Anti-coup protesters defy Myanmar junta's campaign of fear
AFP 31 mins ago


Protesters took to the streets across Myanmar again on Saturday, defying the junta which has increasingly sought to crush the uprising with a campaign of violence and fear.

© Handout Security forces remove a barricade across a road in Yankin township in Yangon as a crackdown on demonstrations against the military coup continues

The country has been in turmoil since the military ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi from power in a February 1 coup, triggering a nationwide uprising as protesters call for a return to democracy.

So far, more than 230 people have been killed in anti-coup unrest, according to a local monitoring group, as security forces have deployed tear gas, rubber bullets and live rounds against anti-coup protesters.

But the movement has pushed ahead -- albeit in smaller numbers.

Local media showed protesters in gas masks gathering in northern Shan state, while in the southern coastal city of Dawei, motorists hoisted posters of Suu Kyi and signs that said "end the dictatorship".

The protesters in Shan state hoisted home-made shields that said "protect unarmed civilians".

Outside of protests, crackdowns by security forces continue on the streets and residential areas across Myanmar, said the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners monitoring group.

"Casualties and unprovoked shootings are increasing day by day," it said.

Video: Five killed in Myanmar protests, civilian leader says people should defend themselves (Reuters) Anti-coup protesters defy Myanmar junta's campaign of fear (msn.com)


In the central ruby-producing city of Mogok, local media Myanmar Now reported that a small quarter's night guards were shot overnight.

"One died on the spot last night while two others are in critical condition in the hospital," a rescue team member confirmed to AFP, declining to give more details.

Commercial hub Yangon has emerged as a hotspot for unrest, as security forces armed with guns continue to root out protesters wielding homemade protection gear.

But the resistance movement remains defiant.

"Who says we have to give up because of unequal weapons? We are born for victory," tweeted prominent activist Ei Thinzar Maung, with the hashtag #SpringRevolution.

Tom Andrews, UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Myanmar, said the junta could not defeat a population "united in peaceful opposition" against its rule.

"Desperate, it launches ruthless attacks to provoke a violent response to try and justify even more violence," he tweeted Saturday.

"It's not working. The world must respond by cutting their access to money & weapons. Now."

bur-dhc/jfx

PROLETARIAN DEFENSE OF BOURGEOIS DEMOCRACY
Myanmar garment workers urge global brands to denounce coup

3/19/2021

NEW YORK — Tin Tin Wei used to toil 11 hours a day, six days week sewing jackets at a factory in Myanmar. But she hasn't stitched a single garment since a coup in February.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Instead, the 26-year-old union organizer has been protesting in the streets — and trying to bring international pressure to bear on the newly installed junta.

Her union, the Federation of Garment Workers in Myanmar, and others have been staging general strikes to protest the coup and are urging major international brands like H&M and Mango, which source some of their products in Myanmar, to denounce the takeover and put more pressure on factories to protect workers from being fired or harassed — or worse arrested and killed for participating in the protests.

“If we go back to work and if we work for the system, our future is in the darkness, and we will lose our labour rights and even our human rights,” said Tin Tin Wei, who has been a clothing factory worker since age 13.

The response from companies so far has been mixed. Only a few have said they would curtail their business in Myanmar. Most others have put out statements that stop short of taking action, saying that while they denounce the coup, they want to support the workers by providing them with jobs.

Tin Tin Wei's union and the Confederation of Trade Unions in Myanmar have also been demanding comprehensive international sanctions — not the targeted sanctions some have imposed — to bring down the junta that ousted the civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi.

As international sanctions were dropped in the mid-2010s when Myanmar began shifting toward democracy after decades of military rule and started to set some labour standards, Western brands looking to diversify their sourcing were attracted to the country's cheap labour. Broad sanctions now would cripple that burgeoning clothing industry, which has been growing rapidly in recent years before the coronavirus pandemic cut orders and eliminated jobs.

Comprehensive sanctions could wreck the livelihoods of more than 600,000 garment workers, but some union leaders say they would rather see massive layoffs than endure military oppression.

“I need to do some sort of sacrifice in the short term for the long term for our next generation," said Tin Tin Wei, who is the sole breadwinner in her family and has been receiving food donations.

The civil disobedience movement, or CDM as it is known, has included railway workers, truck drivers, hospital, bank employees and many others determined to stifle the economy.

The aim is “no participation with the junta at all," Sein Htay, a migrant labour organizer who returned to Myanmar from Thailand said in an emailed comment. “We believe that CDM is really working. So we are motivated to continue."

