off into the Gulf of Mexico where it no longer posed an immediate threat to land, the Miami-based U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

Rafael's projected track on Nov. 7, 2024. (The Weather Network)

RELATED: High pressure looks to spare the U.S. Gulf states from Hurricane Rafael impacts

Rafael was the latest blow to the communist-run country's already precarious electrical grid, which just two weeks ago collapsed multiple times, leaving many in the country without power for days.

The Energy and Mines Ministry said it had already begun work to reconnect the national grid late on Wednesday but warned that the process would be slower in western parts of the island, which were hardest hit by the storm.
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People walk on the street as the energy grid suffers a complete blackout while Hurricane Rafael makes landfall in Artemisa province as a category three hurricane, in Havana, Cuba 

November 6, 2024. (REUTERS/Norlys Perez)

Emergency workers had returned power to some circuits, state-run media said, though Havana remained largely without power at daybreak on Thursday.

Rafael, the second hurricane to hit the island in less than a month after Oscar ravaged eastern Cuba in October, added to existing problems with power.

The country's decrepit oil-fired generation plants have struggled to keep the lights on for decades, but this year the system collapsed into crisis as oil imports dropped off from allied countries - Venezuela, Russia and Mexico. Rolling blackouts lasting hours have become the norm across much of Cuba

Heavy rain was still falling in the capital, Havana, early on Thursday, as surf pounded the waterfront Malecon boulevard and many low-lying areas and roads remained flooded. Downed tree limbs, trash and debris blocked many roadways, complicating travel and recovery efforts.

Havana's airport was scheduled to remain closed through at least Thursday at mid-day, officials said.

The storm tore across Artemisa province, which is an important farming region in a country already suffering from severe food shortages. Heavy winds and rain prompted authorities to protectively harvest ripening fruits and vegetables rather than take a total loss

.

A woman peers from a door as the energy grid suffers a complete blackout while Hurricane Rafael makes landfall in Artemisa province as a category three hurricane, in Havana, Cuba November 6, 2024. (REUTERS/Norlys Perez)

State-run media showed images of downed power lines, metal roofs strewn across city streets and shattered windows. Flooding was widespread.

Rafael grazed the Cayman Islands as a Category 1 cyclone on the five-step Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale before increasing strength in less than 24 hours to the much more powerful Category 3 that made landfall on Cuba's southwestern shore.

More than 40 monkeys escape U.S. research facility as residents urged to keep doors closed


Dozens of monkeys are on the loose in a South Carolina town, after escaping from a research facility on Wednesday night.


A file photo of a rhesus macaque perched near a busy road in the New Territories of Hong Kong, 15 January 2004. Forty monkeys are on the loose in a South Carolina town after escaping from a research facility.PETER PARKS AFP/Getty Images

By Kevin Jiang

Staff Reporter

Nov. 7, 2024



Residents of Yemassee, South Carolina, were urged to keep alert and their doors and windows locked after 43 monkeys broke out of a primate research facility Wednesday afternoon.

In a Thursday update, Yemassee police say they were alerted around 1 p.m. Wednesday that dozens of Rhesus Macaque monkeys had escaped from the nearby Alpha Genesis Primate Research Center.

After searching for hours in collaboration with the research centre, police confirmed Alpha Genesis “have eyes on the primates and are working to entice them with food.”

“The public is advised to avoid the area as these animals are described as skittish and any additional noise or movement could hinder their safe capture.”

Police reiterated their prior warning that “residents are strongly advised to keep doors and windows secured to prevent these animals from entering homes,” per their initial social media update.


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Locals are urged to avoid approaching or interacting with the animals; anyone who locates a monkey should call 911 immediately.

Police confirmed the monkeys were all very young female Rhesus Macaques that “have never been used for testing due to their young age and size.” According to Alpha Genesis, the animals are “too young to carry disease.”

On Facebook, the town of Yemassee clarified the monkeys are “not a health hazard or infected. They are, however, lost and scared, and caution should be used.”

It’s not currently known how the monkeys escaped the facility. Alpha Genesis didn’t immediately respond to the Star’s request for comment.

On its website, Alpha Genesis calls itself the “world’s premier provider of the finest nonhuman primate products and services.” A promotional video for the company claims it is “one of the largest and most comprehensive non human primate facilities in the United States.”

It’s not the first time monkeys escaped from the site; in 2016, 16 monkeys broke out of Alpha Genesis, only to be returned home six hours later, according to local newspaper The Post and Courier. Another local monkey escaped from its undisclosed owner in May; it was captured and subsequently found dead days later.

Kevin Jiang is a Toronto-based staff

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Peter Singer, Animal Liberation - WordPress.com

That's an important step forward, and a sign that over the next forty years we may see even bigger changes in the ways we treat animals. Peter Singer. February ...

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Animal Rights Theory and Utilitarianism.pdf

In Practical Ethics, Peter Singer argues that ethics is not "an ideal system which is all very noble in theory but no good in practice." 1 Singer identifies ..

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Beasts of Burden: Capitalism - Animals - Communism - Libcom.org

Beasts of. Burden. Capitalism · Animals. Communism as on ent ons. s a een ree. Page 2. Beasts of Burden: Capitalism - Animals -. Communism. Published October ...

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Letter on animal liberation - Gilles Dauvé | libcom.org

Nov 18, 2005 ... Beasts of Burden forces to rethink the whole "primitivist" debate. ... Gilles Dauvé- Letter on animal liberation.pdf (316.85 KB). primitivism ..

Freedom House and Staff Union Sign First Collective-Bargaining Agreement


Freedom House is proud to affirm its support for the important role of labor unions in democracy.

