Flooded California ghost town resurfaces during drought

By Wyatt Loy,  Accuweather.com

Old Kernville is a town that appears to be taken right out of a Western movie -- because it was, serving as the backdrop for many classics, featuring the likes of John Wayne, Gene Autry, Hopalong Cassidy and more. While all of the Hollywood glamour has long since left the town, one might not ever guess that it was once completely underwater and has now resurfaced.

"There were people here. There was life here. It survived explorers, massacres, gold rushes, massive floods and tourism," the Sierra Nevada Business Council wrote on its website. "But it could not survive progress and now sits in silence with very little to let one know that it was even here."

About 35 miles northeast of Bakersfield, Calif., Old Kernville used to be a thriving community. Previously named Whiskey Flat due to a saloon of the same name, the town sprung up toward the end of the Gold Rush in 1860. It sat in the hills of Lake Isabella and the Kern River, the latter being where it got its new name following a massacre of the local indigenous tribes in 1863, when about 70 settlers killed about 200 Native Americans and exiled hundreds more, according to SFGATE.

Kernville's 'Movie Street' served as the backdrop for Westerns throughout Hollywood's Golden Age. Photo courtesy of Kern River Valley Historical Society

"Families were moving in and it was no longer fitting to have the name associated with 'demon rum,' as the ladies of the town called it," the business council's site states.

It was after the turn of the century that it became a hot spot for movies set in the Wild West. Old tales of gunslingers from Whiskey Flat loosely inspired some of Clint Eastwood's quick-drawing characters in movies like The Good, The Bad and The Ugly and Unforgiven, according to SFGATE.

The town also served as the backdrop for John Ford's 1939 Oscar-winning film Stagecoach.

Orson Welles, director of the renowned classic 'Citizen Kane,' said he studied 'Stagecoach' more than 40 times before creating his 1940s blockbuster. 

Photo courtesy of Library of Congress

A portion of Stagecoach, featuring John Wayne, was filmed in the Kern River Valley, in an area called Tilly Creek.

"When this location was scouted earlier in the year, the Kern River was low. When the filming took place the river was raging and brimful, so the scene had to be modified," the Kern Valley Museum states on its website. "In one of the scenes, you can see logs tied on each side of the stagecoach, allowing it to be floated across the river."

John Wayne (center) became most well-known for his roles in Westerns and war films, cementing him as an icon during Hollywood's Golden Age of the 1910s to 1960s.

 Photo courtesy of United Artists

Residents of Kernville created an area called "Movie Street," a part of town seemingly frozen in time, where film crews could shoot movies or TV shows with an authentic backdrop, according to the museum. Locals would also provide lodging for crew members and even served as extras when needed.

Kernville in 1948, only a few years before it would be evacuated, demolished and flooded. Photo courtesy of Kern River Valley Historical Society

After World War II, the military took control of the land in order to build a dam on the Kern River, which created a reservoir that would flood the entire town. Residents took what little they could to higher ground while the majority of Old Kernville was detonated and washed away. The new settlement carried on their legacy in the form of "new" Kernville.

Prolonged drought eventually dried up the reservoir -- it's now been reduced to as little as 8% of its original capacity, according to SFGATE. As a result, the foundations of what used to be Kernville now see the light of day for the first time in almost 100 years. Retired film producer and Kernville resident Chuck Barbee still visits the old site to marvel at what it once was.

As drought caused the shores of Lake Isabella to recede, foundations of buildings in Old Kernville, like this elementary school, started to become visible again. Photo by Richard Cayia Rowe/Kern River Valley Historical Society

"There are still stories of an untold Old West here," Barbee told SFGATE. "What makes this place special is that it's virtually unchanged, and you can still see what it was like when the first settlers came here in 1861."

According to SFGATE, the original jail, general store and a church were lost in the flooding, but their foundations and their stories remain.

"It's fun to go out there," Barbee said. "I don't think you're going to find any dead bodies like Lake Mead, but there certainly are old ghosts around those buildings."

After the military claimed the site of Old Kernville, residents had to leave almost everything behind. The town's Methodist church once stood on this now-empty lot. Photo courtesy of Kern River Valley Historical Society

Every year since 1957, the new Kernville hosts a festival called Whiskey Flat Days, four days of Wild West reenactments, carnival rides, rodeos, food and craft groups, art shows, live performances and more. Local vendors and activities bring visitors in from across the state to relive the times of gunslinging and homesteading.

In more recent years, Kern County, which includes Kernville, remains a popular spot for filming. Many modern classics like Jurassic Park, the Star Trek films, Iron Man and The Fast and The Furious series have had portions filmed there. Popular TV series have also used the area as backdrops, including Days of Our Lives, Battlestar Galactica, Firefly, MacGyver, Mythbusters and many others.