But violent crackdowns by Myanmar security forces against protesters including garment workers are escalating. Troops shot and killed at least 38 people Sunday in an industrial suburb of Yangon — an area dominated by clothing factories — after Chinese-owned factories were set on fire. Tens of thousands of workers and their families were seen fleeing the area in the days that followed.

The garment industry plays a key role in Myanmar’s economy, particularly the export sector. Roughly a third of Myanmar's total merchandising exports come from textiles and apparel, worth $4.59 billion in 2018. That's up from 9%, or $900 million, in 2012 as international sanctions were dropped, according to the latest data from the European Chamber of Commerce in Myanmar.

Myanmar’s apparel exports mostly go to the European Union, Japan and South Korea because of favourable trade agreements. The U.S. accounts for 5.5% of Myanmar's exports, with clothing, footwear and luggage representing the bulk of that, according to garment trade expert Sheng Lu.

But Myanmar still accounts for a tiny share — less than 0.1% — in U.S. and European Union fashion companies’ total sourcing networks. And there are plenty of other alternatives for brands.

Despite this, many are taking a wait-and-see stance when it comes to any long-term decisions. Experts note it’s not easy to shift products to a different country, nor is it easy to return to Myanmar once companies leave. Furthermore, some argue Western companies play a role in reducing poverty by giving workers in Myanmar opportunities to earn an income while also helping to improve labour standards there.

Factory working conditions were already poor before the February coup, but the labour unions had made some inroads and gave workers hope. And while the National League for Democracy, the party that was ousted in the takeover, wasn’t proactively protecting unions, it didn’t persecute or crack down on them, says Andrew Tillett-Saks, a labour organizer in Southeast Asia who previously was based in Myanmar.

Asian brands have so far remained quiet about the turmoil. The American Apparel & Footwear Association joined other groups like the Fair Labor Association in condemning the coup while urging members to honour existing financial contracts with factories there.

L.L. Bean CEO Steve Smith said he was saddened by the situation in Myanmar, which he visited in 2019. Bean uses several factories and suppliers for three product lines.

Smith said there’s backup production elsewhere, but it’s important not to abandon the country.

Other companies have been more forceful in their response. For instance, Hennes & Mauritz and The Benetton Group have suspended all new orders from factories in Myanmar.

“Although we refrain from taking any immediate action regarding our long-term presence in the country, we have at this point paused placing new orders with our suppliers,? H&M said in a statement. “This is due to our concern for the safety of people and an unpredictable situation limiting our ability to operate in the country.”

Spanish brand Mango said it would work with its trade and union partners, globally and locally in Myanmar, to ensure there’s no retaliation against any factory worker or union leader exercising their civil or union rights.

Moe Sandar Myint, chairwoman of the Federation of Garment Workers in Myanmar who organized small strikes on factory floors that later moved to the streets, said brands aren't doing enough to help workers. She wants to see “concrete action."

Nearly 70% of the garment factories in Myanmar are owned by foreigners, according to the European Chamber of Commerce in Myanmar, and a good chunk of them are Chinese-owned. International brands using the factories don’t directly hire the workers, often depending on a web of contractors and sub-contractors to produce goods for them.

But companies have “an enormous amount of influence in the industry," Tillett-Saks said. “They hold all the power over the supplier."

Tin Tin Wei says escalating intimidation by the military is scaring some employees at her factory. Located in the Hlaing Thayar industrial zone, it unionized five years ago. Out of 900 workers employed at the factory, 700 initially joined the protests but that number dropped to 500 by early March, she said.

Moe Sandar Myint, who’s in hiding and moving from one safe house to another after the police raided her home in early February, said she will keep fighting.

“I cannot allow my generation and my next generation to live through another military leadership,” she said. “This is unacceptable.”

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Kurtenbach reported from Bangkok. Associated Press writers Grant Peck in Bangkok and Dave Sharp in Freeport, Maine, contributed to the report.

Anne D'Innocenzio And Elaine Kurtenbach, The Associated Press

As endangered birds lose their songs, they can't find mates

3/17/2021

WASHINGTON — Male songbirds usually learn their tunes from adult mentors. But when aspiring crooners lack proper role models, they hit all the wrong notes — and have less success attracting mates.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

For five years, ecologist Ross Crates has tracked the singing ability and breeding success of critically endangered regent honeyeaters. These distinctive black and yellow birds were once common across Australia, but habitat loss since the 1950s has shrunk their population to only about 300 or 400 wild birds today.

