Lata Mangeshkar: How the iconic singer's death exposes India's communal rifts

Many left-leaning Indians pointed out that the legendary singer had supported PM Narendra Modi, while some Hindu extremists accused Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan, a Muslim, of "spitting" on Mangeshkar at her funeral.



Mangeshkar's fans are angry over unnecessary "politicization" of a singer whose voice comforted people from all religions

Even the death of Lata Mangeshkar, the legendary playback singer whose career spanned seven decades, could not unite India.

Mangeshkar died at the age of 92 after weeks of hospitalization due to a COVID infection.

After her death, the Indian government announced two days of mourning and cremated her body with full state honors.

As condolence messages started pouring from all over the world, some Indian liberals found it pertinent to point out that Mangeshkar was a supporter of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Hindutva (Hindu supremacy) ideology, hence her musical legacy should not be celebrated.

Some liberals said the state honor for the late singer was proof that she was close to the ruling party, ignoring Mangeshkar's remarkable body of work – over 25,000 songs in more than 2,000 Indian films.

Another controversy erupted during her last rites.

Politicizing Mangeshkar's death

Scores of prominent Bollywood figures attended Mangeshkar's last rites in Mumbai. Shah Rukh Khan, nicknamed "King of Bollywood," also joined the funeral to pay his respects to the "Nightingale of India." But he landed in a controversy after a video emerged in which he is reciting an Islamic verse and then blowing air to ward off "evil spirits," which is an Islamic custom.

Shah Rukh Khan (R) often finds himself at odds with Hindu extremist groups

Khan was soon trolled on social media, and some BJP leaders said that Khan was "spitting" on Mangeshkar's dead body.

Arun Yadav, a ruling party leader from Haryana state, tweeted on Sunday: "Did he spit?"

Experts say the Hindu right-wing groups targeted Khan for not only being a Muslim but also for not toeing the ruling party's line.

Mangeshkar's death has brought India's communal problem to the fore, and analysts say that the country's entertainment industry is not immune to political tensions.

"There was a need [for the Hindu right-wing] to put a spin on Khan's viral image in which he paid homage to the singer as a symbol of secularism," Anubha Sarkar, a lecturer at Monash University, Australia, and a Bollywood expert, told DW.

Saira Shah Halim, a thespian and documentary filmmaker, believes Mangeshkar's death was used politically to further polarize Indian society.

"It is no secret that the 'Hindutva brigade' is trying to polarize the country. Their concerted efforts to enter every walk of life, including the entertainment industry, which has historically been an embodiment of unity, must be resisted," Halim told DW.
Bollywood – a symbol of secular India

Despite being in a minority in India, Muslims have dominated the Indian film industry since its inception in the 1930s. From poets and script writers to singers and actors, Muslims have left their indelible mark on Bollywood.

In the early stages of Indian cinema, Muslim and Hindu figures were inspired by the socialism and secularism that was championed by Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first premier.

"Bollywood is not just about entertainment; it is also India's cultural ambassador to the rest of the world. Indians should do everything to protect its image," Halim added.

Halim's uncle, Naseeruddin Shah, a Bollywood actor, has also been a target of right-wing trolling on many occasions. In 2018, the veteran actor was branded "anti-national" by Hindu extremists because he expressed his concern over the country's political milieu.

Bollywood figures who support the strengthening of cultural ties with Pakistan have also been ridiculed and insulted on social media, and, sometimes, opposed by actors and singers that dub Pakistani artists a "security risk."
Mangeshkar's political association

Like many other Indian artists, Mangeshkar's political liking tilted from secularism towards the right-wing over the past few decades.

The iconic singer supported, at least publicly, the secular Indian National Congress party after India gained independence from British rule in 1947.

But in the past decade or so, she had been quite vocal in her support for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist party.

Backed by the BJP, Mangeshkar was elected to Rajya Sabha (upper house of parliament) in November 1999. She remained there until 2005.

In 2013, she lent support to the then chief minister of Gujarat state, Modi, for premiership.
A voice that comforted everyone

Mangeshkar, however, always spoke highly of Muslim artists in India, and also showered praise on many Pakistani singers.

She is highly respected in Pakistan, and her death was mourned in the Muslim-majority country as well.

Irrespective of her political leanings, Mangeshkar was beloved across sections of society in South Asia. Many of her fans have expressed their revulsion over unnecessary "politicization" of a singer whose voice comforted people from all religions, castes and creeds.

Why the EU needs Russian energy giant Gazprom

As the conflict between Ukraine and Russia heats up, the Kremlin is using gas supplies as a political weapon. DW's Bernd Riegert explores just how dependent the European Union is on the Russian energy giant Gazprom.

   

A Russian construction worker smokes in Portovaya Bay, Russia, during a ceremony marking the

 start of Nord Stream pipeline construction

In January, Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller said 2021 had been a record year for the Russian energy giant, both in terms of production and profits. Thanks to rising demand and the exploding cost of gas and oil, the company is raking in rubles.

It is the Russian state that controls most of the shares and decides on the company's direction. But various German firms, such as electric utility company E.ON, also own shares in Gazprom, which is the biggest producer of natural gas in the world. It has almost 500,000 employees and claims to hold the biggest gas reserves in Russia.

Miller is an old friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who almost always sits at the table of the supervisory board and the board of directors.

Gazprom is EU's biggest gas supplier

Gazprom's market power in Europe is the result of a monopoly. Russian legislation stipulates that only Gazprom is allowed to operate pipelines used for export. It has been the biggest supplier to the European Union (EU) for decades.

About 43% of the natural gas consumed in the EU comes from Russia, according to the EU statistical office Eurostat, while the rest comes from Norway, the Middle East, the US, and North Africa.

But within the EU, the market share of Russian gas varies widely in different member states. The rule of thumb is that the further east a country lies, the more likely it is to depend on Russia, and Germany, the EU's biggest energy consumer, draws about 55% of its gas from Russian energy giants.

"Gazprom uses its market power by influencing prices through the amount of gas that it supplies to Europe," energy expert Georg Zachmann from the Brussels-based Bruegel think tank told DW.