A tremendous 98% of California was under a severe drought as of mid-September, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. About 82% of Kern County was under an even worse exceptional drought.

According to Drought Monitor, the symptoms of an exceptional drought include "exceptional and widespread crop/pasture losses" and "shortages of water in reservoirs, streams, and wells creating water emergencies."

In California and other parts of the western U.S. specifically, prolonged periods of drought combined with a recent heat wave have fueled dozens of wildfires. Though the heat has backed off since last week, the drought is ongoing.

Drought in the West has developed a knack for uncovering remnants of towns and artifacts thought lost to time and flooding. A ghost town in Utah that was discovered in 2021 on the shores of Rockport Reservoir, about 45 miles east of Salt Lake City, shares a stark similarity to Kernville.

Founded in 1860, the same year as Kernville, Rockport was a small frontier settlement of about 200 people. Almost overnight, the townspeople broke out into conflict with the already poor and struggling Ute tribe, which had been living there prior to the settler's arrival. Similar to Kernville, the government purchased the town in the 1950s to build a dam and reservoir, washing the buildings away and sending their inhabitants upstream to find new homes.

Lake Powell in Utah is another man-made reservoir that has experienced a profound dry period, leading to discoveries like a large shipwreck sitting completely out of the water. Liz Bowles and her family had been camping when they found the wreck jutting up from the shores in April 2021.

"We tried to not disturb it too much, because we don't know how secure it is there and we didn't want anyone to get hurt," Bowles told Fox 13 News at the time. "But we could see that there had been some people that had tried to recover it at some point. There were straps on it and things like that, that they were obviously unsuccessful getting the boat out of the water."

Lake Mead is somewhat infamous for the discoveries people have found on the edges of its shrinking shores -- most notably, the presence of several human remains.

Other findings include a similar shipwreck, a B-29 Superfortress airplane, a lost Native American city and St. Thomas, Nevada: Yet another ghost town, founded by Mormons in 1865, that served as a major point of interest along the Arrowhead Trail between Salt Lake City and Los Angeles.

Iowa teen gets probation for killing alleged rapist

Sept. 14 (UPI) -- An Iowa teenager who pleaded guilty in the fatal stabbing of her alleged rapist received a probation sentence instead of prison time and could escape having a felony record.

Pieper Lewis was sentenced to five years probation and a deferred judgment after killing a man who allegedly paid to have sex with her and raped her.

Lewis also must serve 1,200 hours of community service, stay at a women's center while she is on probation, and provide $150,000 in compensation for the death of her victim, Zachary Brooks.

"Well, Ms. Lewis, this was the second chance you asked for. You don't get a third. Do you understand that?" Polk County District Judge David M. Porter said, according to the Des Moines Register.

Lewis, 17, and her attorneys argued that she was a sex trafficking victim who was manipulated by a 28-year-old man whom she lived with at the time.

Lewis was sleeping in a hallway when she met the man, who was a small-time musician. The man allegedly would list Lewis on dating websites and have men pay to have sex with her.

On May 31, 2020, the day before the killing, Lewis said that the musician threatened her at knifepoint to force her to go to Brooks' apartment to have sex with him.

"I did not want to have sex with Mr. Brooks," Lewis said in her plea. "I did not want to go to Mr. Brooks' apartment, but I had no other place to go."

While at his apartment, Lewis said she fell asleep and when she woke up, Brooks was raping her. Afterward, Brooks fell asleep and while Lewis was gathering her clothes, she saw the knife.

"I suddenly realized that Mr. Brooks had raped me yet again and (I) was overcome with rage," Lewis wrote in her plea.

After the killing, Lewis fled but was arrested the next day.

Lewis's attorneys said they were stunned by the judge's decision, expecting it to be harsher.

"I assumed the worst," Matthew Sheeley said Tuesday. "As attorneys, we always want the best for our clients, but as attorneys, you're always prepared for the worst-case scenario."

 

Q&A: Next steps for Iowa teen sentenced for killing rapist

By MARGERY A. BECK and DAVID PITT

yesterday

1 of 4

Pieper Lewis, left, speaks with Polk County District Judge David M. Porter during her sentencing hearing, Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2022. Donations are pouring in to help Lewis, a 17-year-old sex trafficking victim who was ordered by the court to pay $150,000 to the family of a man she stabbed to death after he raped her. A GoFundMe campaign set up for Pieper Lewis has already raised more than $200,000 just one day after the restitution order was handed down by an Iowa judge. (Zach Boyden-Holmes/The Des Moines Register via AP, File)


DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Donations are pouring in to help a 17-year-old sex trafficking victim who was ordered by a court to pay $150,000 to the family of a man she stabbed to death after he raped her.

