Cyclone Batsirai closes in on eastern Madagascar




Cyclone Batsirai is set to hit eastern Madagascar after passing Mauritius and La Reunion 

(AFP/Richard BOUHET)


Adele DHAYER
Fri, February 4, 2022, 9:22 PM·3 min read

As powerful Cyclone Batsirai closed in on eastern Madagascar on Saturday people sought shelter in more secure concrete buildings while others reinforced their roofs with large sandbags.

Batsirai is expected to lash the eastern parts of the cyclone-prone Indian ocean island with powerful winds and torrential rains on Saturday.

The Meteo-France weather service warned of winds of up to 260 kilometres per hour (162 miles per hour) and waves as high as 15 metres (50 feet).

It said Batsirai would likely make landfall in the late afternoon as an intense tropical cyclone, "presenting a very serious threat to the area" after passing Mauritius and drenching the French island of La Reunion with torrential rain for two days.

Residents hunkered down before the storm made landfall in the impoverished country still recovering from the deadly Tropical Storm Ana late last month.

In the eastern coastal town of Vatomandry more than 200 people were crammed in one room in a Chinese-owned concrete building while waiting for Batsirai to hit.

Families slept on mats or mattresses.

Community leader Thierry Louison Leaby lamented the lack of clean water after the water utility company turned off supplies ahead of the cyclone.

"People are cooking with dirty water," he said, amid fears of a diarrhoea outbreak.

Outside plastic dishes and buckets were placed in a line to catch rainwater dripping from the corrugated roofing sheets.

"The government must absolutely help us. We have not been given anything," he said.

Residents who chose to remain in their homes used sandbags to buttress their roofs.

Tropical Storm Ana killed 58 people and affected at least 131,000 more in Madagascar last month (AFP/RIJASOLO)

- 'We are very nervous' -

Other residents of Vatomandry were stockpiling supplies in preparation for the storm.

"We have been stocking up for a week, rice but also grains because with the electricity cuts we can not keep meat or fish," said Odette Nirina, 65, a hotelier in Vatomandry.

"I have also stocked up on coal. Here we are used to cyclones," she told AFP.

Gusts of winds of more than 50km/h pummelled Vatomandry Saturday morning, accompanied by intermittent rain.

The United Nations said it was ramping up its preparedness with aid agencies, placing rescue aircraft on standby and stockpiling humanitarian supplies.

The impact of Batsirai on Madagascar is expected to be "considerable", Jens Laerke, spokesman for the UN's humanitarian organisation OCHA, told reporters in Geneva Friday.

At least 131,000 people were affected by Ana across Madagascar in late January. At least 58 people were killed, mostly in the capital Antananarivo. The storm also hit Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, causing dozens of deaths.

The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) pointed to estimates from national authorities that some 595,000 people could risk being directly affected by Batsirai, and 150,000 more might be displaced due to new landslides and flooding.

"We are very nervous," Pasqualina Di Sirio, who heads the WFP's programme in Madagascar, told reporters by video-link from the island.

Search and rescue teams have been placed on alert.

Inland in Ampasipotsy Gare, sitting on top of his house, Tsarafidy Ben Ali, a 23-year-old coal seller, held down corrugated iron sheets on the roof with large bags filled with soil.

"The gusts of wind are going to be very strong. That's why we're reinforcing the roofs," he told AFP.

The storm poses a risk to at least 4.4 million people in one way or another, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said.

 

Madagascar braces for cyclone Batsirai after Ana's devastation

ANTANANARIVO (Reuters) - Madagascar braced on Saturday for cyclone Batsirai to make landfall, with forecasters warning the storm could bring further devastation to the island nation just two weeks after another cyclone killed at least 55 people.

© Reuters/ALKIS KONSTANTINIDIS Cyclone Batsirai is expected to hit Madagascar

© Reuters/ALKIS KONSTANTINIDIS Cyclone Batsirai is expected to hit Madagascar

A local weather bulletin said the storm system was about 163 kilometres (100 miles) off the Indian Ocean island's eastern coast on Saturday afternoon and that landfall was expected at about 6 p.m. (1500 GMT).

Batsirai is packing wind speeds of 165 kilometres per hour (103 mph), the bulletin added.

"Significant and widespread damage is therefore to be feared. Batsirai will then cross the country from east to west, remaining generally at a dangerous stage," the bulletin said.

The streets of the capital, Antananarivo, were quiet on Saturday as some residents opted to stay indoors. Banks and some other businesses were shuttered.

Heavy rains were already whipping parts of the country's eastern coastline, residents said.

At a shelter in Antananarivo for people left homeless by last month's Cyclone Ana, 20-year-old Faniry said she was too scared to venture outside as Batsirai approached.

© Reuters/ALKIS KONSTANTINIDIS Cyclone Batsirai is expected to hit Madagascar

"Cyclone Batsirai seems very strong," she told Reuters, giving only her first name.

Around her, women and children sat huddled together on the floor alongside their belongings in crowded conditions.

"We are stuck here because we can't bring our children outside because it's cold and we are afraid of landslides. Better for us to be cautious and stay here," she said.

© Reuters/ALKIS KONSTANTINIDIS Cyclone Batsirai is expected to hit Madagascar

Tropical storm Ana battered Madagascar last month, leaving at least 55 people dead from landslides and collapsed buildings. The storm also left widespread flooding, destruction and forced tens of thousands of people from their homes

.

© Reuters/ALKIS KONSTANTINIDIS Cyclone Batsirai is expected to hit Madagascar

After ravaging Madagascar, the cyclone proceeded westward, making landfall in Mozambique and continuing inland to Malawi. A total of 88 people died, including those in Madagascar.

