More oil trains will run through Minnesota, Twin Cities



Mike Hughlett, Star Tribune
Sun, October 17, 2021, 4:00 PM·6 min read

A new Canadian railroad venture is sparking a significant increase of 15 to 20 oil trains that run through Minnesota each month.

Canadian Pacific Railway's specialized new Canadian crude cargoes run on its main line, which bisects the Twin Cities. And the Canadian rail giant's recent deal to purchase a major U.S. railroad will likely make its new oil service even more appealing to shippers.

Oil-by-rail has stoked safety concerns in Minnesota and elsewhere since 2013 when an oil train in Quebec caught fire and exploded, killing 47 people.Since then, several more oil trains in North America have derailed and spilled, some catching fire.

Canadian Pacific declined to say how many of the new oil trains it's currently running. But during a conference call with analysts in July, the railroad's chief marketing officer said he expects "business to ramp up to 15 to 20 trains per month during the third quarter," which ended Sept. 30. Their destination: Port Arthur, Texas.

Canadian Pacific and the company behind the new Alberta, Canada, rail venture, USD Partners, say they're using a new technology that makes shipping oil safe enough it need not be categorized as a flammable hazardous cargo.

"From an innovation, sustainability and safety perspective, this is a game changer," Canadian Pacific CEO Keith Creel said in 2019 when the project was announced.

USD Partners said testing of its proprietary oil blend indicates that if it's spilled into water during a derailment, it will float. Unlike lighter oil, heavy Canadian crude can eventually sink and diffuse, making cleanup efforts more difficult.

But the venture and USD's claims have some skeptics.

"There are a lot of problems with this proposal and the complete lack of transparency around it," said Frank Hornstein, the Minneapolis DFLer who heads the Minnesota House's Transportation Finance and Policy Committee.

"We don't know the characteristics of this material being transported," he said. "We have to depend on the company making a profit off of it to guarantee its safety."

Plus, Hornstein said it's imprudent to launch such new fossil fuel projects "at a time when a climate emergency is building day by day."

Most Canadian crude bound for the United States — by far Canada's biggest oil export market — travels on pipelines, particularly Enbridge's corridor of six lines across Minnesota. Enbridge recently completed a $3 billion-plus pipeline to replace Line 3, which was corroding and able to operate only at 50% of capacity.

One of Enbridge's arguments for the controversial pipeline was that without it, the number of oil trains in Minnesota would multiply, said Laura Triplett, a geology and environmental studies professor at Gustavus Adolphus College.

"Now we are getting more trains anyway," she said.

The Canadian Pacific's route runs the length and breadth of Minnesota, hugging the Mississippi River in the southeast. For the past 21 months, Department of Public Safety records indicate CP is the largest rail shipper of oil in the state.

Volume varies considerably. For the week ending Oct. 3, CP had five to six hazardous trains running through the most heavily trafficked counties for those types of loads. For the week ending Sept. 5, that count was 16 to 19. Crude oil and ethanol generally make up the bulk of hazardous rail cargoes.

The new oil trains running from USD's terminal aren't likely to be tallied in those state counts. USD said the oil is not hazardous cargo as defined under U.S. and Canadian transportation regulations.

Heavy Canadian crude, known as bitumen, is considerably less volatile and combustible than lighter oil from North Dakota, which was at the heart of the massive accident in Quebec eight years ago. But Canadian crude can still catch fire.

A Canadian Pacific train derailed in rural Saskatchewan in February 2020, spilling around 400,000 gallons of oil, which ignited. A similarly-sized CP derailment and oil spill two months earlier in Saskatchewan also burned.

USD says oil processed through its new technology is not flammable — and therefore not hazardous. A key to that claim involves something called diluent.

Bitumen from Canada's oil sands is so thick that it's often extracted from big open pit mines, a particularly carbon-intensive process. To make the stuff fluid enough to transport, oil shippers use diluent made from lighter — and more flammable — hydrocarbons.

Diluent typically makes up about 30% of the oil shipped through pipelines. Sometimes, oil will be moved directly off pipelines to railcars with that 30% diluent level maintained. Other times, trains will transport heavy crude with about 15% diluent.

USD Partners' said that with its "DRUbit" process, the diluent level of a barrel of oil is reduced to 5% and the diluent that remains has fewer light hydrocarbons.

"By design, DRUbit reduces diluent to allow the product to not meet the flammable and hazardous classifications of the U.S. Department of Transportation and Canada's Transport of Dangerous Goods regulations," USD said in a statement to the Star Tribune.

Canadian Pacific, also in a statement, said, "DRUbit is specifically designed for safe rail transportation."

U.S. and Canadian transportation regulators say it is the shipper's responsibility to classify whether oil and other cargoes are hazardous.

For years, companies in Canada's oil patch have been working on ways to remove diluent from rail cars — and not just for safety reasons. Economics plays a key role.

Diluent is a low-value product that adds costs to shipping, said Kevin Birn, a Calgary-based oil industry analyst for IHS Markit. "It basically occupies space."

USD's terminal in Hardisty, Alberta — a joint venture with the Canadian firm Gibson Energy — receives crude from pipelines with 30% diluent. It recycles much of that diluent and ships it back to Alberta oil producers to reuse, a particularly cost-effective measure.

Publicly traded USD Partners has a long-term agreement with oil producer ConocoPhillips to ship crude from Alberta and is looking for more customers.

