CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M; GNOMES OF ZURICH
Diamond magnate appeals Swiss corruption verdict


By AFP
Published August 27, 2022

Steinmetz, previously sentenced to five years behind bars for corruption linked to mining rights deals in Guinea, insists he is the victim of a "big injustice" -

 Copyright AFP/File Christophe ARCHAMBAULT

Nina LARSON

French-Israeli diamond magnate Beny Steinmetz will be back in court in Switzerland on Monday to appeal against a corruption sentence linked to mining rights in Guinea.

A Geneva court convicted the 66-year-old businessman in January 2021 of setting up a complex financial web to pay bribes to ensure his company could obtain permits in an area estimated to contain the world’s biggest untapped deposits of iron ore.

He was sentenced to five years in prison and also ordered to pay 50 million Swiss francs ($52 million) in compensation to the canton of Geneva.

Steinmetz maintained his innocence throughout that trial and immediately appealed against the ruling, decrying it as a “big injustice”.

Two of his alleged co-conspirators, who were slapped with shorter jail terms, are also appealing.

Steinmetz has changed his legal and communications team for the appeal, and they are preparing to argue that the lower court had not fully heard his arguments and had misunderstood the situation.

The first trial had painted Steinmetz in a way that “does not at all correspond to reality,” his spokesman Marc Comina said in a document detailing the diamond magnate’s case.

Far from being corrupt, Beny Steinmetz Group Resources (BSGR) had legitimately obtained the mining rights in question, and had striven in difficult and complex circumstances to set up an operation that would have benefited Guinea’s national interests, the document said.

– ‘Pact of corruption’ –

Swiss prosecutors painted a far different picture during the first trial, which was the culmination of a drawn-out international investigation that kicked off in Switzerland in 2013.

They accused Steinmetz and two partners of bribing a wife of the then Guinean president Lansana Conte and others in order to win mining rights in the southeastern Simandou region.

The prosecutors said Steinmetz obtained the rights shortly before Conte died in 2008 after about $10 million was paid in bribes over a number of years, some through Swiss bank accounts.

Conte’s military dictatorship ordered global mining giant Rio Tinto to relinquish two concessions to BSGR for around $170 million in 2008.

Just 18 months later, BSGR sold 51 percent of its stake in the concession to Brazilian mining giant Vale for $2.5 billion.

But in 2013, Guinea’s first democratically-elected president Alpha Conde launched a review of permits allotted under Conte and later stripped the VBG consortium formed by BSGR and Vale, of its permit.

To secure the initial deal, prosecutors claimed Steinmetz and representatives in Guinea entered a “pact of corruption” with Conte and his fourth wife Mamadie Toure.

Toure, who has admitted to having received payments, has protected status in the United States as a state witness.

She and a number of other key witnesses in the case failed to appear in the first trial, and it remained unclear if they would attend the appeal.

– ‘Totally false’ –

Steinmetz, who lived in Geneva during the years when the bribes were allegedly paid, continues to maintain that the bribery allegations are “totally false”, according to the document released by his team.

It insisted that Rio Tinto had lost the rights to half of its concessions in Simandou over its failure to develop them, in accordance with Guinean mining laws, and that BSGR later legitimately bid for and obtained the rights.

There was “nothing illegal or arbitrary” about that decision, the document said.

It also argued that the lower court had misunderstood the nature of the deal with Vale, and that BSGR had wanted to create a lasting partnership and business in Guinea.

“BSGR never intended to leave Guinea once the partnership with Vale was signed,” it said.

“Had it not been driven out of the country, BSGR would still be operating in Guinea today and would be a major player in the country’s economic rise.”

Steinmetz, who was granted a legal free-passage guarantee in order to participate in the first trial, left Switzerland without serving his sentence.

He will be back in the Geneva court from Monday to argue his case after receiving another free-passage, with the appeal hearing due to last through September 7. The verdict will come at a later date.