The region has been repeatedly struck by severe storms and cyclones in recent years, destroying homes, infrastructure and crops and causing mass displacements.

Lalaina Randrianjatovo, a retired colonel who works as director of a rapid response unit in the ministry of population, told Reuters the storm's path was likely to spare the capital but said heavy rains were still expected.

"Strong rains will probably cause flooding," he said, adding they anticipated more people would arrive at the Antananarivo shelter, which currently houses about 1,500 people.

(Reporting by Christophe Van Der Perre, Lovasoa Rabary and Alkis Konstantinidis; Writing by Elias Biryabarema; Editing by Helen Popper)

US panel recommends release of mentally ill Guantanamo detainee
AFP 12 hrs ago

American authorities have recommended releasing a mentally ill inmate from Guantanamo Bay and repatriating him to Saudi Arabia, according to a government document published Friday.

© Paul HANDLEY This photo screened by US military officials shows a sign for Camp Justice in Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba, created after the September 2001 attacks

Suspected of being Al Qaeda's intended 20th hijacker for the September 11, 2001 attacks against the United States, Mohammed al-Qahtani was tortured by interrogators at the US military base in Cuba where he has been detained for nearly two decades.

The government dropped its case against him in 2008 due to the abuse he experienced at the prison.

The detention of al-Qahtani is "no longer necessary to protect against a continuing significant threat to the security of the United States," the Periodic Review Board, a panel composed of several US national security agencies, said in a summary of its decision.

In its final determination dated February 4, the board said al-Qahtani was "eligible for transfer" and recommended that he be repatriated to Saudi Arabia where he could receive comprehensive mental health care and be enrolled in a rehabilitation center for extremists.

The body noted his "significantly compromised mental health condition and available family support."

Security measures, including surveillance and travel restrictions, were also recommended.

Al-Qahtani was one of the first prisoners sent to Guantanamo in January 2002.

He had flown to Orlando, Florida on August 4, 2001, but was denied entry to the country and sent back to Dubai.

He was eventually captured in Afghanistan in December 2001.

His torture at the prison was widely documented and spurred on international human rights groups' calls for the site to be shut down. He was subjected to prolonged isolation, sleep deprivation, sexual humiliation and other abuses.

"We tortured Qahtani," Susan Crawford, a top judicial official in the Bush administration said in 2009, according to a Washington Post article.

In January, the United States approved the release of five of the remaining 39 men still at Guantanamo.

Ten others, including the alleged mastermind of the September 11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, known as "KSM", are awaiting trial by a military commission.

The detention center, run by the US Navy, was created after the 2001 attacks to house detainees in the US "war on terror" and has been called a site of "unparallelled notoriety" by UN rights experts.

led/dax/md/lb

Egypt media tycoon charged with sexual assault against orphan girls

Mohamed el-Amin now faces up to 25 years in prison if found guilty



By AFP
Published: Sat 5 Feb 2022

An Egyptian businessman was charged on Saturday with “human trafficking” and “sexual assault” a month after he was arrested over accusations that he abused seven girls in an orphanage he founded.

Media and real estate tycoon Mohamed el-Amin was arrested on January 8 and held in custody pending investigations into accusations that he “sexually assaulted children using force”. He now faces up to 25 years in prison if found guilty.

The case came to public attention after a Facebook page accused the owner of the Al-Mustaqbal group - formerly the owner of the CBC television network before it was sold in 2018 - of sexually assaulting young girls.

A judiciary source told AFP Saturday that “witnesses confirmed the testimonies of the victims” during the investigation, referring to girls at an orphanage opened by Amin in Beni Suef, about 100 kilometres (60 miles) south of Cairo.

The source said images were found on the businessman’s phone, adding that recordings were produced of the orphans recounting the alleged assault.

The accusations were referred to the prosecutor’s office on December 10 by the government-affiliated National Council for Childhood and Motherhood.

The prosecution said the victims accused Amin of regularly assaulting them “without their consent”.

“He abused his power against the orphan girls, whom he sexually assaulted and threatened to expel if they reported him,” it said.

The prosecution added that Amin allegedly took some of the victims to his villa on the North Coast, where he assaulted them and “asked them to engage in immoral acts”.

Marquis de Sade The 120 Days of Sodom (1785)

https://www.odaha.com/sites/default/files/120_days_of_sodom.pdf · PDF file

MARQUIS DE SADE • 120 DAYS OF SODOM • DIGITIZATION BY SUPERVERT 32C INC. • supervert.com •

 Nova Scotia

Atlantic Gold Mining N.S. Inc. pleads guilty to environmental charges

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Company admitted it breached federal and provincial environmental laws

Blair Rhodes · CBC News · Posted: Feb 04, 2022 

Atlantic Gold's Touquoy mine site in Moose River, N.S. (Paul Palmeter/CBC)

The subsidiary of an Australian gold mining company has pleaded guilty to federal and provincial environmental charges relating to its gold mining operations on Nova Scotia's Eastern Shore.

Lawyers for the federal and provincial Crown, along with a lawyer for Atlantic Mining N.S. Inc., were in Nova Scotia provincial court in Dartmouth Thursday to make sentencing arguments.

The company was originally charged with more than 32 offences but negotiations over the past year have reduced that number to two.

The company has admitted it breached both federal and provincial environmental laws by failing to properly test for the level of sediments in water that could be hazardous to fish habitat. It also failed to regularly report findings to government as required.

In an agreed statement of facts entered into the record, the company acknowledged responsibility and expressed regret but also pointed out that there was no evidence that fish were actually harmed by these offences, which occurred between February 2018 and May 2020.

The two Crown prosecutors are proposing Atlantic Gold be fined around $5,000 and be assessed an additional monetary penalty totalling about $250,000.