While male birds once formed large winter flocks, now they are sparsely distributed across the landscape, so many fly solo. That means fewer honeyeater mentors are nearby during young birds’ impressionable first year.

“Song learning in many birds is a process similar to humans learning languages — they learn by listening to other individuals,” said Crates, who is based at Australian National University.

“If you can’t listen to other individuals, you don’t know what you should be learning.”

The researchers found that a significant portion of male birds appear to be learning tunes exclusively from other species they encounter. About 12% of male regent honeyeaters wind up producing mangled versions of songs typically sung by noisy friarbirds and black-faced cuckooshrikes, among other species.

In some species, such as mockingbirds, song mimicry adds flourish to love songs. But the female regent honeyeaters aren’t impressed.

Unconventional male singers were less successful in wooing mates, the scientists found in research published Tuesday in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. “We think the females are avoiding breeding and nesting with males that sing unusual songs,” Crates said.

For a population already on the brink of extinction, that’s worrisome.

“This research suggests that the loss of a song language once the population reaches a very small size could accelerate their decline,” said Peter Marra, a conservation biologist at Georgetown University who was not involved in the paper.

The precise reason females remained aloof was not clear.

“When male birds sing, it’s like putting out an ad saying, ‘I’m over here, I’m species X, I’m Bob, and I’m really interested in finding a partner,'” said Scott Ramsay, a behavioural ecologist at Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario, who was not involved in the research.

It could be that female honeyeaters aren’t even recognizing these unconventional singers as potential partners, and so they’re not approaching them, he said. Or it could be that they approach, “but then things go wrong if the males get courtship signals wrong.”

Most male birds spend several months in their first year learning and refining the songs they’ll recite for the rest of their lives. Some birds learn from their fathers, but regent honeyeaters leave the nest before they learn to sing, so the males need to find other mentors.

“We need to be aware of the importance of preserving song culture in birds — it’s possible to have a population that's still genetically viable, but isn’t viable in terms of passing on cultural knowledge,” said Carl Safina, an ecologist at Stony Brook University who was not involved in the research.

“Some elements of what these birds need to do to survive isn’t instinctive, it has to be learned,” he said.

Crates’ team has begun putting their findings into action. To help young birds in captive breeding programs learn their notes, they’ve started playing male song recordings and also housed capable male singers next to young learners. The hope is that these veteran vocalists can pass on their songs to the next generation.

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Follow Christina Larson on twitter: @larsonchristina

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Christina Larson, The Associated Press

Climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe has book out in September

3/18/2021

© Provided by The Canadian Press

NEW YORK — The new chief scientist at the Nature Conservancy, Katharine Hayhoe, has written a book about climate change.

One Signal Publishers announced Wednesday that Hayhoe's “Saving Us” will be released Sept. 21. Hayhoe will combine research and personal stories as she attempts to unite readers, including those who deny the overwhelming evidence of climate change, and motivate them toward action.

“So why aren’t we taking climate change seriously? The missing piece of the puzzle is communication,” Hayhoe said in a statement. “Because it’s so scary and so contentious, we don’t talk about it. And if we don’t talk about it, why would we care? In this book, I want to give people the tools to have constructive conversations about why these issues are relevant to all of us, and how we can work together for change.”

The Nature Conservancy is an international environmental organization founded in 1951. Hayhoe, a climate scientist who teaches public policy and public law at Texas Tech University, hosts the PBS digital series “Global Weirding” and was named a “Champion of the Earth” by the United Nations in 2019.

The Associated Press

Pre-embryos made in lab could /SHOULD/ WILL spur research, ethics debates

3/18/2021

WASHINGTON — For the first time, scientists have used human cells to make structures that mimic the earliest stages of development, which they say will pave the way for more research without running afoul of restrictions on using real embryos

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© Provided by The Canadian Press

Two papers published Wednesday in the journal Nature detail how two teams of scientists independently made such structures.

They stressed that their work is only for research, not reproduction, but it likely will pose new ethical questions.

“Studying early human development is really difficult. It’s basically a black box,” said Jun Wu, a stem cell biologist at the University of Texas, Southwestern Medical Center.

“We believe our model can open up this field,” he said, if “you can test your hypothesis without using human embryos.”

Wu’s team used embryonic stem cells and the second team used reprogrammed skin cells to produce balls of cells that resemble one of the earliest stages of human development.