A GoFundMe campaign set up for Pieper Lewis has already raised more than $200,000 just one day after the restitution order was handed down by an Iowa judge.

Lewis also received a deferred 20-year prison sentence on Tuesday that will be expunged if she successfully completes five years of closely supervised probation. Prosecutors described the sentence as merciful for a teen who had been horribly abused -- and the judge said the law compelled him to order the $150,000 payment -- but it struck many observers as unnecessarily harsh.

Lewis pleaded guilty last year to involuntary manslaughter and willful injury in the June 2020 killing of 37-year-old Zachary Brooks, a married father of two. Lewis was 15 when she stabbed Brooks more than 30 times in a Des Moines apartment.

Lewis has maintained that she was trafficked against her will to Brooks for sex multiple times and stabbed him in a fit of rage. Police and prosecutors have not disputed that Lewis was sexually assaulted and trafficked.

The Associated Press does not typically name victims of sexual assault, but Lewis agreed to have her name used previously in stories about her case.

Here’s a look at how Lewis ended up facing criminal charges in an Iowa court and what’s next for her:

WHAT’S THE BACKSTORY OF THE GOFUNDME CAMPAIGN FOR LEWIS?

The account was set up late last year for Lewis by one of her former high school teachers. Initially the goal was set at $150,000 to cover the restitution payment. All additional money raised will help Lewis pay for college or start her own business, and help other young victims of sex crimes.

“Pieper has five years of probation ahead of her; five years that she will be required to be nearly perfect to avoid facing 20 years in prison,” Leland Schipper, a math teacher at Des Moines Lincoln High School, said on the GoFundMe page. “Pieper’s path to true freedom will not be easy, and she is still a teenager that has experienced a lot of trauma.”

The vast majority of donations came in increments of less than $50. Almost every donor offered words of encouragement or outrage over the teen’s prosecution — and sometimes both.

“Pieper, from one survivor to another, life gets better,” one $20 donor wrote. “I am disgusted you spent a second in jail, but don’t look back. Use whatever funds are left to move on and move up.”

WHY WAS LEWIS ORDERED TO PAY $150,000 TO THE ESTATE OF HER ATTACKER?

Iowa law mandates that anyone convicted of a felony that leads to the death of another person must pay “at least” this much to the victim’s estate.

The payment cannot be discharged through bankruptcy, and it does not preclude a victim’s family from suing for more damages. But there is nothing in the law that would appear to bar someone from using donations to pay the restitution, said Grant Gangestad, a criminal defense attorney who helps lead the Iowa Association for Justice, a trade group for trial lawyers.

Lewis’ lawyers argued that as a victim of human trafficking and sexual abuse, she should be spared from making any payment at all. They argued that Brooks was partially responsible for what happened and that such restitution would be cruel and unusual under the circumstances.

The judge rejected those arguments at Tuesday’s sentencing hearing, noting that the Iowa Supreme Court has upheld the state’s restitution law even in the face of some of those same arguments.

It is not clear whether Lewis’ lawyers will appeal; they said Wednesday they are still weighing their options.

WHY DID PROSECUTORS CHARGE LEWIS FOR KILLING A MAN WHO RAPED HER?

Dozens of states have so-called safe harbor laws that give trafficking victims at least some level of criminal immunity. Iowa is not one of them.

Iowans can avoid being convicted of violent crimes, however, if they can prove that they faced ’’imminent″ serious injury.

While nobody disputed that Lewis was sexually assaulted and trafficked, prosecutors successfully argued that Brooks was not an immediate danger to Lewis because he was asleep at the time he was stabbed.

Prosecutors said that their goal in seeking charges against Lewis was twofold: To ensure the protection of the public from someone capable of stabbing another person to death, and to ensure that Lewis receives the rehabilitative help she needs.

HAS THE MAN LEWIS ACCUSED OF TRAFFICKING HER BEEN CHARGED?

No. Lewis has said she lived with a man for more than two months in 2020 after she had run away from an abusive home. The then-28-year-old man told her she was his girlfriend, but told others she was his niece, Lewis said.

The man told her she couldn’t live with him for free, she said, and created a dating profile for her on websites and arranged for her to have sex with other men for money, which occurred seven or eight times when she lived with him.

It was this man who took her to Brooks beginning in May 2020 to have sex, she said. When she resisted going back to Brooks’ apartment another time, Lewis said the man held a knife to her neck and cut her with it.

Lewis names the man in court documents, but The Associated Press is not releasing his name because he has not been charged with a crime.

Polk County Attorney John Sarcone on Wednesday gave few details on why.

“No charges have been filed,” Sarcone said. “The matter is under investigation, and our office will not comment further.”

WHAT’S NEXT FOR LEWIS?