Competition between EU regulators and Gazprom

In the past 10 years, the EU has tried to establish a relatively unified gas market in the bloc by introducing regulations according to which Gazprom is supposed to supply gas to the external borders, which the member states can then trade.

Germany can buy gas in Russia and then sell it on to Poland or Ukraine. But it is in Gazprom's interest to conclude direct contracts with those receiving the gas, in order to keep dependency high.

"There is a kind of competition between the European regulators who are trying to create a market with unified prices and Gazprom which is trying to impose different prices in different countries," explained Zachmann.

While Gazprom insists that it has honored all its long-term supply commitments, Zachmann said that the company was actually supplying less gas to the market with short-term contracts. 

Zachmann said that the short-term market had become increasingly important in recent years because there was an attempt to become less dependent on Gazprom in the long run.

A Gazprom subsidiary owns this storage facility in Germany

"Gazprom is fulfilling its contracts, that is true, but only at the lowest level of its commitments," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen pointed out recently. She said that other suppliers had increased their deliveries in view of the rapidly rising demand and record prices. 

Von der Leyen added that Gazprom was behaving in a strange way, considering that more gas was not being supplied despite high demand. She also told the German daily Handelsblatt that the fact that the company belonged to the Russian state raised doubts as to its reliability. 

Gazprom has stakes in local and regional energy providers in almost all EU states. In Germany, for example, its subsidiary Astora owns the biggest underground gas storage facility in western Europe. Located in Rehden in Lower Saxony, it acts as a buffer when there are fluctuations in supply and demand. 

Could Russia turn off the tap?

If Gazprom were to receive instructions from the Kremlin to stop supplying gas to the EU, there could be significant shortages.

Von der Leyen said that she did not believe it would come to that. Since the Russian economy is so dependent on energy exports, it would not make sense to jeopardize its relationship with its biggest client and investor.

But she told Handelsblatt that the EU and the US were working to increase supplies of liquefied natural gas from Qatar or the US. Negotiations are to take place this coming Monday in Washington DC. 

Germany could become even more dependent on Russia

Energy expert Claudia Kemfert from the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) predicted that the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, through which Gazprom will pump gas, would make Germany even more dependent on direct supplies from Russia.

"Europe has a strategy of diversifying gas purchases, whereas Germany chose the opposite path and further increased its reliance. This is now backfiring," she told DW.

In her opinion, the sale of gas storage facilities should not have been approved, or at the very least should have been regulated. She said that strategic reserves were needed for gas, just as they are for oil.

The EU is now considering building up such reserves and acting as a joint purchaser of gas, more than in the past, a strategy that Gazprom is trying to undermine by wooing individual member states. Hungary, for example, just signed an exclusive contract with Gazprom and will receive beneficial treatment regarding prices.

Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder has just joined the Gazprom Board of Directors

Zachmann is not optimistic that the EU can do much to oppose Gazprom's power: "You can negotiate as much as you want with a person who has all the leverage in their hand. If the gas tap can be shut off from Moscow, we are simply in a worse negotiating position." 

For Miller, trade with Europe is only part of Gazprom's success. The company says it wants to become the world's leading energy company. After all, it not only trades in gas, but also in oil and it also produces electricity.

Meanwhile, President Putin has just unveiled a major gas deal with China at the start of the Winter Olympics in Beijing. The US is also a Gazprom customer and in 2020, 8% of the country's oil imports came from Russia, more than came from its ally Saudi Arabia.

This article was originally written in German.

Nord Stream 2: The gas pipeline's

 second power struggle

The Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, built to meet Germany's future power needs, is seen as controversial for allies like the US. The project faces renewed calls to be shelved amid a standoff between Russia and the West.

 

It's still unclear whether Nord Stream 2 will ever go into operation

What is Nord Stream 2?

Nord Stream 2 is the second natural gas pipeline running under the Baltic Sea from western Russia to northeastern Germany.

Along with its earlier cousin Nord Stream 1, which opened in 2011, the new pipeline has a transport capacity of 55 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year. 

Nord Stream 2 cost €9.5 billion ($10.6 billion) to build and, at 1,230 kilometers long (764 miles), is the longest subsea pipeline in the world. First conceived more than a decade ago, construction began in May 2018 and was completed in September.

However, Nord Stream 2 has yet to begin pumping gas as its operating license has been delayed.

Why is Nord Stream 2 needed?

Germany is almost totally reliant on natural gas imports, with Russia accounting for more than half of supplies in 2020, according to IHS Markit.

Europe's No.1 economy needs to wean itself off coal and nuclear as part of its energy transition, and wants to use natural gas as a bridge until it can build or import enough renewable energy.

The need for gas has become more acute with the closing of three of Germany's six last remaining nuclear power stations last month. The final three will shut down in December.

While Nord Stream 2 will help Germany boost its supply, most of the natural gas will be piped to Austria, Italy and other Central and Eastern European nations.

Some environmental groups have insisted all along that the pipeline is unnecessary.

Who is involved in Nord Stream 2?

The pipeline belongs to the Russian state-owned company Gazprom and was built with the backing of five European energy firms.

They are: Austria's OMV, Britain's Shell, France's Engie, Germany's Uniper and the Wintershall unit of BASF.

The five companies put up around half of the initial investment.

Why is Nord Stream 2 so controversial?

The United States and several of Germany's European partners have been against Nord Stream 2 from the start and lobbied the government of former Chancellor Angela Merkel to back out of the deal.

The allies have warned that Nord Stream 2 would make Europe too reliant on Russian gas, which they say Russian President Vladimir Putin could use as leverage in disputes with the West.

Much of Europe's gas currently transits through Ukraine, which receives transit fees from Russia.

Poland disapproves of Nord Stream 2 as it, too, has sought to boost its role as a transit country for Russian gas.

Berlin has long insisted that the pipeline is purely an economic issue.

Workers celebrate the completion of Nord Stream 2 in September 2021

Why was Nord Stream 2 nearly shelved?

In 2018, as it was being built, then US President Donald Trump imposed sanctions on anyone involved in the construction of Nord Stream 2.

Some 18 European companies pulled out, including Germany's Wintershall, for fear of being hit by financial penalties.

Gazprom said it would continue laying the pipeline itself, and the project was completed anyway.

