Viewers call out Nik Wallenda's live volcano high-wire crossing for safety precautions

High-wire artist Nik Wallenda crossed Nicauragua's active Masaya Volcano during the ABC special Volcano Live! Wednesday night. And he had to worry about a lot more than just keeping his balance.

This volcano is one of only eight volcanoes in the world to have a lava lake, filled with 2,000-degree molten rock. The volcano also emits a toxic fog that is made up of hydrogen fluoride, hydrogen sulfide, hydrochloric acid, sulfur dioxide, and carbon dioxide gasses, which required that the high-wire cable be coated in special material to keep from corroding.

Wallenda wore a gas mask and sealed goggles to keep the toxic fumes from burning and incapacitating him. Despite the safety precautions, he said that the gasses managed to burn his eyes.

At a height of 1,800 feet, this was Wallenda's highest walk. He later admitted it was also his windiest. There was one point during the walk in which viewers could really see Wallenda battling the wind.

Despite the toxic gasses, 2,000-degree lava, gusting winds, and the fact that this was his longest and highest crossing of his career, many viewers complained on Twitter about Nik wearing a safety harness, causing quite a feud to emerge between haters and fans.

It should be pointed out that Wallenda normally uses a safety harness, including his walks across Niagara Falls and Times Square. In fact, the only major walk he has done in the last eight years without a safety harness was the Grand Canyon in 2013.

The entire crossing took Wallenda a little over 31 minutes. He spent much of that time praying, as well as pitching his new book Facing Fear. When he did finally finish the walk, he was greeted by hugs, cheers, and place in the history books.

NIk Wallenda becomes the first person to walk over an active volcano

Overcoming fear. #VolcanoLivewithNikWallenda pic.twitter.com/vfj2AeQwai— Nik Wallenda (@NikWallenda) March 5, 2020

March 4 (UPI) -- Nik Wallenda became the first person to walk a high wire directly over an active volcano on Wednesday night.

The 41-year-old known as the "King of the Wire" successfully completed the 1,800-foot-long walk over the Masaya Volcano in Nicaragua in a two-hour ABC special titled "Volcano Live! with Nik Wallenda."

"It was amazing," said Wallenda. "The first half of the walk, just being able to see that volcanic lava down there ... absolutely mesmerizing."

What would you be thinking if you were in Nik's shoes right now? 

VIDEO ON TWITTER
#VolcanoLivewithNikWallenda pic.twitter.com/uXFQH2ujWD— Nik Wallenda (@NikWallenda) March 5, 2020

Wallenda added that the wind conditions were unpredictable and the gasses from the volcano burned his eyes, which were protected by a gas mask.

"I just put myself in my back yard training," he said. "I just put myself back there and just mentally went 'OK, you're fine, you've walked in stronger winds than this.'"

Wallenda previously broke a Guinness World Record over the summer when he walked 1,808 feet across a tightrope in a Canadian city 30 feet over the ground in about 30 minutes.

He has also walked 25 stories above Time Square, faced what he described as the "intimidating roar of falls" and "blinding mist" as he made a 1,800-foot-long trek 170 feet above Niagara Falls, and walked a wire 1,500 feet above an Arizona gorge near the Grand Canyon without a harness.

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USA 

Lawyer challenging abortion law reacts to Supreme Court arguments

Kate Smith, CBS News•March 6, 2020

Julie Rikelman, an attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights, has spent years working on June Medical Services v. Russo, a Supreme Court case that could dramatically alter abortion access in the United States.

All that work was realized Wednesday during oral arguments when Rikelman was given 30 minutes to deliver arguments and take questions from justices on the newly-conservative high court. Speaking from the steps of the Supreme Court immediately following the hearing, Rikelman said she "felt good.""I think I was able to answer all of the justice's questions. I felt prepared," Rikelman said during an interview with CBS News.At the center of Wednesday's case is Louisiana Act 620, the "Unsafe Abortion Protection Act," a 2014 law that requires doctors who provide abortions to have privileges to admit patients at a nearby hospital. While the state says it's designed to improve patient safety, critics, like Rikelman's firm, say it's intended to shut down clinics that provide abortion.

Just weeks after it was signed into law, the Center for Reproductive Rights challenged the restrictions, largely blocking it from ever going into effect. The Supreme Court's decision, expected later this year, will ultimately determine whether or not the law can be implemented. Today, only one doctor currently providing abortions in the state is in compliance with the regulation. If the law were to go into effect, that physician has said he would step down, effectively making Louisiana the first state to be without an abortion clinic since Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized the procedure.On Wednesday, the Supreme Court held oral arguments, an hour-long hearing where each side presents their case and take queries from justices.

CBS News' Kate Smith interviews Julie Rikelman, an attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights Gilad Thaler

Rikelman said the justice's questions were in line with what she was expecting."They asked questions about why this law could potentially be different than the Texas law," Rikelman said, referencing Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt, a Supreme Court case in 2016 that struck down an identical law out of the neighboring state. "Why should the outcome for the state of Louisiana be different from its neighbor Texas?"In 2016, Chief Justice John Roberts dissented from the court's decision in Whole Woman's Health. On Wednesday, Roberts, as well as Justice Brett Kavanaugh, asked Rikelman whether Louisiana's admitting privileges were inherently unconstitutional or could the regulation be legal if abortion access wasn't impacted."What I said is the court has already said that admitting privileges have no benefit for patients," Rikelman said. "They do nothing for health whatsoever. And generally, laws that have no benefit, can't be constitutional."The Louisiana Attorney General's Office did not make Liz Murrill, the attorney defending the state's regulation, available for an interview following arguments on Wednesday.Justices, in particular Justice Samuel Alito, also questioned Rikelman on whether or not it was appropriate for abortion clinics to represent patients in cases, like Wednesday's, that challenged abortion regulations, a question that was raised to the court by Louisiana last year. Per the state's argument, people seeking an abortion should be capable of legally challenging abortion restrictions."Once a woman finds out she's pregnant, she has only a few weeks to get an abortion and she'd have to file the case in that exact window of time," Rikelman said. "And for our case, she'd then have to keep it going for five and a half years. The state hasn't explained what would be different if there was a woman in this case instead of the physicians."

In June Medical Services v. Russo, as well as more than a dozen other abortion-related cases in the Supreme Court's pipeline, the plaintiff is an abortion provider, not a patient.

"This law applies to doctors, it doesn't apply to the patients. It directly regulates the doctors," Rikelman said. "It is a strategy that has been used in order to obstruct abortion is to impose requirements on doctors and clinics. So, it would be ironic if the doctors couldn't then challenge those laws."Rikelman said that if the court were to side with Louisiana on the issue of standing, the impact would be "devastating.""The reality is that most women can not bring these cases themselves," Rikelman said. "And the court has really recognized that before. Women are concerned about their privacy. They're concerned about the stigma. There are protestors outside clinics in Louisiana taking pictures of people who go in and out of the clinics, and in an age of social media, it would be very difficult for a woman to keep her decision private."

Argentina farmers announce strike after soya exports tax hike

AFP•March 5, 2020


Soya beans are one of Argentina's major exports, alongsiude soya flour and soya oil, where the South American country is the world leader (AFP Photo/JUAN MABROMATA)More

Buenos Aires (AFP) - Argentina's farmers announced on Thursday a four-day strike after the government of President Alberto Fernandez increased tariffs on soya exports just three months after already hitting the agricultural sector with higher taxes.

Soya is Argentina's biggest export commodity and the government hiked tariffs from 30 to 33 percent on Thursday.

The industrial action announced by the four farming employers federations is the first to hit Fernandez since he assumed power in December.

When Fernandez took over, he imposed 30 percent tariffs on soya exports and 12 percent taxes on other agricultural products such as corn and wheat as part of a plan to tackle an economic crisis.

Argentina has been in recession for more than 18 months while it is desperately trying to renegotiate some of its debt -- which stands at more than 90 percent of GDP -- to stave off a damaging default.

The latest tax increase was published in the government's official bulletin on Thursday following days of meetings between Agriculture Minister Luis Basterra and representatives of the farming sector.

In 2008, then-president Cristina Kirchner -- currently the vice-president -- provoked a clash with agricultural businesses by ramping up export taxes.

The country was practically paralyzed by the ensuing protests.

Fernandez, who was cabinet chief at the time, resigned.

"Once again it will be the countryside that will pay the debts and costs of a crisis we didn't generate," said the Rural Society of San Pedro, one of the most active agricultural interest groups during the 2008 face-off.

