In deep-white Iowa, first Latino-majority town shows future

AFP / Brendan SmialowskiPeople attend Spanish-language 

mass at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Iowa's first

 Latino-majority town of West Liberty

At the Catholic church in the small Iowa meatpacking town of West Liberty, the surrounding expanses of farmland covered with fresh white snow, the priest says Mass twice on Sunday.

The two sermons' messages of harmony are similar, although it feels a notch more crowded at the second Mass -- offered in Spanish in this Midwestern state's first Latino-majority town.

The choir from the English service three hours earlier makes way for a band with a guitar and Mexican-style sing-alongs.
 
AFP / Brendan SmialowskiThe Very Rev. Rudolph Juarez 
begins Spanish-language mass at St. Joseph Catholic Church
 in Iowa's first majority-Latino town of West Liberty

The jokes sprinkled into the sermons also don't translate. "I have to complete them with a different punchline," deadpanned the priest at St. Joseph Catholic Church, the Very Reverend Rudolph T. Juarez.

As Iowa opens the US election season with its February 3 caucus to select presidential candidates, a team of AFP journalists spent a week driving here from Washington to feel the political temperature of a country in the midst of change.

Iowa is the sixth whitest state in the United States but West Liberty was 52 percent Hispanic or Latino in the 2010 census, which counted the population at 3,736.

The Latinos -- overwhelmingly Mexicans and Mexican-Americans but also increasingly Puerto Ricans displaced by Hurricane Maria -- are pulled in by jobs at West Liberty Foods, a turkey slaughterhouse and processing plant, whose bilingual signs at the laundromat offer immediate employment at wages starting at $12.18 an hour.

West Liberty's transformation is immediately visible downtown, where two Mexican eateries face a 110-year-old movie house and the Acapulco Mexican Bakery and Grocery adjoins the musty American Legion veterans' post.

President Donald Trump, who ran a campaign that demonized Mexican immigrants, won by more than six percentage points in West Liberty's county of Muscatine, which had twice voted by much wider margins for Barack Obama.

The opposite end of Iowa is home to Representative Steve King, one of the most stridently anti-immigration members of Congress who has openly identified with white nationalism.

AFP / Brendan SmialowskiA man walks past the American Legion and the Acapulco Mexican Bakery in Iowa's first Hispanic-majority city of West Liberty

But on the streets of West Liberty, no one, Latino or not, identified major tensions among residents, who speak proudly of their schools' dual-language programs.

Roselia Ocampo, 28, who has lived all her life in West Liberty and has taken over managing her parents' Mexican restaurant, said she was barely aware of the town's unique demographics until she took part in a statewide gathering of FFA, a farming club common in Midwest high schools.

She and her classmates were told they didn't have to join an exercise involving books.

The instructor said, "'I didn't know you knew how to read English.' And it was just like the first time I was exposed to someone kind of profiling me just by my color."

- Political awakening -
AFP / Brendan SmialowskiRoselia Ocampo and her husband Luis Ocampo pose with their son Sebastian at their Carnitas Nino restaurant in Iowa's first Hispanic-majority town of West Liberty

Ocampo's father immigrated legally to the United States and first worked on the West Coast before hearing about Iowa, where the vast fields and omnipresent hog farms reminded him of his native Oaxaca.

In his off-time from work at another meat plant, he would approach Iowa farmers to buy their injured hogs, butchering them himself for juicy carnitas he served at weddings.

Eventually, the family started their restaurant, Carnitas Nino, with the father coming in at 2 am on the weekend to cook carnitas and menudo tripe soup.

Ocampo thought little about politics four years ago but this time will be sure to vote. She is deciding on a Democratic candidate to support in the Iowa caucuses, which for the first time will have Spanish-language gatherings, including in the nearby city of Muscatine.

Her political awakening included watching as her aunt was deported to Mexico.

AFP / Brendan SmialowskiOmar Cardoso places loaves of bread on a shelf after wrapping them at the Acapulco Mexican Bakery & Grocery in West Liberty, Iowa.

When she hears Trump's slogan "Make America Great Again," Ocampo said she wishes others could see Latinos' work ethic.

"You can't do it without immigrants," she said. "No one is going to pick up the work that we are currently doing."

At the church, Juarez, the priest, said immigration authorities have picked up some parishioners.

"It's difficult enough to keep the domestic family together in these times without adding economic worries and the feeling you may be apprehended," he said.

- Embracing both identities -

AFP / Brendan SmialowskiPeople dance at the Latino-themed

 La Rumba Night Club and Bar in Iowa City, Iowa.

As the community was starting to shift to majority Hispanic, it took advantage of a federal grant to embrace dual-language education in what remains one of the few programs of its kind in Iowa.

Rather than simply ensuring English, roughly half of the 1,300 West Liberty students are enrolled in dual-language courses in multiple subjects.

School superintendent Diego F. Giraldo, speaking with enthusiasm from his office before sunrise as he monitored ice conditions on the roads, said the community was fully behind dual-language education.

A bigger challenge, he said, was recruiting teachers. The program survives in part through an agreement between Iowa and Spain, which sends teachers for up to three years.

Giraldo said the schools saw students' Latino heritage not as a hindrance but as a way to provide a brighter future.

"They're in the United States and they need to learn English to survive. But we are not supposed to, in my opinion, take away something to make that happen," he said.

"In the future, we want the students to be able to call Argentina and say, let's do some trade. They will have the languages to do that."

2FEB2020 

THE LARGE LATINX COMMUNITY IN IOWA BEGAN ARRIVING UNDER REAGAN NOT JUST BECAUSE OF HIS AMNESTY BUT BECAUSE THE MEAT PACKING INDUSTRY WAS UNION BUSTING UNDER REAGAN AND PUSHING SELF REGULATION. PACKING PLANTS CONSOLIDATED, BROKE CONTRACTS AND IMPORTED FOREIGN WORKERS FROM MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA, LEGAL AND ILLEGAL. THIS OCCURRED IN THE USA AND CANADA, IN BROOKS ALBERTA CARGILL DID THE SAME THING BRINGING IN SOMALI, ECUADORIAN AND OTHER MIGRANT WORKERS INTO AN ALL WHITE MORMON COMMUNITY, IT TOOK UFCW A DECADE TO ORGANIZE THE WORKERS AFTER SEVERAL FAILURES.

SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2005/10/ralph-klein-tysons-bum-boy.html

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2005/10/union-busting-alberta-style.html

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2005/07/this-is-class-war.html

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2006/01/bait-and-switch.html

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2005/07/real-story-of-albertas-bse-crisis.html

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Muppets help conflict kids in new Arabic 'Sesame Street'

AFP / KARIM SAHIB The new Middle East version of 

Sesame Street called 'Ahlan Simsim' will seek to help 

children and particularly Syrian refugees cope with 

emotions with new characters joining old favourite ones

A band of Muppets, both old favourites and new friends, will star in an Arabic retooling of "Sesame Street" with a regional twist.

In its Western iterations, the long-running franchise addresses issues including family breakdown. The new Middle East version instead seeks to help children, especially young Syrian refugees, cope with emotions.

New characters will join Cookie Monster (Kaa'ki), Grover (Gargur), Elmo and others in the new show in Arabic, called "Ahlan Simsim!" (Welcome Sesame).

"We always play and sing and try new things and have many adventures," new puppet Basma, a five-year-old purple girl with a twin twist hairstyle, told AFP on a publicity tour in Dubai.

"We have a lot of friends in the neighbourhood, but Jad is my best friend," she added of her new co-star, a yellow boy with a tuft of canary-coloured hair.

Basma, Jad and their gluttonous goat friend Ma'zooza, will take to the airwaves six days a week on Middle East satellite channel MBC 3 from Sunday February 2.

The show is a partnership between the International Rescue Committee (IRC) and Sesame Workshop, which is responsible for the programme worldwide.

The aim is to offer "nurturing care to children and caregivers affected by the Syrian conflict", according to a statement.

Since erupting in 2011, the war has displaced over 5.1 million Syrian children, with 2.5 million of them now living in regional host countries including Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan.

- 'Emotional ABCs' -

"Jad and I are not that similar. He is an artist and a painter. I love to sing and dance and he likes things in order. He thinks and plans while I get bored," said Basma.

"Sesame Street" mainstay Grover, meanwhile, sets out to interview children from across the Arab world, tackling myriad issues including jealousy and how to care for loved ones.

"We are all different from each other," Grover told AFP.

"Some of us like to sing and some of us like to dance and some like to exercise," added the gangly blue character, beloved of children and grownups since his 1970 "Sesame Street" debut.

AFP/File / Omar HAJ KADOUR Since erupting in 2011,

 Syria's war has displaced over 5.1 million children

"But I discovered we are all alike because we love each other."

The new show is produced in Jordan and is the result of a two-year-long collaboration with numerous child development specialists

"We have the emotional 'ABCs' and at the same time we present coping mechanisms to deal with these emotions. In every episode, we have a coping mechanism," said executive producer Khaled Haddad.

He said Arab children had difficulty expressing their emotions.

"They don't know what their emotion is, the child does not know he is terrified or angry or even jealous. Through our episodes we talk about these emotions and how to deal with them," he added.

- 'Inhale and exhale' -

In one episode, Basma and Jad learn from big brother figure Hadi how to handle fear.

"You put your hand on your tummy then you take a breath through your nose -- inhale and exhale. It calms you down," Basma said, demonstrating the technique.

Jad's character, who didn't join the trip to Dubai, is portrayed as new to the community.

But "we don't label him as a refugee in the show", Haddad stressed. "He is new to the neighbourhood, meets all the kids and becomes friends with them."

He noted that across the region, "you have kids going from one place to another".

"Our show speaks to all the children of the Arab world", he added. "This is not for a certain group".

The first Arabic version of "Sesame Street", known as "Iftah ya Simsim" (Open Sesame), aired in the region from 1979 until 1990 and enjoyed immense popularity.

Filming for a second season of the new series will begin in March.

"We hope children will become smarter, kinder and better at expressing their emotions after watching this show," Haddad said.

‘Sesame Street’ Is Opening Up to Syrian Refugees

What happens when the people who invented educational television try to reinvent humanitarian aid?

Basma and Jad taking the bus with children in Amman,

Jordan.Credit...Ryan Donnell/Sesame Workshop


By Alex Carp
Mr. Carp is a research editor at The New York Times Magazine.
Jan. 31, 2020

In its 50 years on television, “Sesame Street” has presented an expansive idea of the challenges of childhood, offering lessons on divorce, racism, grieving and autism — as well as help with the alphabet and accepting friends who are a bit taller and more birdlike.

Next week, a new version of the show will begin airing for an audience that, less than a decade ago, didn’t exist: children displaced by the war in Syria and their neighbors in the communities where many of the refugees have fled or sought asylum. “At this point, there are lots of 7-year-olds who were born as refugees from Syria” and remain far from permanent resettlement, a staff member on the project said recently. “That’s not changing soon.”

Since the start of the conflict, in 2011, nearly seven of every 10 residents of Syria have been forced from their homes. More than 11 million have fled to unfamiliar parts of Syria or to the countries across its borders, with only around 150,000 permanently resettled. They are now the largest displaced population in the world. And displacement, in the Middle East and elsewhere, lasts longer than ever before: “Once refugees are displaced for at least five years, as is the case for most Syrian refugees,” the president of the International Rescue Committee, David Miliband, said at a Senate hearing last year, they’re likely to stay displaced for more than two decades.

“Sesame Street” began as an experiment in television and became a global model for early-childhood education. Its new project, launched with the I.R.C. and educators in Syria, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon, is an effort to rethink humanitarian aid. “Aid is good at keeping people alive,” Mr. Miliband has argued. “But it doesn’t give them the tools to thrive.” It has traditionally been directed to immediate needs — nutrition, security, shelter — but displacement that can last for decades presents a very different kind of problem.