Last May, the Biden administration waived all sanctions against Nord Stream 2 so as not to strain relations with Germany.

Why is Nord Stream 2 again under threat?

The pipeline has now taken center stage during an escalating crisis between Russia and the West over Ukraine.

The US and NATO say Russia has amassed more than 100,000 troops at its border with Ukraine, ready to invade. Moscow has denied this.

The West has threatened to impose fresh sanctions on Moscow, this time targeting Russian banks.

One theoretical possibility is to exclude them from the SWIFT global payment system, which is responsible for 35 million daily financial transactions worth some $5 trillion (€4.4 trillion).

Another proposal is to further delay formal approval for Nord Stream 2 to begin operations as leverage to force Russia back from the brink of war.

The post-Merkel government is no longer ruling out shelving the pipeline project. But Europe is currently facing a winter energy crunch. Prices of natural gas have skyrocketed in recent months, and stockpiles in EU countries are at a five-year low.

US President Joe Biden on February 7 vowed to put a stop to Nord Stream 2 if Russia invades Ukraine, warning: "`We will bring an end to it."

Meanwhile, Germany's energy regulator recently said Nord Stream 2 is unlikely to win approval before the summer.

Edited by: Hardy Graupner

This story was originally published on January 31, 2022, and was updated on February 8, 2022, to reflect recent developments. 

Fact check: Does Germany send weapons to crisis regions?

The German government has rejected Ukraine's demands for arms deliveries, saying Germany does not send weapons of war to conflict zones as a matter of principle. A DW fact check finds this stance has often been ignored.

Germany has supplied G36 assault rifles, like this one, to the Kurdish peshmerga in northern Iraq

According to Western intelligence services, Russia has deployed about 100,000 troops on its border with Ukraine. From the Ukrainian and the Western point of view, that represents a concrete military threat, which is why numerous countries are supporting Ukraine with weapons and equipment. For its part, Germany has so far supplied 5,000 helmets.

For the Ukrainian government, this shipment of protective gear is not enough. Last Friday, it officially asked the German government to send defensive weapons and ammunition. Berlin, however, has to date rejected the request.

Both Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock have cited the German government's political principle of not exporting weapons to crisis regions. The coalition agreement between the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the Greens and the Free Democrats (FDP) states that "exceptions can only be made in justified individual cases, which must be documented in a publicly transparent manner."
German arms shipments: A clear stance?

Angry commenters on social media have pointed out that Germany has made exceptions in the past. "Ask Germans about weapons supply to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, UAE," a DW user from Ukraine wrote on Facebooklast week. "German weapons are used in wars and armed conflicts all over the planet — also by the IS, by the way," reads another comment.

But is that true?

Claim: "The German government has for many years taken the clear stance that we do not deliver to crisis regions, and that we do not deliver lethal weapons to Ukraine," Scholz said on German state broadcaster ARD on Sunday, reiterating the government's position on the issue and previous statements.

DW fact check: False

"We have certainly delivered in the past, but always on a situation-by-situation basis," Christian Mölling, a defense and security expert at the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP), told DW. "That means that in Germany there is the principle of a case-by-case examination. We look at each individual case."

Pieter Wezeman of the Stockholm Institute for Peace Research (SIPRI) also confirmed to DW that Germany has sent weapons to crisis regions in the recent past.

"Obviously it is not true that Germany hasn't supplied weapons to countries or actors in conflict," he said. "There are plenty of examples where we can see that German weapons [...] have been exported specifically, with of course an agreement of the German government, or with the specific support or even just by the German government itself."
German weapons in the Yemen war

Egypt, for instance, is the fifth largest recipient of German arms exports since 2010, according to export data from SIPRI's trend indicator value. Between January 1, 2021 and December 14, 2021 alone, export authorizations worth about €4.34 billion ($5 billion) were issued for Egypt, according to data from the German Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action.

Most of the authorizations were approved by the previous German government during Chancellor Angela Merkel's final days in office — despite the fact that the Egyptian military is involved in conflicts in Yemen and Libya, and has been criticized for massive human rights violations.

Despite Egypt's involvement in the war in Yemen, Germany has supplied the country with warships like this one

Egypt may well be using German weapons in the wars in Yemen and Libya, according to Wezeman. "The items that Germany supplies to Egypt can be divided into two main parts," he said. "One is the supply of air defense systems. They have little to do with the war in Yemen, as far as I can see."

However, the other commodity group — warships — may be problematic. "The frigates themselves certainly could play a role in the type of war we have previously seen in Yemen, as an important part of that has been a naval blockade," he said. Wezeman added that large-scale arms deliveries like this contribute to legitimizing and strengthening the military government in Egypt.

Several other countries whose militaries have been involved in the Yemen conflict since 2015 have also received arms deliveries from Germany, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Qatar. According to the German government's 2020 arms export report, Qatar was approved to receive ammunition for cannons, rifles, shotguns, and parts for howitzer ammunition that are on the War Weapons List, an appendix to Germany's War Weapons Control Act. In late 2020, the German government also granted approval for the delivery of 15 Gepard anti-aircraft tanks to Qatar.

In 2019, the investigative project #GermanArms proved that German weapons play a major role in the war in Yemen. The German government had to admit that the approval of some of the arms deliveries was a mistake, Wezeman said.

"Or at least, while these weapons were supplied, it became increasingly clear that the risks involved in it were maybe too high, and they stopped supplying them. And that was a particularly the case in Saudi Arabia, where there was a significant deal for the supply of patrol boats, for example," he said.




After the 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a journalist critical of the Saudi government, at the Saudi Arabian Consulate General in Istanbul, all licenses already granted for arms exports to Riyadh were put on hold and later revoked. Since then, Germany has imposed a ban on arms exports to Saudi Arabia, which has been extended several times.

Exceptions have, however, been made. German manufacturers have been allowed to supply parts for joint defense projects destined for Saudi Arabia — the production of fighter jets in cooperation with NATO partners, for example.

Difficult partnership with Turkey

NATO partner Turkey is also a highly controversial buyer of German weapons. The country has "changed considerably" in recent decades, said DGAP expert Christian Mölling, adding that, in retrospect, it was wrong for Germany to deliver arms to the country. However, he argued that "it's a government's right to get assessments wrong, precisely because they remain assessments."

