Cuba’s ‘invisible’ tragedy: US-bound migrants who disappear in the Caribbean

By AFP
December 17, 2024

Cubans show pictures of their relatives who disappeared in January 2023 on a handmade migrant boat somewhere between Cuba and South Florida 

- Copyright AFP YAMIL LAGE

Leticia PINEDA

In the early hours of January 3, 2023, 32 people climbed onto a makeshift raft off southern Cuba and set out across the Caribbean for Florida, 170 kilometers (100 miles) away.

They were never heard from again.

Among them was an eight-year-old girl who was traveling with her mother, six members of a family from the central Cuban city of Camaguey and a couple from the south-central city of Cienfuegos who left their children behind for safety.

The boat’s occupants also included Yoel Romero, a 43-year-old bricklayer and father of three, Jonathan Jesus Alvarez, a 30-year-old truck driver, also with three children, and Dariel Alejandro Chacon, a 27-year-old maintenance worker.

Chacon’s mother Idalmis put some toast in her son’s backpack for the crossing to Florida, but he never got to eat it.

The bag washed up four days later on a rocky beach at a luxury golf club in the Florida Keys.



– ‘We need to know’ –



The Caribbean has become a watery grave for Cubans fleeing a severe economic crisis on the communist island and headed for Florida.

At least 368 Cubans have died or disappeared on the Caribbean migration route since 2020, when the International Organization for Migration (IOM) began gathering statistics on what it calls “invisible shipwrecks.”

The US Coast Guard repatriated a similar number — 367 — who tried to enter the country illegally in the fiscal year ending September 30, 2024.

But residents of the cash-strapped island, reeling from the worst economic crisis since the fall of the Soviet Union, Cuba’s main ally and financial backer, in the 1990s, remained undeterred.

AFP spoke to 21 relatives of the 32 Cubans who went missing at sea on January 3, 2023.

All were desperate for news of their relatives’ fate.

“Nobody has given us an answer,” Alvarez’s mother, Osmara Garcia, said in an interview in her adobe house in a low-income neighborhood of Cardenas, a city in west-central Cuba from which many of the missing travelers hail.

“We need to know whatever the answer is…because the uncertainty is unbearable,” Romero’s mother Amparo Riviera said.



– Two backpacks –



Cuba is experiencing the biggest emigration wave since the revolution that brought the late Fidel Castro to power in 1959.

The island has lost around one million inhabitants since 2012, census figures show.

Many try the well-traveled route across the sea to the United States, where President Joe Biden in 2023 began allowing legal entry for citizens of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela — four countries with grim human rights records.

More than 700,000 Cubans entered the United States — legally or illegally — between January 2022 and August 2024.

But for many of those who do not meet the conditions for entry, including having a US sponsor, illegal entry by sea is the fallback plan.

The raft bearing Alvarez, Chacon, Romero, and their fellow travelers left from Playa Larga beach on Cuba’s southern coast.

The only clues as to their fate were the backpacks of Chacon and another migrant found within a kilometer and a half of each other on the Florida coast.

“From then on, my life changed (…) it was all about the search,” Romero’s mother Riviera said.



– Backyard boat builders –



Unlike in the Mediterranean, where NGOs track migrant boats and organize rescue missions, the plight of people crossing the Caribbean goes largely undocumented.

At least 1,100 migrants from Central and South America have disappeared “without a trace” on the Caribbean migrant route since 2020, said Edwin Viales, regional monitor for the IOM Missing Migrants Project.

2022 was the deadliest year on record for Cubans trying to reach the US by sea, with at least 130 migrants perishing in the process, according to the IOM.

At the end of 2022 and start of 2023, home-made rafts were leaving Cuba daily, with videos shared online showing boatpeople cheering each other on at sea.

Little was ever said about those who never arrived at their intended destination.

The group that left from Playa Larga secretly built a raft measuring nine meters (30 feet) from bow to stern, with a sail, eight oars and 10 metal barrels to give buoyancy.

Alvarez’s mother said her son kept his departure a secret.

Would-be Cuban migrants often hush up their preparations because emigrating by sea is illegal in Cuba and they do not want their families to worry about them.



– ‘We prayed to God’ –



Only a few Cubans, like Oniel Machado, a 49-year-old blacksmith from the western city of San Jose de la Lajas, have survived a shipwreck in the Florida Straits to tell the tale.

He and 12 fellow migrants spent hours face down, clinging onto the boards of their raft, which was roiled by a raging sea, one night in April 2022.

“We prayed to God,” Machado told AFP a month later, “and we covered ourselves, and when we woke up, we were in US waters.”

That journey ended in disappointment for the group, however.

They were picked up by the US Coast Guard and returned to Cuba.

US, Chinese ships at Cambodia bases as Washington navigates diplomatic currents

IMPERIALISM DOCKS IN A STALINIST MONARCHY

ByAFP
December 18, 2024

Crew members of the USS Savannah line up as they prepared to dock in Cambodia's port city of Sihanoukville this week - Copyright AFP YARN SOVEIT
Suy SE

When a US warship docked in Cambodia this week, it moored just a few kilometres from a base where China has built an extended new pier and two of Beijing’s own vessels have been berthed for about a year.

The United States has said the Ream naval base could grant China a strategic position in the Gulf of Thailand, near the disputed South China Sea, which Beijing claims almost in its entirety.

Washington is now looking to bolster its relationship with Cambodia, after Phnom Penh scrapped joint military exercises in 2017.

Cambodia has long been one of China’s staunchest allies in Southeast Asia, and Beijing has extended its influence over Phnom Penh in recent years.

China’s sway has taken its most concrete form at the Ream base — once partly funded by the United States — where the new jetty extends 363 metres (1,191 feet) into the Gulf of Thailand.

The two Type-056A Chinese anti-submarine corvettes — number 630, the Aba, and 631, the Tianmen — have been stationed alongside it for about 12 months, despite Cambodian leaders’ insistence that the base is not for use by any foreign power.

The jetty and the ships symbolise Beijing’s interests in Cambodia, which analysts say Washington is looking to counter with the port call by the USS Savannah.