The agreement calls for the money from the monetary penalties to be distributed to two organizations, the Mi'kmaq Conservation Group (Netukulimk) and the Unama'ki Institute of Natural Resources.

Judge Alanna Murphy told the lawyers she needs time to consider the appropriate sentence and she will deliver her decision next week.

Atlantic Mining is a subsidiary of Australia mining company St. Barbara Limited.

Why Wait Two Weeks For Your Pay? New Services Allow Canadian Workers To Access Pay As They Earn It

Feb 03, 2022 By Waterloo Region Record

Why should you wait two weeks for a pay cheque in a computerized world where money transfers take a fraction of a second?

Soon, you may not have to.

Fintech companies are set to shake up the traditional biweekly payroll system in Canada, with a new service that offers workers on-demand pay for completed work.

Early wage access — also known as on-demand pay and early pay access — is a third party service offered by employers that allows workers to access some, or all, of the money they’ve already earned without the two-week payroll delay. The concept is in its infancy in Canada.

It is touted as an alternative to payday loans, which carry exorbitant interest rates, and a solution for people living pay cheque to pay cheque who need immediate access to their pay.

“We’re really empowering people to have access to their earnings,” said Seth Ross, who heads Dayforce Wallet at Ceridian, a human resources and payroll software company that’s headquartered in the United States and operates in Canada, Europe and Australia.

“If someone doesn’t have access to their funds when they need it, where are they going to go? They’re going to go into credit card debt or payday lenders who charge 300 per cent interest,” he said.

Dayforce Wallet started in 2020 in the U.S. and became available in Canada in July 2021. It works with more than 100 companies. Industries that traditionally hire hourly, part-time or contingent workers find the system the most attractive. Dayforce Wallet clients include La Vie en Rose and lease-to-own retailer Aaron’s.

Dayforce Wallet allows workers to access their pay through an app, with money directly deposited to their Dayforce Wallet card. There is no fee to transfer funds to other accounts and there are no interest rate charges. However, standard ATM fees do apply.

“It’s the right thing to do, it’s about helping people take control of their financial lives,” said Ross.

Canadian owned on-demand pay company ZayZoon was created in 2014 with a goal of ending predatory lending. To date it has worked with more than 2,500 companies in the U.S. including Domino’s, Wendy’s and 7-Eleven.

While headquartered in Calgary, it doesn’t work with any Canadian employers yet.

“Canada wasn’t ready for a service like this when we began the company,” said CEO and founder Tate Hackert. “The population size is just smaller and there’s also more conglomerates that have a stronghold in Canada.”

But that could be changing.

Many Canadians have faced layoffs or unreliable work hours during the pandemic and are having trouble paying bills on time. And with job vacancies surging across the nation, companies need to offer more compelling benefits for their workers, Hackert said.

The goal is to help people who have a cash flow problem by allowing them to pay their bills when they need to, said Hackert. Instead of paying high interest on payday loans, they can access their own wages when they need them and pay no interest.

Toronto startup KOHO also got into on-demand pay in 2014 to provide a healthier alternative to payday loans.

“You only need to look around and see lenders are on every corner. It’s super corrosive to financial stability, so that’s the problem we’re trying to help solve,” said CEO Dan Eberhard.

KOHO has teamed up with Canadian companies that use the online payroll system Automatic Data Processing (ADP) to offer employees Instant Pay, which allows them to cash out up to 50 per cent of the pay earned every workday.

“Employers are looking for stability in the market,” Eberhard said. “This is of no cost to employers. It offers them a compelling edge to show they care about employees.”

Early wage access helps with worker retention and during this “great resignation,” it’s imperative for companies to compete, said Ross.

The two-week pay cycle came into existence after payroll taxation began (in which money is deducted at source), according to Dilip Soman, a professor of behavioural science and economics at the University of Toronto. Because payroll systems were complicated and costly, doing it every two weeks was more efficient and less expensive, he said.

Today, the biweekly payroll system doesn’t make as much sense, Soman said.

“If your credit card statement comes on the 27th of the month, but your pay cheque only arrives a few days later and you can’t pay it off, then this (early wage) service is a benefit, as it’s an alternative to payday loans,” he said.

Nonetheless, there are caveats. Giving early access to wages could be extremely risky for those who have trouble budgeting, he said, and there needs to be absolute transparency about costs and fees.

Also, there is a segment of the population that doesn’t need to access earnings faster; having two pay cheques a month can help them budget better, Soman said.

“Any technology that makes spending easy can backfire. We’ve seen this with credit cards; it’s great for some and causes debt for others. This is something we need to flag.”

Pamela George, a financial literacy and credit counsellor, agrees.

“If you don’t know how to budget, you end up spending the money and then there’s not enough for rent,” said George. “Paying on demand could be dangerous for those who can’t save.”

It’s up to employers to responsibly set their workers up for financial success, she added.

“What are employers doing to ensure their employees are saving? Are they helping them with their goals? If a company wants to implement this system, education on financial literacy and planning needs to be given to employees,” she said.

Correction — Feb. 3, 2022:Dayforce Wallet launched in the U.S. in 2020, a year prior to its launch in Canada. A previous version said the launch was in 2000. The Star was provided inaccurate information.

Source : https://www.therecord.com/ts/business/2022/02/03/as-inflation-rates-soar-is-canada-ready-for-wages-on-demand.html

1066

Filed Under: Waterloo Region Record

Invinity to deploy vanadium flow battery at solar-plus-storage project in Alberta, Canada

ByAndy Colthorpe
February 3, 2022

Invinity grid-scale flow battery units at a site in England, UK. 

Image: Invinity Energy Systems.

Invinity Energy Systems will supply vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) technology to a solar-plus-storage project in Alberta, Canada.