Germany supplied Turkey with military weapons for years, to the value of hundreds of millions of euros — even though Turkey was criticized for human rights abuses, and the United Nations counts it among the countries that, by supplying weapons, are intervening in the war in Libya. For decades, the Turkish government has also taken military action against the insurgent Kurdistan Workers' Party, both in Turkey itself and in neighboring countries.

The situation became particularly volatile following Turkey's military offensive against the Kurdish YPG militia in northern Syria in 2018. "Are German anti-tank missiles now hitting German tanks?" was the question some media were asking at the time. This was a reference to German support, since the summer of 2014, for the Kurdish peshmerga in northern Iraq in their fight against against "Islamic State" militias.

They were supplied not only with equipment such as helmets, protective vests and radios, but also with a comprehensive package of weapons that included assault and machine guns, pistols, bazookas, anti-tank weapons and hand grenades, and which German government records recorded as being worth more than €90 million.

The Bundeswehr has been supporting the training of Kurdish security forces in the Irbil region in northern Iraq since 2015

The Kurdish regional government pledged at the time that it would use the weapons exclusively against the "Islamic State," but this claim was not monitored. Responding to an inquiry by the Bundestag delegate Agnieszka Brugger in 2016, the German government said it could not rule out that German weapons had found their way onto the black market — in northern Iraq, for example.

And according to the experts interviewed by DW, not even so-called post-shipment control measures, that is, the monitoring of the whereabouts of supplied weapons, can exclude the risk that these weapons will be used in conflicts for which they were not intended.

The fact that there is currently no legal framework for arms exports is something the new German government wants to change. Jürgen Trittin, the Greens' foreign policy spokesman in the Bundestag, said on ARD television that the Economic Affairs Ministry, which his party heads, had submitted a draft law to that effect for initial consultation. Trittin said it was intended to "make the non-binding principles governing arms exports binding."

Conclusion: 

Germany has not consistently adhered to its principle of not supplying weapons to crisis regions. On multiple occasions, the German government has approved arms deliveries to countries that are parties to conflicts, or are themselves crisis areas.

This article has been translated from German

SEE LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for PERMANENT ARMS ECONOMY 

Vermont House advances constitutional amendment guaranteeing abortion rights


The Vermont House on Tuesday voted 107-41 to advance a constitutional amendment that would guarantee the right to abortion, which comes amid some states attempting to reduce access to the procedure. 

File Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI | License Photo


Feb. 8 (UPI) -- Vermont lawmakers on Tuesday voted to advance a constitutional amendment to guarantee the right to abortion, contraception and other reproductive care.

The Vermont House voted 107-41 in favor of the proposed amendment, known as Proposition 5, which would be the first amendment in the United States to guarantee such sexual and reproductive freedoms.

Tuesday's vote sends the measure to Republican Gov. Phill Scott, who has indicated support for the measure and must provide notice to the public before it appears on the ballot in November.

A Pew Research poll also found that 70% of voters in Vermont believe abortion should be legal in most or all cases, suggesting the measure is likely to pass.

RELATED Biden says Roe v. Wade is 'under assault' on 49th anniversary of decision

The decision to move forward with the measure comes as the U.S. Supreme Court is set to make a ruling on a Mississippi abortion law banning abortion at 15 weeks that could ultimately overturn or weaken the landmark protections for abortion rights provided by the ruling in Roe vs. Wade.

Vermont state Rep. Ann Pugh, a Democrat, alluded to the potential weakening of federal protections as she stressed the necessity of the measure.

"We can no longer rely on federal courts to uphold the protections for fundamental reproductive rights based on the federal constitution," said Pugh.

RELATED Justice Sonia Sotomayor calls Texas abortion case a "disaster" in dissent

Lucy Leriche, vice president of Vermont Public Policy at Planned Parenthood of Northern New England said the Vermont measure could act as a "model" for other states to follow.

"In states all over the country, politicians are moving to take away reproductive rights, specifically abortion rights, and we could be an example of another way," she said.

Republican lawmakers in the state have called the amendment "extreme" with state Rep. Anne Donahue saying it does not account for shifting views on reproductive rights.

RELATED Florida lawmakers move to ban abortions after 15 weeks

"We as human beings have made a lot of mistakes at times when we thought we were doing the right thing," Donahue said. "When we start putting a current belief in the constitution, I think we're playing with fire."

In addition to Mississippi, states such as Texas and Florida have taken steps to restrict access to abortions, while 15 states have passed legislation protecting abortion rights.

Big Oil climate pledges fall short of global warming reduction goals, experts say

By Cristobella Durrette, Medill News Service

Climate change experts and advocates told a House committee Tuesday that sustainability pledges made by Big Oil companies mask the fact that their continued oil production means climate goals laid out in the Paris Agreement cannot be achieved. Photo by Gary Leavens/Wikimedia Commons

WASHINGTON, Feb. 8 (UPI) -- Climate change experts and advocates told a House committee Tuesday that sustainability pledges made by Big Oil companies mask the fact that their continued oil production means climate goals laid out in the Paris Agreement cannot be achieved.

"It's pretty clear that the fossil fuel industry is currently using its climate pledges as a new form of climate disinformation and greenwashing, allowing them to continue oil exploration, allowing them to continue increasing their output overall, while simultaneously claiming that they are not," said Tracey Lewis, a climate and energy policy counsel at nonprofit consumer advocacy group Public Citizen at a House Committee on Oversight and Reform hearing.

Oil and gas giants ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell and BP have announced plans to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 across company operations to produce, refine and process fossil fuels. But none pledged to cut oil and gas output over the next decade.

Democrats targeted Exxon and Chevron for scrutiny because of their plans' failure to address consumer-driven emissions, known as Scope 3 emissions, that are the result of emissions from the vehicles that use the oil.

It's this use of the oil, not its production, that represents the majority of the industry's total carbon output.

The companies' plans include carbon capture and storage -- technology that can prevent carbon dioxide release and remove it from the atmosphere. The process would allow oil production to continue without upending Big Oil's current business model.