Argentina's GDP shrank by 2.1 percent in 2019 after a similar fall of 2.5 percent the year before.

Inflation is at more than 50 percent while poverty and unemployment are on the rise.

In 2019, Argentina exported 29.65 million tons of soya flour, 10.12 million tons of soya beans and 5.29 million tons of soya oil.

Argentina is the world's largest exporter of soya flour and in 2019 become number one in soya oil, too.

Delhi's displaced scrape a living after deadly riots
By Alasdair Pal and Devjyot Ghoshal, Reuters•March 4, 2020


People look towards a relief camp in Mustafabad in the riot-affected northeast of New Delhi

By Alasdair Pal and Devjyot Ghoshal

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Mohammed Anees fled his home in northeastern New Delhi last week as Hindu-Muslim clashes erupted in his area, escaping with his family of four to a relative's home. He had only a few hundred rupees in his wallet, leaving everything else behind.

Now the 37-year-old Muslim mechanic is among more than 1,000 people sheltering in a large open-air mosque that has been turned into a relief camp in the Mustafabad area of the Indian capital and opened on Monday.

"I don't have any money left now," Anees said, showing pictures of his ransacked home that he visited on the weekend on his cracked mobile phone.

With jewelry and savings looted and afraid of more violence, he moved to the camp with his wife and three children, victims of the worst communal riots in New Delhi for decades. More than 40 people were killed and hundreds injured.

Anees lived in Shiv Vihar, where two large mosques and dozens of Muslim houses surrounding it were torched. Houses with Hindu symbols were largely left untouched.

In total, some 2,000 people are believed to have been displaced, local politician Amanatullah Khan said. Hundreds of those are taking shelter on the floors of private homes.

"The police brought us and left us here," said Mohammed Uddin, 70, outside a cramped house where dozens of people packed into an entrance foyer. "They didn't even check if we were hurt."

Many of those displaced, who are overwhelmingly Muslim, have moved to the Mustafabad camp, where a kitchen provides free meals and volunteer doctors are treating victims.

Rashid Ali, a local resident helping organize the camp, said they had received some help from the Delhi government, run by a regional party.

On a long desk outside the mosque premises, a small group of lawyers helped the victims of riots file for compensation ranging from 25,000 rupees ($341.34) to 100,000 rupees.

Seema Joshi from Delhi's ruling Aam Aadmi Party, who was helping the legal team, said around 500 applications had been made, though many people showed up without any paperwork since they fled in a hurry without documents or had belongings burnt.

In the narrow streets surrounding the mosque, women jostled for food supplies as children rummaged through piles of second-hand clothes donated to victims.

On a loudspeaker, an announcer asked for volunteers to clean an overflowing toilet attached to the relief camp.

"A lot of people are facing depression," said Wasim Qamar, a doctor at the camp. "People saw terrible things. Some of them can't eat or sleep. They are very fearful."

Describing the violence as "one-sided and well-planned" against Muslims, the Delhi Minorities Commission - a government-appointed body that focuses on minority groups - said the Delhi government's compensation package was inadequate after surveying riot-hit areas on Tuesday.

Saurabh Bharadwaj, a lawmaker from Aam Aadmi, said the party was trying to improve its response to the emergency.

Some leaders from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party have accused opposition groups of fanning the violence, saying that Muslims targeted Hindus during the clashes.

Shabira, 55, and her family were rescued by police early last Wednesday from Shiv Vihar, leaving their home with nothing but what they were wearing.

At the relief camp, she said she was getting basic amenities - food, shelter and diapers for her infant grandchild.

"I want my house back," she said, in tears. "I just want to go back."

(Reporting by Alasdair Pal and Devjyot Ghoshal, additional reporting by Anushree Fadnavis; editing by Mike Collett-White)

Sen. Ted Cruz Hatches Plan to Curtail the International Criminal Court’s Power

“If there was some other kind of legal maneuver like this available, I strongly suspect it would have been exploited before now.”Laurel Miller, Asia Director for the International Crisis Group and formerly the State Department’s Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan

Betsy Swan,The Daily Beast•March 5, 2020

LAST YEAR PHOTO BEFORE HE GREW BEARD

Carlos Barria/Reuters

Sen. Ted Cruz is aiming to dramatically curtail the power of the International Criminal Court, The Daily Beast has learned. The Texas Republican is working to garner support for a resolution that would call on the UN Security Council to bar the ICC from bringing charges against people from states who aren’t parties to the treaty that governs it—which would include Russia, China, the U.S., and Israel.

The resolution would also condemn the court for investigating American soldiers and Israeli officials, per a Republican aide familiar with Cruz’s outreach. Cruz has indicated that he expects bipartisan support for the effort, the aide said. One human rights expert said Moscow and Beijing would also likely welcome the effort. Trump administration officials—notably Secretary of State Mike Pompeo—have also lambasted the court.

Cruz laid out his strategy in a closed-door meeting with American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) activists on Capitol Hill earlier this week, the aide said. In the meeting, Cruz said he expected Russia and China to support the proposed UN Security Council resolution because they also worry the court could target their citizens. Cruz also told the group that he expected British and French diplomats to be open to the effort out of concerns about the court’s legitimacy.

“The United States will not sit idly by while unaccountable political operatives convene kangaroo courts in foreign countries to prosecute and persecute American soldiers and the soldiers of our allies,” the senator said in a statement provided to The Daily Beast. “I will work with my colleagues and the Trump administration on measures aimed at countering this decision, including and especially through a United Nations Security Council resolution that would prohibit the ICC from prosecuting the nationals of non-member states.”
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The effort comes after the court greenlit a move by its top prosecutor to investigate war crimes in Afghanistan—including crimes potentially committed by American perpetrators.

A treaty called the Rome Statute, agreed to in 1998, established the court to hear cases against people charged with genocide, war crimes, and other crimes against humanity. More than 100 countries are party to the treaty; the U.S., Israel, Russia, and China are not.

In December 2019, the court’s top prosecutor announced she would investigate potential war crimes committed by Israel in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Cruz pointed to the investigation in remarks at the AIPAC conference in Washington last week, calling the court “one of the most profound threats to Israel.”

Bolton Threatens International Criminal Court With Sanctions if It Keeps Probing Alleged U.S. War Crimes

Daniel Balson, Amnesty International’s advocacy director for Europe and Central Asia, told The Daily Beast that authoritarian governments will likely cheer the move.

“The hostility to the ICC evinced by the Trump Administration and its allies may be welcomed by governments in Moscow and Beijing but it is a minority view around the world,” Balson said. “Most UN member states have taken the considered decision to join the court. In seeking to leverage the UN Security Council against the ICC, Sen. Cruz believes he’s asserting American sovereignty. In reality, he’s expressing contempt for both international law and the sovereignty of others.”

And Laurel Miller, Asia Director for the International Crisis Group and formerly the State Department’s Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, told The Daily Beast that Cruz’s plan sounded infeasible.

“That doesn’t sound very plausible to me,” she said. “If the U.S. could have achieved something like that, it would have done so much sooner.”

“The U.S. has been opposed to the idea of the ICC being able to assert jurisdiction over Americans for many years, and during the Bush administration there was a big effort spearheaded by John Bolton in the State Department to get countries to promise not to hand over Americans,” she added. “If there was some other kind of legal maneuver like this available, I strongly suspect it would have been exploited before now.”

Vice President Mike Pence acknowledged on Thursday there were not enough tests available to meet the demand amid a coronavirus outbreak spreading in the US, after previously saying “every American can be tested” for the deadly illness.

This is a breaking news story. More follows…

Mike Pence's press secretary snaps at reporter for asking coronavirus question

Graig Graziosi, The Independent•March 5, 2020

Vice President Mike Pence speaks to reporters in the Brady press briefing room of the White House about the coronavirus Monday, 2 March, 2020: (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Vice President Mike Pence’s press secretary Katie Miller snapped at a White House correspondent on Wednesday following a press briefing dealing with the White House’s coronavirus task force.

The reporter, Brian Karem, asked Mr Pence about whether the White House has any guidance for uninsured individuals to get testing. Mr Pence was nearing the end of his press conference when Mr Karem asked him about coronavirus testing for the uninsured.

“Can you please supply some guidance to the uninsured who want to get tested?” Mr Karen asked.

Mr Pence blew past the question and wrapped up his press conference. He suggested the risk to the broader American population “remains low.”