The project, Chappice Lake Solar + Storage, will combine a 21MWp solar array with a 2.8MW/8.4MWh battery storage system, Anglo-American flow battery company Invinity said today, together with the project’s developer, owner and operator, Elemental Energy.

Alberta is largely synonymous with fossil fuels; it hosts crude oil production from sites including its northern tar sands, produces a large portion of Canada’s natural gas and is largely reliant on the country’s largest coal fleet for electricity.

One of the province’s key climate and pollution pledges is now the phasing out emissions equivalent to 50% of that coal fleet by 2030.

The Chappice Lake project was one of a number of ‘shovel-ready’ projects awarded funding late last year through the provincial government’s Emissions Reduction Alberta (ERA) scheme.

In that round of funding, reported by Energy-Storage.news in November 2021, a 400MW closed-loop pumped hydro project called Canyon Creek was picked out for support too. Also benefiting were a number of projects seeking to reduce the emissions and increase the efficiency of some of the region’s fossil fuel extraction and refining activities.

At the time, ERA said it would administer the award of CA$10 million (US$7.89 million) of the total expected cost of Chappice Lake, just over CA$40 million.

Invinity’s flow battery will be directly DC-coupled with the solar array, improving the project’s efficiency, operational flexibility and costs. Charging from the solar PV modules, it will store and send out low-carbon, low-cost energy.

Being able to deliver power on demand will also help alleviate constraints to deploying more renewable energy on the grid, eliminating bottlenecks in power flow, Invinity said.

The project is expected to go into service later this year.

Developer Elemental Energy is also partnering with local indigenous group Cold Lake First Nations, which will hold an equity interest in the Chappice Lake project and the community will also benefit from the new electricity capacity addition as well as employment opportunities the clean energy industry can bring to the area, Elemental claimed.

“Alberta has a long history of leadership in energy; the fact that this shovel- ready project will expand that leadership in new directions while creating great new jobs is a testament to how Alberta can innovate and build,” Invinity Energy Systems’ chief commercial officer Matt Harper said.

“Clean energy on demand is becoming an increasingly valuable commodity; in delivering solar and storage together at Chappice Lake, we will prove that solar generation plus Invinity’s utility-grade vanadium flow batteries can make Alberta a powerhouse for the North American grid.”

Vanadium flow batteries have been touted as a long-duration, long-life energy infrastructure asset. Capable of being scaled up in energy capacity by increasing the size of their electrolyte tanks, the systems are expected to last decades in services without degradation or fading of battery capacity.

In December, Lockheed Martin announced that the first megawatt-scale pilot for its own flow battery technology — for which the aerospace and defence giant has not revealed the battery chemistry publicly — will also be in Alberta.

Lockheed Martin claimed that a 6.5MW/52MWh unit of its GridStar Flow battery energy storage system (BESS) technology will be paired with a 102.5MW solar farm in development by infrastructure company TC Energy. Lockheed will invest about US$9 million into the Saddlebrook Solar + Storage Project, with an expectation that funding will also come from ERA.

On a broader note, Energy-Storage.news has reported on a number of other Alberta-based energy storage projects in the past couple of years. The province’s first grid-scale battery storage system, a 10MW/20MWh Tesla lithium-ion BESS called WindCharger, went online in late 2020, paired with a local wind farm.

TransAlta, the Canadian company behind that project, has just applied to Alberta regulators for approval for WaterCharger, a 180MW BESS paired with hydroelectric generation facilities.

Alberta’s grid operator AESO is also piloting the use of energy storage resources for fast frequency regulation.

Chess: Carlsen a class apart as world No 1 dominates at ‘chess Wimbledon’


The world champion won Tata Steel Wijk aan Zee for a record eighth time and felt ‘really good’ about his play

3801 White to move and win. This Yuri Averbakh puzzle, solved by a very brief but hard to spot sequence, is a birthday tribute to the world’s oldest grandmaster, who turns 100 on Tuesday. Averbakh was 1954 USSR champion, has written several fine endgame books, and is alongside Boris Spassky as the last two survivors of the golden Soviets. At 99, he overcame a hospital stay with Covid.


Leonard Barden
Thu 3 Feb 2022 

Magnus Carlsen was a class apart from his rivals last week at Tata Steel Wijk aan Zee, the “chess Wimbledon”. The No 1 capped a dominant performance with a virtuoso final game against an old rival, an unbeaten 9.5/13 total, and a record eighth victory. He has finished first at Wijk on more than half his appearances there, and the organisers have promised a gold-plated trophy if he makes it to 10 victories at the small Dutch North Sea resort.

Norway’s world champion, 31, said that he felt “really good about my play. To some extent I took the obvious chances and left the more difficult ones on the table, which suggests there’s still quite a bit of room for improvement, but overall I’m very happy.”

Carlsen reckoned to have had nine winning positions, but converted only five of them. He gained just three rating points, reaching 2868 in his stated quest for an all-time record 2900 rating, which he previously got within sight of in 2014 and 2019, when his peaks were 2889 and 2882.


Chess: Carlsen edges towards minimalist victory as Covid strikes at Wijk

Carlsen’s penultimate round endgame win against Fabiano Caruana, his opponent in the 2018 world title match, was a vintage demonstration of how active pieces, here the black bishops, can defeat a more powerful but passive army, here the white rooks.

However, it was his earlier game against Shak Mamedyarov, second on tie-break at Wijk, which attracted most praise, not least from the loser, who called it “an absolutely fantastic game… In 27 moves he played 25 engine first lines… I don’t know when I last lost like this without any chance.”

Carlsen said: “I think that was certainly my best game… I just made some very, very good decisions, and the way chess has become now, you judge yourself on whether the engines like your play, and whenever you feel like you’ve played a good game it’s nice to get that confirmed.”