Parents often carry the trauma of forced migration with them in unexpected ways, and a childhood of makeshift housing, isolation from an extended community of familiar faces, and few safe places to play can affect not only children’s behavior and learning skills but also brain development, gene expression and the ability to build the fundamental tools of resiliency. “It can be very hard to moderate, or to cope,” said Sherrie Westin, Sesame Workshop’s president of social impact and philanthropy. Preliminary research conducted in Jordan and Lebanon found that displaced children have trouble finding the language to express their emotions. They describe what they feel only very broadly: sad, happy, scared.

The show will focus on identifying and managing emotions, and will be coupled with thousands of outreach workers going to clinics, community centers, homes and other gathering spaces in the four countries, where they will meet with children, parents and caregivers to provide support and extend many lessons of the series. Today, less than 2 percent of humanitarian aid worldwide is targeted at education, “and just a tiny fraction of that goes to early education,” Ms. Westin said. “We’re talking about a generation-scale intervention.”

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Just as American “Sesame Street” teaches counting and the alphabet before deeper literacy and numeracy, the new series, called “Ahlan Simsim,” or “Welcome Sesame,” will start with the basics. “We want this first season to dive into identifying different emotions, like frustration and anger, nervousness and loneliness, fear,” Scott Cameron, an executive producer at Sesame Workshop, said. “But we also have to make that entertaining. And we have to do that without, in the case of fear, terrifying the kids.”

To do that, Mr. Cameron and his colleagues built on techniques developed throughout the program’s years on the air. “We thought a lot about the iconic ‘Sesame’ characters who’ve been useful for curriculum goals in the past,” he said. “We need some kind of comedic foils, but we don’t want to do negative modeling — we don’t want villains.”

A boy and Grover in Azraq Camp, Jordan.Credit...Ryan Donnell/Sesame Workshop

“Oscar the Grouch, for example, was developed in the very early stages of ‘Sesame’ as a way to represent differences, and a kind of mutual respect,” Mr. Cameron explained. “He’s grumpy, and he thinks smelly fish are great. But he can help model different perspectives. Oscar and Grover and Cookie Monster are all monsters — meaning they’re not humanoid, like Bert and Ernie — so they’re a little bit removed from humans,” Mr. Cameron explained. “You get a little more leeway that way.”

“Ahlan Simsim,” which will air in Arabic and Kurdish, has two main characters. Both were built at Jim Henson’s Creature Shop in Queens, where rows of desks are covered with half-constructed muppets and older ones midrepair. (Muppets bigger than a desk — Mr. Snuffleupagus, for example — might lean against a wall.) Jordan Pioneers Production Company, based in Jordan, collaborated with Sesame Workshop to develop the characters, write scripts and shoot the episodes. When producers from “Sesame” made a series of visits to the Creature Shop last year to discuss muppet design and look at prototypes, Zaid Baqaeen and Khaled Haddad of Jordan Pioneers, the show’s head writer and an executive producer, joined from Amman via video chat.

“Jordan Pioneers pitched us a boy and a girl character that were roughly the same age, and we loved that,” Mr. Cameron said. “Two new friends who go on adventures together.” For names, they suggested Basma and Jad. “Basma means smile, and Jad has a bunch of meanings, but connotes somebody who’s kind of generous but a little bit buttoned up. Very earnest.”

Mr. Baqaeen added: “Completely different, but they complement each other. Basma is dynamic, adventurous, go-go-go. She’s kind of impatient when she’s excited about an idea or a challenge that she wants to take on. Jad, we think of him as the planner, meticulous.” He’s a painter, and he likes to paint plans in midair; viewers will learn that his brush once belonged to his grandfather, who is absent from the show.

What Basma should look like came relatively easily — a purple non-humanoid girl (“Like Elmo is a boy, but not necessarily a human boy,” Mr. Cameron explained.) Skewed pigtails, oval face, no bracelets or jewelry. And no clothing, which can bring in local connotations that interfere with a character’s identity. It can also be hard to adjust: Bert and Ernie have been stuck in striped shirts since 1969.
 

Jad making new friends in Amman, Jordan.

Credit...Ryan Donnell/Sesame Workshop

Jad was trickier. The team passed around some early sketches. “We dragged a whole bunch of our monster muppets out,” said Rollie Krewson, a master builder at the Creature Shop. She and Jason Weber, the Creature Shop’s New York creative supervisor and an expert fabric painter and dyer, call them “anything muppets” — on occasion, they sit in for firefighters or police officers in the background of a scene, or once, for Elmo’s grandmother.

“We had one in a drawer that sounded like what they were describing, just character-wise,” Mr. Weber said. “It has this beautiful roundish head, and the mouth is straight across, but when you change the angle to make eye contact with the viewer, you can start to see a friendly, open smile just underneath.”

Ms. Krewson adjusted the design to communicate Jad’s introversion and express the challenges he sometimes has letting his feelings out. “He can also look very contemplative,” she said. “He’s got a very loose jaw. I can push it way forward, and I can pull his chin back, so he can look perplexed and sad, more internal.”

Mr. Weber added, “He has what we call a very good smile curve.” Smaller touches link the characters visually. Jad’s nose is purple, like Basma’s, and Basma’s nose is Jad’s golden yellow.

The pair is joined by Ma’zooza, a goat sidekick who provides comic relief, mostly by eating everything in sight. “She’s a baby, learning how to walk and climb, and she’s voracious,” in the tradition of Cookie Monster, Mr. Cameron said. “Cookie has trouble with self-regulation, self-control. And Ma’zooza allows Basma and Jad, who are almost 6, to have a younger friend that they can nurture, so they’re not always the ones being nurtured. She also has these long, floppy ears, which are adorable.”