When asked by Rep. Ayanna Presley, D-Mass., whether carbon capture "performed as advertised," Pennsylvania State University atmospheric sciences professor Mark Mann said he did not see "any evidence" that a company could use the technology and produce energy without also creating emissions.

RELATED White House offers states more than $1B to cap methane-producing wells

Fossil fuel companies are "not even close" to curbing emissions to stay below the 1.5 degrees Celsius global temperature increase limit established in the Paris Agreement, Mann said.

Republicans called the Democrat-controlled committee's investigation of the oil industry an attempt to bankrupt fossil fuel companies.

"Their investigation hasn't turned up anything, no smoking gun, because there is not one," said Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, the top Republican on the committee.

RELATED Federal judge revokes 1.7 million acres of oil, gas leases in Gulf of Mexico

"No matter what these companies do, it will never be enough to please the Democrats. The sole focus of this investigation is to put these companies out of business," Comer said.

The committee originally intended to hold a hearing with one board member from Shell, Chevron and BP, and two from Exxon. But in a statement released last week, the panel said all but one of those invited to the hearing declined to appear. The hearing with Big Oil board members has been pushed to March 8.

"If they do not agree to appear, the committee will use every tool at its disposal to get the information we need," said committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y.

The hearing was part of the committee's broader investigation into fossil fuel companies. Chief executives testified before the committee in October and denied inconsistency between their companies' messaging on climate change and their internal findings.

Maloney issued subpoenas to the companies after the October hearing for internal and financial documents on climate science; clean energy; the role of each company and the fossil fuel industry in causing, addressing or responding to climate change; and marketing aimed at influencing public opinion, among others.

Shaken by fracking quakes, Texas is forced to act


Oil drilling rigs in Odessa, Texas, in the Permian Basin, April 2020 

(AFP/Paul Ratje) 

LONG READ

François PICARD
Tue, February 8, 2022

"You get used to it. The walls shake," says Sam, a resident of Midland, a town in west Texas where hydraulic fracturing for oil and gas -- known as "fracking" -- is causing more and more earthquakes.

"Then another tremor comes a second later, like a truck passing nearby," said the 44-year-old, who did not wish to disclose his last name.

Echoing his words, three quakes rocked the ground in just one day on February 4.


This region of the Permian Basin, from which 40 percent of US oil and 15 percent of its gas are extracted, experienced nine earthquakes greater than three-magnitude in 2019, 51 in 2020 and 176 in 2021, according to market intelligence firm Sourcenergy.

What causes earthquakes is not fracking itself, but injecting the wastewater into wells. The Railroad Commission of Texas, which regulates oil activities, has had to impose new rules on water disposal.

- 'Fox guarding the henhouse' -

Drilling companies must deal with huge quantities of water that come up when fracking -- water makes up about 80 percent of the fluid pumped out of the ground.

Almost 4,000 active wells have been drilled specifically to collect the wastewater in the Permian Basin.

"As you get more and more water getting pumped into the ground... you're filling up these spaces," said Joshua Adler, CEO of Sourcenergy, which helps oil companies improve water management.

"In some of these spaces, you got these cracks or fault lines. You're pushing it harder and harder, and maybe you hit that fault line and maybe it makes it slip and that's an earthquake."

Since 2012, daily oil production have multiplied five-fold in the Permian Basin, so water injections into wells has also multiplied.

"In Oklahoma, they basically kind of dragged their feet for years and denied that there was any problem" when earthquakes increased in the 2010s, Adler said.

In Texas, as soon as earthquakes increased, the Railroad Commission started to study the issue, he said. "They didn't wait until it was a giant problem."

Between September and January, it defined three geographical areas at risk.

In the most populous, Gardendale, where the cities of Midland and Odessa are located, it ordered the suspension of deep injections of water into seven wells in mid-December.

After four more earthquakes of magnitudes between 3.1 and 3.7, it extended the measure to 26 more wells.

The regulator is waiting for industry proposals in the two other areas identified, Stanton and Northern Culberson-Reeves.

But Neta Rhyne, 72, who lives near Northern Culberson-Reeves, believes that "it's like asking the fox to guard the chicken coop."

- Locals divided -

Last week, she again asked the Railroad Commission, as she has been doing since 2016, for a hearing following new requests to drill water disposal wells in her region.

She fears an earthquake could affect the source of one of the largest natural spring-fed pools in the world, a stone's throw from her home in Balmorhea Nature Park, Toyahvale.

The Texas Parks Department declined to respond to AFP's questions, but press officer Stephanie Salinas Garcia acknowledged "concerns that earthquakes could affect the spring system."

"Here, it's small communities. People don't want to cause problems, they don’t want to voice their concerns," said Rhyne, who owns a dive shop near the Balmorhea natural pool.

Suspending water injection is set to impose hefty costs on oil companies, who will have to transport water off site via pipeline, or even by truck.

Sam, the resident in Midland, says local reaction to the quakes is divided.

"Old people complain a bit about earthquakes. But young people never! Three-quarters live off oil.

"Even when it smells of hydrogen sulfide emitted from the wells, they say it smells of money."

str/dax/jh/bgs

Scientists link doubling of Texas earthquakes to oil company water injections
By Erin Douglas, The Texas Tribune


A rider passes by a pumpjack during an evening horseback ride through a residential area in Gardendale, Texas, on Sunday. Photo by Eli Hartman for The Texas Tribune

MIDLAND, Texas, Feb. 8 (UPI) -- One local said it sounded like a pickup truck had rammed into the side of their house. Another said it sounded like the air conditioner fell off the roof. A third compared the experience to getting off of a rollercoaster, dizzy and a bit shaky.

"In the hardest ones we've experienced, there is a bunch of shaking, and the pictures shook off the walls," said Christina Bock, 45, who lives in Gardendale, a rural community north of Odessa in the heart of West Texas oil and gas country. Earthquakes have dislodged her deck from the house and left cracks in her walls, she said.

"You'll hear a loud bang. If you're inside, you assume it's a car wreck or that something exploded outside," said Bock, a paralegal who has lived in Gardendale for 13 years. "The scary thing is that they are happening pretty much daily at this point."