– China’s reach –


Under President Xi Jinping, the world’s second-largest economy has hugely strengthened its military depth and reach.

The Gulf of Thailand lies between the South China Sea — where Beijing has built artificial islands with military facilities — and the Indian Ocean, where it has struck multiple infrastructure deals as part of its Belt and Road Initiative.

A Chinese firm acquired a 99-year lease on the Sri Lankan port of Hambantota, and Beijing has other agreements with countries including Pakistan, the Maldives, Bangladesh and Djibouti, where it has a military base.

Even if Cambodia’s Ream does not become a formal Chinese base, Beijing’s warships could gain preferential access to its facilities for exercises and resupply, said Timothy Heath, a senior international defence researcher at the US-based Rand Corporation think tank.

It is far from the key trade and oil transit route of the Malacca Strait, he noted. But “China could find value in establishing an intelligence collection post at Ream, which they may well seek.”

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin visited Cambodia in June, and the combat ship USS Savannah docked at the southern port city of Sihanoukville on Monday, about 30 kilometres from the Ream base and the 1,500-tonne grey Chinese corvettes.

Ali Wyne, a researcher and adviser from International Crisis Group, told AFP the US visit “is part of Washington’s effort to repair defence ties with Phnom Penh”.


– ‘China’s little puppet’ –

Analysts say Cambodia is now looking to reduce its reliance on China and develop other relationships.

The US warship’s port call could be a “smart strategic move” by Phnom Penh as it sought to “shift global perception from seeing Cambodia as China’s little puppet,” political analyst Ou Virak told AFP.

China is Cambodia’s biggest creditor and has poured billions of dollars into infrastructure investments under former leader Hun Sen.

His son, Hun Manet — a graduate of the US military academy West Point — has led Cambodia since 2023, although Hun Sen has retained an influential role in government after nearly four decades of rule.

Cambodia’s Chinese-funded projects include a $2 billion expressway between Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville, and the $1.1 billion Siem Reap Angkor International Airport, which opened last year.

They have “helped elevate economic growth”, according to Phnom Penh.

But more than half of the Southeast Asian infrastructure projects China has funded in recent years have been cancelled, reduced in scale or were unlikely to proceed, according to a March study by the Australia-based Lowy Institute.

Others in the region and elsewhere were also looking to diversify their foreign policies, Wyne said.

“Both the United States and China should appreciate” that a growing number of countries were pursuing “multialigned foreign policies that cultivate partners other than the world’s two foremost powers”.

Read more: https://www.digitaljournal.com/world/us-chinese-ships-at-cambodia-bases-as-washington-navigates-diplomatic-currents/article#ixzz8umXJXw92

Serbia’s capital Belgrade to make public transport free


By AFP
December 18, 2024

A tram on the old Sava Bridge in Belgrade, which is soon to be demolished - Copyright AFP Andrej ISAKOVIC

All public transport in Serbia’s capital Belgrade will be free from next month — the latest European city to adopt the radical measure to counter gridlocked roads.

“This means no one will have to pay for a ticket anymore,” mayor Aleksandar Sapic said Wednesday, with the city following the example of Luxembourg, the Estonian capital Tallinn and the French city of Montpellier.

Belgrade — which has a population of nearly 1.7 million — struggles with terrible traffic jams, with the number of cars on its roads increasing by 250,000 over the past decade, according to Sapic.

The Serbian capital is one of the few major European capitals without an underground mass transit system.

A metro system has been promised for 2030, although ground has yet to be broken on the project amid numerous delays.

Sapic also vowed that the city’s entire fleet of buses, trams and trolley buses would be replaced by 2027.

Last month the mayor’s plans to demolish a major World War II-era bridge triggered protests and criticism that the removal of the river crossing would only exacerbate the city’s traffic problems.

The measure announced Wednesday was the latest in a series of handouts greenlit by Belgrade’s municipal government backed by the ruling Serbian Progressive Party. Over the past year kindergartens have been made free and students in the capital have also been given financial aid.

Three ‘transformations’ for nature, according to UN experts


ByAFP
December 18, 2024

The report highlighted the Nashulai Maasai Conservancy in Kenya - Copyright AFP Andrej ISAKOVIC
Kelly MACNAMARA

Human societies need a radical overhaul to stop the destruction of the planet, according to the UN biodiversity expert panel’s “transformative change” report released Wednesday.

The assessment, the second by the expert panel this week, says overconsumption in richer countries, a concentration of wealth and power, and a society increasingly disconnected from nature, were driving ecological destruction.

It ideas of how to respond to “biodiversity loss, nature’s decline and the projected collapse of key ecosystem functions”.

Taking action will be difficult — but not impossible, the report said.

“It is not just governments. It is not just business. It is not just civil society. It is all of us. We all need to work together,” said Arun Agrawaln, one of the lead authors of the report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).

Here are three examples of successful transformations, big and small, according to IPBES.

– Sea bounty –

In 2002 Spain suffered what was at the time its worst environmental disaster, when the Prestige oil tanker broke in two, spilling fuel that blackened swathes of the Atlantic coastline.

Fishing communities in Galicia responded to the devastation by pioneering a new way to manage a marine reserve, with fishers, scientists and the local authorities working together.

The “Os Minarzos” reserve model was “not without tensions”, IPBES said.

But more than 17 years later, the area has better fishing practices, more species and higher incomes — as well as improved trust and cooperation.

It also inspired new guidelines for the UN’s agriculture body and a network of more than 20 million fishers in Europe and across parts of North and South America.

– Ant Forest –

China’s largest private tree planting project, Ant Forest, is a mobile phone application that rewards users for climate friendly activities.

The app boasts that 500 million people have used its programme, which gives users “green energy points” for things like walking or cycling to work instead of driving, and cutting down on plastic and paper.

The points grow into a virtual tree, which Ant Forest matches by planting a real tree.

“Recognising a wide range of ecological and social goals, the plants are suited to specific contexts and provide jobs in eco-agriculture and ecotourism in remote rural areas facing environmental degradation in China,” the report said.