Ma'zooza reading along with a young child and a caregiver in Azraq Camp, Jordan.Credit...Ryan Donnell/Sesame Workshop

Ms. Westin said that “with Basma and Jad, one has left his home, becomes best friends with someone from somewhere else. You can see where that creates opportunities for children to relate to those stories and feel less alone.” Most refugee families live in host communities and neighborhoods, and “the benefit of mass media is that we know we can reach not only displaced Syrian children, but we can reach them side by side with their new neighbors.”

Before shooting could begin, Basma, Jad and Ma’zooza were bagged, packed in boxes and shipped to Amman. Sesame estimates that the project, through television, mobile phones, home visits, preschools and the efforts of educators across the region, will reach as many as nine million children — what they expect to be the largest early-childhood intervention in the history of humanitarian response. To measure its effectiveness with parents, caregivers and on TV, childhood development specialists will design and conduct studies during the project’s first five years.

Their work will double the amount of research available on the experience of childhood in humanitarian crisis. “We’re going to share what works and what doesn’t work, and not just to help us achieve the outcomes we’re setting out to achieve here,” Ms. Westin said. It will be one of the first projects of its scale to think about how fuller lives might be lived within the consequences of the conflict and within long-term crises elsewhere. “We want this project to be a model for humanitarian response not just in the Middle East,” Ms. Westin added, “but for refugee children wherever they may be.”

Mr. Carp (@alexcarp_) is a research editor at The New York Times Magazine.

A version of this article appears in print on Feb. 2, 2020, Section SR, Page 6 of the New York edition with the headline: Grover, Meet Basma and Jad. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

2 top execs leaving newspaper publisher Tribune amid turmoil

Two top executives at newspaper publisher Tribune are stepping down as the company deals with its largest shareholder, a hedge fund known for cutting newsroom jobs, and grapples with a decline in revenue as the print-ad business shrinks.

The Chicago-based company, which owns the Chicago Tribune, New York Daily News, Baltimore Sun and other major daily papers, said in a Monday statement that CEO Timothy Knight and non-executive chairman David Dreier are both leaving their positions. The company is promoting chief financial officer Terry Jimenez to be the new CEO effective Jan. 31.

In a statement, Knight, who became CEO last January, said that the past year was focused on stabilizing Tribune financially so that the company can invest in quality local journalism, and that the company was in a “solid position to continue its transformation.” In a memo to staff, he said the company will need to continue adjusting its costs to “the current revenue reality.”

Jimenez has been Tribune’s CFO since 2016. He has also worked for Newsday and in industries outside media. His statements on Monday acknowledged that Tribune would continue repositioning itself to navigate “industry-wide challenges” while improving financial results.

“We don’t know what this means, but remain concerned about the company’s commitment to journalism,” tweeted the Baltimore Sun Guild, the union representing that paper’s reporters, photographers and other staff. The Chicago Tribune Guild put out a statement saying that it was glad to hear board member Philip Franklin, the new non-executive chairman, say that the company would focus resources on employees and journalism.

Hedge fund Alden Global Capital became Tribune Publishing’s largest shareholder last year; it holds a 32% stake. Alden owns one of the country’s l argest newspaper chains and is known as a cost-cutter that eliminates newsroom jobs to squeeze out profits. Its papers include the Boston Herald, Denver Post and San Jose Mercury News.

Alden has been seeking growth. It previously tried to acquire Gannett, the owner of USA Today, which instead was acquired by another newspaper chain, GateHouse, that is managed by the private equity firm Fortress.

The newspaper industry is caught between the shrinking print business and the fact that tech giants Facebook, Google and Amazon consumer most online-ad dollars. Overall circulation has also declined, according to the Pew Research Center, although national papers like The New York Times have gained large numbers of new subscribers. Tribune said Monday that it also added digital-only subscribers in 2019. In the staff memo, Knight said the company exceeded its goal of 330,000 digital-only subscribers in 2019.

The company has already been offering buyouts in an attempt to cut costs before the next move from Alden, which agreed in December to stop increasing its stake until July 2020. Two Chicago Tribune journalists, fearful that Alden wants to control the company and will make deep staff cuts, went public in January with a column seeking a “civic-minded local owner or group of owners.”

Alden president Heath Freeman did not immediately return a request for comment.

---30---

Fracking industry damaging oil and gas economy, expert regional economist says

By Claire Goodman, Staff writer Monday, February 3, 2020

Photo: Claire Goodman / Staff Writer
Dr. Bill Gilmer discusses the economic forecast for the Houston area.

According to Dr. Bill Gilmer, an expert on the Houston economy, the oil and gas industry is suffering, and the economic structure of the fracking industry is to blame.

Gilmer, a professor of Economics at the Bauer School of Business at the University of Houston and director of the Institute for Regional Forecasting, was the keynote speaker for the Greater Heights Chamber of Commerce’s 2020 Economic Forecast luncheon on Jan. 30. At the luncheon, Gilmer presented the findings of his most recent study, “The Economic Outlook for Houston in 2020: A Credit Squeeze in American Oil and Continued U.S Growth”.Oil credit in the U.S. is struggling, Gilmer explained, due to “a string of highly publicized bankruptcies, mergers, delistings and other signs of financial strain.” According to Gilmer, oil activity is down 25 percent as a result. That downward shift may remove up to 15,000 new jobs that could have emerged in the oil industry before the credit precipitation.

The financial model of the fracking industry is at the center of the problem, Gilmer said. The era of “big oil” fracking is waning, and in its place, a multitude of smaller fracking companies are emerging. “We had seven huge companies with Exxon and Shell, and B.P, and Chevron that sort of ruled the world with multi-billion dollar companies doing multi-billion dollar projects that lasted years upon years,” he stated. “(Fracking) is a whole new model of oil.”

The nature of the fracking industry is such that small hedge funds with capital can buy into oil production on a small scale. Large scale exploration risks, which were once only possible for major oil companies, are no longer the only way to get a foothold in the industry.