In Poland, Where Coal is King, Homeowners Queue for Days to Buy Fuel

August 27, 2022 
Reuters

Truck drivers rest in the shade in front of the Bogdanka coal mine 

while they wait for coal to be loaded, in Bogdanka, Poland, Aug. 26, 2022.

WARSAW/BOGDANKA, POLAND —

In Poland's late summer heat, dozens of cars and trucks line up at the Lubelski Wegiel Bogdanka coal mine, as people fearful of winter shortages wait for days to stock up on heating fuel in queues reminiscent of communist times.

Artur, 57, a pensioner, drove up from Swidnik, some 30 kilometers from the mine in eastern Poland on Tuesday, hoping to buy several tons of coal for himself and his family.

"Toilets were put up today, but there's no running water," he said, after three nights of sleeping in his small red hatchback in a crawling queue of trucks, tractors towing trailers and private cars.

"This is beyond imagination; people are sleeping in their cars. I remember the communist times, but it didn't cross my mind that we could return to something even worse."

Artur's household is one of the 3.8 million in Poland that rely on coal for heating and now face shortages and price hikes, after Poland and the European Union imposed an embargo on Russian coal following Moscow's invasion of Ukraine in February.

Poland banned purchases with an immediate effect in April, while the bloc mandated fading them out by August.

While Poland produces over 50 million tons from its own mines every year, imported coal, much of it from Russia, is a household staple because of competitive prices and the fact that Russian coal is sold in lumps more suitable for home use.

Soaring demand has forced Bogdanka and other state-controlled mines to ration sales or offer the fuel to individual buyers via online platforms, in limited amounts. Artur, who did not want to give his full name, said he had collected paperwork from his extended family in the hope of picking up all their fuel allocations at once.

The mine planned to sell fuel for some 250 households Friday and would continue sales over the weekend to cut waiting times, Dorota Choma, a representative for the Bogdanka mine told Reuters.

The limits are in place to prevent hoarding and profiteering, or even selling spots in the queue, Choma said.

Cars and trucks queue for more than a kilometer to pick up coal in front of the Bogdanka mine in Bogdanka, Poland, Aug. 26, 2022.

Like all Polish coal mines, Bogdanka typically sells most of the coal it produces to power plants. Last year, it sold less than 1% of its output to individual clients so it lacks the logistics to sell fuel directly to retail buyers.

Lukasz Horbacz, head of the Polish Coal Merchant Chamber of Commerce, said the decline in Russian imports began in January when Moscow started using rail tracks for military transport.

"But the main reason for the shortages is the embargo that went into immediate effect. It turned the market upside down," he told Reuters.

A spokesperson for the Weglokoks, a state-owned coal trader tasked by the government to boost imports from other countries declined to comment, while the climate ministry was not available for comment. Government officials have repeatedly said Poland would have enough fuel to meet demand.

In recent years, Poland has been the most vocal critic of EU climate policy and a staunch defender of coal that generates as much as 80% of its electricity. But coal output has steadily declined as the cost of mining at deeper levels increases.

Coal consumption has held mostly steady, prompting a gradual rise in imports. In 2021, Poland imported 12 million tons of coal, of which 8 million tons came from Russia and were used by households and small heating plants.

In July, Poland ordered two state-controlled companies to import several million tons of the fuel from other sources including Indonesia, Colombia and Africa, and introduced subsidies for homeowners facing a doubling or tripling of coal prices from last winter.

"As much as 60% of those that use coal for heating may be affected by energy poverty," Horbacz said.

Back at Bogdanka, Piotr Maciejewski, 61, a local farmer who joined the queue Tuesday, said he was prepared for a long wait.

"My tractor stays in line, I'm going home to get some sleep," he said.

Poland faces a winter of discontent as energy poverty looms

AFP
Published August 27, 2022

Poland uses 10 million tons of coal annually to heat households – a whopping 87 percent of all coal used in EU households in 2019.

According to an independent think tank, Warsaw-based Forum Energii, about half of this is extracted domestically, while Russia used to make up about 40 percent, or 3.9 million tons a year.