Since its launch in 2016, the project has planted 548 million trees in 13 provinces.

– ‘Power of community’ –

Traditional knowledge from indigenous peoples and local communities is a key aspect of the report, which highlighted the Nashulai Maasai Conservancy in Kenya.

IPBES said this “represents a new model for conservation”, which tries to tackle a range of issues together, including species loss, incomes and climate change.

The conservancy involves community-managed protected areas, as well as activities like river cleaning and tree planting.

IPBES said the project has succeeded in creating areas “where both humans and wildlife thrive”.

“Over a very short period of time, biodiversity reappeared,” said Karen O’Brien, another of the lead authors of the report.

“The power of community, again and again in our examples, is important.”

THE LAST COLONY   VIVA INDEPENDENCE

Climate change made Cyclone Chido stronger: scientists

By AFP
December 18, 2024

Officials warn of a death toll reaching hundreds, possibly even thousands

 - Copyright AFP Andrej ISAKOVIC

Climate change intensified Cyclone Chido as it barrelled toward the Indian Ocean archipelago of Mayotte, said a preliminary study by scientists studying the link between global warming and tropical storms.

The assessment by Imperial College London also estimated that cyclones of Chido’s strength were 40 percent more likely in the warmer climate of 2024 compared to pre-industrial times.

Chido was the most damaging cyclone to hit Mayotte in 90 years when it made landfall Saturday, flattening tin-roof shacks in France’s poorest overseas territory.

Classified as a category four storm — the second highest on a five-point scale — Cyclone Chido crossed the small archipelago, where about one-third of the population live in makeshift housing.

The true scale of the disaster is still unknown but officials fear the death toll could eventually rise into the thousands.

Scientists at Imperial College London assessed what role global warming might have played in whipping up the wind speed and ferocity of tropical storms like Chido.

To overcome a scarcity of real-world data, they used an advanced computer model that runs millions of simulated tropical cyclones to infer what might be attributed to recent warming.

They concluded that wind speeds in the region near where Chido made landfall had increased by 3 miles per second compared to the climate before humanity began burning fossil fuels.

Climate change “uplifted the intensity of a tropical cyclone like ‘Chido’ from a Category 3 to Category 4”, the study said.

In the absence of conclusive studies, France’s weather service has stopped short of attributing Chido’s intensity to global warming, but says warmer oceans driven by human-caused climate change have made storms more violent.

Mayotte took the cyclone’s full force and Meteo-France said Chido’s impact was “above all the consequence of its trajectory” over the island.

The climate is nearly 1.3 degrees Celsius warmer compared to the pre-industrial era, and scientists say this extra heat in the atmosphere and oceans is stoking more frequent and volatile weather events.

Warmer air can hold more water vapour, and warmer oceans cause greater evaporation, supercharging the conditions upon which tropical storms feed.

Devastated Mayotte battles to recover from cyclone ‘steamroller’


By AFP
December 18, 2024

The cyclone left scenes of utter devastation - Copyright AFP DIMITAR DILKOFF
Thibault Marchand

The district of La Vigie on the French overseas territory of Mayotte was until last week a bustling hub of life. Now it no longer exists.

All that remains after Cyclone Chido rammed into Mayotte at the weekend, leaving devastation unprecedented in the last century in its wake, are ravaged hills, piles of tangled sheet metal and wood, and a few bare tree trunks.

“It was like a steamroller that crushed everything,” said Nasrine, a teacher who did not give her last name, as she showed people around her now transformed neighbourhood.

Climbing up the hill clutching an umbrella to protect her from the sun, the young woman stopped in horror.

“We’re not supposed to see the sea from here — before, the vegetation covered the whole view,” she said.

Nasrine lived in one of the few concrete buildings in the district around Pamandzi, a town close to Mayotte’s main airport on the island of Petite Terre, just east of the main island of the Mayotte archipelago.

Her house survived the cyclone. But a little further on, Touharati Ali Moudou lost everything.

“The wind knocked down the house,” said the mother in her 30s, who recently arrived from the Comoros to the north from where many immigrants head to Mayotte in search of a better life.

Before the cyclone hit, she had been told that she could find shelter in a nearby gymnasium but, she said, “there were a lot of people, and my father is very old”.

So they stayed home.

In the end, they were lucky: only two people were injured among her family and nearby neighbours, including a man whose head was slashed by a piece of metal blown by the wind.





– Community spirit –

Everyone, from Mayotte locals to officials far away in Paris, knows that the official toll of 22 dead risks rising exponentially.

“What I fear is that the toll will be far too high,” French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, who visited Mayotte on Monday, told BFMTV, describing the damage as “colossal”.

Communication is almost non-existent. Nobody has television anymore. The mobile network and internet are at best patchy, at worst non-existent. Only the radio can sometimes give snippets of information.

With much of the population living in shanty towns in informal dwellings protected only by sheet metal roofs, Chido encountered few obstacles.

But a ray of hope comes from the sense of community as people team up to clear the area and return to a semblance of normal life.

In three days, the landscape of desolation has already changed.

“It looks good compared to Saturday,” Nasrine said.

Residents of the neighbourhood worked to clear the roads and remove most of the electrical cables on the ground, defying the authorities’ instructions for caution, she said.

The assistant principal of a middle school in Pamandzi, Morgane Renard, inspected the damage.

The shock caused by Chido was clear in her voice, which choked when talking about the cyclone: the first gust of wind, the slight lull and then the second “colossal” gust of wind.

“Even those who thought they were safe did not imagine to what extent the violence of the wind could devastate everything,” she said, acknowledging she was one of the lucky ones.

Apart from two trees that fell on her family house, it is intact.

“Sharing is the key word at the moment,” said Nasrine.

In the street, neighbours meet to cook with wood on makeshift equipment. Abeta, a 17-year-old boy, improvised a system with a water bottle cut in half to collect water drop by drop from a leaking pipe.

– Reconstruction –

Touharati Ali Moudou showed a pile of mattresses, blankets and a few belongings saved from the disaster. She has already put men to work to create a new dwelling and on a roughly flat piece of land posts have already been raised.