The chess circuit moves to Berlin on Friday for the opening round of the Fide Grand Prix. This is a series of three elite tournaments, two in the German capital and one in Belgrade, which will decide the final two places in this summer’s eight-player Candidates in Madrid.

Those qualified so far are Alireza Firouzja (France) and Fabiano Caruana (US) from the Fide Grand Swiss, Jan-Krzysztof Duda (Poland) and Sergey Karjakin (Russia) from the World Cup, Ian Nepomniachtchi (Russia) as loser of the 2021 title match, and Teimour Radjabov (Azerbaijan) as Fide nominee.

Berlin began with a shock even before the first pawn was pushed. China’s world No 3, Ding Liren, the favourite in the eyes of many to win both the Grand Prix and the Candidates, withdrew due to visa problems so cannot now qualify as a Candidate. Ding has been very unlucky. His preparation for the 2020 Candidates was disrupted by a requirement to quarantine in Moscow before the tournament, while his results in the 2021 online Champions Tour were handicapped by poor internet connections and by playing hours which favoured his European and US rivals.

In Ding’s absence, the US has a strong hand in the Grand Prix, with Wesley So, Levon Aronian and Hikaru Nakamura all having chances, while Mamedyarov is in fine form after his success in Wijk. Several others, including Russia’s Alexander Grischuk and France’s Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, should also be in the frame. Rounds start at 2pm daily from Friday.

Two weeks from now, Carlsen begins the defence of his title in the online Meltwater Champions Tour, which opens on 19 February with the Airthings Masters. The format has been streamlined since last year. Won games now count for three points instead of two, while the quarter-finals and semi-finals are sped up from two days to one.

The field of 16 includes Ding, Nepomniachtchi, five teenagers led by the world rapid champion, Nodirbek Abdusattorov, 17, and the women’s world rapid champion, Alexandra Kosteniuk.

Carlsen is taking on a sizeable commitment in 2022 with his ambitious 2900 target while simultaneously playing the online tour with its different rhythms, challenges and time limits. Will it all prove too much, even for this exceptional world champion? Time will tell.

The men’s team won the £100,000 Battle of the Sexes match which finished on Thursday in Gibraltar, scoring a clear 53-47 margin. Teams were 10-a-side, while average ages and Fide ratings were closely matched. The women’s team had a strong start and were 13-7 ahead after two rounds, but their missed chances in good positions proved costly.

Olga Girya, the only Russian on the women’s team, surprised Joe Gallagher in the King’s Indian, an opening about which the former British champion has written several books. After the unusual 6 Be3!? e5 7 Qc2!? Qe7? 8 Nd5! White was already on top, and the blunder 19…Be8? only hastened defeat.

Have you ever heard Emanuel Lasker or José Capablanca speak, or Vassily Smyslov sing? Many keen chess fans could easily recognise the voices of most or all of the world champions from Boris Spassky to Carlsen, but audiotapes by earlier greats are rare.


First female chess grandmaster sues Netflix over false claim in Queen’s Gambit

Edward Winter’s online Chess Notes has just published a recording of Lasker, who held the world crown a record 27 years, interviewed during the 1935 Alexander Alekhine v Max Euwe title match.

One startling claim by Lasker is that Alekhine did not lose a game playing Black in the Ruy Lopez 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5 for around 30 years. The reality, still impressive, is that the unbeaten sequence was 16 years, from a 1921 game up to 1937, when Alekhine lost to Paul Keres at Margate in a famous 23-mover.

Capablanca, who beat Lasker in 1921 then lost to Alekhine in 1927, is heard talking in English when congratulated on his 50th birthday at Avro 1938.

Later that day the Cuban lost to Alekhine and had a poor finish to Avro, usually blamed on a mini-stroke during the tournament. However, Capablanca himself gave a different explanation in the course of a long and interesting interview at Buenos Aires 1939.

Smyslov, world champion 1957-58, once auditioned for the Bolshoi, and sometimes sang at the end of tournaments, accompanied by the concert pianist Mark Taimanov. Here he is on YouTube.

3801 1 Qc6+! Kb8 (if Ka7 2 Nb5+ wins) 2 Kc2! Black is in zugzwang (compulsion to make a losing move) becau

 

Ottawa files court brief supporting Enbridge Inc. in Line 5 dispute with Michigan

Pipeline dispute in court

The Canadian Press - Feb 4, 2022 / 12:56 pm | Story: 359075

Photo: The Canadian Press

Fresh nuts, bolts and fittings are ready to be added to the east leg of the pipeline near St. Ignace as Enbridge prepares to test the east and west sides of the Line 5 pipeline under the Straits of Mackinac in Mackinaw City, Mich., on June 8, 2017. The federal government has officially weighed in on the latest legal fray over the cross-border Line 5 pipeline. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP, Detroit News - Dale G Young

The federal government is once again urging a Michigan judge to keep Line 5 operating while it works with the United States on negotiating an end to the impasse over the controversial cross-border pipeline.

Gordon Giffin, the former U.S. ambassador to Canada who is serving as Ottawa's counsel of record, filed a fresh amicus brief this week spelling out the stakes for both countries if the pipeline, owned and operated by Calgary-based Enbridge Inc., is shut down.

The newest brief is significantly more compact than the version Canada filed in an identical case last year, but reiterates the original argument, with one significant difference: the first brief was filed in May, before the two countries sat down in hopes of ending the standoff.

Since then, officials from both Canada and the U.S. have met once already, sitting down in mid-December under the terms of a 1977 treaty designed to prevent interruptions to the cross-border flow of oil and gas, and will gather again some time in "early 2022," the documents note.