More than 200 earthquakes of 3 magnitude and greater shook Texans in 2021, more than double the 98 recorded in 2020, according to a Texas Tribune analysis of state data maintained by the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas at Austin.

RELATED Living near fracking sites may shorten life spans, study suggests

The record-setting seismic activity is largely concentrated in West Texas' Permian Basin, the most productive oil and gas region in the state. Scientific studies show that the spike in earthquakes is almost certainly a consequence of disposing huge quantities of contaminated, salty water deep underground -- a common practice by oil companies at the end of the hydraulic fracturing process that can awaken dormant fault lines.

During hydraulic fracking, oil companies shoot a mixture of fluids and sand through ancient shale formations, fracturing the rock to free the flow of oil. But oil isn't the only thing that's been trapped underground for millions of years: Between three and six barrels of salty, polluted water also come up to the surface with every barrel of oil.

The cheapest, and most commonly used, way to dispose of this "produced water" is to drill another well and inject it into porous rock formations deep underground.

RELATED Wastewater disposal method may limit earthquakes caused by fracking

For years, oil companies have loaded those formations with hundreds of millions of gallons of the black watery mixture -- which contains a slurry of minerals, oil and chemicals used in fracking -- every day, slowly increasing the pressure on ancient fault lines. An analysis by Rystad Energy provided to The Texas Tribune found that the amount of wastewater injected underground in the Permian Basin quadrupled in a decade, from 54 billion gallons in 2011 to 217 billion gallons last year.

In a 2021 study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey and the University of Texas found that the vast majority of seismicity since 2000 near Pecos -- a city roughly 100 miles southwest of Midland -- was likely triggered by increased wastewater disposal. State regulators, too, have found that an increase in seismic activity most likely occurs as a consequence of saltwater disposal.

"The cumulative volumes [of water] increase the pressure, and that is the force that triggers the fault to slip," said Alexandros Savvaidis, a research scientist at the Bureau of Economic Geology at UT-Austin.

The result is that communities like Gardendale, where Bock lives, as well as the bustling cities of Odessa and Midland -- which many oilfield workers, engineers and service workers call home -- are experiencing not only more frequent earthquakes, but stronger ones.

Between 2018 and 2020, Texas recorded nine earthquakes above magnitude 4, almost all of them in the western half of the state. Last year, Texans were shaken by 15 earthquakes above magnitude 4 -- including a 4.6 magnitude earthquake in late December that rattled homes from an epicenter about 30 miles northeast of Midland.

"That was different," said David Rosen, a geologist who has lived in Midland for almost 50 years. "That was like riding a bicycle over cobblestones."

While distance, soil composition and other factors determine at what magnitude earthquakes cause damage, earthquakes above magnitude 3 can typically be felt indoors; above a 4, walls may make a cracking sound and dishes can be disturbed, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Rosen, who was also a former Democratic Party chairman for the county, said it used to be a novel thing, feeling an earthquake in West Texas. His wife felt one in 1991; he didn't. Now, they both feel the quakes fairly often in their home on the north side of Midland.

The huge jump in seismic activity compelled the Railroad Commission of Texas, the state's oil and gas regulatory agency, to indefinitely suspend underground water injections late last year in a swath of land from Odessa north to Midland, and west to Andrews and Martin counties. The decision affected all 33 disposal wells in the targeted area.

"RRC staff has determined that [produced water] injection into deep geologic strata -- below the top of the Strawn Formation and especially the Ellenburger Formation -- across the area is likely contributing to recent seismic activity," the agency wrote in its justification for suspensions.

It may take months after the injections halt for the area to stop shaking, scientists said, since the pressure needs time to ease.

Since October, two other areas of West Texas -- a region north of Stanton, about 25 miles east of Midland, and an area that straddles Culberson and Reeves counties between the Guadalupe Mountains and Pecos -- have also been categorized as areas of concern by the agency because seismic activity has increased, though regulators have not yet suspended produced water injections there.

Instead, the agency instructed companies to work together and come up with a plan to limit seismicity to earthquakes under 3.5 magnitude after 18 months.

Andrew Keese, spokesman for the Railroad Commission, said in a statement that the agency hopes the industry can cooperate to reduce the magnitude and frequency of the quakes. If it fails, the agency is "prepared to implement actions of its own if needed," he wrote. An industry plan to reduce seismicity in the Stanton region is due in mid-April, Keese said.

"Operators have already made adjustments in the volume of water injected," Keese said.

Rosen, the former Democratic Party chairman, said he considered buying earthquake insurance before deciding it wasn't worth the cost unless the quakes get even stronger. Still, he's disappointed in what seems to him to be reluctant action by state regulators to the increasing seismic activity.

The Railroad Commission "has been getting feedback for months," he said, "and finally they decided to temporarily suspend disposal for a couple of wells. That's a pretty sluggish response."

'Paying the price'

Residents of the Permian Basin are used to the noise of drilling construction; the damaged roads from heavy trucks hauling sand, water and more; the trash snagged in mesquite branches blown from camps of the here-today-gone-tomorrow oilfield workers. Many say they have switched to bottled water or installed water softeners because their tap water turned cloudy with minerals and tastes metallic and salty since fracking took off in the area a decade ago.

But the earthquakes are different, said Bock, the paralegal and mother of two in Gardendale. One contractor's estimate to level her home's foundation was $8,000, she said. At least for her family, the shaking was the last straw.

"I don't want to stay out here," she said. "Not like this."

She and her family will likely sell the house and relocate to Central or Southwest Texas in a couple of years, she said.

"Were the earthquakes a reason? I would say about 50% of it, yes," Bock said. "The damage [from fracking] is done, and now we're just paying that price. And this is what it is."

Eli Hilbert, 20, a political science student at the University of Texas Permian Basin in Odessa, said many locals view the earthquakes as part of the natural environment -- like the strong winds or tumbleweeds -- despite science that shows the phenomena is almost certainly caused by humans.

"People treat them as just a part of life around here," said Hilbert, an environmental advocate who will soon help launch a nonprofit organization focused on pollution and climate change in the Permian Basin.