“As we continue to take these steps, as Americans continue to take common-sense practices to protect their own health, the health of their family, we’ll work to keep it [low],” he said.

As Mr Pence finished and moved to leave the room, Mr Karem again yelled out his question, asking if there was any guidance for the uninsured to get testing.

He was ignored, so he tried again.

“Gentlemen, ladies, can the uninsured get tested?” Mr Karem asked.

Ms Miller snapped a response at Mr Karem.

“Screaming for the camera isn’t going to get you anywhere” she said.

Mr Karem pushed again.

“Well, how about answering the question? We would like an answer to that question,” he said. “It’s a valid question, could you answer it?”

At that point Ms Miller moves to exit the room, responding “We’ll get you an answer” as she departs.

It is unclear if the White House has followed up on Mr Karem’s question.

Though the Centers for Disease Control are not charging patients for testing, individuals can still incur hospital costs from visiting the ER.

Border Patrol waited to call EMS for U.S. man who later died

Graham Kates, CBS News•March 5, 2020


Border Patrol told Congress that officials at a Texas station called for an ambulance "immediately" after a now-deceased man arrested near the border showed "signs of distress." But the local sheriff told CBS News his office, which dispatches EMS, didn't receive a call until up to 26 minutes later.

At approximately 3:30 p.m. on February 4, Border Patrol agents arrested U.S. citizen James Paul Markowitz "as a suspect in an alien smuggling incident," according to the notice to Congress. 

More details about the 32-year-old Texan's arrest have not been released."

At around 6:00 p.m., during processing at the Brackettville Station, the man began exhibiting signs of distress," the notification said.

 "EMT-certified agents immediately administered first aid and contacted local Emergency Medical Services as his health deteriorated.

 At around 6:40 p.m., EMS arrived and transported the subject by ambulance to a local hospital."But according to Kinney County Sheriff Brad Coe, who reviewed his office's phone records for CBS News, the call for help didn't come in until 6:26 p.m.

Sheriff Coe said Markowitz was described as "sweating" and "fidgety," when the 6:26 phone call was made. 

He said his office dispatched an ambulance five minutes later, and that the vehicle arrived at 6:37.

Markowitz was brought to a hospital, where he later died. His cause of death has not yet been determined.Until they were contacted by CBS News, some members of Congress — who received the statement because CBP is required to notify federal legislators — appeared to believe that CBP called for help at "around 6:00," and that it took EMS nearly 40 minutes to arrive. 

In a letter to Acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf sent Wednesday, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chairman Joaquin Castro and Immigration Task Force Chairwoman Linda Sánchez asked, "What help did Mr. Markowitz receive during the 40 minutes it took for EMT to arrive to the Brackettville Station?" 

Castro and Sánchez wrote in their letter that they "remain troubled twenty-eight days after the death of James Paul Markowitz without any further details or relevant information to his case."

Informed of the sheriff's timeline that appears to contradict CBP's Congressional notification, Castro said, "If this account is accurate, it raises serious concerns about CBP's actions and decision to wait 20 minutes after Mr. Markowitz started exhibiting symptoms before calling an EMT."

"Such a delay could have played a role in Mr. Markowitz tragic death. That is why we need transparency and answers from the Department of Homeland Security. We will continue holding DHS and CBP accountable for all deaths on their watch," Castro said.

In a statement to CBS News sent after this story was initially published, CBP said Markowitz first showed signs of distress at 6:05 pm and was immediately examined by a Border Patrol agent certified as an emergency medical technician. At 6:11 the agent took Markowitz outside for fresh air, but then decided Markowitz needed medical care. CBP said by 6:26 it was apparent that "more advanced care was required."

"It is devastating that besides all the efforts our EMTs and local medical professionals the life of the individual could not be saved. We will continue to work with local law enforcement to identify the cause of death," said Acting Chief Patrol Agent Doyle E. Amidon.

The agency said an investigation into Markowitz's death is ongoing.

Camilo Montoya-Galvez contributed to this report.

YouTubers keep playing Plague Inc. to try and simulate how coronavirus will spread across the world, even though the company behind the game has stressed it's 'not a scientific model'

Business Insider•March 5, 2020

MessYourself Gaming playing Plague Inc.
MessYourself Gaming / YouTube


YouTubers have been playing a game called Plague Inc. where they have to try and wipe out humanity with a disease.

So many people have been downloading the app since news of the coronavirus broke that its creator James Vaughan had to put out a statement saying the outbreak was "deeply concerning" and Plague Inc. is "a game, not a scientific model."

The game has now been banned in China.

Mental health experts believe games of all kinds can help reduce depression and anxiety, and disaster simulators can help people by giving them a sense of control over the situation.

When the coronavirus first entered the news cycle at the beginning of the year, people around the world started playing an old game again called Plague Inc.

It's a strategy game where the player is tasked with destroying humanity with a disease.

People thought it would be fun to see if they could wipe out everyone on Earth with their made-up virus by inputting some basic information they knew about coronavirus, like coughing and pneumonia symptoms and how it spreads through animals. It ended up reaching the top spot on Apple's App Store charts, and subsequently got banned in China.

Many YouTubers have also downloaded the game and uploaded their attempts of human erasure. A search for "coronavirus Plague Inc" brings up hundreds of results from the last few weeks from creators from several different countries including MessYourself Gaming, The Soviet Gaming Mobile, and Duygu Köseoğlu.

Some have been viewed hundreds of thousands of times, and many succeed in their mission of killing the human population.

YouTuber D'Angelo Wallace commented on the trend in a video where he read out some of the main concerns, including questions over whether it was ethical to make light of a virus that has killed over 3,000 people so far.

"Instead of making some sort of criticism or critique or even commentary on this coronavirus, the only thing these YouTube videos are really doing is causing even more people to panic," he said, going on to fact check beliefs about how the virus is spreading and how deadly it is.

The spike in people playing Plague Inc. prompted its creator James Vaughan to put out a statement saying the outbreak was "deeply concerning."

He said Plague Inc. has been around for eight years now and an outbreak of disease always leads to more downloads as people "seek to find out more about how diseases spread and to understand the complexities of viral outbreaks."

"We specifically designed the game to be realistic and informative, while not sensationalizing serious real-world issues," he said. "This has been recognised by the CDC and other leading medical organisations around the world."

He added that everyone playing the game should remember it is just that — "a game, not a scientific model."

"The current coronavirus outbreak is a very real situation which is impacting a huge number of people," he said. "We would always recommend that players get their information directly from local and global health authorities."
—Semen (@SleazyLebaneazy) March 5, 2020

Mental health expert Michelle Colder Carras, who specializes in video game use, told Business Insider in a previous article she isn't surprised Plague Inc. is very popular right now. Disaster simulators can give players a kind of "exposure therapy," giving them a sense of control over the situation, she said.

Studies are also increasingly showing that video games can act as a form of therapy for people with mental health conditions, the article continues.

According to Colder, "It's certainly possible that people are playing [Plague Inc.] as a way to work through anxiety or put things into perspective."

Read more:

People are obsessed with a game where you destroy humanity by spreading a disease. It's a way to work through coronavirus anxiety, according to an expert.

The wildly popular simulation game 'Plague Inc' has been pulled from the iPhone's Chinese app store amid the ongoing coronavirus crisis in China

Videos show the shockingly rapid progress China is making with 2 hospitals it's panic-building to fight the coronavirus

Experts think the Wuhan coronavirus jumped from bats to snakes to people. Bats have been the source of at least 4 pandemics.

The Wuhan coronavirus has spread to 14 countries. Here's how to protect yourself while traveling.

Read the original article on Business Insider

FILTHY LUCRE

Cash could be spreading the coronavirus, warns the World Health Organization

IMAGINE HOW THAT'S GOING TO IMPACT BANKING AND THE STOCK MARKET

Business Insider•March 5, 2020

Cash could be spreading the novel coronavirus, according to the World Health Organization.

The WHO told Business Insider that people should wash their hands after handling cash, especially before eating.

People should use contactless payments instead, the WHO told The Telegraph.

In February, China said it would destroy cash from areas highly affected by the coronavirus in an effort to slow the spread.

Cash could be contributing to the spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, according to the World Health Organization.

The WHO told The Telegraph that the coronavirus could remain on money for days after being exposed to it and that people should avoid touching their face after handling cash.