The treaty requires both countries "not to shut down or otherwise impede the operations of international hydrocarbon transit pipelines that transport hydrocarbon products from somewhere in Canada to somewhere else in Canada via the United States, or vice versa," they argue.

That clause "applies to Line 5, which has transported hydrocarbons since 1953 from Western Canada to Central Canada via Wisconsin and Michigan," the brief continues, and applies "to any measures instituted by a 'public authority in the territory of either party' — which includes the state of Michigan and its officials."

Until those talks reach an agreement or head to arbitration, it's vital that the court not grant Michigan's request that the line — which crosses the Great Lakes beneath the environmentally sensitive Straits of Mackinac — be unilaterally shut down, the brief argues.

Unless a solution were to emerge through other means, the documents note, "giving full effect to the 1977 treaty would entail ensuring that no compelled shutdown occurs" before the treaty talks have a chance to end the dispute.

"In the context of this case, that would mean entering injunctive relief prohibiting Michigan from proceeding to shut down Line 5 while the … process is ongoing. Canada respectfully submits that that would be an appropriate order in this case."

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat and close ally of President Joe Biden whose political fortunes depend on the support of environmental groups in the state, ordered the shutdown of Line 5 back in November 2020, fearing an ecological disaster in the straits.

Enbridge pushed back hard, arguing that Whitmer and state Attorney General Dana Nessel had overstepped their jurisdiction and that the case needed to be heard in federal court. Late last year, District Court Judge Janet Neff agreed with Enbridge on the issue of jurisdiction.

That's when Whitmer and Nessel abruptly withdrew their complaint, opting instead to concentrate on a separate but similar circuit court case dormant since 2019. Enbridge is now making the same arguments in that case that they did throughout last year — that it needs to be heard by a federal judge.

Nessel is hoping to head off that argument on a technicality: under federal law, cases can only be removed to federal jurisdiction within 30 days of a complaint being filed.

The Line 5 pipeline ferries upwards of 540,000 barrels per day of crude oil and natural gas liquids across the Canada-U.S. border and the Great Lakes by way of a twin line that runs along the lake bed beneath the straits linking Lake Michigan and Lake Huron.

Critics want the line shut down, arguing it's only a matter of time before an anchor strike or technical failure triggers a catastrophe in one of the area's most important watersheds.

Proponents call Line 5 a vital and indispensable source of energy, especially propane, for several Midwestern states, including Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. It is also a key source of feedstock for critical refineries on the northern side of the border, including those that supply jet fuel to some of Canada's busiest airports.

In a separate amicus brief also filed this week, lawyers for several prominent international unions and labour groups, including the United Steelworkers and the North American Building Trades Unions, spelled out the potential economic impact of a Line 5 closure.

"Enbridge estimates that if Line 5 ceases operation, the refineries in Michigan, Ohio, Ontario, Quebec and Pennsylvania will lose 40 per cent of their crude supply and, with that reduction in product, will either close completely or become significantly less competitive," the brief says.

"In either case, the impact on workers who depend on Line 5 for their employment would be dramatic."

A third brief filed by an array of state and national energy associations further makes the point that allowing Michigan to shut down Line 5 would create a striking precedent.

"It would not only terminate operation of a vital interstate pipeline, but also significantly undermine the exclusive federal regulatory authority over interstate pipeline safety," they argue.

"Such a novel ruling would open the door to a spate of similar claims from other states for other interstate pipelines that could create the patchwork of varying and potentially conflicting pipeline safety regulations and closures that Congress expressly precluded."

Process removes biofuel contaminants from wastewater and generates hydrogen to fuel its own operation

by Karyn Hede, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

A new patent-pending flow cell bioreactor developed at Pacific Northwest National 

Laboratory can purify wastewater (seen here) and generate hydrogen to help fuel the 

process. Credit: Andrea Starr | Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

The holy grail of bio-fuel researchers is to develop a self-sustaining process that converts waste from sewage, food crops, algae and other renewable carbon sources into fuels, while keeping waste carbon out of our atmosphere and water. Much progress has been made in converting such waste to useful fuel but completing the cycle using clean energy has proved a tough nut to crack.

Now, a research team at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has developed a system that does just that. PNNL's electrocatalytic oxidation fuel recovery system simultaneously turns what has been considered unrecoverable, diluted "waste" carbon into valuable chemicals, while simultaneously generating useful hydrogen. Being powered by renewables makes the process carbon-neutral or even potentially carbon-negative.

The key to making it all work is an elegantly designed catalyst that combines billions of infinitesimally small metal particles and an electric current to speed up the energy conversion at room temperature and pressure.

"The currently used methods of treating biocrude requires high-pressure hydrogen, which is usually generated from natural gas," said Juan A. Lopez-Ruiz, a PNNL chemical engineer and project lead. "Our system can generate that hydrogen itself while simultaneously treating the wastewater at near atmospheric conditions using excess renewable electricity, making it inexpensive to operate and potentially carbon neutral."

A hungry system

In laboratory experiments, the research team has tested the system using a sample of wastewater from an industrial-scale biomass conversion process for almost 200 hours of continuous operation without losing any efficiency in the process. The only limitation was that the research team ran out of their wastewater sample.

"It's a hungry system," Lopez-Ruiz said. "The reaction rate of the process is proportional to how much waste carbon you are trying to convert. It could run indefinitely if you had wastewater to keep cycling through it."

The patent-pending system solves several problems that have plagued efforts to make biomass an economically viable source of renewable energy, according to Lopez-Ruiz.

"We know how to turn biomass into fuel," Lopez-Ruiz said. "But we still struggle to make the process energy efficient, economical and environmentally sustainable—especially for small, distributed scales. This system runs on electricity, which can come from renewable sources. And it generates its own heat and fuel to keep it running. It has the potential to complete the energy recovery cycle."