Lewis’ five years of supervised probation will be spent at the state’s Fresh Start Women’s Center in Des Moines, a low-level prison facility that allows convicts some level of freedom to work and make some trips outside the facility. Lewis’ whereabouts will be monitored through a GPS-enabled ankle bracelet.

She was also ordered to conduct 600 hours of community service, to be carried out by speaking to other young people about the dangers they face and the importance of making responsible choices.

“You have a story to tell,” Polk County District judge David M. Porter said at her sentencing. “You should be willing to tell it to other young women.”

Lewis, who earned her GED diploma while being held in juvenile detention, has said she would like to go to college and dreams of being a fashion designer.

At Tuesday’s sentencing hearing, she expressed both hope and fear for her future.

“I know that I am being watched by a million eyes. The reality is, I will make mistakes, even with the court’s pressure,” she said, reading from a prepared statement.

“I refuse to fail,” she said. “I refuse to let the system fail me.”

____

Beck reported from Omaha, Nebraska.

Rare ancient coin looted in Israel returned to country


An ancient shekel coin made of pure silver in Jerusalem about 2,000 years ago is displayed after it was discovered in the City of David excavation site in Jerusalem, on November 23, 2021. A similar coin was returned to Israel this week after it was looted from an Israeli site 20 years ago. File Photo by Abir Sultan/EPA-EFE

Sept. 14 (UPI) -- A rare 2,000-year-old Israeli coin that circulated on the illicit antiquities market for at least two decades made its way back to the country this week.

The coin, believed to be worth $1 million, was minted during a Jewish revolt in the Middle East. It was looted from an unearthed site in the Ella Valley, south of Jerusalem in 2002. The Israel Antiquities Authority said it was tipped off about the looted site and coin, starting an investigation that would take them to the United States.

Authorities seized the coin in 2017 after collectors tried to sell it at an auction in Denver. At that time, it was listed with a value of $500,000-$1 million.

Experts said the quarter-shekel piece featuring palm branches and a wreath dates back to A.D. 69 and is considered among the rarest coins left over from the Jewish uprising against imperial Rome.

"Coins like this were a very in-your-face declaration of independence by the lands of Israel," said Ilan Hadad, a numismatics investigator and archaeologist with the Israeli Antiquities Authority, according to the New York Times.

"They made them by scratching out the images of emperors on Roman silver coins and restamping them."

Sam Spiegel, director of International Numismatics Heritage Auctions, told the Times a client in London said he inherited the coin from his father and signed an agreement affirming he had clear title to the coin.

A British export license was obtained from the auction house, allowing the coin to be brought to the United States.

"Shortly before the auction was to begin, Homeland Security contacted us about the coin, and we fully cooperated by turning it over and supplying them with all the requested information," Spiegel said.

California sues Amazon over anticompetitive pricing contracts


California filed an antitrust lawsuit against Amazon alleging the online retail giant forced merchants into anticompetitive pricing contracts. 

File photo by Friedemann Vogel/EPA-EFE

Sept. 14 (UPI) -- California has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Amazon accusing the online retail giant of stifling competition by forcing inflated prices on other sites.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced the lawsuit Wednesday alleging Amazon violated California's Unfair Competition Law and Cartwright Act.

"For years, California consumers have paid more for their online purchases because of Amazon's anticompetitive contracting practices," Bonta said in a statement. "Amazon coerces merchants into agreements that keep prices artificially high, knowing full well that they can't afford to say no."

"With other e-commerce platforms unable to compete on price, consumers turn to Amazon as a one-stop shop for all their purchases," Bonta said.

California's lawsuit against Amazon comes after a similar complaint was filed in May 2021 by the District of Columbia. That suit was dismissed earlier this year and is under appeal.

The complaint filed Wednesday in San Francisco superior court targets the contractual language Amazon uses with third-party sellers.

"Merchants must agree not to offer lower prices elsewhere -- including competing sites like Walmart, Target, eBay and, in some cases, even on their own websites," Bonta said.

Merchants who violated the agreement allegedly faced fees or had their products removed from Amazon listings.

Amazon fired back and has called on the court to dismiss the lawsuit.

"The California Attorney General has it exactly backward. Sellers set their own prices for the products they offer in our store. Amazon takes pride in the fact that we offer low prices across the broadest selection, and like any store we reserve the right not to highlight offers to customers that are not priced competitively," Amazon said in a statement to CNN. "The relief the AG seeks would force Amazon to feature higher prices to customers, oddly going against core objectives of antitrust law."

Amazon accounts for about 38% of online sales in the United States, which is more than Walmart, eBay, Apple, Best Buy and Target combined, according to research firm Insider Intelligence. About 2 million sellers list their products on Amazon's third-party marketplace, which makes up 58% of the company's sales.