Hilbert said it's difficult to get community buy-in to organize around environmental issues because much of the population moves in and out with the oil industry. "You aren't particularly invested in stopping air pollution if you're only going to be here for two years," Hilbert said. "But with the increase in [seismicity] last year, I feel like it's a thing people are becoming more worried about."

Other residents of Midland, Odessa and surrounding areas echoed Hilbert's sentiment that the near-daily shakes were beginning to crack the community's long-hardened endurance to the nuisances and environmental consequences of living with the oil industry.

Ashley Gunter, 40, whose family has lived in Midland for three generations, wonders if the quakes will keep getting stronger and more frequent and eventually make the free-spirited, religious city where she grew up unlivable. "I'm no scientist, but this is not supposed to be happening," Gunter said. "We don't live in California."

Catherine Allen, an artist in Midland, said she has considered relocating because of the quakes. Allen lives in a midcentury house just a few minutes from downtown. It's the kind of place she says she would love to live the rest of her life in -- but she's not sure if she can.

"The earthquakes seem to be getting closer, and I'm also not sure if our groundwater is going to be safe for much longer," Allen said. "It seems like disaster is getting closer, but I always question if I am overreacting."

Where the water goes

The earthquakes often make the local news, and they spark regular alerts on the neighborhood app Nextdoor. Still, Allen said, she's disappointed at the lack of a broader community discussion about what should or could be done to prevent the seismic activity in Midland.

"Our local leaders do not talk about it, and I don't know how that's possible," Allen said.

Allen and other residents concerned about the quakes point to the oil industry's power in the Permian Basin as the reason there hasn't been a more aggressive response by local officials. About 30% of Midland's workers are employed directly by the energy and mining industry, according to federal employment data.

Midland's City Council has not had a meeting to address the rise in seismic activity, according to recent City Council agendas and member John Norman, who confirmed that the council has discussed seismicity only in casual conversations. He wasn't surprised that it hasn't come up yet, he said.

Norman, who grew up in Midland and worked in the oilfield for more than two decades, said the reason the council has not taken action or formally discussed the quakes is that the injection wells are largely outside city limits. While the quakes shake Midland, it's difficult to see what the city might do to prevent the practice, he said. That's for the Railroad Commission to decide. (Norman praised the agency's most recent response.)

But the industry itself isn't blind to the business risk the quakes pose: At an annual oil and gas industry luncheon hosted by the Midland Chamber of Commerce on Jan. 26, an executive with Chevron Corp. listed the increase in seismic activity as one of the industry's biggest challenges in the Permian Basin.

Ryder Booth, Chevron's vice president of North America exploration and production, called on the roughly 300-person crowd of Midland oil and gas executives, workers and leaders to work together to reduce the earthquakes, pointing to the increase in seismic activity from water injections as one of the industry's major challenges in the Permian.

"We're going to have to work together, partner together, to make sure we're tackling it," Booth said.

A few companies in the Permian Basin have built recycling facilities for produced water -- an alternative to pumping it underground. One such facility outside of Big Spring, northeast of Midland, pipes in produced water from surrounding drill sites up to 20 miles away.

"What's cool about this is that ordinarily, that kind of stuff might be going downhole, instead of coming to us," said Jim Hudgins, midstream operations manager at Breakwater Energy Partners, which opened the facility in 2020.

The facility separates the solids from the liquids and presses them into a cake-like material that can be dumped at a landfill. "It looks like a brownie," said Zac Hall, the recycling operations manager at Breakwater Energy. "You wouldn't want to eat it."

Then the brackish-looking water is pushed through 10 large tanks, where chemical reactions remove the impurities until the water looks clear enough to drink -- although it's far too salty for that.

"This is probably five to seven times saltier than the ocean," Hall said. "It would taste like crap."

The water is stored in a large, open pool that can hold roughly 63 million gallons of water. The company then sells the water back to oil companies for the next round of fracking.

But recycling facilities, while helpful, are only a partial solution over the long term, Railroad Commissioner Jim Wright pointed out in a recent statement and op-ed. The amount of water needed by oil companies for the hydraulic fracturing process is far less than the amount of produced water being dislodged and dredged up from underground each day. Without a more promising solution on the horizon, the Texas Legislature in 2021 directed scholars and industry leaders to study the problem.

In the meantime, the earth continues to shake under the feet of West Texas residents. On a recent brisk but sunny Friday afternoon, a howling West Texas wind pushed tumbleweeds across roads, natural gas flares burned across the horizon and a seismometer recorded another earthquake -- this one a 3.1 magnitude, just outside Odessa, 14 miles west of Midland.

That same day, Norman, the Midland City Council member, sat in a local coffee shop in his district. He said he worries that the earthquakes could make the area unsafe. He hopes the industry, state regulators and the city can find a solution.

"The oil industry has been good to me and my family, but if you die from an earthquake what does it matter?" he said. "I know this is how we make our money [in Midland]. That's fine, but the safety and the empathy for human beings -- that's what I try to focus on."

Disclosure: The University of Texas at Austin and the University of Texas Permian basin have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

José Luis Martínez contributed to this story.

Money on the table: child credit $ available via tax returns

By JOSH BOAK

President Joe Biden speaks in the East Room of the White House, Monday, Feb. 7, 2022, in Washington. The Biden administration is kicking off an outreach campaign to get millions of families to file their taxes — so that they can receive the second half of payments from the expanded child tax credit. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

The Biden administration wants families with children to know that there is roughly $193 billion waiting for them — all they need to do is file their taxes to claim it.

That estimated total is what remains of the expanded child tax credit, and the administration is concerned that some of those most in need of the assistance may be the least likely to get what is due to them.

President Joe Biden increased the payments and expanded who was eligible as part of his coronavirus relief package. While most families already received half of the credit as monthly payments last year, they’ll lose out on the remaining balance unless they file their taxes.

Vice President Kamala Harris, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and White House senior adviser Gene Sperling held a virtual event Tuesday to encourage people to send their tax forms to the IRS, including those whose incomes are so low that they might not have traditionally filed.

Harris said that families should go to childtaxcredit.gov to check their eligibility. The tax filing deadline is April 18.