Shipping oil by pipelines is generally significantly cheaper than by rail. But USD Partners claims that its technology is cost-competitive with pipelines — and analysts say that is possible.

The economics for USD Partners and the Canadian Pacific should get even better if CP's $27 billion purchase of Kansas City Southern goes through.

The Canadian Pacific's system runs south to Kansas City. From there, the KCS has extensive ties to the Gulf Coast — the largest U.S. oil refining hub — including Port Arthur, Texas. ConocoPhillips has a refinery nearby.

In Port Arthur, USD Partners has built a new terminal, which like its Hardisty venture, was completed this summer. Like CP, KCS has been instrumental in advancing the new DRUbit rail service to Port Arthur.

But with the merger, CP will be able to offer single-line service all the way to the Gulf Coast, which should reduce costs for all traffic moving on the combined railway.

"That single-line service, you'll hear us talk a lot about that," Kansas City Southern CEO Pat Ottensmeyer told stock analysts in September. "That is significant in that it avoids interchanges, avoids those [situations] that generally add cost and add time."

Lucy space mission apparent glitch under investigation by NASA and Lockheed after Saturday launch

Enlarge
A Lockheed Martin Space worker tests the deployment of one of the 24-foot- diameter solar arrays that power NASA's Lucy space probe. The spacecraft was built and tested at the company's headquarters in Jefferson County.
PATRICK H. CORKERY

By Greg Avery – Senior Reporter, 

Denver Business Journal
13 hours ago

NASA’s Lucy space probe, built in Jefferson County by Lockheed Martin Space, started its 4-billion-mile journey to study rare asteroids near Jupiter on Saturday, but the company and space agency are sorting out an apparent glitch in deploying the spacecraft’s solar arrays.

One of two 24-foot in diameter, circular solar arrays may not have “latched” into place after unfurling, and, while the $450 million space probe otherwise is functioning as planned, officials are trying to latch the array and understand if it might affect the planned 12-year research flight.

“Lockheed Martin and its Lucy mission operations flight team are working closely with NASA to address the situation with the spacecraft’s solar array,” Lockheed Martin Space said in an email statement issued by spokeswoman Lauren Duda. “We’re fully dedicated to the health, safety and success of the Lucy mission and team.”

The 3,300-pound Lucy launched successfully from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida before dawn Saturday on an Atlas V rocket made by Centennial-based United Launch Alliance.

Enlarge


A United Launch Alliance rocket lifts off from the launch pad at Cap Canaveral Space Force base, Florida, before dawn Oct. 16, 2021. It was the Centennial-based company's fourth launch of the year and its 146 consecutive successful mission.

UNITED LAUNCH ALLIANCE

Lucy was released from the rocket’s upper stage 58 minutes after launch, starting a complicated flight path to reach eight, rare Trojan-class asteroids orbiting the sun in two clusters, held in place by Jupiter’s gravity and traveling in the same orbital plane as the giant planet.

Lucy is designed to travel farther than any solar-powered spacecraft ever launched. The solar arrays, built by Northrop Grumman, are meant to generate 504 watts of electricity at the furthest Lucy will be from the sun, a distance at which the sun’s light is several times weaker than near earth.

The spacecraft unfurled its two solar arrays after launch to charge its batteries, each one unfolding like a Chinese hand fan.

Enlarge
Testing deployment of the solar arrays for NASA's Lucy space probe in early 2021 at Lockheed Martin Space's headquarters campus.
PATRICK H. CORKERY

There were indications that one of the two arrays didn’t latch into place as planned after it unfurled, NASA said Sunday. Both arrays were collecting power, Lucy’s batteries started charging, and all other systems were operating normally, NASA said.

“In the current spacecraft attitude, Lucy can continue to operate with no threat to its health and safety. The team is analyzing spacecraft data to understand the situation and determine next steps to achieve full deployment of the solar array,” NASA said in a Sunday blog post.

Lucy is scheduled to fly by four Trojan asteroids over 12 months starting in 2027. Then, after looping across the solar system assisted by earth and Jupiter’s gravity, it’s slated to reach the second swarm of Trojan asteroids in 2033.

Harold “Hal” Levison, chief scientist at the Southwest Research Institute office in Boulder, conceived of Lucy and is principal investigator leading its research mission.

The Trojan asteroids, unlike the ones orbiting in the asteroid belt just past Mars, are believed to be remnants of the material that pre-dates the solar system and came together billions of years ago to make planets.

Studying the asteroids is hoped to reveal insights about the processes that made planets and formed the solar system that exists today.

Russia's remote permafrost thaws, threatening homes and infrastructure




Russia's remote permafrost thaws, threatening homes and infrastructure

A drone picture shows private houses on a territory of former airfield, damaged by thermokarst processes in the village of Churapcha

Maxim Shemetov
Mon, October 18, 2021,

CHURAPCHA, Russia (Reuters) - The old airport in the Siberian settlement of Churapcha has been unusable for years, its runway transformed into a swampy field of puffed-up mounds and reliefs.

Like cities and towns across northern and northeastern Russia, Churapcha is suffering the consequence of climate change thawing the permafrost https://graphics.reuters.com/CLIMATE-CHANGE/PERMAFROST/oakveelglvr/index.html on which everything is built.


"There isn't a single settlement in Russia's Arctic where you wouldn't find a destroyed or deformed building," said Alexey Maslakov, a scientist at Moscow State University.

Homes are becoming separated from sinking earth. Pipelines and storage facilities are under threat. Roads are increasingly in need of repair.