However, Poland and the European Union imposed an embargo on Russian coal following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February. That means about 3.8 million homes in Poland that rely on coal for heating in the winter are now facing shortages and price hikes.

Reuters reports that even now, in Poland’s late summer heat, dozens of cars and trucks line up at the Lubelski Wegiel Bogdanka coal mine, as householders fearful of winter shortages wait for days and nights to stock up on heating fuel in queues reminiscent of communist times.

Artur, 57, a pensioner, drove up from Swidnik, some 30 km (18 miles) from the mine in eastern Poland on Tuesday, hoping to buy several tonnes of coal for himself and his family.

“Toilets were put up today, but there’s no running water,” he said, after three nights of sleeping in his small red hatchback in a crawling queue of trucks, tractors towing trailers, and private cars.

“This is beyond imagination, people are sleeping in their cars. I remember the communist times but it didn’t cross my mind that we could return to something even worse.”

Energy discontent and coal shortages

It may seem hard to believe that in coal-rich Poland, some 3 million households are facing a winter of energy discontent as the coal shortage grows and prices soar.

But there is a very good explanation for what is happening in Poland. It began back when Poland reluctantly agreed to phase out coal in order to meet the EU’s carbon emissions targets. In November 2021, Poland also made a pledge to the COP26 Climate Conference in Glasgow to exit coal and stop building or investing in new capacity, according to Deutsche Welle.

Polish coal is expensive to mine because it is buried so deep, this making Russian coal much more affordable, and it is sold in lumps more suitable for home use.

Aleksandra Gawlikowska-Fyk of Forum Energii said Russian coal is also used by heating plants in the eastern part of Poland where it cannot be simply swapped for Polish coal. Russian coal is of higher quality containing less sulfur, she told DW.

Read more: https://www.digitaljournal.com/world/poland-faces-a-winter-of-discontent-as-energy-poverty-looms/article#ixzz7dFeex4B1

China’s jobless youth left in the lurch


China's slowing economy has left millions of young people fiercely competing for an ever-slimming raft of jobs and facing an increasingly uncertain future 

By AFP
Published August 28, 2022

China’s slowing economy has left millions of young people fiercely competing for an ever-slimming raft of jobs and facing an increasingly uncertain future.

Official data released this month showed one in five young people in Chinese cities was out of work in July — more than three times the national average and the highest recorded since January 2018.

Nearly 11 million graduates entered China’s bleak job market this summer with the economy growing at 0.4 percent in the second quarter, the weakest in two years.

Zhao Yuting, 22, told AFP companies were reluctant to hire as the economy cools — and that experienced workers were now jostling for entry-level jobs, elbowing out green hands such as her.

Since graduating in July, she submitted her CV to dozens of companies.

Only a handful called her back for an interview, only to turn her down saying she lacked experience.

Armed with a degree in English, Zhao thought she could earn a living as a tutor until she found full-time work.

But recent crackdowns on the tech and education sectors, which usually absorb fresh talent, have evaporated such jobs.

“I’ve been job hunting for two or three months but the prospects of being hired look slim,” said Zhao, who has been forced to move back in with her parents while she hunts for work.

“The longer it takes, the greater the pressure.”

– Slim prospects –

Analysts blame a slowing economy crippled by Covid lockdowns, as well as the large cohort entering the labour force during the graduating season in July and August, for the slim prospects facing China’s youth.

Official data does not track unemployment among rural youth, and the real jobless population could be more than double the official number, estimated Zhuang Bo, an economist at research group TS Lombard.

Blue-collar workers, too, are struggling to find work as growth in the manufacturing and construction sectors cools.

“The reality is more serious than what the data shows,” said Ho-fung Hung, who specialises in China’s political economy at Johns Hopkins University.

“If the problem continues without remedy, it will easily spread social disorders.”

At a job fair in the tech hub Shenzhen, long lines of anxious parents and young graduates waited for a chance to chat with recruiters.