The sheet metal will soon be back, first for the roof: she will get a home for herself, her three children and the nieces and nephews who she sometimes looks after.

All over Mayotte, informal settlements that house an estimated 100,000 of the 300,000 officially registered inhabitants have been destroyed.

Reconstruction will be daunting. According to Retailleau, only 10 percent of Mayotte’s inhabitants had insurance.

Kaweni, the largest shantytown in France, on the outskirts of the capital Mamoudzou on Mayotte’s main island, is one of the most affected.

The sound of hammers hitting sheet metal reverberates across the neighbourhood as locals rush to rebuild homes before the rainy season arrives.

“It’s the new sound of Mamoudzou,” said a law student who came to the capital where the network is more stable to recharge his phone and give news to his parents who “thought he was dead”.

Heartbreaking Aftermath Of Cyclone Chido In Mayotte

Story by Hannah Hodgetts • 18/12/2024

Boinali Dhakioine

The aftermath of Cyclone Chido has left the communities of Mayotte devasted.

Cyclone Chido hit the region of Mayotte, France, on December 14th and is claimed to be one of the worst storms to hit the island in over 90 years.

Boinali Dhakioine, from Mamoudzou, Mayotte, France, captured heartbreaking footage of the effects of the cyclone on the island in the Indian Ocean.


Boinali Dhakioine

Many towns and homes were left destroyed as collapsed roofs, fallen trees and abandoned cars can be seen blocking the streets.

Mayotte was hit with torrential rainfall, wave heights over 5 meters and winds reaching up to 200 km per hour.

The natural disaster resulted in communities cut off from electricity and water and many roads, internet and phone networks still down.




Boinali Dhakioine

The cyclone continued to cause heartbreak to nearby islands of Comoros, Madagascar and Mozambique where the death toll is rising.

French President Emmanuel Macron declared national mourning and claimed to support residents and emergency services involved in the emergency and relief operation.

President Macron claimed to visit the French Indian Ocean territory in support of rescue teams who are struggling to clean up one of the biggest storms to hit the region in nearly a century.

Related video: France: Cyclone Chido Batters Mayotte, Leaving Significant Damage 4 (StringersHub)

 

France imposes curfew for cyclone-hit Mayotte as toll rises


By AFP
December 17, 2024

According to the latest official toll, 22 people are confirmed to have been killed in Mayotte by Cyclone Chido - Copyright Securite Civile/AFP Handout

Authorities announced a nighttime curfew Tuesday to curb looting after a devastating cyclone hit the French overseas territory of Mayotte, with the country’s prime minister warning the death toll could rise.

According to the latest toll from the interior ministry, 22 people are confirmed to have been killed and 1,373 injured by Cyclone Chido when it barrelled into the archipelago at the weekend.

But authorities fear that hundreds, and possibly even thousands, will be confirmed dead once the true scale of the toll is revealed after the rubble is cleared and roads are unblocked.

Cyclone Chido was the latest in a string of storms worldwide fuelled by climate change, with the exceptional system being super-charged by particularly warm Indian Ocean waters, according to experts.

Rescuers were searching for survivors in the wreckage and said they expected to find numerous victims in the ruins of slums such as ones in the capital Mamoudzou.

In a sign of the potential magnitude of the tragedy, the Red Cross said it feared more than 200 of its volunteers were missing on Mayotte.

“The toll is, as of today, at more than 20 dead, 200 badly wounded and 1,500 wounded in a relative state of urgency,” Prime Minister Francois Bayrou told parliament.

“This toll could rise. We all know this,” he added.

– ‘Completely devastated’ –

The health services are in tatters while power and mobile phone services have been knocked out.

The airport is closed to civilian flights and there is mounting concern over how to ensure supplies of drinking water.

Bayrou said progress was being made with about 50 percent of the electricity network restarted, with a target of 75 percent “by the end of the week”.

The main hospital has recovered around half of its activity, and “about 80 percent of the road network is accessible again”, he added.

The curfew from 10:00 pm to 4:00 am (1900 GMT to 0100 GMT) is being put in place as a security measure to prevent looting, the French interior ministry said.

French President Emmanuel Macron, who chaired a crisis meeting on Monday night, has described the situation as a “tragedy”.

Late Tuesday, Macron said he would visit territory on Thursday, cutting short a trip to Brussels to meet European Union leaders.

Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, who on Monday visited the island, said that Mayotte has been “completely devastated”, with 70 percent of inhabitants affected.

– ‘Until last minute’ –

Mayotte is France’s poorest region, with an estimated one-third of the population living in shantytowns whose flimsy sheet metal-roofed homes offered scant protection against the storm.

“We’re starting to run out of water. In the south, there’s been no running water for five days,” said Antoy Abdallah, a resident of Tsoundzou in the territory’s capital Mamoudzou.

“We’re completely cut off from the world,” the 34-year-old lamented.

Most of Mayotte’s population is Muslim and religious tradition dictates that bodies must be buried rapidly, meaning some may never be counted.

Assessing the toll is further complicated by irregular immigration to Mayotte, especially from the Comoros islands to the north, meaning much of the population is not even registered.

Mayotte officially has 320,000 inhabitants but authorities estimate there could be 100,000 to 200,000 more people, taking into account illegal immigration.

After hitting Mayotte, Cyclone Chido made landfall in Mozambique, claiming at least 34 lives and destroying 23,600 homes, authorities said.

– Prime minister criticised –

Mayotte is one of several French overseas territories ruled from Paris.

French military planes have been shuttling between Mayotte and the island of La Reunion, also a French overseas territory, to the east which was spared the cyclone and is serving as the hub for rescue efforts.

The first air evacuation of 25 badly wounded people from Mayotte to La Reunion took place on Monday night, Health Minister Genevieve Darrieussecq said.

The disaster poses a major challenge for a government only operating in a caretaker capacity, days after Macron appointed the sixth prime minister of his presidency.