As Russia warms 2.8 times faster than the global average, the melting of Siberia's long-frozen tundra is releasing greenhouse gases that scientists fear could frustrate global efforts to curb climate-warming emissions.

With permafrost covering 65% of Russia's landmass, the costs are already mounting.

Russia could face 7 trillion roubles ($97 billion) in infrastructure damage by 2050 if the rate of warming continues, said Mikhail Zheleznyak, director of Yakutsk's Melnikov Permafrost Institute.

The bumpy landscape around Churapcha, located some 5,000 km (3,100 miles) east of Moscow, resembles giant sheets of bubble wrap in places where ice wedges inside the ground have melted, causing the ground to crumble, sag or cave in altogether.

"Roads, electric power supply lines, gas pipelines, oil pipelines - all linear structures respond primarily to the warming climate and its impact on the permafrost," said Alexander Fyodorov, deputy director of the Permafrost Institute.

'WE HAVE TO ADAPT'

Built in the 1960s and 1970s as Soviet Russia expanded into the Arctic, many buildings in the far north and far east were constructed with the assumption that the permafrost – frozen for millennia – was sturdy and would never thaw.

Apartment blocks sit atop stilts driven metres into the ground.

Churapcha, with a population of 10,000, saw its airport closed in the 1990s because of the melt, scientists say.

Over the years, the once-smooth runway has become a mottled field that looks more like a dragon's back, as the ground sinks and the ice melts. Eventually, the area could become a lake, according to scientists.

Fyodorov at the Permafrost Institute has been studying the site for years, and found that some areas were subsiding at an average rate of 2-4 centimetres a year, while others were sinking by up to 12 cms annually.

In eight settlements in central Yakutia, a region in northeast Russia, 72% of people surveyed by the North-Eastern State University said they have had problems with the subsidence of their homes' foundations, said Fyodorov.

Across Russia, there are more than 15 million people living on permafrost foundations. Russia is investing to better monitor the subterranean thaw.

"We don't know what's actually happening to it," Ecology Minister Alexander Kozlov said in August. "We need the monitoring not only to follow what is melting and how. Scientists will use it to predict its consequences and learn how to prevent accidents."

The ministry plans to deploy 140 monitoring stations, each with up to 30-metre wells to measure the situation underground. While that may help determine how quickly the region is thawing, it won't help villagers like Yegor Dyachkovsky whose home is already buckling at Churapcha's former airport.

In the five years since his family built their home, the ground has sunk below it. At first the home was raised 30 centimetres off the ground on its stilt foundations. The gap is now a full metre.

Dyachkovsky has brought five truckloads of soil to fill the gap between the ground and his home, and says he still needs more.

Some of his neighbors are trying to sell their homes. "Everyone is trying to figure out the situation on their own," said Sergei Atlasov, another Churapcha resident.

But Dyachkovsky's family is actually building a garage and seems ready to take his chances.

"How can we go against nature? We have to adapt," Dyachkovsky said. "It's like this everywhere. There's no one to complain to. To the spirit up high, perhaps."

(Reporting by Maxim Shemetov; additional reporting by Maria Vasilyeva and Dmitry Turlyun; Writing by Tom Balmforth; Editing by Katy Daigle and Mike Collett-White)

NYC
They made homes of illegal basement apartments. Ida's surge killed them.


LONG READ

NYT

Mon, October 18, 2021

Hongsheng Leng used to sell his art in New York's Times Square, where he would set up his works against the backdrop of neon lights and big-box stores. Some pieces he was proudest of were Chinese ink on rice paper — ones he’d name “Bamboo” and “Spring.” Leng, 82, also worked odd jobs under a visitor’s visa he was granted in 1995, when he immigrated to the U.S. from China. His friends once described him as “always optimistic.”

“He was very, very happy doing his artwork,” Norman Wong, Leng’s longtime friend and immigration lawyer said, adding that his work was driven by purpose. "It’s not like he was trying to make himself known or he thought he had any chance of success.”

His family joined him in the U.S. after he secured asylum and later a green card. Together with his wife, they cared for their daughter, who had autism and needed added home assistance. His earnings were barely enough to get by on, and as he got older, he had to slow down, and the family mostly relied on welfare. Once he retired with medical issues, he was largely confined to his home — a small, inexpensive basement apartment in Queens.

Stuck in a precarious financial situation, the family had no choice but to continue living there, his estate lawyer Jim Li said.

It was a plight that would prove fatal. After Hurricane Ida ripped through New York City, Leng was found dead in his flooded basement apartment at noon on Sept. 2. The bodies of his wife and daughter were discovered later that same day.
Related video: Inside a New York apartment after Hurricane Ida


Nearly all of the 11 New York City basement-flooding deaths were residents of Asian descent who lived in below-ground dwellings that were particularly susceptible to storms. The victims included Leng; his wife, Aihua Shen, 65; and their daughter, Ling Leng, 31. They were in addition to: Darlene Lee, 48; Yue Lian Chen, 84; Lobsang Lama, 2, and his parents, Mingma Sherpa, 48, and Ang Sherpa, 50; and Tara Ramskriet, 43, and her son Nick Ramskriet, 22. One victim hasn’t been named.

“Realistically, a lot of these tenants would have family members, many who are clustered into very, very small rooms,” Lina Lee, a nonprofit executive, said. “When you have these natural disasters, there's obviously going to be really a life-and-death situation."