But headhunters at the fair said they were cherry-picking graduates from top universities, because only a few positions were available.

“My goal was to work in Shenzhen, in China’s Silicon Valley,” Luo Wen, a computer science graduate, told AFP.

“But after more than four months of searching, I’m ready to work even in a smaller city, for less pay.”

– ‘I can’t see the future’ –

Graduates who managed to find work this year were offered salaries that were on average 12 percent less than last year, data from online recruitment firm Zhaopin showed.

And while some job seekers were lowering their ambitions, others were biding their time pursuing further studies.

Experts warned that this may lead to “degree inflation”, where employers demand higher and higher qualifications for jobs that do not necessarily require them.

Analysts blamed government policies that saw a rapid rise in college students over the past decade as the economy failed to accommodate more knowledge workers.

“The pandemic and lockdowns simply aggravated the problem,” Hung said.

The government has pledged to shore up employment by offering tax relief for small businesses and more start-up funding.

Premier Li Keqiang has said China’s employment crisis is “complex and grave” and called on state-owned companies to step up to stabilise the economy.

And as growth in the private sector slows, job seekers have flocked to cram schools to prepare for highly competitive civil service exams.

A record-breaking two million people signed up for the national civil service exam last fall.

A recent survey by 51job, one of China’s biggest job search services, found that 40 percent of respondents preferred stable state jobs over corporate careers.

But for Zhao, who cannot afford to study further and does not have the connections to secure a government job, few options remain.

“I feel that I can’t see the future,” she said.

“I haven’t made any progress. It’s miserable.”

CRIMINAL CYBER CAPITALI$M
Facebook agrees to settle Cambridge Analytica privacy suit

By AFP
Published August 28, 2022

Facebook has reached a preliminary agreement in a long-running lawsuit seeking damages from the social network for allowing third parties, including the company Cambridge Analytica, to access users’ private data.

According to a document filed Friday in a San Francisco court, Facebook says it is submitting a draft “agreement in principle” and has requested a stay of proceedings for 60 days finalize it.

The social network did not indicate the amount or terms of the agreement in the class action.

When asked by AFP, Facebook’s parent company Meta did not respond on Saturday.

The deal comes as Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg and former chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, who announced her resignation in June, were due to testify in court in September as part of the scandal.

In a lawsuit initiated in 2018, Facebook users accused the social network of violating privacy rules by sharing their data with third parties including the firm Cambridge Analytica, which was linked to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Cambridge Analytica, which has since shut down, had collected and exploited, without their consent, the personal data of 87 million Facebook users, to which the platform had given it access.

This information was allegedly used to develop software steering US voters in favor of Trump.

In 2019, federal authorities fined Facebook $5 billion for misleading its users and imposed independent oversight of its personal data management.

Since the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke, Facebook has removed access to its data from thousands of apps suspected of abusing it, restricted the amount of information available to developers in general, and made it easier for users to calibrate restrictions on personal data sharing.

UN high-seas biodiversity treaty struggles to leave port

Many had hoped that the fifth session of negotiations on a marine biodiversity treaty for international waters, which began on August 15, 2022 at the United

Nations headquarters in New York, would have been the last - 


By AFP
Published August 27, 2022

A two-week negotiating session on a treaty to protect the high seas wrapped up Friday. After 15 years, including four prior formal sessions, negotiators have yet to reach a legally binding agreement to address the growing environmental and economic challenges involving the high seas, also known as international waters — a zone which encompasses almost half the planet.

Many had hoped that this fifth session, which began on August 15 at the United Nations headquarters in New York, would be the last and yield a final text on “the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction,” or BBNJ for short.

But a new version of the treaty — distributed to delegates on Friday morning just hours before the official end of negotiations, and seen by AFP — still included many paragraphs open to negotiations.

A meeting scheduled for noon (1600 GMT) was canceled to allow consultations to continue, which observers suggest could run into Saturday.

One of the most sensitive issues revolves around the sharing of possible profits gained from developing genetic resources in international waters, where pharmaceutical, chemical and cosmetic companies hope to find miracle drugs, products or cures.