"We know that money changes hands frequently and can pick up all sorts of bacteria and viruses and things like that," a WHO representative told The Telegraph. "We would advise people to wash their hands after handling banknotes and avoid touching their face."

Cash could be spreading the coronavirus, warns the World Health Organization
REUTERS/Las Vegas Sun/Steve Marcus

In a statement to Business Insider, a WHO representative said people "should wash their hands or use a hand sanitizer after handling money, especially if they are about to eat or before handling food."

The Mayo Clinic says that viruses tend to last longer on hard surfaces like plastic and metal than on soft surfaces like fabric — US dollars are a blend of paper and fabric — but that factors like temperature and humidity affect how long a virus sticks around on surfaces.

China said in February that it would destroy and disinfect cash from hospitals, buses, and markets in areas severely affected by the coronavirus.

The UK-based Telegraph reported that the Bank of England said it would not follow China's plan and disinfect cash.

The US Treasury Department did not respond to a request for comment.

What The Satanic Temple is and why it's opening a debate about religion
Joseph P. Laycock, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, Texas State University,
The Conversation•March 5, 2020

The Satanic Temple unveils a statue of Baphomet, a winged-goat creature, at a rally for the First Amendment in Little Rock, Arkansas, in August 2018. AP Photo/Hannah Grabenstein

A group called The Satanic Temple went to court in their lawsuit against the city of Scottsdale, Arizona, for religious discrimination in January 2020.

The city’s attorneys argued that they could not possibly be guilty of religious discrimination because The Satanic Temple is not a religion. This argument prompted the judge in the case, Justice David Campbell, to ask, “What is religion?”

I am a professor of religious studies, and part of my job is getting students to think critically about the definition of religion. After studying The Satanic Temple for my book, “Speak of the Devil,” I find the most interesting thing about this group is the way it disrupts commonly held ideas about what religion is.

History of the group

The Satanic Temple was created in 2013 by two friends using the pseudonyms Malcolm Jarry and Lucien Greaves. Many members of The Satanic Temple use pseudonyms because of threats and hate mail that they receive.

Members of The Satanic Temple do not believe in God or the devil. Its beliefs are articulated in “the seven tenets.” These tenets emphasize reason and science as well as values such as compassion and justice.

The first tenet states, “One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason.” Other tenets address bodily autonomy, the freedom to offend and taking responsibility for one’s mistakes.

It was a series of political actions invoking religious freedom that brought the group into the public eye. They demanded the same privileges for Satanists that many Christians take for granted, such as erecting religious monuments on government property and using government meetings to present sectarian prayers.

Today there are 24 official chapters of the group throughout North America and Europe, ranging in membership from a dozen to over 100 people. Chapters can be found in coastal cities but also in the South and the Midwest. Texas is home to four chapters, more than any other state.

There are also thousands of supporters with individual memberships or in unofficial chapters with names like “Friends of The Satanic Temple, Arkansas.”
Political actions


One of the group’s political goals is to advocate for the value of the separation of church and state. Their strategy is to remind the public that if Christians can use government resources to assert their cultural dominance, then Satanists are free to do the same.

After Oklahoma installed a monument of the Ten Commandments at its State Capitol in 2012, the group demanded that their statue of a satanic deity, Baphomet, a winged-goat-like creature, be installed next to it.

The group received US$30,000 in donations from people around the country to build the statue.

The Oklahoma Supreme Court ordered the Ten Commandments monument removed. However, thousands of people extended their support to The Satanic Temple, leading to the creation of the group’s first few chapters.
Prayer invocations

The trouble in Scottsdale, Arizona, began in 2014 when the Supreme Court ruled in Greece v. Galloway that city councils and other government bodies may begin meetings with “invocations” that involve sectarian prayers.

What this meant was that the government could invite a pastor to say, “We pray in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,” as long as they did not discriminate against religious groups who wanted to give the invocation.

The Satanic Temple took the Supreme Court at their word. In 2016 they asked Scottsdale to open a city council meeting with the following prayer:


“Let us stand now, unbowed and unfettered by arcane doctrines born of fearful minds in darkened times. Let us embrace the Luciferian impulse to eat of the Tree of Knowledge and dissipate our blissful and comforting delusions of old.

"Let us demand that individuals be judged for their concrete actions, not their fealty to arbitrary social norms and illusory categorizations. Let us reason our solutions with agnosticism in all things, holding fast only to that which is demonstrably true.

"Let us stand firm against any and all arbitrary authority that threatens the personal sovereignty of One or All. That which will not bend must break, and that which can be destroyed by truth should never be spared its demise. It is Done. Hail Satan.”
Backlash against the Satanists

Initially Scottsdale officials agreed. Satanist Michelle Shortt, a member of the Arizona chapter, was scheduled to speak before a council meeting that April.

But then the Christian backlash began.

In court, attorneys discussed how one church sent over 15,000 emails demanding the Satanists be uninvited, crashing the city’s email system. Scottsdale officials cancelled Shortt’s invocation and declared a new policy that all invocation speakers must have “a substantial connection to the Scottsdale community.”

When the Satanists sued, Judge Campbell ruled there was insufficient evidence to prove Scottsdale officials acted out of religious prejudice.

People hold signs with Bible verses to protest The Satanic Temple’s unveiling of its statue of winged-goat creature Baphomet in Little Rock, Arkansas in August 2018. AP Photo/Hannah Grabenstein

What is religion?

However, an important outcome of the case was that Campbell rejected Scottsdale’s claim that The Satanic Temple is not a “real religion” or seeks only to mock actual religions.

The debate over what constitutes religion is an old one. In 1961, the Supreme Court acknowledged in Torcaso v. Watkins that there are many religions like Buddhism, Confucianism and even expressions of Judaism that are just not interested in God. Torcaso v. Watkins did not define religion; it merely ruled that religion is not synonymous with theism.

Scholars of religion have suggested that religion is not reducible to theism or indeed any one element. They have noted that the word religion is used differently in different contexts.

For example, religion scholar Catherine Albanese, in her 1981 book “America: Religions and Religion,” presented religions as systems consisting of “four ‘c’s.” These include creed, or a set of beliefs; code, or rules; cultus, meaning rituals; and community. In other words, religion is much more than the sum of its parts.

Religion can also be redefined to serve certain political interests. For example, in 2012 the state of Florida could not legally execute paranoid schizophrenic and convicted murderer John Errol Ferguson because the Florida Supreme Court ruled that the mentally ill must understand they will die when they are executed.

Ferguson stated he could not die because he was an immortal “prince of God.” The state circumvented this law by ruling that Ferguson’s delusions were a religious conviction and proceeded with the execution.

The word religion lends itself to such creative legal uses precisely because it has no set definition. As religion scholar Russell McCutcheon says, religion’s “utility is linked to its inability to be defined.”

The Satanic Temple is significant because it renders this sort of verbal slipperiness less tenable. If this group can no longer be dismissed as a “hoax,” people might be forced to think a bit more about what religion is.

[You’re too busy to read everything. We get it. That’s why we’ve got a weekly newsletter. Sign up for good Sunday reading. ]

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.

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The changing nature of America’s irreligious explained


Giving thanks, but to whom? Fewer Americans embrace organized religion

HERSTORY
Rosalind P. Walter, the First 'Rosie the Riveter,' Is Dead at 95

Joseph Berger, The New York Times•March 5, 2020


NEW YORK, NY - JUNE 09: Rosalind P. Walter attends the 2015 WNET Annual Gala at Cipriani 42nd Street on June 9, 2015 in New York City. (Photo by Dave Kotinsky/Getty Images)More

Rosalind P. Walter grew up in a wealthy and genteel Long Island, New York home. Yet when the United States entered World War II, she chose to join millions of other women in the homefront crusade to arm the troops with munitions, warships and aircraft.

She worked the night shift driving rivets into the metal bodies of Corsair fighter planes at a plant in Connecticut — a job that had almost always been reserved for men. A newspaper column about her inspired a morale-boosting 1942 song that turned her into the legendary Rosie the Riveter, the archetype of the hardworking women in overalls and bandanna-wrapped hair who kept the military factories humming.

Written by Redd Evans and John Jacob Loeb and popularized by the Four Vagabonds, the bandleader Kay Kyser and others, “Rosie the Riveter” captured a historical moment that helped sow the seeds of the women’s movement of the last half of the 20th century. It began:

All the day long whether rain or shine

she’s a part of the assembly line

She’s making history,

working for victory —

Rosie, brrrrr, the Riveter

Keeps a sharp lookout for sabotage

Sitting up there on the fuselage

That little frail can do, more than a male can do —

Rosie, brrrrr, the Riveter.