More than a month after the storm, communities and families are still reeling from the loss, which experts say was the result of a confluence of crises, including a lack of affordable housing, the pandemic and climate change — a hidden issue for many low-income Asian immigrants who are often forced by cultural needs, poverty and immigration status to live in unsafe conditions. In addition, many face language barriers and some of the highest rates of multigenerational living.

The average income in the Queens neighborhoods where victims died ranged from $39,763 to $50,952, and the median monthly rent for an apartment in the borough is $2,250.

Image: Hurricane Ida flood cleanup. (Mark Lennihan / AP file)

“Realistically, a lot of these tenants would have family members, many who are clustered into very, very small rooms,” said Lina Lee, executive director of housing justice nonprofit organization Communities Resist. “When you have these natural disasters, there's obviously going to be really a life-and-death situation, and when you have very limited or no access to leave your living space, these families really had no way out.”

According to the New York City Department of Buildings, five of the six properties where New Yorkers died in the flooding were illegally converted cellar and basement apartments. All six are undergoing active law enforcement investigations, including the one where the Leng family lived. The Department of Buildings received a complaint in 2007 that the property included an illegally converted apartment. Inspectors visited the property twice, but no one responded to knocks on the door, so the complaint was never investigated, according to the department's records.

Many basements are “high-risk, dangerous” living situations in the city, Lee said. They often have low ceilings with exposed wiring and bathrooms that don’t function properly. When water floods into their space, the families often do not have a window or a direct exit from which they can flee. Lee said it’s easy to get trapped inside.
‘I couldn’t be there for her’

On Sept. 1, Darlene Lee, who lived on the sixth floor of her building, went downstairs to visit the superintendent’s cramped basement apartment. When it started to rain, water poured into the unit, crashing through a sliding glass door and pinning Lee to the metal frame of the entrance. Her screams caught the attention of two building maintenance workers, who rushed in to help. But she was stuck, and the water levels were rising.

Fighting to keep her head above water, the two men tried to free her by taking the door off its hinges, but they too struggled to stay afloat in the murky water. By the time she was freed around 10 p.m., it was too late. She was transferred to a nearby hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

Image: Darlene Lee (Facebook)

It was 1 a.m. when Dennis Hsu got a call from his sister saying Lee, his ex-wife and close friend, was at the hospital. Rain was beating down on already flooded streets, but Hsu rushed over. When he finally got there, he was asked to identify her body.

A month later, he said he can’t even bear to look at her photo — and he will always miss her.

Even after their split, she was there for him as a friend in his times of need. He described her as selfless, caring for everyone around her.

"I can't accept mother nature had 100 percent fault in this,” Dennis Hsu, Darlene Lee's friend and ex-husband, said.

“It’s one in a million that you find a person like her,” Hsu said. “I couldn’t be there for her.”

Others had no immediate family to turn to in the U.S. That was the case for Nepali immigrants Mingma Sherpa; her husband, Ang Lama; and their young son, Lobsang Lama, according to a GoFundMe created by their niece. Sherpa was also the sole provider for her mother in Nepal.

The role of landlords

City data shows that nearly a quarter of Asian American immigrants live in poverty, among the highest rates compared to other races. An estimated 13 percent of Asian American and Pacific Islander immigrants are undocumented, according to the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs, a share that experts have long said is likely an underestimate. The number of undocumented Asian immigrants has grown rapidly, tripling from 2000-2015, a 15-year period.

Close quarters where families pack tightly has made the impacts of Covid grave, and displacement by the flooding has only worsened its effects on the lower-income.

Image: Johnson Ho's basement in the days following the flood. 

(Courtesy Johnson Ho)

Given these vulnerabilities, many Asian immigrants resort to living in illegal basement apartments of their family, friends and social networks. For some, it’s because they have nowhere else to go.

The city defines an illegal conversion as one that was done without the necessary permits from the Department of Buildings. Basement apartments are a popular example. Often, there’s no formal paperwork between landlord and tenant, only a verbal agreement.

“They cluster in small communities where they are able to access people who speak the same language, who are from the same culture and are living in the same conditions that they have to live in,” Lina Lee, of the housing group, said. “For them, they have nowhere else to live with, except those small pockets in Queens.”

Johnson Ho lives in one of the Queens neighborhoods that was devastated the most by the flooding. It’s the same block he grew up on and is mostly made up of Chinese immigrants. He had always felt safe in his second-floor unit; the first-floor unit is occupied by four lower-income tenants who were placed there by a local church that once used the property.

“You’re not going to have people pouring out clamoring to connect with a city official,” nonprofit organization executive Annetta Seecharran said. “They need the help, they’re afraid.”

When the rain worsened during the night of Sept. 1, Ho left the second floor and walked downstairs, where water was already pouring in from under the front door. It had risen several feet and covered the front stoop. Within 20 minutes, the first floor was completely underwater.

Image: The stairs leading down to Johnson Ho's storage basement.

 (Courtesy Johnson Ho)

He heard knocks at his door. His neighbors were trapped outside and had no place to go.

“I waddled through the 3 or 4 feet of sewage water,” he said.

He unlocked his door for them, and the four tenants spent the night in Ho’s living room, where they were safe until the Red Cross placed them in hotels the next day. Ho fears what might have happened if he had been asleep when they knocked.

The next day was chaotic in his apartment and his neighborhood, he said. People were hand-washing their clothes in the streets and trying to contact emergency services. A forensic team, police officers and a police car blocked the street four houses down. A family had died in their basement apartment.