These balls, called blastocysts, form a few days after an egg has been fertilized but before the cells attach to the uterus to become an embryo. To differentiate their models from blastocysts created through fertilization, the researchers refer to the structures as “iBlastoids” and “human blastoids.”

“They shouldn’t be considered as equal to a blastocyst, although they are an excellent model for some aspects of biology,” said Jose Polo, an epigeneticist at Monash University in Australia who led the second research team.

Both groups stressed that the structures they made were not the same as naturally occurring embryos, and it’s unclear whether they could develop into viable embryos.

“The blastoids are less efficient in terms of generating structures mimicking later stage human embryos,” said Wu, whose team stopped growing the structure in a culture after four days.

Scientists previously generated similar structures of mouse cells in a lab, but this is the first time they have been made from human cells. The new models correspond to about three to 10 days after fertilization, Wu said. Last year, researchers unveiled structures that model cells 18 to 21 days after fertilization.

Research involving human embryos and blastocysts is currently ineligible for federal funding in the U.S., and several states prohibit it outright.

Some scientists now use blastocysts donated from fertility clinics for research into the causes of infertility and congenital diseases. The new work should allow them to do such research at much larger scales, Polo said.

“This capacity to work at scale will revolutionize our understanding of these early stages of human development,” said Polo.

The scientists stressed that their creations were not intended to be used for human reproduction.

“There is no implantation,” said Amander Clark, a stem cell biologist at the University of California, Los Angeles who co-authored the paper with Polo. “These structures are not transferred to a uterus or uterus-like structure,” she said. “There is no pregnancy.”

The distinction between blastocysts derived from fertilization and the structures created in a lab may not be so clear-cut, said Shoukhrat Mitalipov, a human embryologist at Oregon Health and Science University who was not involved in the research.

“Both groups show how closely they resemble real embryos,” he said. “If they are really as good as embryos, should they be treated as embryos?”

“This brings new ethical issues,” he said. “Are they going to be covered as human embryos? Should restrictions apply?”

Scientists previously tried to turn the lab-generated mouse cell structures into embryos, but they were not successful.

The optimal scenario for research is to “get as close to a real embryo as possible so you can learn from it, but not a real embryo so you don’t get into debates about the moral status of embryos,” said Alta Charo, a professor emerita of law and bioethics at University of Wisconsin who was not involved in the papers.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Christina Larson, The Associated Press

Research from N.S. prof suggests sperm whales taught each other how to avoid whalers

HALIFAX — New research from a team including a Dalhousie University biologist suggests sperm whales taught each other to avoid whalers in the 18th and 19th centuries

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© Provided by The Canadian Press

A research paper published in the journal Biology Letters Wednesday indicates that in the North Pacific the whales — the same species hunted in Herman Melville’s "Moby Dick" — quickly changed their habits to avoid open-boat whalers.

“What seems to have been going on is that the whales had been learning techniques to avoid this new threat that appeared, these guys in their boats,” Dalhousie University professor Hal Whitehead said in an interview. “They learned very quickly and they learned, it seems, from each other.”

During the 18th and 19th centuries, whalers from Europe and North America searched the world's waters to find new species to exploit, the paper says.

After discovering sperm whales, they searched for the mammals in large, sail-powered whaling ships, and once whales were sighted, hunters would go out in row boats and attempt to strike them with hand-thrown harpoons. If the trip was successful, the bodies were towed back to the ship for oil processing.

Whitehead, co-author of the study, said log books from American whalers in the North Pacific show that successful harpoon strikes fell by about 58 per cent over the first few years of hunting in a region.

“I didn't expect it to be that clear, frankly,” he said of the results. “I was pretty amazed when I looked at it.”

The Halifax university professor said the large mammals may have learned to adopt defensive measures from others in their close social units.

Some of the evasive methods noted in the log books by whalers during the 19th century included swimming upwind to evade the hunters' row boats and getting close enough to attack the vessels.

The biggest change noted in the logs, however, was that the whales abandoned the characteristic defensive behaviour they had adopted against what was previously their main predator: killer whales.

Whitehead said sperm whales gather their young and create a barrier around them while fending off killer whales using their jaws and tails.

"This is exactly the wrong thing when you're faced with Captain Ahab," Whitehead said in reference to the "Moby Dick" skipper, "because to gather in a tight group, it's a lovely, big target for someone throwing a harpoon."

The research paper said fleeing whales possibly made themselves more visible from a distance "by blowing hard and showing their bodies forcefully, so increasing the number of sightings with groups that were not easily struck."