Such costly research at sea is largely the prerogative of rich nations, but developing countries do not want to be left out of potential windfall profits drawn from marine resources that belong to no one.

The new draft text seems to still side with the developing nations, with a requirement that two percent of all future sales be redistributed, eventually rising to eight percent.

Greenpeace’s Will McCallum accuses the EU, United States and Canada of rejecting the proposal.

“It’s not even real money. It’s just hypothetical money one day. That is why it is really frustrating,” he told AFP.

The EU pushed back on that characterization, with one European negotiator telling AFP: “We are willing to contribute to the BBNJ agreement through various funding sources, which in our view shall include a fair sharing of benefits from marine genetic resources globally.”

Similar issues of equity between the Global North and South arise in other international negotiations, such as on climate change, where developing nations feel outsized harms from global warming and try in vain to get wealthier nations to help pay to offset those impacts.

– ‘Too close to fail’ –

Some are hopeful for an agreement.

“This is the final stage and delegates are working hard to come to an agreement,” said Liz Karan with the NGO Pew Charitable Trusts.

Jihyun Lee, a youth ambassador with conservation group the High Seas Alliance, said: “We’re too close to fail.”

The high seas begin at the border of nations’ exclusive economic zones (EEZs) — which by international law reach no more than 200 nautical miles (370 kilometers) from each country’s coast — and are under no state’s jurisdiction.

Sixty percent of the world’s oceans fall under this category.

And while healthy marine ecosystems are crucial to the future of humanity, particularly to limit global warming, only one percent of international waters are protected.

One of the key pillars of an eventual BBNJ treaty is to allow the creation of marine protected areas, which many nations hope will cover 30 percent of the Earth’s ocean by 2030.

“Without establishing protections in this vast area, we will not be able to meet our ambitious and necessary 30 by 30 goal,” said US State Department official Maxine Burkett at a press conference.

But delegations still disagree on the process for creating these protected areas, as well as on how to implement a requirement for environmental impact assessments before new activity on the high seas.

“I think they have made a lot of progress in the last two weeks on issues that were very controversial,” said Klaudija Cremers, a researcher at the IDDRI think tank, which like multiple other NGOs has a seat with observer status at the negotiations.

She told AFP that the final talks Friday “could be the push to get an agreement.”

Global warming is cooling many of the world’s economies

By Dr. Tim Sandle
Published August 27, 2022


File photo: The heat from the Dixie Fire bent street lights to the ground, as the blaze tore through Greenville, California. — © AFP/File

Climate change affects much of the Earth and the way we interact with it. This is not just in relation to biology but also to the way economies develop. We look at three research areas that provide an alternative look at the climate change problem.

Global warming cools economies

Economies are sensitive to persistent temperature shocks over at least a 10-year time frame and with the recent increases in global temperatures, the climate changes have impacted economic growth across many nations.

A study from University of California – Davis has analysed the effect of global rising temperatures and climate change on Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The outcome of the economic assessment is that nearly a quarter of the countries studied are sensitive to such impacts.

Taking one example, the El Niño Southern Oscillation is a 3 to 7-year temperature fluctuation in the Pacific Ocean that affects temperature and rainfall in many parts of the world. The GDP effects of these types of lower-frequency oscillations are also significant and long lasting on many nations within this region.

The research appears in the journal Environmental Research Letters, titled “Persistent effect of temperature on GDP identified from lower frequency temperature variability.”

Global warming triggers diseases

A comprehensive assessment of scientific literature has uncovered empirical evidence that more than 58 percent of human diseases caused by pathogens, such as dengue, hepatitis, pneumonia, malaria, Zika and more, have been–at some point–aggravated by climatic hazards.

Pathogenic diseases are primarily transmitted by vectors, plus waterborne, airborne, direct contact and foodborne transmission pathways. Overall, 218 out of 375, of known human pathogenic diseases had been affected at some point, by at least one climatic hazard, via 1,006 unique pathways.