The first floor of Ho’s building was uninhabitable. Fridges, furniture, food and personal effects of his four neighbors were destroyed. The basement was covered in a layer of sewage that had such a stench that city cleaning crews hesitated to enter. Ho’s car, parked on the hill, was totaled. Despite the destruction, many in the community were reluctant to accept government aid because of their fear of being criminalized for their immigration status or their basement units, Ho said.

Myoungmi Kim, executive vice president of Queens-based nonprofit group Korean Community Services of Metropolitan New York, said the day after the storm, nearly 500 people contacted her organization for help. Government assistance exists, she said, but it’s difficult to navigate, especially when services are only in English. So her group steps in to fill urgent needs.

“The day after the storm, so many people wanted to talk to me because of the KCS emergency fund distribution. But they couldn’t speak because of their crying,” Kim said. “They just cried and kept crying and crying because they had lost everything.”

Lee said the solution isn’t as simple as reporting landlords for housing violations. If tenants make a complaint, the Department of Buildings, which enforces building codes and zoning regulations, may not necessarily fix the problem, she said. Rather, the agency could issue a vacate order, forcing a tenant, who likely does not have much money, to move immediately. For those displaced because of vacate orders, the Environmental Housing Department provides relocation and rehousing services in family centers and single-room-occupancy hotels, defined as smaller-than-average studio apartments sharing common kitchen or bathroom facilities, according to the Department of Buildings website.

Image: Damage to the first floor of Johnson Ho's apartment building, where four lower-income Asian Americans lived in one unit. (Courtesy Johnson Ho)

“For the tenant, it's not worth even reporting these repairs. It's just not worth reporting the living conditions because the other choice would just be living on the streets,” Lee said.

In many cases, the landlords who offer these basement areas for Asian immigrant families may not have insidious intentions, she said. Landlords themselves are often low-income and bring in tenants for extra income but don’t have the resources for major fixes.

That’s not to say marginalized tenants don’t face exploitation, Lee said, since some predatory landlords take advantage of vulnerable, undocumented and limited-English-speaking immigrants. But these circumstances aren’t just the result of predatory landlords and developers: It’s also about the severe lack of public resources that go toward protecting these families, she said.

“It is only when there is a tragedy like the victims of Hurricane Ida that the city pays attention to the plights of Asian American tenants,” Lee said.

Community organizations attempt to do what officials haven’t: Too often, community organizations end up picking up the government’s slack, experts say.

“There have been so many issues with folks being able to get what they need on time,” said Annetta Seecharran, executive director of Chhaya, a New York-based organization dedicated to helping low-income South Asians and Indo-Caribbeans with housing needs.

For South Asians in Queens, who are more likely to live in multigenerational housing, the need is critical, especially for caregivers and older people still dealing with the impacts of Covid-19, Seecharran said.

“The Indo-Caribbean community was ravaged by Covid,” she said.

Bangladeshis and Indo-Caribbeans tend to be essential workers, with the former group living in some of the most overcrowded housing conditions in the city, according to Chhaya research. And the destruction of homes and property with the flood has the potential to worsen this problem.

Undocumented folks and those living in basements are even less likely to trust government officials, Seecharran said, and they often won’t ask for help at all. She and other organizers have been trying to bridge the gap, providing free, culture-specific meals and translation services for those looking to get aid.

Image: Johnson Ho. (Courtesy Johnson Ho)

“FEMA is coming in and telling them to fill out these applications, but they don't have access to them,” Deepti Sharmi, who has worked in community food access for years, said, referring to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. “They don't understand them.”

Ho, one of the only English speakers on his block in Queens, has been going to houses in his neighborhood to help people fill out forms. He’s also been communicating with the Office of the Queensborough President about his community’s needs.

“With a lot of the housing, they got moved to JFK airport, which is an almost two-hour bus commute,” he said. “These are elderly, retired Asian people who only speak Chinese. That was really difficult for them.”
Asking to be a ‘priority’

Kim, of the Korean Community Services of Metropolitan New York, said there needs to be more awareness around climate change and the simple things immigrants can do to protect themselves, like calling 911 during flooding emergencies and unlocking car doors to prevent being trapped. But experts also say there needs to be more institutional support for vulnerable communities.

“We keep being shown that we, frankly, are just not a priority,” Sharma said. “It feels like every time there’s a disaster, nothing is set up.”

Julie Sze, a professor of American studies at University of California, Davis, who focuses on environmental justice, said marginalized populations are often unconsciously or consciously viewed as easily disposable.

“A lot of the common sense of how things are structured are already based on a racist necropolitics, where it's just assumed that some populations are more vulnerable to death than others,” Sze said. “It’s this idea that some people are meant to die.”

Community activists trying to direct aid to people said that on top of the lack of disaster preparation in general, they noticed that the city’s history of punishing tenants and landlords of basement apartments made people less likely to come forward.

Image: Cleanup crews clean sewage, dirt and damage from the basement of Johnson Ho's apartment. (Courtesy Johnson Ho)

“You’re not going to have people pouring out, clamoring to connect with a city official,” Seecharran said. “They need the help. They’re afraid.”

The day after the flooding, Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Bill de Blasio went to Queens and visited some of the neighborhoods that were heavily impacted, including Ho’s.