The research also indicated sperm whales could likely sense and co-ordinate behaviour over several kilometres. Sperm whales are highly communicative, Whitehead added, using their massive nose to make powerful sounds.

It's likely a group of sperm whales that had experienced whalers before and figured out how to deal with them communicated their strategy to other pods in the region, he added.

"Since the sperm whales are so social and communal, it makes sense that they do this socially and communally," Whitehead said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 17, 2021.

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This story was produced with the financial assistance of the Facebook and Canadian Press News Fellowship.

Danielle Edwards, The Canadian Press

Sharks, Turtles, and Penguins Are All Swimming in Circles. No One Knows Why.

Caroline Delbert 

3/19/2021

© Narazaki et al., Similar circling movements observed across marine megafauna taxa, iScience (2021) Sharrks, turtles, and penguins are all swimming in circles. No one knows why. Could it have something to do with Earth's magnetic field?

A new study shows marine animals swim in circles, and scientists are baffled.

Some circles are likely navigational, while others are for feeding.

Animals studied range from whales to sharks to penguins, making this a widespread behavior.

Scientists have discovered a confounding pattern in nature: Many marine animals are strangely swimming in circles.

The researchers modeled the animals’ behavior using a variety of math ideas and the navigational concept of dead reckoning. In a variety of animals, including turtles, penguins, and a solitary whale shark, the scientists spotted the behavior because of the advent of true 3D sensing of movement.

Why is this happening? No one is exactly sure.
➡ You think science is bad***. So do we. Let’s nerd out over it together.

Lead study author Tomoko Narazaki, of the University of Tokyo, first noticed the circles in a group of turtles she was studying, according to Vice. She and her team moved the turtles specifically to monitor how they would navigate back to their home waters, and even with a destination in mind, they still often swam in circles. Surprised, Narazaki encouraged her colleagues who studied different animals to look at their sensor data as well.

“Examining high-resolution 3D movements of sharks, sea turtles, penguins, and marine mammals, we report the discovery of circling events where animals consecutively circled more than twice at relatively constant angular speeds,” Narazaki and her coauthors write in their study, which appears in iScience.

The scientists gathered the data while the animals—located everywhere from the Cape Verde Islands to Okinawa, Japan—were foraging, swimming home, and returning after nesting. The circles ranged from just a few to dozens in a row. The scientists saw most of the recorded circles during foraging, especially among the sharks:
“For example, a total of 272 circling events were observed in four tiger sharks tagged off Hawaii. Sharks circled 2–30 times at wide-ranging depths but maintained relatively constant depth during each circling event. In addition, circling behaviors previously reported in bottom-feeding sandbar sharks occurred primarily close to the sea floor, suggesting a role in foraging.”

© Narazaki et al., Similar circling movements observed across marine megafauna taxa, iScience (2021) (A) Tiger shark, (B) Whale shark, (C) King penguin, (D) Antarctic fur seal, (E) Green turtle, (F) Cuvier’s beaked whale. The movement of a submarine during geomagnetic measurements is also shown in (G). The shaded area in (F) is displayed three-dimensionally in (H) showing how a Cuvier’s beaked whale circled during final ascent phase of a deep dive.Source: Narazaki et al., Similar circling movements observed across marine megafauna taxa, iScience (2021)

But feeding isn’t the only possible explanation for circling behaviors.“[M]any circling events appear unrelated to foraging,” the researchers report.“For example, a shark-mounted video showed a male tiger shark circling to approach a female for courtship.” And seals circled during the day when their primary foraging time was at night.

The study team suspects the circling of many animals has to do with navigating using the Earth’s magnetic field. The researchers explain:
“Animals might also be able to improve measurement accuracy by taking multiple samples by circling several times. Animals might circle to derive directional/positional cues from the geomagnetic field, especially in navigationally challenging situations.”

In the study, some animals were equipped with sensors and GPS tags, while the scientists themselves observed others. The technology to monitor animals this way, and humanely, is still very new and growing. The scientists say the ideal next step is to record a lot more data and analyze it in a simultaneous way to help identify patterns.

Long dormant volcano comes to life in southwestern Iceland
4 hrs ago

© Provided by The Canadian Press

REYKJAVIK, Iceland — A long dormant volcano on the Reykjanes Peninsula in southwestern Iceland flared to life Friday night, spilling lava down two sides in that area's first volcanic eruption in nearly 800 years.