The research appears in the journal Nature Climate Change titled “Over half of known human pathogenic diseases can be aggravated by climate change.”

Risk assessment

The above two areas indicate the need for careful planning and risk management. Here studies show that simultaneous extreme heat and drought events have consequences in a variety of areas, such as the economy and medicine, as indicated above; but also overall health and food production.

In addition, due to complex socio-economic connections, these more frequent extreme events can cause knock-on effects. Therefore, University of Zurich scientists conclude, more systematic risk assessments are needed to make affected regions more resilient and to enable governments to plan better.

The research appears in the journal PLOS Climate Change, titled “Towards improved understanding of cascading and interconnected risks from concurrent weather extremes: Analysis of historical heat and drought extreme events.”

Google searches for ‘Remote jobs’ hit their highest level

AFP
Published August 27, 2022


A typical office desk. Image: Mattes / Wikimedia / Public Domain (CC0 1.0)

Searches in the UK for ‘remote jobs’ has hit their highest ever level during August of 2022, more than two years after the very first COVID-19 lockdown. This shows that the working cultural changes initiated by the behavioural changes triggered by the pandemic continue to resonate.

A new study, which comes from document management company SmallPDF reveals that Google searches for remote jobs hit their highest ever level since searches began being recorded in 2004.

According to the UK government, searches for ‘remote IT jobs’ also hit their highest level ever, indicating a demand in the industry for working from home opportunities.

For many, working at home remains a new development. For example, 56 percent of those currently working remote have only been doing so since the onset of the 2020 coronavirus pandemic.

There is a class divide with the types of occupations that are permitted to work from home. People who earn under £20,000 per year, for example, have a less than 5 percent chance of being able to work remotely. The ability to request remote work is something that is more common to the professional-managerial class.

There are also variations in terms of demographics. With these, the 25–34 year-old age group are the most likely to be working remotely.

Linking back to the SmallPDF data, the proportion of working adults who did any work from home in 2020 increased to 37 percent on average from 27 percent in 2019. This assessment also found that those workers living in London were those most likely to homework, either permanently or through a hybrid approach.

Hybrid working varies. The most common hybrid working pattern that workers undertake is working mostly from home, and sometimes from their usual place of work.

A spokesperson from SmallPDF has told Digital Journal: “As train strikes continue, interest in remote work is at an all-time high, with many people looking for home working jobs due to the uncertainty of further strike action. This is accompanied with the pandemic sparking a never before seen influx of opportunities to work from home, meaning interest in remote working may continue to rise over the next decade.”

In addition, it is noted: “It’ll be interesting to see how this demand for remote working affects certain industries, and the thinking of corporate management in their future hiring processes.”

Mexico lures visitors on new age tourism trail

By AFP
Published August 27, 2022

Alizbeth Camacho leads a meditation session at her holistic center in Tepoztlan, Mexico - Copyright AFP/File MANDEL NGAN

Samir Tounsi

With restorative rituals, yoga retreats and psychedelic experiences, Mexico has become a magnet for spiritually minded tourists seeking an alternative vacation far from the troubles of the modern world.

While many visitors head straight to the beach, a different type of tourist chooses the village of Tepoztlan, a haven for artists and intellectuals an hour’s drive from the capital.

Some of its residents once came for a short stay and found it hard to leave.

“I love the vibes here,” said Ania Bitiutskaia, a 31-year-old Russian living at the foot of the Tepozteco Mountain, the legendary birthplace of the Aztec feathered serpent god Quetzalcoatl.

“People are more relaxed, more spiritual,” she added, browsing an organic market where the sound of a folk guitar and drum beats filled the air.

“I don’t see much news. I almost live in the mountains,” Bitiutskaia said, adding that she prefers to know as little as possible about the war in Ukraine.

The special vibes come at a price: costing upwards of $50-60 a night, Tepoztlan’s hotels are more expensive than those in many parts of Mexico, which welcomed nearly 32 million foreign tourists last year.