De Blasio told MSNBC after the storm that even airtight plans can topple in the wake of a storm, but more needs to be done about basement apartments. In May, he proposed an emergency warning system for basement-dwellers for when storms are about to make landfall. The completion date is set for 2023.

“All the people came by and did a whole show for the news,” Ho said. “They give their promises, and they move on.”

Dennis Hsu, Darlene Lee's ex-husband, said he’s frustrated by the emergency response time and the lack of safety measures that led to her death, and the cost was something he can never get back.

"I can't accept Mother Nature had 100 percent fault in this," he said.

Billionaire ex-Walmart exec says the first 'settlers' of his planned $400 billion city 'Telosa' will likely be selected through applications - and they could move in by 2030

Avery Hartmans

Mon, October 18, 2021,

A rendering of Telosa, including the "Equitism Tower." BIG and Bucharest Studio

• Former Walmart exec Marc Lore wants to build a futuristic utopia called Telosa.

• Telosa will be built on the concept of "equitism," a mash-up of equality and capitalism.

• There will be an application for the first 50,000 Telosa "settlers," who could move in by 2030.

If Marc Lore's vision comes to fruition, 50,000 residents could be living in a egalitarian utopia by 2030.

Lore, who stepped down as CEO of Walmart's US e-commerce division earlier this year, announced last month that he plans to build a futuristic city known as Telosa. Telosa - which gets its name from an Ancient Greek word meaning "highest purpose" - plans to offer its citizens equal access to education, healthcare, and transportation. Residents will get around in autonomous vehicles and the city will run on renewable energy, Telosa's website promises.

While citizens of Telosa will be able to build their own homes and sell them, the city will maintain ownership of the land itself, Lore told USA Today's Scott Gleeson on Sunday. He calls his vision for the city "equitism" - a mash-up of equality and capitalism.

"The sole purpose of creating a city in the desert would be so it's owned by the community, basically take all the appreciation of the land and give it back to the citizens," Lore told USA Today. "Taxes paid will go back to the city for infrastructure - roads, tunnels and bridges - so everyone would know exactly where their money is going."

It's an ambitious endeavor, and an expensive one: the city's website estimates the first phase will cost $25 billion, with the total cost of the city surpassing $400 billion. It will be funded by investors and philanthropists, as well as government grants and subsidies, according to the Telosa website.

There's no set location for Telosa just yet, but a few regions have been mentioned as possibilities: Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Arizona, Texas, and the Appalachian Region, which includes 13 states in the eastern part of the US.

A rendering of the streets of Telosa. BIG and Bucharest Studio

The first phase of Telosa - stocking the city with 50,000 residents by 2030 - will likely include an application process, Lore told USA Today.

"Settlers" of the city will be chosen via a selection process focused on diversity and inclusion, he said, and he's working to determine the criteria with the help of a team of staff and volunteers that includes architects, economists, engineers, climate experts, and more.

Lore told USA Today that he also plans to build a venture capital fund for startups willing to relocate to Telosa.

In renderings of Telosa created by the prestigious Danish architectural firm Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), the streets are filled with robots and autonomous vehicles, there's a high-speed rail system, and a futuristic skyscraper - dubbed "Equitism Tower," according to USA Today - dominates the skyline.

Telosa may be Lore's most radical undertaking to date, but he has a long history of entrepreneurial projects. In 2005, Lore cofounded Quidsi, the parent company of Diapers.com, which he sold to Amazon six years later for $500 million. After a short stint at Amazon, Lore founded Jet.com, an e-commerce competitor that he sold to Walmart in 2016 for $3 billion in cash, plus stock. He served as Walmart's US e-commerce CEO for over four years, announcing in January 2021 that he was leaving to focus on building "a reformed version of capitalism," he told Recode at the time.

Like fellow tech billionaires Mark Cuban, Steve Ballmer, and the late Paul Allen, Lore has also gotten involved in the world of professional sports: In July, Lore and former Yankees star Alex Rodriguez teamed up to purchase the NBA's Minnesota Timberwolves and the WNBA's Minnesota Lynx.

Amnesty warns of crackdown on free speech during COVID-19 pandemic

Amnesty said that many governments had used the pandemic as an opportunity to further restrict freedom of expression. It also cited the role of social media in the spread of misinformation.


Amnesty International warned that restrictions on free speech  

were likely to stay in force even after the pandemic


Amnesty International warned on Tuesday that oppressive regimes around the world have used the coronavirus pandemic to crackdown on free speech and independent media.

The rights group's report, titled 'Silenced and misinformed: Freedom of expression in danger during Covid-19,' cited a slew of measures announced by governments around the world that placed "unprecedented" curbs on freedom of expression since 2020.

"Communication channels have been targeted, social media has been censored, and media outlets have been closed down," said Rajat Khosla, Amnesty International's senior director for research advocacy and policy.

Lives may also have been lost due to lack of proper information, he added.

"Governments that have long kept a tight control over what is shared in the public domain with overly restrictive legislation, have used the pandemic as another excuse to apply laws to censor and silence criticism, debate, and the sharing of information," Amnesty's report said.

"Other governments have used the widespread alarm and confusion generated by the pandemic to rush through new legislation and other emergency measures that are not only disproportionate but also ineffective to deal with issues such as misinformation.

China, Russia further restrict freedoms

The report said that China, where the virus first emerged at the end of 2019, had opened criminal investigations into 5,511 people by February 2020.

These people had been charged with "fabricating and deliberately disseminating false and harmful information" about the nature and extent of the outbreak, according to Chinese authorities.