Bayrou faced tough criticism less than a week into the job after choosing to chair a provincial town hall meeting in his capacity as mayor of Pau instead of attending Macron’s crisis meeting in person.

French National Assembly speaker Yael Braun-Pivet, a member of Macron’s centrist party, said that “instead of taking a plane for Pau” Bayrou should have “taken a plane for Mamoudzou” instead.

 

UK electricity grid set for ‘unprecedented’ £35 bn investment


By AFP
December 18, 2024

Limited transmission capacity means green energy projects have waited years to connect Britain's electricity grid - Copyright AFP ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS

National Grid unveiled Wednesday a massive plan to nearly double the transmission capacity of the UK’s electricity grid, boosting the British government’s net zero ambitions.

The British company said it plans to invest up to £35 billion ($45 billion) to upgrade the UK’s electricity grid.

“The plan includes an unprecedented level of investment… over the five years to March 2031,” National Grid said in a statement.

The Labour government, elected in July, has vowed to move away from fossil fuels towards renewable energy, promising among other things to decarbonise the UK’s electricity grid by 2030.

The grid has struggled with limited transmission capacity, meaning green energy projects have waited years to connect.

The investment will upgrade the existing grid network and pay for new construction projects that will see electricity transmission capacity almost doubled.

“This plan represents the most significant step forward in the electricity network that we’ve seen in a generation,” said the company’s chief executive John Pettigrew.

“We will nearly double the amount of energy that can be transported around the country,” he added.

More than twice the quantity of transmission infrastructure — such as pylons, cables and substations — built over the last decade will need to be constructed in the next five years, the publicly-owned National Energy System Operator said in a report last month.

The plans announced Wednesday will need to be agreed by industry regulator Ofgem, as its balances the push to upgrade power infrastructure with protecting customers against higher bills.

The government has moved swiftly to take control of key electricity operations from National Grid in a bid to tighten the country’s energy security and aid transition to a net zero carbon economy.

The government recently bought Electricity System Operator — which oversees the balancing of supply and demand in the UK’s electricity grid — for £630 million.

It was launched on October 1 and renamed National Energy System Operator.

National Grid, privatised in 1990, is responsible for transporting electricity in England and Wales, while SSE and ScottishPower share that responsibility in Scotland.

SSE recently announced plans to invest around £22 billion in grid infrastructure and ScottishPower plans to invest £10.6 billion.

“It’s clear that the UK’s network needs upgrading and this statement of intent by National Grid is a good step forward,” said Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell.

“Whether that’s more homes being built, electricity-hungry data centres for all things AI or supporting the transition of industries to an electric world, electricity demands are getting bigger by the day,” he added.

In its clean energy push, Labour has launched a publicly-owned green-energy company called Great British Energy to spur investment in renewable projects like wind, solar, nuclear and tidal power.

The new company will receive £8.3 billion of taxpayers’ money over the next five years.

After long delay, French nuclear plant coming on stream


By AFP
December 18, 2024


The new EPR nuclear reactor at Flamanville in northwestern France will soon be delivering electricity to the grid - Copyright AFP ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS

France’s flagship nuclear reactor at Flamanville in Normandy will finally enter service on Friday after a dozen years of delay, operator EDF said Wednesday.

The energy operator said the coupling to the network of the Flamanville 3 EPR reactor “is planned for December 20, 2024,” but added that operation “will be marked by different power levels through to the summer of 2025” in a months long testing phase.

“Following this test phase it is planned for the reactor to operate at 100 percent power until a first scheduled shutdown for maintenance and fuel reloading, dubbed Complete Visit 1 (VC1),” EDF stated.

The start-up of the new generation plant comes 12 years behind schedule after a plethora of technical setbacks which saw the cost of the project soar to an estimated 13.2 billion euros — four times the initial 3.3 billion estimate.

To mark the coming on stream EDF will hold a press conference on Friday at its Paris headquarters.

The start-up was begun on September 3, but had to be interrupted the following day due to an “automatic shutdown” before resuming a few days later.

The initial start-up marked the beginning of a gradual increase in power up to the 25 percent of capacity level allowing the reactor to be connected to the electricity network.

The grid connection was initially planned to be finalised before the end of the summer.

The EPR, a new generation pressurised water reactor, is the fourth of its kind anywhere in the world.

It is also the 57th reactor in the French nuclear fleet, and the most powerful in the country at 1,600 MW. Ultimately, it should supply electricity to upwards of two million homes.

French President Emmanuel Macron has decided to ramp up nuclear power to bolster French energy sustainability by ordering six EPR2 reactors as well as eight additional optional ones from EDF in a policy commitment costing tens of billions of euros.

The new nuclear policy has helped EDF move on from a crisis the need for checks or repairs to be carried out on multiple reactors due to a stress corrosion problem, causing power production to plummet.

Nuclear power accounts for around three fifths of French energy output and the country boasts one of the globe’s largest nuclear power programmes.

That is in stark contrast to neighbouring EU powerhouse Germany, which exited nuclear power last year by shutting down the last three of its reactors.

MONOPOLY CAPITALI$M

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Japan’s Honda and Nissan to begin merger talks: report


By AFP
December 17, 2024

Honda has made big outlays as it aggressively pursues an ambitious target of acheiving 100 percent electric vehicle sales - Copyright AFP Richard A. Brooks

Japanese auto giants Honda Motor and Nissan Motor will enter talks on a merger aimed at helping them compete against Tesla and other electric vehicle makers, newspaper Nikkei reported early Wednesday.

The two firms are looking to operate under a single holding company and will soon sign a memorandum of understanding for the new entity, according to the Tokyo-based Nikkei.

It reported that Honda and Nissan will consider bringing in Mitsubishi Motors, of which Nissan is the top shareholder, under the holding company to create one of the world’s largest auto groups.

Honda and Nissan — Japan’s number two and three automakers after rival Toyota — deepened ties in March when they agreed to explore a strategic partnership on electric vehicles.

Analysts said the move was aimed at catching up with Chinese competitors such as BYD who have stolen a march on EVs while Japanese firms have lost ground by focusing more on hybrid vehicles.