Visitors can also stay in holistic centers offering yoga and meditation.

“Since the pandemic, many people have come to live in Tepoztlan… foreigners as well as people from Mexico City who realized that their energy would be blocked,” said Alizbeth Camacho, of the Luz Azul (Blue Light) holistic center.

Camacho offers guests “aura pictures” to visualize their energy, karma and chakras.

Mexico’s new age tourism dates back to the 1970s, when the anthropologist Carlos Castaneda sold millions of books about the teachings of an Indigenous Yaqui shaman.

Pre-Hispanic traditions also inspired Miguel Ruiz’s 1997 self-help bestseller “The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom.”

– ‘Inner journey’ –

For some visitors, a vacation in Mexico would not be complete without a different kind of trip — hallucinogenics.

American author Robert Gordon Wasson paved the way in the 1950s by revealing the secrets of a traditional healer, Maria Sabina.

Sampling peyote is still possible with Indigenous communities such as the Wixarika, who use the mind-bending drug derived from a cactus in their religious rituals.

And in the mountains of Oaxaca, guides like Pedro Ramirez offer the chance to try magic mushrooms at more than 2,500 meters (8,200 feet) above sea level.

“It’s going to be an inner journey,” said Ramirez, leading a group of Mexicans and foreigners to a clearing in the village of San Jose del Pacifico.

“You might be scared at first, but after 10 to 15 minutes you’ll laugh, and maybe cry a little,” he added.

Araceli Perez said she decided to try the mushrooms following the deaths of her husband, a doctor, from Covid-19 in 2020.

“I’m looking for answers and acceptance,” she said.

“I want to live and no longer just survive as I think I was doing,” she added.

Another major attraction on Mexico’s new age tourism trail is the temazcal, a kind of Mesoamerican sweat lodge that guide Nicolas Lopez said can “awaken our spirit, our soul.”

Near the Mayan pyramids of Palenque in the southern state of Chiapas, visitors enter Lopez’s heated chamber filled with the aroma of incense and dance to the sound of a tambourine.

“It’s something sacred, pure,” 30-year-old Mexican tourist Valeria Landero said after experiencing the purification ceremony with her husband and teenage daughter.

“It’s about letting it all out, the illnesses, all the bad things, and bringing me pure positivity,” she said.

Read more: https://www.digitaljournal.com/life/mexico-lures-visitors-on-new-age-tourism-trail/article#ixzz7dFeC1WGr

Bolsonaro, Lula set to face off in Brazil presidential election debate


By AFP
Published August 27, 2022


Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro is expected to face his biggest rival for the presidency, popular leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, on Sunday for a debate ahead of October elections, after days of uncertainty over whether they would participate.

“See you at Band (broadcaster Rede Bandeirantes) tomorrow,” Lula, who was president of Brazil from 2003-2010, tweeted on Saturday.

Bolsonaro has not officially confirmed his participation, but is also expected to appear, according to campaign sources quoted by local media on Saturday.

“At one point I thought I shouldn’t go, now I think I should… I think my strategy is going to work,” the far-right leader said in an interview with Jovem Pan radio on Friday.

The debate is the first in the campaign calendar ahead of the October 2 elections. Organizers have also invited four other candidates, including former finance minister Ciro Gomes and Senator Simone Tebet.

Polls have put Lula in the lead as the race heats up, with one published by the Datafholha Institute earlier this month showing the leftist leader taking 47 percent of the vote compared to Bolsonaro’s 32 percent.

In 2018, when Bolsonaro won the election, he participated in the first two presidential debates — but was then stabbed during a campaign rally, and after undergoing surgery he did not return for later debates.

Neither Lula nor another former Brazilian president, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, participated in debates before the first round when they sought re-election in 2006 and 1998, respectively.

On the eve of the debate, Bolsonaro and Lula both released campaign ads mainly focusing on the economy.

Lula criticized inflation and the spread of hunger, which affects more than 33 million Brazilians.