Press release November 7, 2024

WASHINGTON—In response to the enactment of Freedom House’s first collective-bargaining agreement, the organization’s interim president, Nicole Bibbins Sedaca, issued the following statement:

“We are pleased to announce that Freedom House and its staff union have signed and ratified their first collective-bargaining agreement after a year and a half of negotiations. The three-year contract took effect on November 1 and covers more than 80 US-based employees, though we are committed to ensuring that the entire organization enjoys improvements in pay, benefits, and working conditions as a result of this process.

“Freedom House has long recognized the important role played by independent labor unions in the expansion of democracy, and we regularly incorporate union rights into our assessments of freedom of association around the world. The fact that we are now putting these principles into practice will only strengthen our advocacy and partnerships in the future.

Background

Freedom House’s US-based staff voted to unionize in early 2023, in a process overseen by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The staff union is affiliated with the Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU) Local 153, part of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO).

Freedom House is a nonprofit, nonpartisan democracy organization that works to create a world where all are free. We inform the world about threats to freedom, mobilize global action, and support democracy’s defenders.

UK

G4S workers strike against “two tiers”

 6 November, 2024 Author: Interview with Carly Wade


Civil service security workers outsourced to G4S have been on strike for improved pay, sick pay and annual leave, and against a two-tier workforce. Carly Wade, a PCS union rep at the Cabinet Office in Whitehall, spoke to Sacha Ismail.

We have a two-tier pay system here. We have a lot of people who are just on the London Living Wage, and some of us get more. We want one pay tier. We don’t want anyone to be without sick pay, we don’t want anyone to have a lot less holiday. We all do the same job — we want everyone to be equal.

We’re asking for a certain amount above the London Living Wage for those on that; for a percentage in line with inflation for the rest of us; twenty five days sick pay for everybody; and thirty days holiday for everybody. We need the two-tier system to stop.

Our colleagues who have no sick pay at the moment, for instance, obviously have to come to work unwell. And then if a member of your family has Covid or flu, say, it’s a knock-on effect for all of us.

I do get sick pay, and my salary is better, but a lot of my colleagues don’t get those things. The reason is I was previously employed by the civil service, and I have civil service terms and conditions. Our workforce has been outsourced six times since 2007, and each time the company has brought in a certain number of people. So the number who were directly employed constantly falls. I don’t think there’s even half of us now who are on those relatively decent terms and conditions.

Even those of us on civil service conditions haven’t had a pay rise in seven years.

I want to underline that outsourcing is the problem. The relative benefits the civil service brings, in terms of pensions, for instance, a certain amount of sick pay, a certain amount of holiday pay — these companies don’t bring that. They bring people in, sometimes on zero hours contracts; so you’ll see someone for seven hours one week and then fifty hours the next week.

We’re against outsourcing. We believe that government buildings, especially, shouldn’t be outsourced. The quality of the job done also goes down. You can see that with the people they’ve brought in to replace us, who have had no real government security training. Meanwhile, even at normal times, when people have no job security, when they’re scared to go sick, when they feel they have to do overtime, or won’t get annual leave approved, that has a huge impact on people’s state of mind too.

We began on the 28th, and we’re on strike till this Sunday [10 November]. Monday we all go back to work. We’re picketing Monday to Thursday both weeks, 8-10am.

There’s no movement officially, but we know, and our friends in the building have confirmed it, that this is not sustainable. They’ve brought people over from Northern Ireland, they’ve had to pay for their accommodation, for their food, for taxis. Management have had to come in at 6 every morning, which never happens! I do believe we are going to win. Once we stop on Monday, we’ll announce our next round of dates. We won’t stop till we get what we deserve.

This is the first time [security at] 70 Whitehall [the Cabinet Office building] has been on strike. Do you know what? — it feels quite empowering. It really does. There’s a lot of bullying going on, in this company especially. People are not treated well; they’re treated like second class citizens in a way. They didn’t think we would pull this off. I’m a very new rep, my colleague [fellow rep Mohammed Miezou] is a very new rep, and this is the first time we’ve done anything like this — but everybody has come out on strike, every single member has come out. Everybody is so pumped up for this; everyone is here at 7 o’clock in the morning, everyone has got their whistles and is ready to go.

I’ve never seen unity like this strike has brought us. Everybody is so loyal to one another. It’s actually been quite emotional to see everyone come together.

What would you say to other workers who are thinking about going on strike, or even just joining a union?

Know your worth. Know what you deserve. I’d recommend everyone join a union. I’ve been here 19 years, and in the union 17 or 18 of those. PCS have been fantastic; they’ve given us the support we’ve needed, materials we’ve needed, they’ve been on the phone at 11 o’clock at night.... We’ve also had good support from our directly employed PCS colleagues, who’ve joined our picket lines, come and clapped us, brought us chocolates, and found other ways to support us.

Wherever you work, everybody needs to stand up for what they believe in. If you think you’re not getting what you’re worth, then come out! They can’t run businesses without their workers.

Unlike our civil service colleagues, our ministers haven’t come and supported us. They’ve not even come out to speak to us and find out what our issues are and why we’re on strike. We find it extremely disappointing.

What we want to see from this government is insourcing. We’d like to see contracts like this insourced. Companies like G4S and similar, they don’t have anyone’s best interests: it’s all about profit. You’d get so much more loyalty and commitment out of your workforce if you brought them back in house and treated everybody with respect.

It’s lovely to hear buses and lorries coming past and beeping [this was pretty continuous while we were at the picket]. That and people joining our picket lines and clapping gives us such a boost. It’s tiring blowing whistles for three hours, so it gives us a real boost to get support from others. People can also promote our stuff on social media, and contact their MP. And promote the message: we need insourcing of all government contracts.