Russia expanded its anti-"fake news" legislation and introduced amendments that imposed criminal penalties for what it called "public dissemination of knowingly false information" in the context of emergencies, Amnesty said.

It also imposed administrative penalties for media outlets that publish such information, the report added.

The London-based group warned that these laws and penalties were likely to stay in force even after the pandemic.
Social media and the 'onslaught of misinformation'

The report also took aim at the role of social media companies in "facilitating" the spread of misinformation.

It said the reason for this was that social media "platforms are designed to amplify attention-grabbing content to engage users and have not done enough due diligence to prevent the spread of false and misleading information."

"The onslaught of misinformation… is posing a serious threat to the rights to freedom of expression and to health," the 38-page report said.

"States and social media companies must ensure the public has unfettered access to accurate, evidence-based, and timely information," Khosla said.

"This is a crucial step to minimize vaccine hesitancy driven by misinformation."

60 YEARS OF AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL

Amnesty for forgotten prisoners

In 1961, Portugal's dictator imprisoned two students for raising a toast to freedom. Affected by the news, lawyer Peter Benenson wrote an article that made a global impact. He called for supporting people who are persecuted for no other reason than their convictions. It led to the creation of Amnesty International, a global network that campaigns against human rights violations.

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adi/sri (AFP, dpa)

#DECRIMINALIZEDRUGS
Ecuador president declares state of emergency over drug violence

Relative of one of 119 convicts killed in a flare-up of gang violence at a prison waits for the body outside the morgue in Guayaquil, Ecuador, on October 3, 2021

 Fernando Méndez AFP

Issued on: 19/10/2021 - 

Quito (AFP)

Ecuador's President Guillermo Lasso on Monday declared a state of emergency in the country grappling with a surge in drug-related violence, and ordered the mobilization of police and military in the streets.

"Starting immediately, our Armed Forces and police will be felt with force in the streets because we are decreeing a state of emergency throughout the national territory," said the president in a speech broadcast by the state channel EcuadorTV.

"In the streets of Ecuador there is only one enemy: drug trafficking," declared the right-wing leader, adding that "in recent years Ecuador has gone from being a drug trafficking country to one that also consumes drugs."

The announcement came on the eve of an official visit by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Ecuador and Colombia in a bid to support and broaden ties with the Latin American democracies.

Blinken will speak with Lasso about cooperation in matters of security, defense and trade.

Violence has been spiking dramatically in Ecuador in recent months. Between January and October this year, the country registered almost 1,900 homicides, compared to about 1,400 in all of 2020, according to the government.

The state of emergency imposed for 60 days allows the government to mobilize 3,600 soldiers and police to patrol 65 prisons nationwide. Lasso said that police will also be patrolling the streets.

Earlier Monday, Lasso named a new defense minister as the country reels from a massive prisons crisis.

The president appointed retired general Luis Hernandez to the post, citing a "inadequate public safety" in the South American nation.

Hernandez will replace Fernando Donoso. The government did not give a reason for the shakeup.

But it comes as the country's prison system grapples with a spate of bloody riots.

So far in 2021, 238 prisoners have died in the riots.

"Ecuador is experiencing a period of insecurity, an insecurity that has as its origin several factors, one of them drug trafficking," said the president, adding that the Andean nation needs "stronger, more solid" armed forces.

Two weeks ago, jailed members of crime groups linked to cartels in Mexico and Colombia battled with firearms for control of a penitentiary in the southwestern city of Guayaquil. The fighting left 119 inmates dead in one of the worst prison massacres in the history of Latin America.

Lasso pointed out that more than 70 percent of violent deaths that occur in the coastal province of Guayas, whose capital is Guayaquil, are in some way related to drug trafficking.

"When drug trafficking grows, so do the numbers of hit men and homicides," in addition to other crimes such as robbery, the president said.

© 2021 AFP

Relatives crowd prison after Myanmar junta protester amnesty

People wait outside the Insein Prison in Yangon as authorities announced more than 5,000 people jailed for protesting against a February coup would be released - AFP


Issued on: 19/10/2021 
Yangon (AFP)

Family members of Myanmar's pro-democracy prisoners crowded outside a jail Tuesday, hoping their relatives would be among thousands the junta has promised to release as it faces growing international pressure.

The Southeast Asian country has been in chaos since a coup in February, with more than 1,100 civilians killed in a bloody crackdown on dissent and more than 8,000 arrested, according to a local monitoring group.

On Monday, the junta said it would free more than 5,000 to mark the three-day Buddhist Thadingyut festival, sending anxious families rushing to the colonial-era Insein prison in Yangon, joyful at the prospect of reunions after months apart.

Several buses left the prison, with those inside giving thumbs up gestures to a cheering crowd, some of whom flashed the three-finger salute -- a popular protest symbol.

Factory worker Kyi Kyi was one of dozens waiting outside the prison early Tuesday, hoping to see her husband, who was arrested in February.

"I also came here yesterday," she told AFP.

"He was not released. Hopefully, he will be today."

Nwet Nwet San, said he was hoping his son, a soldier who had run away from the army, would be freed.

"He's been in prison for eight months," he told AFP.

"I heard mostly protesters will be released. I also heard other criminals will be released as well. That's why I'm waiting."

- ASEAN snub -

Myanmar authorities released more than 2,000 anti-coup protesters from prisons across the country in June, including journalists critical of the military government.