Bolsonaro attributed inflation to the pandemic, the war in Ukraine and drought; while promising to maintain a welfare program which transfers money each month to 20 million families.

 There's A 'Lost City' Deep in The Ocean, And It's A Place Unlike Anywhere Else

Carly Cassella - Wednesday

Underwater Terrain Of Lost City

© Provided by ScienceAlert

Close to the summit of an underwater mountain west of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, a jagged landscape of towers rises from the gloom. Their creamy carbonate walls and columns appear ghostly blue in the light of a remotely operated vehicle sent to explore. They range in height from tiny stacks the size of toadstools to a grand monolith standing 60 meters (nearly 200 feet) tall. This is the Lost City

View of the Lost City© Provided by ScienceAlert

A remotely operated vehicle shines a light on the spires of the Lost City. (D. Kelley/UW/URI-IAO/NOAA).[/caption] Discovered by scientists in 2000, more than 700 meters (2,300 feet) beneath the surface, the Lost City Hydrothermal Field is the longest-lived venting environment known in the ocean. 

Nothing else like it has ever been found. For at least 120,000 years and maybe longer, the upthrusting mantle in this part of the world has reacted with seawater to puff hydrogen, methane, and other dissolved gases out into the ocean. In the cracks and crevices of the field's vents, hydrocarbons feed novel microbial communities even without the presence of oxygen. 


Bacteria on calcite column.© Provided by ScienceAlert

Strands of bacteria living on a calcite vent in the Lost City. (

University of Washington/CC BY 3.0).[/caption] Chimneys spewing gases as hot as 40 °C (104 °F) are home to an abundance of snails and crustaceans. Larger animals such as crabs, shrimp, sea urchins and eels are rare, but still present. Despite the extreme nature of the environment, it appears to be teeming with life, and some researchers think it's worth our attention and protection. 

While other hydrothermal fields like this one probably exist elsewhere in the world's oceans, this is the only one remotely operated vehicles have been able to find thus far.

 The hydrocarbons produced by the Lost City's vents were not formed from atmospheric carbon dioxide or sunlight, but by chemical reactions on the deep seafloor. Because hydrocarbons are the building blocks of life, this leaves open the possibility that life originated in a habitat just like this one. And not just on our own planet.

 "This is an example of a type of ecosystem that could be active on Enceladus or Europa right this second," microbiologist William Brazelton told The Smithsonian in 2018, referring to the moons of Saturn and Jupiter. "And maybe Mars in the past." 

Unlike underwater volcanic vents called black smokers, which have also been named as a possible first habitat, the Lost City's ecosystem doesn't depend on the heat of magma. Black smokers produce mostly iron- and sulfur-rich minerals, whereas the Lost City's chimneys produce up to 100 times more hydrogen and methane. The calcite vents of the Lost City are also much, much larger than black smokers, which suggests they've been active for longer.

Tall vent from the Lost City© Provided by ScienceAler

Nine-meter-high chimney in the Lost City. (University of Washington/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution).

The tallest of the monoliths is named Poseidon, after the Greek god of the sea, and it stretches more than 60 meters high. Just northeast of the tower, meanwhile, is a cliffside with short bursts of activity. Researchers at the University of Washington describe the vents here as 'weeping' with fluid to produce "clusters of delicate, multi-pronged carbonate growths that extend outward like the fingers of upturned hands." Unfortunately, scientists aren't the only ones beckoned by that unusual terrain. In 2018, it was announced that Poland had won the rights to mine the deep sea around The Lost City. While there are no precious resources to be dredged up in the actual thermal field itself, the destruction of the city's surroundings could have unintended consequences.

https://twitter.com/RebeccaRHelm/status/1561792071429660674

 Any plumes or discharges, triggered by the mining, could easily wash over the remarkable habitat, scientists warn. Some experts are therefore calling for the Lost City to be listed as a World Heritage site, to protect the natural wonder before it's too late. For tens of thousands of years, the Lost City has stood as a testament to the enduring force of life. It would be just like us to ruin it.