China overtook Japan as the world’s biggest vehicle exporter in 2023, helped by its dominance in electric cars.

Honda announced plans in May to double investment in electric vehicles to $65 billion by 2030, part of its ambitious target set three years ago of achieving 100 percent EV sales by 2040.


Honda and Nissan had already deepened ties earlier in 2024 when they agreed to explore a strategic partnership on electric vehicles – Copyright AFP/File NICHOLAS RATZENBOECK

Nissan has signalled similar ambitions, saying in March that 16 of the 30 new models it plans to launch over the next three years would be “electrified”.

The world’s auto giants are increasingly prioritising electric and hybrid vehicles, with demand growing for less polluting models as concern about climate change grows.

At the same time, however, there has been a slowdown in the EV market on the back of consumer concern about high prices, reliability, range and a lack of charging points.

Hybrids that combine battery power and internal combustion engines have proved enduringly popular in Japan, accounting for 40 percent of sales in 2022.

But Japanese firms’ focus on hybrids has left them in the slow lane in meeting the growing appetite for purely electric vehicles.

Just 1.7 percent of cars sold in Japan in 2022 were electric — compared to 15 percent in western Europe and 5.3 percent in the United States.

Tyson Foods fights to silence debt-stricken farmers after slashing contracts

Egan Ward, 

Missouri Indpendent
December 18, 2024 

A farm near Sikeston on April 17 where the owner raised chickens before market changes (photo by Daniel Byrd, for Investigate Midwest).

This story was produced by the Watchdog Writers Group in collaboration with Investigate Midwest.

DEXTER – On an early August morning in 2023, Shawn Hinkle received a call from one of his technicians at Tyson Foods who, through tears, told him the company’s plant in Dexter was shutting down.

Hundreds of jobs at the poultry slaughterhouse would be lost and farmers like Hinkle, who contracted with Tyson to raise egg-laying hens, would be out of business.

A decade earlier, Hinkle borrowed $2.3 million to build two chicken houses on his land. After struggling to keep up with Tyson’s standards and investing in his farm, Hinkle now owed $2.8 million and faced the prospect of losing it all in bankruptcy.

Tyson said the Dexter plant closure was part of a national effort to streamline production and boost profits — the company also closed three other poultry plants and two beef packing plants.

But Tyson’s explanation didn’t make sense to Hinkle and several other farmers who, in December 2023, sued the giant meat company for breaking its contracts.


As the lawsuit moves forward, a Watchdog Writers Group analysis of documents filed in the case, in partnership with Investigate Midwest, reveals Tyson coordinated closely with Cal-Maine Foods, the company that ended up buying the Dexter plant. That coordination prevented farmers from continuing their same operations with another Tyson competitor.

Documents also show Tyson tried to prevent its former contract farmers from seeking legal remedies over the broken contracts, and has possibly attempted to discourage farmers from speaking with federal officials and journalists.

Tyson Foods declined to answer detailed questions about the allegations of the lawsuit.

After purchasing the Dexter plant, Cal-Maine offered contracts to local farmers if they retrofitted their farms to raise table egg-laying hens rather than chickens for meat. Unlike many area farmers, Hinke raised egg-laying hens to produce more chicks, which were sent to other farmers. Raising hens for Cal-Maine would have required a significant operational overall for Hinkle and other farmers.

But Cal-Maine’s offer came with a catch: The farmers would have to agree not to sue Tyson Foods for any losses because of the plant closure, according to court filings.

In another sign of coordination, Tyson provided the data that Cal-Maine used in its offer to farmers, according to a copy of the offer letter obtained by the Watchdog Writers Group.


By working with Cal-Maine, Tyson prevented the Dexter plant from being purchased by a competing poultry meat company, like Purdue Foods or Sanderson Foods, according to attorneys representing Hinkle and his neighbors. Local poultry farmers could have transitioned more easily to new contracts with those competitors that produce meat, rather than eggs for consumption.

“Why on earth would Tyson do this?” Russ Oliver, a local attorney representing Hinkle and his neighbors asked during a court hearing in June. “Because if you keep it secret, then Purdue doesn’t find out about your plans. Then Sanderson doesn’t find out about your plans. And you gain a market advantage over the rest of the competition because they have six plants that are all of a sudden stopping production.”

Tyson Foods, which produces about one-fifth of all meat in the U.S., has faced numerous lawsuits and federal investigations over accusations of price fixing.

In 2016, Tyson was sued in civil court by large meat wholesalers who claimed the company cut supplies to inflate chicken prices. Tyson settled that case for $221.5 million.
In 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice sued large poultry companies, including Tyson, for allegedly colluding with competitors to raise prices. The case ended in a mistrial in 2022.
In 2021, producers in Oklahoma, Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, West Virginia and Texas filed a lawsuit that alleged Tyson and Perdue Foods shared grower pay data in order to suppress wages. Both companies settled for $35.8 million later that year.
None of these actions have significantly curbed Tyson’s market power, which, together with its next biggest competitor, Pilgrim’s Pride, controls about half the national market for chicken. In the late 1970s, more than 40 companies controlled half the market, according to the USDA.

The latest class action lawsuit filed by Hinkle and other Missouri farmers claims Tyson and Cal-Maine signed an agreement restricting how the Dexter poultry complex can be used for the next 25 years.

Since the lawsuit was filed, Hinkle and his attorneys also believe Tyson has tried to intimidate farmers and suppress media coverage. Tyson asked the court to compel Hinkle and others to reveal all contacts and conversations with officials at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which regulates antitrust laws on behalf of farmers.

Tyson has also asked the court to make Hinkle and others reveal any and all contacts and conversations with journalists. Hinkle said he is undeterred and will continue seeking compensation through the lawsuit, which does not request a specific dollar amount.


“None of this is anything that we wanted. I didn’t ask for a year’s worth of not sleeping,” he said. “Then again, I’m not going to sit back and get screwed.”