California's lawsuit seeks to ban Amazon from entering into anticompetitive contracts that hurt price competition. The suit also demands Amazon pay damages to compensate California consumers allegedly hurt by higher prices, as well as penalties to deter other companies from engaging in similar practices.

"With today's lawsuit, we're fighting back," Bonta said. "We won't allow Amazon to bend the market to its will at the expense of California consumers, small business owners, and a fair and competitive economy."

South Korea hits Meta, Google with record fines over privacy violations

Yang Cheong-sam, director of the Personal Information Protection Commission's investigation and coordination bureau, announces measures against Google and Meta on Wednesday for collecting personal information without users' consent. Photo by Yonhap

SEOUL, Sept. 14 (UPI) -- South Korea has fined U.S. tech giants Meta and Google a combined $71.8 million for collecting user information without consent and using it for customized advertisements, regulators announced Wednesday.

The country's Personal Information Protection Commission hit Google with a $49.7 million fine and Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, $22.1 million

The penalties are the highest ever by South Korea for violations of data protection laws, the regulatory watchdog said in a statement.

The commission said that Google and Meta did not clearly inform users or obtain their consent to collect and analyze personal online usage data, which was then utilized to create customized advertisements.

According to the watchdog, more than 82% of Google users and 98% of Meta users in South Korea have had their browsing and purchasing data from third-party sites harvested by the companies without their knowledge.

Yoon Jong-in, chairman of the PIPC, said that the accumulated data represents "a risk of serious infringement of individual privacy."

Customers are seen at Meta's first brick-and-mortar retail store in Burlingame, Calif., on May 9. The company owns Facebook and Instagram. 

File Photo by Terry Schmitt/UPI

The regulators also ordered Google and Meta to clearly inform users when their information is being collected and used and to obtain their consent in a way that enables them to maintain their right to privacy.

Both companies disagreed with Wednesday's ruling.

"While we respect the PIPC's decision, we are confident that we work with our clients in a legally compliant way that meets the processes required by local regulations," a Meta spokesman said in a statement emailed to UPI.

"As such, we do not agree with the PIPC's decision, and will be open to all options including seeking a ruling from the court."

Google expressed "deep regrets" after the announcement and said it would continue to communicate with the commission.

Wednesday's announcement is not the first time South Korean regulators have tangled with U.S. tech powerhouses. Last September, the country's antitrust watchdog fined Google nearly $180 million for abusing its dominance in the mobile operating systems and app markets.

South Korean legislators also passed a groundbreaking law last year that prevents Google and Apple from forcing mobile developers to use their proprietary payment channels for in-app purchases.

Provenance probe of Nazi era trove goes on display in Bern

09- 15- 2022 

A photograph taken on September 14, 2022, shows an employee walking past a work by Gustave Courbet titled “View of the Ridge Park under the snow, around 1874” ahead of the public opening of the exhibition “Taking Stock, Gurlitt in Review” showing some works of Cornelius Gurlitt’s estate that included works looted from Jews by the Nazis, at the Museum of Fine Arts in Bern. AFPPIX

BERN: When a Bern museum inherited a spectacular collection of some 1,600 artworks, including by masters like Monet, Gauguin and Picasso, it spent seven months mulling whether to accept the offer.

The collection left to the Kunstmuseum in 2014 by Cornelius Gurlitt, whose father Hildebrand Gurlitt had worked as an art dealer for the Nazis, included works looted from Jewish owners during World War II.

A new exhibit, “Taking stock. Gurlitt in Review”, explores the museum’s journey researching the pieces’ provenance and the challenges of determining its obligations in the face of the tumultuous Gurlitt legacy.

The exhibit, which will run from Friday through mid-January, comes after the museum last year agreed how to handle works whose provenance remained undetermined.

It gave up 38 works known or suspected to be looted by the Nazis, but decided to hold onto 1,091 pieces where provenance information was incomplete but gave no indication of looting.

Some slammed that decision as immoral, but the museum hit back, stressing the “big responsibility” it took on when it accepted the Gurlitt bequest.

“We developed categories to be able to make a reasonable decision” based on the provenance and any possible indications of looting, Marcel Brulhart, the museum board member and legal expert, said during a presentation of the exhibit.

“I think we have found a fair solution.”

‘Illusion'

Living in a cluttered Munich apartment surrounded by paintings by the likes of Chagall and Matisse, Cornelius Gurlitt suddenly found himself in the spotlight after German tax authorities discovered part of his collection in 2012.

Before he died in 2014 at the age of 81, the man described by media as an eccentric recluse struck an agreement with the German government that any plundered works would be returned to their rightful owners.

The Bern museum, which he named as his sole heir, said it would honour that wish, and set about trying to determine each piece's provenance.