“The truth is there are people across our nation who work hard every day and still struggle to get by and it should not be this way in our country,” Harris said. “You still need to file your taxes. That is the only way to receive the second half of what you are owed.”

The public push is occurring at a critical juncture for both the U.S. economy and the child tax credit program. Inflation is running at a nearly 40-year high, meaning that the additional money from the credit will help offset the costs of food, gasoline and other goods as the U.S. is still emerging from the pandemic. But efforts to renew the expanded credits for another year have been blocked in the Senate, making it important for advocates to demonstrate how the credits have reduced child poverty by an estimated 40%.

Yellen said research suggests that the payments are among the most promising policies for combating poverty, highlighting recent research to suggest that the money was linked to higher brain activity in the babies of poor mothers.

“There is very little equivocation that these policies lift up the lives of millions of people, and, in so doing, lift up the country,” Yellen said.

Several lawmakers and nonprofits are taking part in the outreach, and there are plans to hold events in all 50 states and Puerto Rico during the tax filing season. Yellen noted that nonprofits are often better at reaching out to poorer populations.

As part of the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package, Biden increased the child tax credits to $3,600 annually for each child aged 5 or under and $3,000 for those who are ages 6 to 17. The government began to send the payments out on a monthly basis starting last July, meaning that there are six months worth of payments waiting to be claimed by people filing their taxes.

The administration estimates that roughly 58 million households would qualify for the credit, which average $3,300 and could be used to offset an existing tax bill or be paid out as a refund.

Workers without children could also get additional help this tax season if they file. The relief package nearly tripled the earned income tax credit for workers without dependent children, meaning that 17 million people could receive credits worth $1,500.

The expanded child tax credits were seen as slashing child poverty to the lowest levels on record. A recent analysis by researchers at Washington University in St. Louis and Appalachian State University found no evidence that the monthly payments caused parents to stop working. But critics say that making the credits larger and fully refundable — which ensures that poorer families qualify for the entire benefit — leads to fewer people taking jobs that pay and creates a drag on the economy.

Biden pushed to continue the expanded child tax for another year as part of his “Build Back Better” agenda. But in an evenly split Senate, West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin opposed the expanded credit out of concerns that its price tag could increase the deficit and worsen inflation.

African migrants face racism, violence in Brazil




Signs lying on the pavement during a protest following the killing of 24-year-old Congolese refugee Moise Kabagambe in Brazil 

(AFP/NELSON ALMEIDA)

People calling for justice during a February protest against the murder of 24-year-old Congolese refugee Moise Kabagambe in Sao Paulo, Brazil (AFP/NELSON ALMEIDA)

Louis GENOT
Tue, February 8, 2022, 10:07 AM·3 min read

The brutal murder of a Congolese man at a Rio de Janeiro beach has cast a harsh spotlight on the ordeals African migrants face in Brazil, the country with the biggest black population outside Africa.

Moise Kabagambe, a 24-year-old migrant who fled to Brazil with his family in 2011 to escape violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo, was beaten to death with clubs and a baseball bat at the beach-front bar where he worked in Rio's upscale Barra da Tijuca neighborhood.

His family says a group of assailants attacked him after he demanded payment of two days' overdue wages.

The January 24 killing has unleashed a flood of outrage, grief and soul-searching in Brazil, where many African migrants say they face poverty, violence and double discrimination as both foreigners and blacks.

"I'm thinking of leaving Brazil after what happened with Moise. I'm afraid for my children," said Sagrace Lembe Menga, who also fled the conflict-torn Democratic Republic of Congo, arriving in 2015.

The 33-year-old refugee and mother of two says she has regularly faced racism in her adoptive country, especially at the salon where she works as a hair stylist.

"Some people treat you like you're insignificant, like an animal," she told AFP.

"I've had people ask me if I live with giraffes."

A woman holds a bag with mock blood that reads "Black Blood, not one more drop" during an anti-racism protest after Moise Kabagambe's killing 

(AFP/EVARISTO SA)

- Lack of opportunity -

Brazil has 1,050 refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and around 35,000 African immigrants in all -- though experts say the official figure is likely an underestimate.

They often live in poor slums dominated by drug gangs, and are paid far less than other immigrants in Brazil -- an average of 2,698 reais ($510) a month, compared with 4,878 reais a month for all immigrants combined.

"If I had to tell the story of every incident of racism I've faced, I could write a book," said Elisee Mpembele, 23, a Congolese singer who arrived in Brazil in 2013.

"Wary looks, stares, security guards following me around the supermarket. The other day, I asked some police officers for directions, and they ended up searching me."

He said finding work as a musician was tough, so he often had to resort to odd jobs to make ends meet.

Racism and discrimination are nothing new in Brazil, home to the second-biggest black population in the world, after Nigeria.

The country was the last in the Americas to abolish slavery, in 1888, and blacks still face deep-rooted poverty, exclusion and systemic racism.

As foreigners, African migrants are even worse off.

The racism they face in Brazil "is all the more perverse given that 55 percent of Brazilians are black," said Bas'llele Malomalo, an expert on African-Brazilian migration at Unilab university.

"The integration problems faced by African migrants have the same roots as those encountered by former slaves, who were still seen as objects, as animals, at abolition," he said.

- 'Keep my head down' -

All too often, racism also translates into violence.

Seventy-seven percent of homicide victims in Brazil in 2019 were black.

The danger for black foreigners is even greater, said Malomalo.

"In the minds of the racists, since it's a foreigner, no one's going to defend him," he said.

"Whenever someone hassles me, I just keep my head down to avoid any problems," said Modou Fall, a 34-year-old Senegalese migrant who sells sunglasses on Rio's famed Copacabana beach.

"It's hard working here. I struggle to send money to my family."

Many Africans arrive in Brazil full of "entrepreneurial spirit," said Rui Mucaje, head of the Afro-Brazilian Chamber of Commerce (AfroChamber.)

But most end up doing menial jobs in the informal sector, he said.

"It's not uncommon to see people with university degrees end up working jobs they're way overqualified for," he said.

As examples, he cited an engineer who is working at a supermarket and a surveyor working as a hotel cleaner.

Kabagambe's killing, he said, is "the tragic result of the problems created by racism in Brazil."

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