"As the electric grid starts to shift its energy sources toward integrating more renewables," he added, "it makes more and more sense to rely on electricity for our energy needs. We developed a process that uses electricity to power conversion of carbon compounds in wastewater into useful products, while removing impurities like nitrogen and sulfur compounds."

Closing the energy gap

One very effective process for conversion of wet waste carbon to fuel is called hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL). This process, in essence, compresses the natural, fossil fuel-production time, converting wet biomass into an energy-dense biocrude oil in hours instead of millennia. But the process is incomplete in the sense that the wastewater that is produced as part of the process needs further treatment to obtain added value from what would otherwise be a liability.

"We realized that same (electro)chemical reaction that removed the organic molecules from wastewater could be also used to directly upgrade the biocrude at room temperature and atmospheric pressure as well," Lopez-Ruiz said.

This is where the new PNNL process comes into play. Unrefined biocrude and wastewater can be fed into the system directly from an HTL output stream or other wet waste. The PNNL process consists of what's called a flow cell where the wastewater and biocrude flows through the cell and encounters a charged environment created by an electric current. The cell itself is divided in half by a membrane.

Waste carbon from farms, sewage and other sources can be processed into high-grade bio-based fuels more easily with a new PNNL-developed flow cell. In this animation, the flow cell receives biocrude and wastewater from a hydrothermal liquefaction process. It then removes carbon from wastewater, allowing the clean water to be reused. The system even generates hydrogen, a valuable fuel that can be captured, reducing the cost of the whole operation. Credit: Animation by Sara Levine | Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

The positively charged half, called an anode, contains a thin titanium foil coated with nanoparticles of ruthenium oxide. Here, the waste stream undergoes a catalytic conversion, with biocrude being converted to useful oils and paraffin. Simultaneously, water soluble contaminants, such as oxygen and nitrogen-containing compounds, undergo a chemical conversion that turns them into nitrogen and oxygen gasses—normal components of the atmosphere. The wastewater that emerges from the system, with contaminants removed, can then be fed back into the HTL process.

On the negatively charged half of the flow cell, called a cathode, a different reaction takes place that can either hydrogenate organic molecules (such as the ones in treated biocrude) or generate hydrogen gas—an emerging energy source that the flow cell developers see as a potential source of fuel.

"We see the hydrogen byproduct generated by the process as a net plus. When collected and fed into the system as a fuel, it could keep the system running with fewer energy inputs, potentially making it more economical and carbon-neutral than current biomass conversion operations," said Lopez-Ruiz.

The speed of chemical conversion provides an added benefit to the system.

"We did a comparison of rates—that is how fast we can remove oxygen from organic molecules with our system as opposed to the energy-intensive thermal removal," Lopez-Ruiz said. "We obtained more than 100 times higher conversion rates with the electrochemical system at atmospheric conditions than with the thermal system at intermediate hydrogen pressures and temperatures." These findings were published in the Journal of Applied Catalysis B: Environmental in November 2020.

Reducing rare Earth metal use

One major drawback of many commercial technologies is their reliance of rare Earth metals, often the co-called platinum group metals. The global supply chain for these elements relies heavily on dated extraction processes that are energy intensive, consume a lot of water and create toxic waste. Imports account for 100 percent of the United States' supply for 14 of 35 critical materials and more than half of 17 others, according to the Department of Energy, which has made domestic supply a top priority.

The system addresses this problem by incorporating a unique method of depositing nanoparticles of the metals responsible for the chemical conversion. These particles have a large surface area, which require less metal to do its work. "We found that using metal nanoparticles as opposed metal thin films and foils reduced the metal content and improved the electrochemical performance" said Lopez-Ruiz. These findings were recently published in the Journal of Applied Catalysis B: Environmental. The novel catalyst requires 1,000 times less precious metal, in this case ruthenium, than is commonly needed for similar processes. Specifically, the laboratory-scale flow reactor uses an electrode with about 5 to 15 milligrams of ruthenium, compared with about 10 grams of platinum for a comparable reactor.

About those useless carbon compounds

The research team has also shown that the PNNL process can handle processing of small water-soluble carbon compounds—byproducts found in the water waste stream of current HTL processes—as well as many other industrial processes. There are about a dozen of these devilishly difficult to process small, carbon compounds in the wastewater streams at low concentrations. Until now, there has been no cost-effective technology to handle them. These short-chain carbon compounds, like propanoic acid and butanoic acid, undergo transformation to fuels, such as ethane, propane, hexane and hydrogen, during the newly developed process.

A preliminary cost analysis showed the electricity cost required to run the system can be fully offset by running the operation at low voltage, using the propane or butane to generate heat and selling the excess hydrogen generated. These findings were published in the July 2020 issue of the Journal of Applied Electrochemistry.

Battelle, which manages and operates PNNL for the federal government, has applied for a United States patent for the electrochemical process. CogniTek Management Systems (CogniTek), a global company that brings energy products and technology solutions to market, has licensed the technology from PNNL. CogniTek will be integrating the PNNL wastewater treatment technology into patented biomass processing systems that CogniTek and its strategic partners are developing and commercializing. Their goal is the production of biofuels, such as biodiesel and bio jet fuels. In addition to the commercialization agreement, PNNL and CogniTek will collaborate to scale up the wastewater treatment reactor from laboratory scale to demonstration scale.

"We at CogniTek are excited by the opportunity to extend the PNNL technology, in combination with our core patents and patent pending decarbonization technology," said CogniTek Chief Executive Officer Michael Gurin.