Some of the works were determined to have been seized from Jews by the Nazis and sold on, confiscated as “degenerate” works, or sold by their fleeing Jewish owners at a low price.

“It is an illusion to think that we will ever have full insight” into the artworks’ provenance, Brulhart told AFP.

“History moves forward, and many documents have been destroyed.”

He stressed that Hildebrand Gurlitt had collected art his entire life, but only worked for the Third Reich “for a very limited period”.

Brulhart said, in his opinion, the Gurlitt affair marked a real “turning point” by showing it is possible to find fair solutions even in cases where insight into a piece’s provenance is incomplete.

'Total transparency'

Museum director Nina Zimmer said they had aimed from the start for “total transparency” with the unique international provenance research project.

It had endeavoured to reevaluate prior expertise when new information surfaced and had sought fair solutions with any possible rights-holders, even in cases where the provenance was not fully established, she said.

So far, 11 works have been restituted, including a long-lost Matisse painting “Seated Woman”, which was returned to the family of the late art dealer Paul Rosenberg in 2015.

Nearly 30 works are still disputed, Brulhart said.

The current exhibit is the third at the Bern museum focused on the Gurlitt collection, after ones in 2017 and 2018.

It explores in detail the ethical guidelines, legal framework and results of the research project into the Gurlitt trove, curator Nikola Doll told AFP.

Through 14 individual thematic spaces, it presents around 350 pieces, including historical documents linked to the fraught bequest from national archives in Germany, France and Switzerland.

Artworks on display from the collection include those by masters like Cezanne, Kandinsky, Munch and Rodin. - AFP

Chinese Moves On Taiwan Rattle Remote Japanese Island

By Mathias CENA
09/14/22 

Map locating Japan's southwestern Nansei islands with the military bases.

Life may seem tranquil on Japan's remote Yonaguni island, where wild horses graze and tourists dive to spot hammerhead sharks, but China's recent huge military exercises have rattled residents.


The western island is just 110 kilometres (70 miles) from Taiwan, and a Chinese missile fired during the drills last month landed not far from Yonaguni's shores.

"Everyone is on edge," Shigenori Takenishi, head of the island's fishing association, told AFP.

"Even if we don't talk about it, we still have the memory of the fear we felt, of the shock."

He told fishing boats to stay in port during the drills that followed US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan in defiance of Beijing's warnings.

The incident was the latest reminder of how growing Chinese assertiveness has affected Yonaguni, shifting debate about a contentious military presence on the island.

People used to say Yonaguni was defended by two guns, one for each policeman stationed there.


But since 2016, the island has hosted a base for Japan's army, the Self-Defense Forces, which was established despite initial objections from residents.

The base for maritime and air surveillance is home to 170 soldiers, who with their families make up 15 percent of Yonaguni's population of 1,700.

An "electronic warfare" unit is also due to be installed there by March 2024.

"When we see Chinese military activity today, we tell ourselves that we got our base just in time," Yonaguni's mayor Kenichi Itokazu told AFP.

"We've succeeded in sending a message to China."

That view was not always held so widely on the island.

Yonaguni is part of Okinawa prefecture, where resentment against military presence traditionally runs high.

A quarter of the region's population perished in the World War II Battle of Okinawa in 1945, and it remained under US occupation until 1972.

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Today, Okinawa hosts most of the US bases in Japan.

Yonaguni is closer to Taiwan, Seoul and even Beijing than the Japanese capital Tokyo.

Conscious of its vulnerability, officials have built up a military presence on the Nansei island chain, which extends 1,200 kilometres from Japan's main islands to Yonaguni.

In addition to the security benefits, the government argued a base would bring economic windfalls to the 30-square-kilometre (11-square-mile) island.


Local officials once felt that Yonaguni's economic future lay with Taiwan and other nearby commercial hubs, even campaigning to become a "special zone for inter-regional exchange".

But the government rejected that and instead began in 2007 to pave the way for the base.

Support for the plan received a boost from a diplomatic crisis with Beijing in 2010, and by 2015, around 60 percent of Yonaguni's residents backed the base in a referendum.

Since then, Chinese sabre-rattling and a string of maritime incidents have helped solidify support.

"Almost no one is against the base now," said Shigeru Yonahara, 60, a resident who supported the base.

There are holdouts though, including some who fear the base will instead make Yonaguni a target, particularly if China seeks to forcibly bring Taiwan under its control.

"If there is a crisis, will they protect those living here? And can they really help us in the case of an invasion of Taiwan?" said Masakatsu Uehara, a 62-year-old fisherman.

Both backers and critics agree that the base has changed Yonaguni, including the radar facility's lights that compete with the starry sky over the island.

A long-awaited incinerator that started operating last year was financed almost entirely by the defence ministry, and rent from the base helps pay for free lunches at the island's schools.