Gilmer likened the fracking industry to the stock market. “Many of these companies were built to … see how far they could leverage the company, look at a rising stock market and see if they couldn't just flip right out of that just as fast as they made a decent killing by getting that company up there,” he explained.

More specifically, he added, “There is little doubt that many of the new fracking producers were never conceived as long-term enterprises, but as a short-term speculative play. The key was low-cost borrowing, high leverage, and rapidly rising equity values.”

This speculative flipping results in an exchange of companies without utilizing the resources. “Basically, what happens when companies are reorganized, they hand it off to the lenders, and the company moves right on,” Gilmer explained. “However, there's a lot of cash loss along the way.”

When flipping for a profit fails, the fracking companies file for bankruptcy, which in turn deters lenders. “Bankruptcies and B-listings… (have) become the norm for many of these companies,” he said. According to Gilmer, bankruptcy of these companies accounted for a loss of over $7 billion in assets to the industry.

The stock market value of the oil industry has declined as a result, Gilmer noted. “Wall Street has basically completely turned its back on the industry right now,” Gilmer said. “Back in 2014, we were talking about $200 billion a year in public equity, private equity and public debt flowing into the industry. Now we're talking about less than $90 billion last year.”

By the numbers, total oil industry investment is down 52 percent from 2014 and down 27.6 percent from last year.

The outlook is not entirely bleak, Gilmore noted. Larger companies that have operated outside the flipping model are keeping the industry afloat. “There are strong and successful operators in the fracking industry that can produce with oil prices at $30 per barrel, such as EOG, Pioneer, Concho, Exxon XTO and Chevron,” he said.

Still, the regional and national economy will be dealing with the aftermath of the damage of investment fracking for some time, Gilmer stated. “Fracking was literally born into an era of low interest rates and seemingly endless credit… Even if the credit crisis ends soon, there is still a high level of debt that remains for years to come.”




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Iraqi protesters dig in heels despite new PM-designate

AFP / Haidar HAMDANIAn Iraqi protester flashes the victory sign in the holy city of Najaf where demonstrators blocked roads with burning tyres to protest against the nomination of Mohammad Allawi as the country's new prime minister

Furious anti-government youth in Iraq's capital and south on Sunday rejected the nomination of Mohammad Allawi as prime minister, but came up against rival sit-ins by supporters of an influential cleric backing the new premier.

Allawi was named prime minister-designate after a hard-won consensus among Iraq's rival parties, who had struggled to agree on a candidate since outgoing premier Adel Abdel Mahdi resigned under growing street pressure two months ago.

Mass rallies have rocked Baghdad and the mainly-Shiite south since October, with protesters demanding snap elections and an independent prime minister as well as accountability for corruption and recent bloodshed.

Young demonstrators have expressed contempt for the ruling elite and on Sunday, they slammed Allawi -- a former lawmaker and minister -- as part and parcel of the system they want to overhaul.

"We are here to reject the new prime minister because he has a well-known history within the political class," said 22-year-old university student Tiba protesting in Baghdad.

Hundreds of students flooded the streets around the capital's main protest camp of Tahrir Square, carrying pictures of Allawi with an "X" over his face.

They blared upbeat Arabic music through speakers to drown out somber Islamic hymns played by demonstrators loyal to populist cleric Moqtada Sadr.

Sadr backed the protests in October but has split with the main movement over Allawi, whose designation he welcomed as a "good step".

Dozens of hardcore Sadrists responded by storming a key Baghdad building known as the Turkish restaurant, a symbol of the uprising, to drive out activists and remove banners listing their demands.

- 'A mockery' -

AFP / Mohammed SAWAFIraqi protesters demanding an independent premier say Allawi is part and parcel of the system they want to overhaul

Late Sunday Sadr posted new tweets condemning student sit-ins and road closures -- the two main tactics used by anti-government demonstrators.

"No burning, no cutting, no ignorance, no disobedience," he tweeted late Sunday, even while insisting, "I loved the October revolution... It and I are one."

Despite his appeal, angry protesters in the holy city of Najaf blocked roads with burning tyres and held up a sign reading "Mohammad Allawi is rejected, by order of the people!"

In Diwaniyah, further south, protesters marched into government buildings to demand they close for the day while students began sit-ins at schools and universities.

"Naming Mohammad Allawi is a mockery," one demonstrator there told AFP.

"It represents a total disregard for those killed in the protests and for the demands of the Iraqi people who have been demonstrating for four months to reject parties affiliated with Iran."

In addition to calls for better services and an end to graft, demonstrators have accused Iraq's ruling elite of being beholden to powerful neighbour Iran.

Tehran has seen its influence grow in Iraq since the US-led invasion that toppled ex-dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003.

AFP / SABAH ARARIn Baghdad, hundreds of students flooded the streets around the main protest camp of Tahrir Square, demonstrating against Allawi's appointment

Allawi, 65, launched his political career in the aftermath of the invasion, first as a parliamentarian and then twice as communications minister under former premier Nuri al-Maliki.

But he resigned both times, alleging mass graft in a country considered among the top 20 most corrupt in the world by Transparency International.

- Obstacles ahead -

His appointment came after days of crisis talks prompted by President Barham Saleh, who said he would select his own candidate if Iraq's parliamentary blocs did not nominate someone by Saturday.

The negotiations were very secretive and it remains unclear what finally unlocked a deal, but on Saturday evening Allawi announced his own nomination in a video posted to Twitter.

Iraqi Presidency Media Office/AFP / -Iraqi President Barham Saleh (R) presented Allawi with the decree to appoint him as Iraq's new prime minister on February 1, 2020

There has been no official statement from Saleh.

Abdel Mahdi has congratulated his successor and the pair met on Sunday.

The outgoing PM said he would no longer conduct high-level meetings or take major decisions, in order not to interfere with his successor's preparations. He pledged "a smooth transition process."

In his first public remarks, Allawi vowed to form a representative government, hold early parliamentary elections and ensure justice for protest-related violence.