Tyson’s promise of prosperity comes at a cost


Timothy Bundren’s chicken barns are all standing empty since Tyson cancelled his growing contract last year. His operation near Harrison, Arkansas, was photographed on March 31 (Julie Anderson, for Investigate Midwest)

Hinkle’s career with Tyson Foods began in 2013 when two managers from the plant said they had an offer that would change his life.

They said Hinkle could build a massive factory farm on his land — using borrowed money that Tyson would help him obtain — where he could raise tens of thousands of chickens at a time under contract for Tyson and earn a stable income for decades.

Hinkle lived on a sprawling cattle farm handed down to him from his father, a farm where Hinkle had been doing daily labor and chores since he was 12 years old. By the time the Tyson managers came to visit, his 12,000-acre spread was entirely paid off.


Hinkle was hesitant about Tyson’s offer. He had heard stories about farmers being forced to borrow money and upgrade equipment, only to have contracts later terminated without warning.

But the Tyson managers assured him those were old stories.

Hinkle’s original fears came true a decade later when Tyson closed the Dexter plant.



Tyson’s tactics: Countersuits and secret deals




When Hinkle decided to sue Tyson, he wanted a lawyer who understood his perspective. He found that with Russell Oliver.

Born and raised in Puxico, Missouri (15 miles from Dexter), Oliver was a farm boy himself. Before becoming the district’s prosecuting attorney, a young Oliver dreamed of carrying on the legacy of his family’s farm. When Oliver’s father died in 1974, several of his family members dropped their individual pursuits for the sake of the farm. So, when Hinkle approached him, heartbroken and desperate for answers, Oliver felt he had no choice but to help him.

“Everything about this (case) hits so close to home, it’s so much more than lawsuits and money,” Oliver said. “I see my neighbors that share the same identity that I share going through something like this — there’s no way I can’t fight for them.”

In addition to Hinkle, the lawsuit includes four other farmers once under contract with Tyson: Jessie Bridwell, Richard and Samantha Green, as well as R&S Green Farms LLC. The plaintiffs allege that Tyson deliberately misled them by shutting down the Dexter Complex, which caused severe financial damages.

During an April 29 hearing in Stoddard County, Tyson’s lawyers pushed back on the allegation, pointing out that the farmers are still receiving payment from Tyson to this day. This compensation is called outtime payments and refers to the money given to farmers to cover the time it takes to remove birds, clean out their houses and bring in new birds.

Outtime payments are $0.02 per square foot of chicken houses, significantly less than a monthly payment. Hinkle said the payments have been inconsistent and are far lower than what’s needed to cover his debt. He said Tyson technicians assured him that it would take no longer than four to six weeks to receive outtime payments; however, Hinkle said payments sometimes took as long as 20 weeks to show up.’

“My outtime pay doesn’t even cover the electric bill, so what are we supposed to do?” he said. “You’re always in a tumble of not knowing what to do. You can’t budget anything, it’s just a constant state of chaos.”

The lawsuit also claims Tyson knew about the plant closure as early as 2021 when the company filed a disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission stating that it had “identified” and “targeted” $1 billion in recurring savings year to year as part of their new “Productivity Program.”

The lawsuit also claims Tyson tried to thwart competition with its sale of the Dexter plant to Cal-Maine Foods, which included an agreement restricting how the plant could be used.

Hinkle’s lawyers alleged that they have a copy of the agreement, and they quoted from it in a court filing. However, the contract language was redacted in the public court filing.

The agreement between Tyson and Cal-Maine “has eliminated (and will eliminate for 25 years) any competition in the Dexter market area for the services of chicken growers,” the lawsuit claims. The farmers believe Tyson intentionally prevented the sale to a competitor in order to cut supply and raise prices on poultry. The exact mechanisms by which the contract might restrict competition were redacted and remain under seal, according to court filings and Hinkle’s attorneys.

In August, Tyson Foods countersued two Dexter farmers — Elija and Melissa Skaggs — claiming their case should be dismissed because the farmers turned down a chance to sign new contracts with Cal-Maine.

In the countersuit, Tyson acknowledged the agreement’s existence by saying it had terminated it in July. Tyson said that it had originally signed the agreement because it was worried that Cal-Maine might buy the Dexter plant but then quickly sell it to a competing company that would raise “broiler” chickens for food.

If that happened, Tyson would have essentially sold the plant to a direct competitor. Tyson said in the court filing that the company later became “comfortable that Cal-Maine was not trying to flip the Dexter complex,” so Tyson terminated the property use-agreement.

Brandon Boulware, an attorney from Boulware Law representing Dexter’s farmers against Tyson, said terminating the agreement didn’t help the farmers, because the plant had already been transformed into a table-egg producing facility rather than one that produced broilers.

“The damage has already been done,” Bouleware said.

Tyson’s agreement with Cal-Maine has also drawn the attention of state and federal lawmakers.

U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, Missouri’s senior Republican senator, said Tyson’s CEO, Donnie King, personally reassured him in 2023 that Tyson would not prevent a competitor from buying the Dexter plant.

“You misled me,” Hawley wrote in a July 9 letter to King. “These are serious allegations, and the people of Missouri deserve to know the truth.”

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey echoed Hawley in an Oct. 3 letter to King, where he stated that it is “paramount that you do everything in your power to either keep the facilities open or sell to any interested party, including a competitor.”

When Hawley later learned about the property-use agreement between Tyson and Cal-Maine that Tyson kept from public filings, he called for it to be made public. The agreement was part of the larger sales contract between Tyson and Cal-Maine, and was not filed publicly with the county recorder of deeds, according to court documents. Bailey later joined the farmer’s lawsuit.


Confidential or concealed?



On June 26, the parties gathered in a small New Madrid County courtroom for a hearing. Behind the four lawyers for Tyson were seven empty wooden benches. On the other side, the plaintiffs’ legal counsel was made up of six lawyers, as well as Oliver’s son. Behind their table sat 11 people, many of them farmers in dirt-ridden boots and plaid dress shirts.