Other women went on to become models for Rosie posters and magazine covers as well.

But Rosie was just Walter’s first celebrated act. At her death on Wednesday at 95, she remained something of a public presence as a major philanthropist and one of PBS’ principal benefactors, her name intoned with others on programming like “Great Performances,” “American Masters,” “PBS NewsHour,” “Nature” and documentaries by Ken and Ric Burns.

She was the largest individual supporter of WNET in New York, helping to finance 67 shows or series starting in 1978.

Her friend Richard Somerset-Ward said she died at her home in Manhattan.

Walter had been drawn to public television in part to compensate for lost opportunities during the war, said Allison Fox, WNET’s senior director for major gifts. In serving her country, Walter had sacrificed a chance to attend either Smith or Vassar College, Fox said, and found that public television documentaries and other programs helped fill in the gaps in her education.

“She cared deeply about the public being informed and felt that public television and media is the best way to accomplish this,” Fox said.

Walter had two sources of wealth. Her father, Carleton Humphreys Palmer, was president and then chairman of E.R. Squibb and Sons, the Brooklyn-based drug company that helped mass produce the early doses of penicillin distributed to the troops during World War II. (It is now a subsidiary of Bristol Myers Squibb.)

Her second husband, Henry Glendon Walter Jr., was president and later chairman and chief executive of International Flavors and Fragrances, which provides the scents and tastes for 38,000 products, from perfumes to snacks to laundry detergents; for many years it was the world’s largest company of its kind.

Henry and Rosalind Walter gave generously to the American Museum of Natural History, the Pierpont Morgan Library, Long Island University, the college scholarship program of the U.S. Tennis Association and the North Shore Wildlife Sanctuary on Long Island.

Some gifts came through what is known today as the Rosalind P. Walter Foundation. The Walters served as trustees or directors of many of the organizations they gave to.

Rosalind Palmer Walter — friends called her Roz, not Rosie — was born on June 24, 1924, in Brooklyn, one of four children of Carleton and Winthrop (Bushnell) Palmer. Her mother was a professor of literature at Long Island University.

The family settled in Centre Island, a village in the town of Oyster Bay on Long Island’s North Shore. Its 400 or so well-heeled residents have since included singer Billy Joel, lyricist Alan Jay Lerner and media mogul Rupert Murdoch.

Her parents sent Rosalind to the Ethel Walker School in Simsbury, Connecticut, one of the first college preparatory boarding schools for upper-class women.

By the time she graduated, Europe was at war, and after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 spurred the United States to declare war on Japan, Germany and Italy, she was recruited, at 19, as an assembly line worker at the Vought Aircraft Co. in Stratford, Connecticut.

Her story caught the attention of the syndicated newspaper columnist Igor Cassini, who wrote about her in his “Cholly Knickerbocker” column. And that, in turn, inspired the songwriters.


A year after the war’s end, Walter, by then working as a nurse’s aide at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan, married Henry S. Thompson, a lieutenant with the Naval Reserve and a graduate of Stanford University, at the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church. They had a son, also named Henry, before the couple divorced in the 1950s.

Her second husband, whom she married in 1956, had a son from a previous marriage, Henry G. Walter III, who died in 2012. Walter is survived by her son, Henry S. Thompson; two grandchildren; four step-grandchildren; and several step-great-grandchildren.

Walter was not the only Rosie the Riveter. There were at least four other women who became models for the character as the War Production Board sought to recruit more women for the military factories.

Norman Rockwell drew his version of Rosie for the cover of the May 29, 1943, issue of The Saturday Evening Post — a grimy-faced, muscular woman in denim overalls, work goggles perched on her forehead and a copy of Hitler’s Mein Kampf trampled underfoot. His model was a Vermont woman, Mary Doyle Keefe, who died in 2015.

And J. Howard Miller drew a Rosie poster for Westinghouse war factories. He portrayed her in a red and white polka dot bandanna as she flexed a bicep under the words “We Can Do It!” The image became a feminist symbol starting in the 1980s, reprinted on T-shirts and coffee mugs. The model for that Rosie was most likely Naomi Parker Fraley, a California waitress who died in 2018.

So Rosalind Walter cannot alone claim the crown of being the real Rosie the Riveter. But she was there first.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Dresden police release details of brazen €1 billion heist

The authorities said they believe at least seven people must have participated in the theft at the Green Vault museum. Two of the perpetrators must have been small in order to break into the Jewel Room, they said.





Police in Dresden released more details on Thursday about the massive jewelry heist at the city's Green Vault in November.

Authorities say that after carefully trawling through the local CCTV footage, they have determined that at least seven people took part in the robbery.

They also released a sketch of one of the perpetrators, who is believed to be about 25 years old:


The sketch of one of the suspects

Police said they have determined the make and model of the getaway vehicle, an Audi A6. It was sold to an unknown buyer last August in Magdeburg, another city in Germany's east, by a man authorities believe is connected to the crime. The car was likely repainted before the break-in, indicating that the theft was planned well in advance. The car was later found having been set on fire in a Dresden garage.

On the night of November 25, the thieves started a fire near the museum that destroyed the building's power box. They then were able to cut through iron bars and broke into the Green Vault. Police have said that at least some of the thieves must have been relatively small in order to fit through the window into the Jewel Room.

They smashed the glass cases with axes and made away with loot worth approximately 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion), including the famed 49 carat Dresden White Diamond, which was discovered in India and bought by Saxony's royal family in the 18th century. Other pilfered items included many other pieces of diamond, ruby, emerald, and sapphire jewelry and a diamond-encrusted medal that once belonged to the King of Poland.

The Green Vault is one of Europe's oldest museums. It was founded in 1723 by the Saxon King Augustus II.

Police have offered a €500,000 ($557,000) reward for information leading to the recovery of the jewels or an arrest.

es/msh (AP, dpa)

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Date 05.03.2020

Black smoke and no jobs in the oil-rich Niger Delta

Decades of exposure to gas flaring by the foreign oil refineries in Niger Delta has harmed the health of residents. The thick plumes of toxic smoke are their constant reminder of an industry that gives them nothing more.

As passengers travel along Gbaramatu River in the Delta state of Nigeria, fireballs belch out of steel chimneys, lift up to the sky and cover it in huge plumes of smoke. This is an everyday reality for the many communities that live here. Niger Delta is rich in crude oil deposits and home to multinational companies including Shell. (A previous version of this article stated that BP is one of these companies. This has now been corrected. The department apologizes for the error.).

Gas flaring has been a common practice for the refineries that operate here for decades. It is the burning of natural gases that come up as crude oil is extracted from the earth. It is done to speed up the process of extraction. But the smoke and dust gradually fall back to the ground, coating earth and water in slimy soot.

"You can see this water is salty,” says Jerry Kingdom, a 25-year-old resident of the riverbank community of Batan. "We are drinking this water and it is not good for our skin or our body. Many of us, the children and the elders, have been getting sick."

Read more: Rights group slams Shell for ignoring Niger Delta oil spills


Gas flaring at the Total oil platform at Amenem in the Niger Delta

Rich oil deposits, poor job prospects

Communities on higher land in the Delta are affected too. In Utorogu there are more than 150 oil wells and a giant gas refinery meant to supply other countries in Africa. The residents complain that not only are they harmed by this project but also that there is nothing to gain from it.

"We have not benefited anything from these big oil companies,” says Benjamin Realda, a youth leader. "Look at the youth, there are no good jobs for them. We have skilled workers but there are no jobs.” Realda has finished his diploma and is looking for a job.

Despite its rich crude oil deposits, oil contributes to less than 10% of Nigeria's gross domestic product. Foreign oil conglomerates take large portions of the profits to their own countries, according to Africa Check.


The first shipment of oil from Nigeria took place in 1958

Wasting an energy resource

Nigeria is the sixth largest exporter of crude oil in the world. Shell-BP was the first company to drill for oil in the Niger Delta in 1956. Today, 23 billion cubic meters of gas is flared in Nigeria alone each year, accounting for more than 13% of global gas flaring. This causes massive environmental damage due to the release of greenhouse gases.

Methane, a toxic gas, is released in large amounts. It also has a more potent heating effect on the environment than carbon dioxide. Flaring of methane during crude oil extraction converts it to carbon dioxide. This is why many oil refineries argue that gas flaring is the most environmentally friendly way to dispose of extra gases that they cannot sell.