More than 480 people have died and nearly 30,000 have been wounded since the rallies began on October 1, but few have been held accountable for the bloodshed.

Allawi has one month to form a government, but ensuring an independent line-up may prove a challenge, said Sajad Jiyad of the Iraq-based think tank the Bayan Center.

"If we've learned anything from the previous PM, it's that this is the most difficult part: pushing back against the political blocs' demands," Jiyad told AFP.

In Iraq, cabinets are typically formed after complex horsetrading whereby parties demand lucrative and influential ministerial posts based on their share of parliament.

If Allawi fails to resist ministerial candidates proposed by parties, "it will back up what protesters are saying" about his allegiance to the factions, Jiyad added.

UPDATED

 Dozens of koalas dead after logging at Australian plantation

AUSTRALIAN DEPARTMENT OF DEFENCE/AFP/File / Tristan KennedyKoalas are classified as 'vulnerable', and have recently suffered massive loss of habitat due to wildfires

Dozens of koalas have been euthanized and some 80 more are being treated for injuries and starvation after their habitat was logged, prompting an Australian government investigation Monday.

Victoria's environment department said the state's conservation regulator was investigating a "very distressing incident" at a bluegum plantation near the coastal town of Portland that resulted in the deaths of dozens of koalas.

"If this is found to be due to deliberate human action, we expect the conservation regulator to act swiftly against those responsible," the department said.

Those responsible could face steep fines under laws designed to protect Australia's native wildlife.

The environment department said approximately 80 koalas had been removed from the plantation site over the weekend for medical treatment, while others had to be put down.

"Wildlife welfare assessment and triage will continue with qualified carers and vets," the department said in a statement.

"Plans are being made to translocate remaining animals offsite if they are well enough to be moved."

Friends of the Earth said the plantation was logged in December in what it called a "massacre" that left hundreds of koalas dead or injured.

The conservation group said the scale of the incident was uncovered when local residents witnessed dead koalas being bulldozed into piles in recent days.

The deaths come after devastating bushfires destroyed large swathes of koala habitat across Australia's southeast and killed thousands of the animals, which are listed as "vulnerable" to extinction.

The Australian Forest Products Association said a forestry contractor harvested the land in November in accordance with strict wildlife protection rules before the remaining trees were later bulldozed after the contractor left.

"It is unclear as yet who bulldozed the trees with the koalas apparently still in them, but it is absolutely certain that this was not a plantation or a forestry company," chief executive Ross Hampton told Nine newspapers.

"We support all those calling for the full force of the law to be applied to the perpetrator."

The forestry industry lobby group has pledged to hold its own investigation into the incident.

Koala deaths in Victoria's south-west to be investigated

By Charlotte King 02/02/2020

Dozens of injured koalas have been found in piles of bulldozed trees at a timber plantation in Portland, Victoria.
(Facebook: Helen Oakley)

The State Government is investigating after dozens of distressed, injured and dead koalas were found at a blue gum plantation in Victoria's south-west.


Key points:

A triage of four vets are on the ground working with animal rescuers to save the animals
Plantation companies are required to apply for authorisation to disturb koala populations under the Wildlife Act

Animal Justice Party MP Andy Meddick is at the site and said it was "absolutely abhorrent"

Officers from the environment department are currently on the ground at the timber plantation near Cape Bridgewater.

WARNING: this story contains graphic images

Portland resident Helen Oakley, 63, first raised the alarm with authorities on Wednesday after hiking in the area and finding the dead koalas, some of which had been there for days.

Ms Oakley posted an emotional video on Facebook at the cleared site.

"Australia should be ashamed, they've bulldozed 140 acres down and just killed all of our koalas," she said in the video.

Ms Oakley told the ABC she had found 10 dead koalas at the property since Wednesday and said dozens more live koalas were trapped in two isolated stretches of gum trees on the property.

"Some of them have been fairly decomposed so they've been there for a while."

She said she counted 70 to 80 koalas in trees that were still standing.

"But we're finding them in the rows of pushed up blue gums [on the ground], sitting there — I found one yesterday with a broken arm."

Department of Environment incident controller Andrew Pritchard said 25 koalas had been euthanased so far and that about half of the 120 koalas on site had been assessed.

Efforts have been focused on helping the surviving koalas.

"They'll be rehabilitated at a later stage," he said.

The department did not have figures on the number of dead animals on the site.

The Australian Forest Products Association has condemned the deaths.

Chief Executive Ross Hampton said those who work in the forest industry are "appalled … at what appears to be a callous act of animal cruelty."

Mr Hampton said it was unclear who bulldozed the trees "with the koalas apparently still in them".

"But it is absolutely certain this was not a plantation or a forestry company."

"We support all those calling for the full force of the law to be applied to the perpetrator," said Mr Hampton.

Another blow to Australian wildlife

Mr Pritchard said it was not unusual to find koalas in a freshly felled timber plantation.

"They let out a high sugar content to their leaves, and koalas are very much attracted to that," he said.

"The difference in this case is there has been a fence constructed around this plantation and the koalas have not been able to move outside that fence."

He said it was not clear whether the koalas were in the trees when they were felled.

"I'm not clear on exactly if that was the case — koalas do move into trees on the ground.

"That's what we're looking into, the details as to how the animals came to be in this state."

He said the Office of the Conservation Regulator was investigating and that penalties applied for killing or disturbing wildlife.

A number of carcasses have been located at the site.
(Facebook: Helen Oakley)

Victoria's Animal Justice Party MP Andy Meddick has been assessing the damage on the ground since Sunday morning.

"It is absolutely abhorrent," he said.

"They have been felling these trees with koalas still in them; they have then been bulldozing these trees into massive piles that run the length of the property.

"We're still going through these fires in East Gippsland — we've lost an enormous amount of animals," Mr Meddick said.

"How could anyone possibly, in the light of that, conduct an operation like this?"