Initial aerial footage, posted on the Facebook page of the Icelandic Meteorological Office, showed a relatively small eruption so far, with two streams of lava running in opposite directions. The glow from the lava could be seen from the outskirts of Iceland’s capital, Reykjavík, which is about 32 kilometres (20 miles) away.

The Department of Emergency Management said it was not anticipating evacuations because the volcano is in a remote valley, about 2.5 kilometres (1.5 miles) from the nearest road.

The Fa0 years, and the Reykjanes Peninsula hadn't seen an eruption of any volcano in 781 years.gradals Mountain volcano had been dormant for 6,00

There had been signs of a possible eruption recently, with earthquakes occurring daily for the past three weeks. But volcanologists were still taken by surprise because the seismic activity had calmed down before the eruption.

The Associated Press

Melting glaciers are triggering earthquakes

 in Alaska, study finds

Stacy Liberatore For Dailymail.com 

3/19/2021

© Provided by Daily Mail MailOnline logo

Alaska's melting glaciers may have set the stage for a magnitude 7.8 earthquake in 1958 that triggered a massive avalanche of about 90 million tons of rock down into the narrow inlet of Lituya Bay.

A new study from the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute found ice loss has influenced the timing and location of earthquakes with a magnitude of 5.0 or greater in the area during the past century.

Alaska is home to some of the largest glaciers in the world that weigh thousands of pounds that sink the land beneath.

When these giant glaciers start to melt, the once sunken land quickly rebounds and tectonic plates grind pass each other that results in a seismic event.

© Provided by Daily Mail Alaska's melting glaciers may have set the stage for a magnitude 7.8 earthquake in 1958 (pictured) that triggered a massive avalanche of about 90 million tons of rock down into the narrow inlet of Lituya Bay

Scientists have long feared Alaska's melting glacier could trigger catastrophic natural disasters, such as massive avalanches and landslides, but few have thought about earthquakes.

However, it has been known that ice loss has caused the events in otherwise tectonically stable regions, such as Canada's interior and Scandinavia.

In Alaska, this pattern has been harder to detect, as earthquakes are common in the southern part of the state.

This region is home to massive glaciers, with some thousands of feet thick that cover hundreds of square miles

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© Provided by Daily Mail The team determined there is a link between the expanding movements of the mantle with massive earthquakes across Southeast Alaska, where glaciers have been melting for more than 200 years

And with so much weight on top, the land beneath sinks.

When the ice slowly disappear, due to warmer than usual temperatures, the ground springs back like a sponge – moving the entire mantle.

Chris Rollins, the study's lead author who conducted the research while at the Geophysical Institute, said: 'There are two components to the uplift.'

'There's what's called the 'elastic effect,' which is when the earth instantly springs back up after an ice mass is removed.'

'Then there's the prolonged effect from the mantle flowing back upwards under the vacated space.'

The team determined there is a link between the expanding movements of the mantle with massive earthquakes across Southeast Alaska, where glaciers have been melting for more than 200 years.

Southern Alaska sits at the boundary between the continental North American plate and the Pacific Plate, which has lost more than 1,200 cubic miles of ice.

Researchers found the plates grind past each other at about two inches per year -roughly twice the rate of the San Andreas fault in California - resulting in frequent earthquakes.

The disappearance of glaciers, however, has also caused Southeast Alaska's land to rise at about 1.5 inches per year.

Rollins ran models of earth movement and ice loss since 1770, finding a subtle but unmistakable correlation between earthquakes and earth rebound.

When they combined their maps of ice loss and shear stress with seismic records back to 1920, they found that most large quakes were correlated with the stress from long-term earth rebound.

© Provided by Daily Mail Southern Alaska sits at the boundary between the continental North American plate and the Pacific Plate, which has lost more than 1,200 cubic miles of ice

Unexpectedly, the greatest amount of stress from ice loss occurred near the exact epicenter of the 1958 quake that caused the Lituya Bay tsunami.

While the melting of glaciers is not the direct cause of earthquakes, it likely modulates both the timing and severity of seismic events.

When the earth rebounds following a glacier's retreat, it does so much like bread rising in an oven, spreading in all directions.

This effectively unclamps strike-slip faults, such as the Fairweather in Southeast Alaska, and makes it easier for the two sides to slip past one another.

In the case of the 1958 quake, the postglacial rebound torqued the crust around the fault in a way that increased stress near the epicenter as well.

Both this and the unclamping effect brought the fault closer to failure.

'The movement of plates is the main driver of seismicity, uplift and deformation in the area,' said Rollins.