It is, however, a substantial waste of energy resources when these natural gases could be used to power many neighboring villages. "There is no light in the community. There is no water, no good road, no hospital. We have been suffering. Look at the flare. Every day, we suffer from it," said Realda.

Kingdom agrees with him. He is frustrated with the lack of educational facilities in the region. The only primary school is too ill-equipped to even have basic furniture.


Oil contributes to less than 10% to Nigeria's GDP

Lung and fertility problems

Gas flaring spews particulate matter, soot and toxins into the air. These are hazardous to humans. Health experts have already attributed the high frequency of respiratory and cancer problems in Niger Delta to flaring from oil refineries.

Dr Adogbeji Earnest Ideh, a doctor and former chairperson of the Nigeria Medical Association, told DW that the flaring of gas has made living in Niger Delta extremely difficult.

"People breathe in petroleum products and gas every morning, every afternoon, every evening. So that you now have quite a lot of upper respiratory tract infections, you now have people developing asthma and so many other lung diseases."Various tests have confirmed that flaring is affecting fertility. "Men are beginning to develop what is called azoospermia. There are quite a lot of other ailments in the community, and we do not even have hospitals,” Ideh said.

Read more: Gas flaring continues scorching Niger Delta

New but weak regulations

Recently, the Nigerian government has taken new steps to reduce flaring. In 2019, a Nigerian Gas Flare Commercialisation Program was passed which aims to sell flare gas to third parties. This will help convert gases that are of no value to oil refineries into a valuable energy resource.

Past regulations have also tried to accurately document the amount of gases that are being flared on a day-to-day basis and to enforce stronger penalties on companies for flaring violations. But penalties are often too low to deter oil companies.

The people in Batan and Utorogu along the Gbaramatu River may have to wait a long time before these regulations begin to change their lives for the better.

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India's Himalayan apple farmers feel the heat

Rising temperatures and irregular snowfall are impacting the conditions necessary to grow the fruit. In the face of lost business, India's apple farmers are adapting.


Towards the end of the year, the small town of Kalpa in the Indian Himalayas is a sight to behold. Nestled between the snow-covered Kinnaur Kailash range and the teal waters of the Sutlej river, apple orchards exude the golden glow of fall.

Kalpa lies in the Kinnaur region in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh in India. The region has a reputation for producing the tastiest and most expensive apples on the Indian market.

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In India the fruit is unaffordable for some. At an organic farmers' market in New Delhi, Kinnauri apples cost €4 - 5 (US $4.4 - 5.5) per kilo, compared to around €1.50 (US $1.6) for a dozen bananas. Growers are considered prosperous compared to the average Indian farmer.

Yet as warmer temperatures and decreased snowfall begin to impact apple yields, this prosperity could be in question.

Changing conditions


A worker in an orchard in Kalpa, India, grades apples

Apple crops grown in the Himalayas usually require a certain number of "chill" hours, when temperatures are between 0-7 degrees Celsius (32-44.6 Fahrenheit). As temperatures rise, these chill hours are reducing in some areas.

"We have seen that the frequency and quantity of snowfall decreasing and its timing has also changed," says Satish Kumar Bhardwaj, a professor teaching environmental sciences at Yashwant Singh Parmar University in Solan, India. "In such conditions, traditional varieties [of apples] are finding it difficult to get adequate amounts of chilling hours needed for the blooming and setting of the fruit."

Research from Bhardwaj's university shows that warming conditions have pushed some orchards to higher altitudes in Himachal Pradesh.

While some farmers in the lower hills have moved away from apples and started growing vegetables, flowers and fruits such as kiwi and pomegranate, apples are thriving in Tabo, a village located 3,280 meters (10,761 feet) above sea level in the cold desert Spiti valley.

Read more: What can farmers do to protect the climate?

Kishore Kumar, an apple grower from Kalpa had a good harvest this year — 3,000 boxes each containing 26 kilograms (57 pounds) of apples. But not everyone has been so lucky.

Increasing pests

Apple grower and social activist Jiya Lal supervises as migrant workers from Nepal scale the trees in his orchard, picking the fruit and collecting it in bags hanging around their necks. Of his 400 trees spread over some two and a half hectares, around 80 have contracted apple scab disease, which destroys the fruit with lesions.


Kalpa in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh has a reputation for producing tasty, and expensive, apples


Healthy apples from Jiya Lal's orchard in Kalpa

"Apple scab has returned to this area after a few decades," he says. "In May-June, when it is supposed to be dry, there was a lot of rain which caused prolonged dampness and the disease to spread . I will not get even 50% of the market value for the infected apples." Lal estimates a total loss of approximately €1,267 (US $1,402) from his harvest, an amount that will significantly affect his family's annual budget.

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"My orchard's yields and revenues are going down with each passing year," says Sanjay Chauhan, an apple grower and ex-mayor of Shimla, the capital of the state. In his orchard in the village of Kotkhai, Chauhan grows traditional varieties of apple such as Red and Golden Delicious, which were introduced to the region over 100 years ago.

"A laborer harvesting apples in my orchard was covered in white fluffy woolly aphids — that is the amount of pests we had this year despite spraying pesticides frequently," he says. "I feel that in the next five years, we will see a crisis in the apple economy."

Lost business

Kumar, Chauhan and Lal are among the thousands of families and businesses in Himachal Pradesh who have created a booming apple industry.

This year, Pritamrekha Negi, 42, an apple grower from Ribba village in Kinnaur, lost half her annual income. In August, the leaves on her trees began to yellow and fall far earlier than normal, due to an unseasonal change in temperature. She harvested a mere 350 boxes of apples (8,400 kg) as compared to 800 (19,200 kg) last year.

Farmer Jiya Lal has struggled with apple scab disease in his orchard

"Our son studies at a boarding school in Delhi and we will have to dip into our savings to pay his school fees for the year," she says. "Our land is covered in apple trees. I have never thought about growing another crop."

Despite the threats, apple growers may have a chance to maintain their yields through new varieties that perform well in warmer temperatures and need fewer chilling hours.

Read more: India's ghost villages: Food and water scarcity forcing many to leave

"There is a growing demand for 'low-chill' varieties of apple,” says Vikram Singh Rawat, founder of Kalashan Nursery and Farm in the Himalayan village of Karsog.

New varieties

Rawat's nursery sells low-chill, high-density apple varieties and apple clonal rootstocks — small plants onto which others can be grafted — imported from the USA, Italy and the Netherlands.

Read more:The seed libraries sprouting up across the US

"Low chill varieties can mitigate the losses caused by climate change," he says. Most of Rawat's customers are young people who have quit their city jobs to revive their family orchards with this modern method. His bestselling varieties are Evasmi Scarlet Spur, Red Kan and Super Chief, all either cross-bred or mutations, but not GMO.

Yet not everyone is convinced. While low-chill varieties appear to grow faster and bear more fruit, their trees are smaller, their lifespan is shorter and they cannot survive on rain alone, instead requiring drip irrigation. This makes growers like Chauhan skeptical.

"There needs to be more research on the sustainability of low-chill varieties. In the summer, we did not have drinking water for 16 days in my village. In such conditions, how would I water new varieties of apple trees?" he asks.


CLIMATE CHANGE: BANGLADESHI FARMERS TURN TO HYDROPONICS TO STAY AFLOAT
Paradise in peril

Where the Ganges and Bramhaputra rivers converge at the Bay of Bengal, they form a vast fertile delta. Sediment brought down from the Himalayas means this has long been a region of agricultural plenty. But as climate change pushes up the sea level and storms become more frequent and more severe, its inhabitants and way of life are among the most threatened on the planet.

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Gadgets for tech giants made with coerced Uighur labor

By DAKE KANG and YANAN WANG

1 of 6
In this June 5, 2019, photo, residents of the Hui Muslim ethnic minority walk in a neighborhood near an OFILM factory in Nanchang in eastern China's Jiangxi province. The Associated Press has found that OFILM, a supplier of major multinational companies, employs Uighurs, an ethnic Turkic minority, under highly restrictive conditions, including not letting them leave the factory compound without a chaperone, worship, or wear headscarves. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

NANCHANG, China (AP) — In a lively Muslim quarter of Nanchang city, a sprawling Chinese factory turns out computer screens, cameras and fingerprint scanners for a supplier to international tech giants such as Apple and Lenovo. Throughout the neighborhood, women in headscarves stroll through the streets, and Arabic signs advertise halal supermarkets and noodle shops.