Mr Meddick said there was a triage of four vets on the ground working with animal rescuers in an operation overseen by the environment department.

He said he would be pushing for a full investigation including a parliamentary inquiry.

It was unclear who was at fault, he said.

"What is clear is that animals have been killed in large numbers."
 

Vets have euthanised 25 koalas at the site after they were found in distress.
(Facebook: Helen Oakley)

Plantation companies must apply for authorisation to disturb koala populations under the Wildlife Act.

They are also required to undertake risk assessments that identify potential hazards to koalas from plantation management operations, including stress, injury, exposure, and death.

Companies are required to develop a department-approved koala management plan in order to protect animal welfare. The process includes checking koalas in trees and on the ground for unusual behaviour.

Mr Meddick said there may have been breaches of legislation, including the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act.

"You are not allowed to harass, intimidate, threaten or kill wildlife — that has happened here."

"I can see it with my own eyes."

Related articles
Fire-affected wildlife at risk of starving in Victoria unless government drops food, vets say

DRINK A GLASS 

Japan assures diplomats tainted Fukushima water is safe



Japan plans to release contaminated water from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. File Photo by Kimimasa Mayama/EPA-EFE

Feb. 3 (UPI) -- The Japanese government said Monday the planned release of tainted water from Fukushima would have no impact on oceans.

During an information session for foreign embassy officials in Tokyo, the Japanese foreign ministry sent signals of reassurance regarding a plan to release tritium-tainted water from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, the Mainichi Shimbun and Kyodo News reported.

A total of 28 diplomats representing 23 countries were in attendance, according to reports.

The water comes from Fukushima, where 170 tons of water is contaminated every day at the plant that was severely damaged during a catastrophic earthquake in March 2011. Water has been poured to cool the melted fuel, according to Kyodo.

Japan has been purifying the contaminated water using an advanced liquid processing system, or ALPS. The process does not remove tritium and leaves traces of radioactive elements.

Tokyo has defended its plan to release the water, but neighboring countries, including South Korea, are opposed to the measure.

On Monday, officials from Japan's ministry of economy, trade and industry said they do not think there would be an impact on surrounding countries.

Japanese fishermen also oppose the measure. Releasing the water into the ocean could affect sales of local seafood, they say.

Japan is planning to release the tritium-tainted water at a time when it is taking stricter measures against travelers from China.

Jiji Press reported Monday Japan turned away five foreign nationals originating from Hubei Province following new restrictions at the border.

Foreigners who have stayed in the Chinese province in the past 14 days or who hold passports issued in the province are banned from entry, according to the report.

Japan has confirmed 20 coronavirus cases since the outbreak in China in December. Japanese airports have built new quarantine stations exclusively for travelers from mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau, according to local press reports.

upi.com/6981640

UPDATED

Authorities investigate 15th inmate death at Mississippi state prison


A 15th inmate has died in Mississippi state prison since near the end of last year. Photo courtesy of Mississippi Department of Corrections/Twitter

Feb. 3 (UPI) -- Authorities are investigating the 15th inmate death in a Mississippi state prison since late December.

Officials found Jesus Garcia, 39, lying in his cell unresponsive Saturday at Wilkinson County Correctional Facility, spokesperson Issa Arnita, of Management and Training Corp., the company that runs the prison, told The Hill in a statement.

Garcia was pronounced dead at 12:52 p.m. after life-saving efforts were unsuccessful.

"The cause and manner of death are under investigation," Arnita told the Hill. "There were no obvious signs of assault."

RELATED Mississippi prison system records 8th death in less than month

Garcia was serving a 20-year sentence for capital rape in a DeSoto County case, the Clarion Ledger reported.

His death marks the 15th inmate to die in a state prison since Dec. 29 and the fifth in little more than a week.

Two inmates, Nora Ducksworth and Jermaine Tyler, died at Marshall County Correctional Facility.

RELATED 2 inmates killed during fight in Mississippi prison

Ducksworth's death remains under investigation though initial signs showed the death was due to natural causes. Tyler's death showed "no initial signs of foul play," according to MTC.

One inmate, Joshua Norman, was found hanging in a one-man cell at Parchman, and another inmate, Limarion Reaves collapsed while talking to a relative on a facility phone at Kemper-Neshoba Regional Correctional Facility and was pronounced dead later at a local hospital, according to a release.

On Jan. 27, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves vowed to close Parchman's Unit 29 cell block after the ninth inmate death in a month there.

RELATED Mississippi authorities apprehend escaped inmate, one still at large

On Jan. 7, the South Poverty Law Center asked the Department of Justice to investigate the conditions in the state prison after five inmates died in 10 days.

Also, in early January, entertainment mogul Jay-Z filed a lawsuit on behalf of 29 state inmates who say authorities have done nothing to stem the violence.

Corrections officials previously attributed some of the deaths to gang violence and officials have said lack of funding prevents them from addressing problems.

Last week state lawmakers began to introduce legislation to address violence and living conditions.

"We need to get started as quickly as possible," House Corrections Chairman Kevin Horan, I-Grenada, said.

A group of sheriffs proposed taking medium-threat prisoners to regional jails to take pressure off state facilities. They said the plan could save $22.5 million because it costs about $14 more to house each inmate daily in a state-run facility compared to a county-managed one.

Mississippi governor calls for closing prison cell block after 9th death

PRISON INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

ByDaniel Uria

Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves on Monday called for the closure of the 

Mississippi State Penitentiary's Unit 29 cell block after nine inmates 

have died in a month. 

Photo courtesy Mississippi Department of Corrections/Twitter

Jan. 27 (UPI) -- Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves vowed to close the Mississippi State Penitentiary's Unit 29 cell block after the ninth death of an inmate in a month.

During his State of the State address on Monday evening, Reeves ordered the closing of the cell block in the prison known as Parchman where nine inmates have died since Dec. 29.