Yonaguni has no high school and limited employment. It saw decades of decline after its thriving commercial links with Taiwan were severed following World War II.

Now, taxes paid by base residents account for a fifth of Yonaguni's revenue.

But not everyone sees the changes as positive, including municipal council member Chiyoki Tasato, who has long opposed the base.

He resents the fact that Japanese army families can influence policy by voting in local elections, and argues the base's economic impact makes it hard for residents to speak freely on the issue.

They "can't say openly that they are against the base, because the economic situation isn't good," Tasato told AFP.

"We prefer to think about what we're going to eat tomorrow."

For mayor Itokazu though, there is no arguing with the economic boost the base provides.

And he said the security situation makes its presence a clear necessity.

"As the saying goes, 'If you want peace, prepare yourself for war.' It's about deterrence."

China's huge military drills around Taiwan rattled the residents of Japan's remote Yonaguni island

Yonaguni's mayor Kenichi Itokazu says the Japanese military base on the island is necessary for security

Some Yonaguni residents fear the Japanese military base there makes the island a target

A Japan Coast Guard vessel patrols the waters off Yonaguni in August 2022

Angola's Lourenco to be sworn in after disputed win

Wed, September 14, 2022 


Angolan President Joao Lourenco is to be sworn in for a second term on Thursday amid tight security after a disputed electoral win last month.

The inauguration will be held on the historic palm tree-lined Praca da Republica square in the centre of the capital, Luanda.

Large numbers of police and military forces patrolled the streets ahead of the ceremony, AFP correspondents saw -- a presence the main opposition party said aimed at stifling dissent.

"This setup aims to intimidate citizens who want to demonstrate against the election results on the day of the inauguration of a president without legitimacy," the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) said in a statement.


Several heads of state and government, including Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, are expected to be in attendance.

Lourenco, 68, returned to power after the August 24 vote gave his Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) a thin majority, winning just 51.17 percent of the votes.

The vote was to choose members of parliament, where the largest party automatically selects the president.

It was the MPLA's poorest showing in the oil-rich African country it has controlled since independence from Portugal in 1975.

UNITA -- a former rebel movement which fought a bitter 27-year civil war against the MPLA government -- made significant gains, earning 43.95 percent of the vote, up from 26.67 percent in 2017.

Opposition parties and civic groups say the vote was marred by irregularities.

UNITA disputed the results in court but its appeal was tossed out.

"Tomorrow I will stay at home. There are too many police forces around town," Joao, a high school student who only gave his first name, said at a bus stop on the outskirts of Luanda.

- 'President for all' -

Under its charismatic leader Adalberto Costa Junior, 60, UNITA has proved popular in urban areas and among young voters clamouring for economic change.

It did particularly well in the capital, where it won a majority for the first time.

The MPLA instead lost its two-thirds parliamentary majority with its seats dropping to 124 from 150.

Lourenco struck a conciliatory tone after the vote, pledging to promote "dialogue" and be the "president of all Angolans".

But Costa Junior has said he will skip the inauguration and promised protests against the result of the vote, but has said his party will join the new parliament.

Foreign observers from other parts of Africa praised the peaceful conduct of the polls but raised concerns over press freedom and the accuracy of the electoral roll.

The former general first came to power in 2017 when he took over from long-time ruler Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who bequeathed a country deep in recession and riddled by corruption and nepotism.

Lourenco swiftly turned on his predecessor, launching an anti-graft campaign targeting his family and friends, which critics say was a political stunt.

He also embarked on an ambitious reform programme to lure foreign investors and diversify the economy.

But that has so far failed to brighten the prospects of many of Angola's 33 million people who are mired in poverty.

Dos Santos died in Spain in July. State funerals for the late strongman were held in August in the same square where Lourenco is to be sworn in.

bur-sn/ub/ri/ser

Joao Lourenco: Angola's reformist leader back in driving seat

Wed, September 14, 2022 


A general who became a graft buster and turned on his political patron, Angolan President Joao Lourenco will be sworn in for a second term on Thursday but faces dwindling popularity in a country struggling with problems.

Nicknamed JLo, the 68-year-old secured a new five-year tenure in the tightest-ever vote held in the oil-rich country.

Lourenco leads the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) party, which has ruled since independence from Portugal in 1975.

In the August 24 ballot, the MPLA suffered its worst performance while its long-term rival, UNITA, surged.

Lourenco's victory was declared just 24 hours after he buried his predecessor, long-time ruler Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who died in Spain in July.


Handpicked by dos Santos, Lourenco took the helm in 2017. That year his party won with a comfortable 61 percent of the vote. This time he notched up just 51 percent.

He had promised sweeping economic reforms and a drive against graft.