Yet the mostly Muslim ethnic Uighurs who labor in the factory are isolated within a walled compound that is fortified with security cameras and guards at the entrance. Their forays out are limited to rare chaperoned trips, they are not allowed to worship or cover their heads, and they must attend special classes in the evenings, according to former and current workers and shopkeepers in the area.


The connection between OFILM, the supplier that owns the Nanchang factory, and the tech giants is the latest sign that companies outside China are benefiting from coercive labor practices imposed on the Uighurs, a Turkic ethnic group, and other minorities.

Residents of the Hui Muslim ethnic minority walk in a neighborhood near an OFILM factory in Nanchang in eastern China's Jiangxi province. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

Over the past four years, the Chinese government has detained more than a million people from the far west Xinjiang region, most of them Uighurs, in internment camps and prisons where they go through forced ideological and behavioral re-education. China has long suspected the Uighurs of harboring separatist tendencies because of their distinct culture, language and religion.

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When detainees “graduate” from the camps, documents show, many are sent to work in factories. A dozen Uighurs and Kazakhs told the AP they knew people who were sent by the state to work in factories in China’s east, known as inner China — some from the camps, some plucked from their families, some from vocational schools. Most were sent by force, although in a few cases it wasn’t clear if they consented.

Workers are often enrolled in classes where state-sponsored teachers give lessons in Mandarin, China’s dominant language, or politics and “ethnic unity.” Conditions in the jobs vary in terms of pay and restrictions.

At the OFILM factory, Uighurs are paid the same as other workers but otherwise treated differently, according to residents of the neighborhood. They are not allowed to leave or pray – unlike the Hui Muslim migrants also working there, who are considered less of a threat by the Chinese government.

“They don’t let them worship inside,” said a Hui Muslim woman who worked in the factory for several weeks alongside the Uighurs. “They don’t let them come out.”

“If you’re Uighur, you’re only allowed outside twice a month,” a small business owner who spoke with the workers confirmed. The AP is not disclosing the names of those interviewed near the factory out of concern for possible retribution. “The government chose them to come to OFILM, they didn’t choose it.”

Neighborhood residents chat near the entrance to an OFILM factory in Nanchang in eastern China's Jiangxi province. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

The Chinese government says the labor program is a way to train Uighurs and other minorities and give them jobs. The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday called concern over possible coerced labor under the program “groundless” and “slander.”

However, experts say that like the internment camps, the program is part of a broader assault on the Uighur culture, breaking up social and family links by sending people far from their homes to be assimilated into the dominant Han Chinese culture.

“They think these people are poorly educated, isolated, backwards, can’t speak Mandarin,” said James Leibold, a scholar of Chinese ethnic policy at La Trobe University in Melbourne. “So what do you do? You ‘educate’ them, you find ways to transform them in your own image. Bringing them into the Han Chinese heartland is a way to turbocharge this transformation.”

OFILM’s website indicates the Xinjiang workers make screens, camera cover lenses and fingerprint scanners. It touts customers including Apple, Samsung, Lenovo, Dell, HP, LG and Huawei, although there was no way for the AP to track specific products to specific companies.

A woman uses her phone near the Apple store in Beijing. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

Apple’s most recent list of suppliers, published January last year, includes three OFILM factories in Nanchang. It’s unclear whether the specific OFILM factory the AP visited twice in Nanchang supplies Apple, but it has the same address as one listed. Another OFILM factory is located about half a mile away on a different street. Apple did not answer repeated requests for clarification on which factory it uses.

In an email, Apple said its code of conduct requires suppliers to “provide channels that encourage employees to voice concerns.” It said it interviews the employees of suppliers during annual assessments in their local language without their managers present, and had done 44,000 interviews in 2018.

A worker polishes iPhones in an Apple store in Beijing. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

Lenovo confirmed that it sources screens, cameras, and fingerprint scanners from OFILM but said it was not aware of the allegations and would investigate. Lenovo also pointed to a 2018 audit by the Reliable Business Alliance in which OFILM scored very well.

All the companies that responded said they required suppliers to follow strict labor standards. LG and Dell said they had “no evidence” of forced labor in their supply chains but would investigate, as did Huawei. HP did not respond.

OFILM also lists as customers dozens of companies within China, as well as international companies it calls “partners” without specifying what product it offers. And it supplies PAR Technology, an American sales systems vendor to which it most recently shipped 48 cartons of touch screens in February, according to U.S. customs data obtained through ImportGenius and Panjiva, which track shipping data.

PAR Technology in turn says it supplies terminals to major chains such as McDonald’s, Taco Bell, and Subway. However, the AP was unable to confirm that products from OFILM end up with the fast food companies.

McDonald’s said it has asked PAR Technology to discontinue purchases from OFILM while it launches an immediate investigation. PAR Technology also said it would investigate immediately. Subway and Taco Bell did not respond.

A report Sunday from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, researched separately from the AP, estimated that more than 80,000 Uighurs were transferred from Xinjiang to factories across China between 2017 and 2019. The report said it found “conditions that strongly suggest forced labor” consistent with International Labor Organization definitions.

The AP also reported a year ago that Uighur forced labor was being used within Xinjiang to make sportswear that ended up in the U.S.

___

FROM FARMERS TO FACTORY WORKERS

Beijing first sent Uighurs to work in inland China in the early 2000s, as part of a broad effort to push minorities to adopt urban lifestyles and integrate with the Han Chinese majority to tighten political control.

At first the program targeted young, single women, because the state worried that Uighur women raised in pious Muslim families didn’t work, had children early and refused to marry Han men. But as stories of poor pay and tight restrictions trickled back, police began threatening some parents with jail time if they didn’t send their children, six Uighurs told the AP.

The program was halted in 2009, when at least two Uighurs died in a brawl with Han workers at a toy factory in coastal Guangdong province. After peaceful protests in Xinjiang were met with police fire, ethnic riots broke out that killed an estimated 200 people, mostly Han Chinese civilians.

Women from the the Hui Muslim ethnic minority from a nearby neighborhood gather outside a shop near an OFILM factory in Nanchang in eastern China's Jiangxi province. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

An AP review of Chinese academic papers and state media reports shows that officials blamed the failure of the labor program on the Uighurs’ language and culture. So when the government ramped up the program again after the ascent of hardline Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2012, it emphasized ideological transformation.

A paper drafted by the head of the Xinjiang statistics bureau in 2014 said the Uighurs’ poor Mandarin made it hard for them to integrate in inner China. It concluded that Xinjiang’s rural minorities needed to be broken away from traditional lifestyles and systematically “disciplined”, “trained” and “instilled with modern values.”

“The local saturated religious atmosphere and the long-time living habits of ethnic minorities are incompatible with the requirements of modern industrial production,” the paper said. It outlined a need to “slowly correct misunderstandings about going out to choose jobs.”
Full Covernage: China

Before Uighurs were transferred for jobs, the paper continued, they needed to be trained and assessed on their living habits and adoption of corporate culture.

“Those who fail will not be exported,” it said.

The paper also described government incentives such as tax breaks and subsidies for Chinese companies to take Uighurs. A 2014 draft contract for Xinjiang laborers in Guangdong province obtained by the AP shows the government there offered companies 3000 RMB ($428.52) per worker, with an additional 1000 RMB ($142.84) for “training” each person for no less than 60 class hours. In exchange, companies had to offer “concentrated accommodation areas,” halal canteens and “ethnic unity education and training.”

But it was a tough sell at a time when Chinese officials were grappling with knifings, bombings and car attacks by Uighurs, fueled by explosive anger at the government’s harsh security measures and religious restrictions. Hundreds died in race-related violence in Xinjiang, both Uighur and Han Chinese.

A labor agent who only gave his surname, Zhang, said he tried brokering deals to send Xinjiang workers to factories in the eastern city of Hangzhou, but finding companies willing to take Uighurs was a challenge, especially in a slowing economy.

“Their work efficiency is not high,” he said.

The size of the program is considerable. A November 2017 state media report said Hotan prefecture alone planned to send 20,000 people over two years to work in inner China.

There, the report said, they would “realize the dreams of their lives.”

___

ANSWERING THE GOVERNMENT’S CALL

The Uighurs at OFLIM were sent there as part of the government’s labor program, in an arrangement the company’s website calls a “school-enterprise cooperative.” OFILM describes the workers as migrants organized by the government or vocational school students on “internships”.