"I have instructed the Mississippi Department of Corrections to begin necessary work to start closing Parchman's most notorious unit, Unit 29," Reeves said. "I've seen enough. We have to turn the page. This is the first step and I have asked the department to begin the preparations to make it happen safely, justly and quickly."

On Sunday, the Mississippi Department of Corrections said 26-year-old inmate Joshua Norman was found dead in his one-man cell.

"No foul play is suspected, according to the Sunflower County Coroner as an ongoing investigation continues and the official cause and manner of death are pending autopsy results," the department said.

Earlier this month, entertainment mogul Jay-Z filed a lawsuit on behalf of 29 inmates in the state penal system who say authorities have done nothing to stem violence inside prison walls.

The suit names Mississippi corrections chief Pelicia Hall and Parchman Penitentiary Superintendent Marshal Turner as defendants and cites violations of Eighth Amendment rights and identifies conditions within the Parchman facility.

PRISON INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX
Two more Mississippi inmates killed in prison: 
9 inmates dead in less than a month
Alissa Zhu, Mississippi Clarion Ledger 
 

© Vickie D. King/Courtesy of the Mississippi Department of Corrections In 1900, the Mississippi Legislature appropriated $80,000 to buy the nearly 4,000-acre Parchman Plantation to build a prison in the middle of the Mississippi Delta.

JACKSON, Miss. – Two inmates were killed at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman on Monday night, the Mississippi Department of Corrections announced Tuesday, bringing the death toll at Mississippi prisons up to nine in less than a month.


The most recent deaths appear to be "an isolated incident – not a continuation of the recent retaliatory killings," the department said in a tweet that provided scant information.

On Dec. 29, corrections department officials announced a statewide prison lockdown following a fight at South Mississippi Correctional Institution that left one inmate dead and two others injured. In the following days, riots and fights continued despite the lockdown, leading to four more killings across the state. Some of the violence, officials have said, is gang-related.

'A recipe for disaster': Democratic lawmakers visit Parchman after deadly violence
Prison crisis: Inmates killed during Mississippi's prison violence: Who are they?

The lockdown has since been lifted on all prisons except Parchman, where much of the violence has taken place. Seven men incarcerated at Parchman have died this month, including three who were killed by other inmates, one who died at a hospital of natural causes and one who was found hanging in his cell over the weekend, according to Sunflower County Coroner Heather Burton.

The Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC) did not release the names of the men who died Monday and said Parchman's chaplain has reached out to next of kin.

No additional details were provided. MDOC said the agency is investigating and will share more information later.

Burton did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Activists say gangs alone are not to blame for the recent surge of violence. Systemic issues related to repeated budget cuts and chronic understaffing have created an environment for violence to thrive, they say.

Prison crisis: Jay-Z lawsuit. Deaths. Riots. Gang violence. What you need to know about Mississippi's troubled prisons

U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson and nearly a dozen civil rights and social justice organizations had requested the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate Mississippi prisons, charging that state leaders have known about the understaffing and "horrific conditions," yet have repeatedly failed to take action.

Parchman inmates are suing former MDOC commissioner Pelicia Hall and the prison's superintendent Marshal Turner, alleging they have violated prisoners' constitutional rights by subjecting them to cruel and unusual punishment. The incarcerated men are being represented by attorneys working with hip-hop stars Jay-Z and Yo Gotti.

The lawsuit describes unsanitary conditions inside Parchman, including flooding, black mold and a rat infestation. Units go without running water and electricity for days at a time, it alleges.

Follow reporter Alissa Zhu on Twitter @AlissaZhu.

This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Two more Mississippi inmates killed in prison: 9 inmates dead in less than a month


2 Inmates Killed in Mississippi Prison That Continues to Struggle With Deadly Violence

Josiah Bates,Time•January 21, 2020

Two prisoners were killed at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman on Monday night. It’s the latest deadly incident at the prison, which has been dealing with stretches of violence in the past few weeks.

The Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC) says an altercation between multiple inmates left Timothy Hudspeth, 35, and another inmate with fatal injuries. The second inmate was not named, pending notification of his family.

“The safety of staff and prisoners at Parchman is our immediate priority, and we are working hard to restore and maintain order,” Interim MDOC Commissioner Tommy Taylor said in a statement sent to TIME. “We believe that the motivation behind this latest altercation is limited to this new tragic set of circumstances. The environment that makes such violence possible must be addressed quickly, and we are committed to making changes to do so.”

Officials at the prison are continuing to investigate the incident. -

Parchman is the same prison that had three deaths from Dec. 29 to Jan. 3. During that same week, two other inmates were killed in separate Mississippi prisons. Two inmates also escaped from Parchman on Jan. 3 and were captured on Jan. 6. That same day, MDOC officials also sent more than 300 prisoners at Parchman to a private facility in Tutwiler, MS for their “safety” amid understaffing at the state penitentiary.

According to the Associated Press, another inmate was found hanging on Saturday night at Parchman. The inmate, Gabriel Carmen, had reportedly been upset and was throwing fecal matter before he died. An autopsy is underway, the AP reported.

More than two dozen inmates sued the state of Mississippi on Jan. 14, and are asserting that the prisons are understaffed, that they’re being forced to live in inhumane conditions and that the prisons are “plagued by violence,” according to AP. Rappers Jay-Z and Yo Gotti are paying their attorneys’ fees, the AP also reported.

MDOC Commissioner Pelicia Hall stepped down from her position last week shortly after Mississippi’s new governor, Tate Reeves, took office. Hall said she is going to work in the private sector and will be advocating for criminal justice reform. Former state lawmaker Tommy Taylor was appointed as Interim Commissioner. Reeves also announced last week that he was forming a group of “diverse, experienced Mississippians” to conduct a nationwide search for a permanent Commissioner, and that he will assign an officer from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigations to look into possible criminal misconduct at Parchman.

“We must get to the heart of the problem. And it starts with bringing order to Parchman,” Reeves said in a statement. “We will make progress, day by day, until we have a system that we can trust. It will be a long road, but it starts today.”