'But postglacial rebound adds to it, sort of like the de-icing on the cake. It makes it more likely for faults that are in the red zone to hit their stress limit and slip in an earthquake.'

AIMCo's next move: As Alberta contemplates CPP exit, investment manager focuses on rebuilding trust

Barbara Shecter 

FINANCIAL POST 3/19/2021

Erin O'Toole says Conservatives must

© Provided by Financial Post AIMCo board chair Mark Wiseman.

As the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic sent markets crashing last March, board members of the Alberta Investment Management Corporation realized they had a problem on their hands.

A Crown corporation that manages nearly $120 billion in assets for pension, endowment and government funds, AIMCo had been pursuing a derivative strategy known as VOLTS that aimed to earn premiums from bets on volatility across multiple global equity markets.

It was one of dozens of “value-added” strategies managed internally by AIMCo’s public equities team, but when markets went haywire with a level of volatility last seen on 1987’s Black Monday, the risky strategy quickly magnified losses.

The board approved a decision to wind down the trades and lock in a $2.1-billion loss to avoid further carnage. It was an embarrassing failure of risk management for a fund that size — the loss erased about one-sixth of the investment returns generated by AIMCo for all of 2019 — and sparked questions of oversight, risk-taking and most of all trust with the more than 30 client organizations that park their money there.

“There’s no doubt that the VOLTS situation shook that relationship,” AIMCo board chair Mark Wiseman said in a recent exclusive interview with the Financial Post. “Our job is to regain the confidence of the clients in that relationship and I think it’s something we have to invest very heavily in.”

Wiseman, who was appointed to lead the board in July, after a review of the VOLTS fiasco landed, knows there is still a lot of work to be done and that the stakes are high: Alberta Premier Jason Kenney is actively considering withdrawing Albertans from the national Canada Pension Plan and to divert the savings to AIMCo, something that would boost its significance in the province.

Wiseman would not comment on the CPP decision, expected this spring, but he said AIMCo’s unique set-up requires a strong partnership with all clients, which range from the pension plans for Alberta judges, teachers, government, and university employees, to the province’s Heritage Savings Trust.

“It only works well when there’s a high degree of trust and collaboration between the client and the asset manager,” Wiseman said, in part because AIMCo works with each to determine an optimal asset mix given their obligations and risk tolerance, before investing accordingly.

Unlike other types of money management, however, most AIMCo clients can’t just take their money elsewhere if they are unhappy, a point made clear last year when Kenney’s United Conservative Party unilaterally moved a number of public sector investment plans including the Alberta Teachers Retirement Fund under AIMCo management.

“In most cases they can’t (opt out),” Wiseman said. “The rules are different (for each client), but for the most part they cannot, and that puts, in my view, a tremendous amount of responsibility on AIMCo to communicate, to be transparent, to be collaborative and to invest heavily in that relationship with our clients.”

Under Wiseman, a search is underway for a new CEO after current CEO Kevin Uebelein announced he would depart by June, before his contract expires.

In addition, a new position has been created to manage client needs and report directly to the CEO

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© Ryan Jackson/Edmonton Journal files Current AIMCo CEO Kevin Uebelein.

Another step taken in the wake of the volatility losses is the formation of a four-member “enterprise” risk committee , created last month to monitor and manage risks to the organization that are not strictly financial — including reputation. Wiseman is also a member as a result of his role as chair of the Crown corporation.

“That (committee) will be charged with overseeing the governance of enterprise risk for the institution — everything from operating risk, (to) reputation risk, (to) systems risk,” he said, adding that these were monitored but not in a coordinated or consolidated way. “We’ve just put it into a single committee, so it doesn’t get lost.”

Keith Ambachtsheer, a veteran pension consultant, said that with AIMCo at such a critical juncture, someone with Wiseman’s experience was a necessity to manage a range of governance, investing and political concerns.

At 51, Wiseman has been in the senior ranks of large institutional asset managers including the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board and New York-based Blackrock Inc.

He also spent four years at the helm of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, the country’s largest pension management organization — and, like AIMCo, a Crown corporation that operates at arms-length from government. That experience from 2012 until 2016 will undoubtedly help AIMCo should Kenney decide to extract Albertans’ share of CPP and create a home-grown version managed by the provincial asset manager.