OFILM confirmed it received AP requests for comment but did not reply.

The AP was unable to get inside the facility, and on one visit to Nanchang, plainclothes police tailed AP journalists by car and on foot. But posts on the company website extoll OFILM’s efforts to accommodate their Uighur workers with Mandarin and politics classes six days a week, along with halal food.

OFILM first hired Uighurs in 2017, recruiting over 3,000 young men and women in Xinjiang. They bring the Uighurs on one- or two-year contracts to Nanchang, a southeastern metropolis nearly two thousand miles from Xinjiang that local officials hope to turn into a tech hub.

OFILM is one of Nanchang’s biggest employers, with half a dozen factory complexes sprinkled across the city and close ties with the state. Investment funds backed by the Nanchang city government own large stakes in OFILM, corporate filings show. The Nanchang government told the AP that OFILM recruits minorities according to “voluntary selection by both parties” and provides equal pay along with personal and religious freedom.

OFILM’s website says the company “answered the government’s call” and went to Xinjiang to recruit minorities. The Uighurs need training, OFILM says, to pull them from poverty and help them “study and improve.”

Mandarin is heavily emphasized, the site says, as well as lessons in history and “ethnic unity” to “comprehensively improve their overall quality.” The site features pictures of Uighurs playing basketball on factory grounds, dancing in a canteen and vying in a Mandarin speech competition.

In August, when OFILM organized celebrations for Eid Qurban, a major Islamic festival, Uighur employees did not pray at a mosque. Instead, they dressed in orange uniforms and gathered in a basketball court for a show with Communist officials called “Love the Motherland – Thank the Party.” An OFILM post said a “Uighur beauty” dazzled with her “beautiful exotic style.”

State media reports portray the Nanchang factory workers as rural and backwards before the Communist Party trained them, a common perception of the Uighurs among the Han Chinese.

A neighborhood resident stops for a smoke near the entrance to an OFILM factory in Nanchang in eastern China's Jiangxi province. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

“The workers’ concept of time was hazy, they would sleep in till whenever they wanted,” a Party official is quoted as saying in one. Now, he said, their “concept of time has undergone a total reversal.”

In the reports and OFILM posts, the Uighurs are portrayed as grateful to the Communist Party for sending them to inner China.

Despite the wan expressions of three OFILM workers from Lop County, a December 2017 report said they gave an “enthusiastic” presentation about how they lived in clean new dormitories “much better than home” and were visited by Communist Party cadres.

“We were overjoyed that leaders from the Lop County government still come to see us on holidays,” one of the workers, Estullah Ali, was quoted as saying. “Many of us were moved to tears.”

___

THEY TOOK MY CHILD TO INNER CHINA

Minorities fleeing China describe a far grimmer situation. H., a wealthy jade merchant from Lop County, where OFILM now gets Uighur workers, began noticing the labor transfer program in 2014. That’s when state propaganda blaring through television and loudspeakers urged young Uighurs to work in inner China. Officials hustled families to a labor transfer office where they were forced to sign contracts, under threat of land confiscations and prison sentences.

H., identified only by the initial of his last name out of fear of retribution, was worried. The government was not only reviving the labor program but also clamping down on religion. Acquaintances vanished: Devout Muslims and language teachers, men with beards, women with headscarves.

Toward the end of 2015, when H. greeted his 72-year-old neighbor on the street, the man burst into tears.

“They took my child to inner China to work,” he said.

Months later, H. and his family fled China.

Zharqynbek Otan, a Chinese-born ethnic Kazakh, said that after he was released from an internment camp in 2018, neighbors in his home village also told him their sons and daughters were forced to sign contracts for 6 months to five years to work at factories near Shanghai. If they ran from the factories, they were warned, they’d be taken straight back to internment camps.

Nurlan Kokteubai, an ethnic Kazakh, said during his time in an internment camp, a cadre told him they selected young, strong people to work in inner Chinese factories in need of labor.

“He told us that those young people would acquire vocational skills,” Kokteubai said.

Not all workers are subject to the restrictions at OFILM. One ethnic Kazakh said her brother made power banks in central China for $571.36 a month and didn’t take classes.

But another said two of his cousins were forced to go and work in cold, harsh conditions. They were promised $428.52 a month but paid only $42.85. Though they wanted to quit, four Uighurs who complained were detained in camps after returning to Xinjiang, scaring others.

Uighurs and Kazakhs in exile say it’s likely those working in inner China are still better off than those in camps or factories in Xinjiang, and that in the past, some had gone voluntarily to earn money. A former worker at Jiangxi Lianchuang Electronics, a lens maker in Nanchang, told The Associated Press the 300 or so Uighurs there were free to enter or leave their compound, although most live in dormitories inside factory grounds. He and a current worker said they were happy with their working conditions, their salary of about 5,000 RMB ($714.20) a month, and their teachers and Mandarin classes in the evenings.

But when presented a list of questions in Uighur about the labor transfers, the former Jiangxi Lianchuang worker started to look very nervous. He asked for the list, then set it on fire with a lighter and dropped it in an ashtray.

“If the Communist Party hears this, then” – he knocked his wrists together, mimicking a suspect being handcuffed. “It’s very bad.”

___

Associated Press writer Erika Kinetz contributed to this report.


Top brands 'using forced Uighur labor' in China: report

China has allegedly moved thousands of Uighurs into factories that supply major brands including Volkswagen, Nike, Apple and BMW. A new report says the factory conditions "strongly suggest forced labor."


An Australian think tank has accused the Chinese government of transferring more than 80,000 ethnic Uighurs out of internment camps and into factories that supply major international brands.

In a new report, Uighurs for sale, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) identified at least 27 factories across China where detainees from camps in the western region of Xinjiang had been relocated since 2017.

"Under conditions that strongly suggest forced labor, Uighurs are working in factories that are in the supply chains of at least 83 well-known global brands in the technology, clothing and automotive sectors," the think tank said.

The brands, it added, included "Apple, BMW, Gap, Huawei, Nike, Samsung, Sony and Volkswagen."

China's Foreign Ministry rejected the report as having "no factual basis," during a regular press briefing on Monday.

"This report is just following along with the US anti-China forces that try to smear China's anti-terrorism measures in Xinjiang," spokesman Zhao Lijian said.

Corporate responsibility

James Leibold, one of the report's authors and an expert on Chinese history and society at Australia's La Trobe University, said companies needed to take responsibility.

Companies should "immediately undertake a thorough and transparent due-diligence process to determine if, and to what extent, supply chains have been exposed to any form of forced labor," he told DW.

"This needs to be done not by acting parent companies in China, but by bringing in independent outside observers to do a full audit on the supply chain and the manufacturing process."

Read more: China's treatment of Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang: 'I had the chills'

VW and Apple respond

When asked about the concerns raised in the report, Volkswagen told news agencies that none of the listed companies is currently a direct supplier. In a statement, the German automaker said it holds "direct authority" in all areas of its business and "respects minorities, employee representation and social and labor standards."

According to a local media article cited by the ASPI report, a factory that has manufactured cameras for Apple's iPhones received 700 Uighur laborers in 2017.

In its response, Apple cited a statement issued earlier, in which the the tech giant said it was "dedicated to ensuring that everyone in our supply chain is treated with the dignity and respect they deserve."

"We work closely with all our suppliers to ensure our high standards are upheld," the statement added.

Read more: Uighur whistleblower: China is 'arresting people without any reason'

'Harsh, segregated life'

Citing government documents and local media reports, ASPI said the mass transfers to factories were part of a state-sponsored scheme that "is tainting the global supply chain."

It said workers often lead a "harsh, segregated life" in the factories, and are subjected to constant surveillance, prevented from practicing their religion and forced to take organized Mandarin classes and ideological training.

Leibold, one of the report's authors, said the labor transfers could be seen as an extension of Xinjiang's "re-education" camps, as well as a "response to the slowing economy in China, and the cost of the mass-internment of Uighurs to local governments in Xinjiang."

The United Nations estimates that more than a million Muslim Uighurs have been detained in camps in Xinjiang. Rights groups say the camps are part of an effort to suppress Uighur Islamic customs and religion, but China describes the sites as vocational education centers that aim to teach Mandarin and job skills, and stamp out religious extremism.

William Yang, DW's correspondent in Taipei, contributed to this report.

nm/stb (Reuters, AFP)

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Date 02.03.2020