The 9 a.m. hearing was fiery from the outset. Of the 1,325 documents produced by Tyson Foods in the lawsuit, the prosecuting attorneys complained all three were being kept confidential. Tyson’s lawyers, led primarily by Zach Chaffee-McClure, argued that the opposing legal counsel had used some of the confidential documents without permission. They asked for the prosecuting lawyers, Brandon Boulware and Oliver, to be sanctioned.

Boulware and Oliver were quick to express their disbelief.

“This isn’t how we practice law in the (Missouri) Bootheel,” Oliver said. “(Tyson) wants to deflect, they want this to be about the lawyers and not the crimes.”

Boulware, who was from Kansas City, echoed Oliver’s sentiment. “I’ve been in law since 2005, and I have never been sanctioned; this is a first for me,” Boulware said. “I agree, this is not how things are done in the Bootheel, but it’s not how they are done in Kansas City, either.”

The motion was denied by the judge.

Later, Oliver argued that Tyson was concealing evidence of breaking the law. Oliver asked for four confidential documents to be made public, which included the sale agreement with Cal-Maine.

Oliver also said he had no plans to settle with Tyson and promised the judge that, if given permission, they would disclose these documents to government officials like Bailey, Hawley, USDA and the Department of Justice.

McClure, Tyson’s attorney, responded that his client cooperates with the federal government “all the time,” and that the company is allowed to designate any business or competitive document confidential.

Tyson’s other lawyer argued, using the example of a donut shop, that a business preventing the sale of its property to a competitor happens all the time and is not a crime.


Tyson’s market power under the microscope



If the allegations of antitrust violations are accurate, Tyson Foods could face serious consequences, said Claire Kelloway, program manager for fair food and farming systems at Open Markets Institute, a Washington, DC-based think tank focused on the dangers of monopolization.

“Tyson is a brand that comes with a lot of baggage for those covering the food industry,” Kelloway said. “Tyson gets some of the credit for turning the industry into this really vertically-integrated model that centralizes a lot of control over the supply chain in one company.”

Calling the poultry industry “extremely unfair” and “exploitative” of farmers, Kelloway added that Tyson’s size and political power make it difficult to hold them accountable.

“The industry needs a lot of sunlight and scrutiny,” she said. “Hopefully, the reforms and rulemaking keep coming until these antitrust laws are being enforced as intended.”

Just shy of two months after the hearing, Tyson’s legal counsel said it would depose Hinkle and the other plaintiffs.

Hinkle was also sent a more demanding request. Tyson filed a motion that would compel him to provide complete copies of all recordings and written communications that he and his attorneys had with media outlets. Tyson also demanded all of Hinkle’s communications with the USDA, which enforces antitrust law for farmers.

Bouleware said that his law firm had obeyed Tyson’s subpoena and was compelled to hand over documents related to the firm’s communication with journalists.

“It’s unprecedented for a defendant to seek documents, or communication between a lawyer and the press, rather than defend their own misconduct,” Boulware said.

Tyson also subpoenaed two news organizations: KFVS12, a television station in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, and Talk Business and Politics, a news website in Arkansas. In the subpoenas, Tyson demanded copies of all communications between reporters and Hinkle. The local media outlets that were subpoenaed refused to cooperate, Bouleware said, and Tyson has refused to enforce those subpoenas.

Both KFVS12 and Talk Business and Politics declined to comment.

With a trial date set for next June, a lifestyle of financial and emotional uncertainty persists for many of the farmers of the Dexter complex. For Hinkle and other plaintiffs, this lawsuit is personal. They, along with Oliver and Boulware, insist this has never been about money; it is about what is right and wrong.

“These companies need to understand that the days of building an empire on our backs and then just throwing us out like garbage is over,” Hinkle said. “Not anymore.”

In November, Tyson Foods reported its quarterly earnings. The news was great for Tyson shareholders. Tyson’s poultry division made a profit of $409 million for the quarter, compared to a loss of $267 million the year before.

 

Pakistan Restarts Project for Domestic Construction of Containership

Karachi Shipyard, the only domestic shipbuilder, will build the feeder ship (KS&EW)

Published Dec 16, 2024 5:48 PM by The Maritime Executive

 

 

The government through its Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC) has stepped in to revive a project to domestically build a containership as a feeder ship operated by the national shipping corporation. It would be the first large commercial vessel built in Pakistan in 40 years.

SIFC, which was launched by the government in 2023 to attract and facilitate foreign investment, reports after four months of work it was able to revive the project to build a 1,100 TEU feeder ship for the Pakistan National Shipping Company. 

“This project positions PNSC to expand its share in the national feeder container business, reducing reliance on foreign shipping companies, and boosting Pakistan’s economic self-reliance in maritime trade,” said SIFC announcing the agreement. “Valued at $24.75 million, this contract allows PNSC to acquire the vessel at a significantly lower cost than international market prices, saving millions in foreign exchange, and strengthening Pakistan’s maritime industry. “

The plan was first announced in February 2024 with a contract signing ceremony with the Karachi Shipyard & Engineering Works. As the only shipbuilder in Pakistan, the project was hailed as a step forward for the industry and the company’s international competitiveness. The yard highlights it is well equipped to build ships up to 26,000 dwt including bulkers, tankers, tugs, dredgers, ferries, and fishing vessels. 

Most of its work however is government contracts for frigates, corvettes, fleet tankers, and logistics ships for the Navy. Media reports indicate the last major commercial ship built domestically was in the 1970s.

Officials highlight that the Pakistan Navy is working with the Karachi shipyard and Pakistan National Shipping Corporation to make the project happen. 

SIFC said the project was stalled for 277 days but through proactive engagement and consensus building among the stakeholders, it has been able to move it forward. 

“The timely intervention of SIFC has been instrumental in reopening a historic chapter of commercial shipbuilding, marking a major step toward revitalizing Pakistan’s blue economy,” said the government agency. State media announcing the agreement over the weekend said it would help to reduce the dependence on foreign shipping companies.

No details were announced on the timing of the project. The vessel will be deployed in a feeder service. PNSC looks to expand its role in the container trade. Currently, the company operates a fleet of a dozen ships, mostly tankers and bulkers, with a total of just over 930,000 dwt.