While Wiseman’s career has not been without controversy — he joined AIMCo six months after stepping down from his position at Blackrock, the world’s largest asset manager, after failing to disclose he was in a relationship with a colleague as required by company policy — his investment management credentials may be unmatched in Canada

© Kevin Van Paassen/Bloomberg files Mark Wiseman in 2015, when he was at the helm of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.

“He will have strong views on what AIMCo needs to do to regain the trust of its clients,” Ambachtsheer said, adding that Wiseman would also be a good resource to help determine what attributes are needed in the Alberta asset manager’s next CEO.

Malcolm Hamilton, an actuary and former partner at pension consultant Mercer who specialized in the design and funding of public and private pension plans, said he expects AIMCo will ultimately recover from the damage done by the volatility strategy.

“One bad year or one bad mistake is never fatal for a public sector pension plan,” Hamilton said. “You acknowledge your mistake, learn from it … then you move on.”

But not everyone is happy.

A private members’ bill introduced by Alberta’s NDP finance critic in December sought to get AIMCo clients a seat at the boardroom table, and better access to the investment manager’s governance and how investment decisions are made.

Defeated along party lines at the committee stage last week, the bill sought to boost the 11-member board to 15, with four representatives from AIMCo’s public sector clients. A statement posted by the NDP Caucus said another purpose of the bill was to remove the ability of the province’s finance minister to issue investment directives to AIMCo.

And that is only part of a far-more politically charged environment Wiseman finds himself in.

There is also discontent at the Alberta Federation of Labour, which has accused the UCP government of beefing up AIMCo with funds — from the pensions pushed under its umbrella to the potential standalone Alberta replacement for CPP — with the intent of pressuring the investment manager to prop up the oil-and-gas industry as global investors turn to more environmentally friendly alternatives.

Wiseman acknowledged that investment managers benefit from size and scale, but he said AIMCo already has those attributes as one of Canada’s largest institutional investment managers.

“My view for AIMCo is that very simply, Albertans — regardless of what assets are managed by AIMCo, whether that’s expanded or not — deserve a world class public asset manager for the province that can benefit from all the scale and scope benefits that are set forth in the Canadian model,” he said.

A large part of that model, established at institutional investment managers such as CPPIB and the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, is independent governance, meaning decisions are free from political interference and left entirely to the board, he said.

AIMCo’s relationship with Alberta’s government, too, has been established at arms-length, and while the terms could be tweaked to reinforce independence — not just arms-length but “orangutan arms” as Wiseman put it — the investment manager has made all decisions independently since he joined the board.

That includes implementing “changes to the culture” and other recommendations called for by outside experts that assessed what went wrong with the VOLTS volatility strategy that was first undertaken in 2013 and got increasingly risky after 2018, with a “legacy” risk-management system that didn’t spot the problem until it was too late.

“I can tell you unequivocally, in my eight months as chair, there has been zero interference, attempt of interference at my level, or as far as I know at the level of management at AIMCo,” Wiseman said. “And more to the point, I believe the government of Alberta is fully aligned with the Canadian model…. That’s what they’ve asked me to help them do.”

He said the independent governance model is a big factor in the investment returns generated by Canada’s large pension funds, which remain among the top-10 in global rankings such as the 2020 Mercer CFA Institute Global Pension Index.

It is so important to him that Wiseman pledged to leave AIMCo if the government ever abandons the arms-length relationship with the asset manager.

“If it’s no longer the case, I won’t be chair of the board,” he’s said, “because, very simply, I believe in strong, independent public asset management.”

Wiseman said decisions around oil and gas and the energy transition to a lower carbon economy will likewise be made based on investment potential rather than politics, and he sees a “massive investment opportunity” in alternative energy.

AIMCo chief to leave early as fund positions for ‘pivotal’ challenges

Report to AIMCo board on $2.1B in losses calls for culture change

Ex-CPPIB CEO Mark Wiseman to chair AIMCo as Alberta eyes pension fund overhaul

AIMCo to conduct review of volatility strategy linked to reported $3 billion loss

“I actually think AIMCo can play, potentially, a really, really unique role because physically of where we sit… in terms of the information flow about these topics,” he said.

“Some of the best technology, some of the best innovation, some of the best thinking in the world, obviously as they relate to energy in particular, are coming out of Alberta.”

He said he believes the organizations whose money AIMCo manages, for the most part, also recognize there is a “home-field” advantage over institutional investors outside the province and the country when it comes to the energy transition.

“I think the clients are laser focused on being a fiduciary to their beneficiaries,” he said. “That decision is being made purely from an investment point of view, not a political point of view.”

Financial Post

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