The technology, dubbed Clean Sustainable Electrochemical Treatment—or CleanSET, is available for license by other companies or municipalities interested in developing it for industry-specific uses in municipal wastewater treatment plants, dairy farms, breweries, chemical manufacturers and food and beverage producers. To learn more about how this technology works, visit PNNL's Available Technologies site.Growing algae outside of wastewater

More information: Yang Qiu et al, Electrocatalytic decarboxylation of carboxylic acids over RuO2 and Pt nanoparticles, Applied Catalysis B: Environmental (2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.apcatb.2021.121060\Journal information: Applied Catalysis B: Environmental 

Provided by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory 

U of T apologizes after giving ‘hell money’ to students for Lunar New Year

Instead of cash, students at the University of Toronto were shocked to find joss paper or ‘hell money’ inside red envelopes that were distributed on campus.

By Ivy Mak Toronto Star
Alessia Passafiume Staff Reporter

Fri., Feb. 4, 2022

The University of Toronto has apologized after handing out “hell money” or joss paper in red envelopes to students and residents for Lunar New Year.

“Members of the University of Toronto Graduate House Team prepared a display to celebrate the Lunar New Year,” reads a statement emailed to the Star from a University of Toronto spokesperson. “Unfortunately, incorrect bank notes were unintentionally placed into the red envelopes.”

By the time they caught the error, all the envelopes had been taken, they said.

“The University of Toronto deeply regrets this error.”

Traditionally, bright red envelopes are filled with money and doled out as symbols of good luck and prosperity for the recipient in the coming year. However, instead of currency, some U of T students received red envelopes filled with joss paper, so-called death money meant to be burnt in offering to deities and deceased ancestors in the afterlife. One of the images of the paper money shared with the Star clearly reads “HELL BANK NOTE” on the top.

The practice of burning joss paper dates as far back as the Song Dynasty in China and is traditionally practiced in Taoism and Buddhism. The burning of paper offerings to the dead is an expression of filial piety, to give one’s ancestors some of the luxuries that may have eluded them in the world they once lived in. Some people also burn joss paper in offering to deities in order to gain favour.

The statement from the university also says they are “deeply committed to the principles of equity, diversity and inclusion,” and will “continue our important educational efforts to better understand our diverse communities.”

U of T has a large population of Asian international students, with over 15,000 students from China alone, according to data posted to their website.

Symbols and talk of death and of dying is often times taboo and extremely bad luck in the beliefs of Chinese culture. It’s why the Chinese are so averse to the number four, because when spoken aloud, it sounds similar to the word for death.

This is why handing out something like joss paper or “hell money” to a living person is alarming and culturally offensive.

Students living in the Graduate House sent an email on Wednesday to representatives of the residence and other relevant figures at the university and in the broader community to bring attention to the “hell money” students received in the envelopes and how it was offensive.

The university issued an apology, written in Mandarin, on its WeChat page, a Chinese instant messaging and social media app, primarily followed by Chinese students.

A translation of the post in English says they apologize for the error and immediately removed the red envelopes after learning about the incident.

The post also says the university will continue its effort to educate the school community to learn and embrace the cultural diversity among them and to deepen the sense of inclusivity and belonging across their three campuses.

On Friday, a group of Asian U of T undergraduate and postgraduate students, along with an alumnus, met with the Star to discuss the incident and the university’s initial reaction to it.

One student noted how difficult it is to find joss paper in Toronto and questioned the motives behind sourcing it and including it in the envelopes, but they’re hoping it was an honest mistake.

Many said the university’s decision to release an apology in Mandarin to its WeChat page minimized the episode, and said it should have been posted on channels in English that are followed more, for more people to read and understand.

The Chinese Canadian National Council for Social Justice (CCNC-SJ) also criticized the university’s initial apology, and said “this incident must be understood in light of the significance of the Lunar New Year and its traditions, as well as the ever-present anti-Asian racism in Canadian society.”

Ryan Chan, a project lead with CCNC-SJ, noted the bills have “Hell Bank Note” written at the top of the paper and this is hard to miss.

“It is despicable that large institutions try to capitalize on their so-called diversity and can’t be bothered to make the minimal effort to check their facts,” said Susan Eng, the vice-president of CCNC-SJ, in a statement.

Lin Hou, a student at U of T who was part of the meeting with the Star, said they are educated on Christian holidays, such as Christmas, and are taught what is and what isn’t respectful.

It’s important for people to be educated on Chinese culture and traditions in the same way to avoid a situation like this in the future, she said.


If U of T’s apology was widely distributed and more specific about the inclusion of joss paper in the envelopes and mentioned the importance of Lunar New Year and its customs, it could have been used as a teaching moment for other students and faculty at the university, Hou said.

“If we don’t promote that, then people will never know,” Hou said.

The students also released a petition calling for an end to anti-Asian racism on campus and an official apology to all students and an investigation into the incident, mental health support for students affected, and a detailed course of action to all students and staff to prevent any further incidents of cultural insensitivity.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought along with it a rise in anti-Asian rhetoric, with attacks on Asian-Canadian seniors, violence against Asians, and vandalism of Asian-Canadian businesses.

Last month, both The Guardian and the BBC ran a food recipe for Lunar New Year and the accompanying photo showed pan-fried dumplings arranged alongside joss paper.

The image has since been removed from The Guardian’s site.

“The image accompanying the recipe for pork and crab dumplings was amended on 17 January 2022 to remove joss paper shown next to the plate in the original picture. Such paper is burned for the dead at funerals and in other rituals in China and other parts of Asia. We apologize for this cultural error,” reads a caption at the bottom of the recipe.

Ivy Mak is a team editor on the Star’s breaking news desk, based in Toronto. Reach her via email: ivymak@thestar.ca

Alessia Passafiume is a GTA-based staff reporter for the Star. Reach Alessia via email: apassafiume@torstar.ca