Those still in custody include the American journalist Danny Fenster, who has been held since being arrested on May 24.

The latest and larger release comes with the junta under increasing pressure to engage with its opponents, nearly nine months after seizing power.

On Friday, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations decided to exclude junta leader Min Aung Hlaing from an upcoming summit of the 10-country bloc because of doubts about his administration's commitment to defusing the bloody crisis.

The organisation, often criticised as toothless, took a stand after the junta rebuffed requests for a special envoy to meet "all stakeholders" in Myanmar -- a phrase seen to include ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

The coup snuffed out Myanmar's short-lived experiment with democracy and the 76-year-old Suu Kyi now faces a raft of charges in a junta court that could see her jailed for decades.

Last week, her chief lawyer said he had been banned by the junta from speaking to journalists, diplomats or international organisations.

The other lawyers on her legal team also face a similar ban -- effectively muzzling the key sources of information on court proceedings, from which journalists are barred.

© 2021 AFP

BUSHMEAT

Five critically endangered monkeys shot dead in Vietnam

Issued on: 19/10/2021 - 

A baby douc langur walks along a branch at the Singapore Zoo

 Roslan RAHMAN AFP/File

Hanoi (AFP)

Poachers in Vietnam have shot dead five critically endangered langurs, a type of monkey killed for bushmeat and traditional medicine, state media said Tuesday.

Rangers and police found the dead grey-shanked douc langurs during a regular patrol of forests in Quang Ngai province.

Restricted to the forests of central Vietnam, the known global population of this type of langur is less than 1,000, according to conservation group Fauna and Flora International (FFI).

Other conservation groups estimate their number may be higher as some habitat areas have not yet been surveyed.

The primate is a regular victim of the illegal wildlife trade, and is sought after for bushmeat, traditional medicine and the pet trade, FFI says. They are also threatened by deforestation.

It is listed as "critically endangered", the highest risk category under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

In Quang Ngai, the poachers ran off, leaving behind a motorbike, bullets and silencers, VNExpress news site said in a report.

Local authorities are "looking into the case", it added.

The grey-shanked douc langur is listed in Vietnam's "red book", making it a criminal offence to kill one.

But law enforcement is a huge issue.

"Authorities must find those responsible," said Ha Thang Long, director of GreenViet, which works in biodiversity conservation in Vietnam's central regions.

"If we fail to... bring them to justice, this will continue to happen."

Under Vietnamese law, poachers in such a case could face seven years in jail, he added.

Vietnam is home to some of the world's most endangered species, including the Red River giant soft-shell turtle, the Tonkin snub-nosed monkey and the saola, a type of mountainous antelope.

Wild animals are under constant threat in the country, with their body parts in high demand for both food and traditional medicine.

© 2021 AFP

GREENWASHING 

Mexican president promises to help US in climate push

Mon, October 18, 2021, 

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador promised Monday to help the U.S. government push for stronger action on climate change.

Speaking at an event with U.S. climate envoy John Kerry, López Obrador said that “we are going to support the plan President (Joe) Biden is promoting" ahead of a United Nations climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, at the end of the month.

Kerry appeared with the Mexican leader at a ceremony for Mexico’s tree-planting program, which López Obrador has touted as an answer to both climate change and migration. The program pays farmers a monthly stipend to plant and care for trees.


López Obrador has long wanted the United States to fund an expansion of the program into Central America, but the U.S. government has been hesitant because there is evidence some farmers cut down existing forest to get money for re-planting.

Kerry was also careful to avoid mentioning López Obrador’s fascination with fossil fuels. The Mexican leader is building new oil refinery capacity and favors government-owned power plants that burn coal and fuel oil.

Nor did Kerry mention the Mexican leader’s plan to limit electricity purchases from private, foreign-owned solar and wind power projects.

Experts say López Obrador's polices could endanger Mexico's compliance with existing carbon reduction commitments. The president contends plans to increase hydroelectric capacity will allow Mexico to meet those goals.

But Kerry praised the reforestation effort.

“Whenever I talk about the challenge of the climate crisis, yes, I talk about energy and energy choices,” Kerry said. “But I always talk about nature-based solutions.”

Kerry did say that a transition to electric vehicles would provide “a lot of good-paying jobs here in Mexico" because many U.S. automakers have assembly plants here.

US climate envoy praises Mexico's efforts

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (C) and US Government Special Envoy for Climate Change, John Kerry (R), in Palenque, Chiapas State, Mexico, on October 18, 2021 - Mexican Presidency/AFP

Issued on: 19/10/2021

Mexico City (AFP)

US special climate envoy John Kerry on Monday praised Mexico's efforts to fight global warming.

Visiting a reforestation program in the southern state of Chiapas together with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, Kerry said that combatting climate change "cannot be achieved without reforestation and dealing with deforestation."

“All of us in the world need to focus in what Lopez Obrador is trying to do," Kerry added.

One million hectares of trees have been replanted as part of the "Sembrando Vida" ("Sowing Life") program, according to the Mexican government.

Kerry praised the program, saying that it focuses "on people, on people lives, on work, on the ability to be able of stay where you live, on the ability of stay connected to the land as part of the future”.

The Mexican president said Sembrando Vida, which has been replicated in El Salvador and Honduras, creates jobs and thus helps contain migration to the United States through Mexico.

Kerry visited Mexico before flying to London ahead of the COP26 UN climate summit which begins on October 31 in Glasgow.

© 2021 AFP