But the election outcome reflected fading support for the historic ruling party, especially among young people clamouring for jobs and a better life.
- Political purgatory -

Joao Manuel Goncalves Lourenco was born in Lobito in western Angola.

As a young man, he fought the colonial power Portugal and then after independence took part in the civil war that erupted between the MPLA government and UNITA rebels.


Lourenco studied in the former Soviet Union, which trained many rising young African nationalists during decolonisation.

He became political chief of the armed wing of the MPLA in the civil war -- a Cold War proxy conflict that drew in Cuban forces to fight alongside the MPLA, while CIA-backed militias did battle against them.

The ex-artillery general ascended through the MPLA hierarchy, leading the party in parliament before becoming deputy speaker.

Yet his ambition almost ended his career.

Unable to hide his angling for the top job, he was sidelined by dos Santos around the turn of the century.

In 2014, he was brought back from the cold -- he was appointed defence minister and three years later eased himself into the top job.

- Anti-graft drive -

After winning the 2017 elections, Lourenco quickly turned on his predecessor, starting an anti-corruption drive to recoup the billions allegedly embezzled by dos Santos' family.

Inheriting an economy deep in recession, he launched ambitious reforms to diversify government revenue and privatise state-owned firms.

Lourenco has trumpeted his successes, but many of Angola's 33 million people still wallow in poverty.

His anti-graft push has also been criticised as selective and politically motivated, fuelling divisions within the MPLA.

Dos Santos's death worsened his woes, triggering a public spat with the veteran revolutionary leader's children -- several of whom face graft investigations.

Even so, Lourenco's change in tack from the previous regime has won praise abroad.

He has become the go-to mediator in Africa -- dealing with the crisis in the Central Africa Republic or brokering talks between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda.

He is married to Ana Dias, a former planning minister who also represented Angola at the World Bank. They have six children.

bur-sn/ri/ser

Ford unveils newest Mustang, extending gasoline-powered life

John BIERS
Wed, September 14, 2022 


Ford unveiled Wednesday its seventh-generation Mustang in a brash and boisterous launch event in downtown Detroit that pointed to the staying power of gasoline-powered vehicles.

The big reveal had been teased for months by company officials and organized as a celebration of the 58-year-old model. The event, organized for Ford employees and Mustang mavens, featured pulsating music, slickly produced videos on wide screens and a light projection of the brand's horse logo onto a city building that loomed in the background.

The 50-minute event culminated with the arrival of three sleek new sedans in different trims and, later, a fourth option, a racing vehicle called "Dark Horse" that was introduced dramatically by Ed Krenz, Ford's chief functional engineer for performance.

"Its name is indicative of its design and its aspirations," Krenz told a cheering crowd. "Its demeanor: absolutely sinister. Dark Horse is for the enthusiast who wants purebred force of nature."

Ford, which has dived into EV investment as much as any company in recent years, had refrained ahead of Wednesday from saying whether the new Mustang would be electric or gasoline-powered.

But the company made no apologies for its choice to go with the internal combustion engine (ICE).

"Investing in another generation of Mustang is a big statement at a time when many of our competitors are exiting the business of internal combustion vehicles," said Jim Farley, CEO of Ford Motor Company in a press release, adding that the company is "turbocharging" ICE growth even as it invests $50 billion in EV growth through 2026.


Mustang brand manager Jim Owens said some customers prefer the "visceral" feeling of an ICE vehicle, adding that the company has already released an EV version of the Mustang, the Mach-E sport utility vehicle.

"We know that there are customers out there in the sports car segment who still want the internal combustion engine," he told AFP in an interview before launch.

"There are a lot of late millennials and early Gen Zers who are into the sports car segment, and we think we have some wonderful things in here that are going to draw them in," he said.
- Rival muscle cars exit -

The latest Mustang -- once the inspiration for a Serge Gainsbourg song and seen in some 3,000 movies -- features a "fighter jet-inspired" interior and performance features that make it "the most exhilarating and fun-to-drive yet," Ford said.

The newest Mustang nods to earlier versions in its lighting and grille design, while also employing the latest in digital technology. This includes a key fob that lets drivers who love the sound of an engine revving satisfy their fix with the press of a button.

By extending the Mustang's run, Ford runs counter to some other brands such as Dodge, which in August said it was phasing out its gasoline-powered muscle car models, the Challenger and the Charger.

Ford's vehicle launch event also harked back to the spectacle of past car shows, even though the industry has been moving away from that marketing model in favor of online launches.

The Detroit Auto Show of yore was known for stunts such as the 1992 arrival of the Jeep Grand Cherokee, which announced itself by crashing through glass.

For Wednesday's Mustang launch, Ford organized a "Stampede" of earlier Mustangs that caravaned from around the country to Hart Plaza in downtown Detroit, creating an impressive row of Mustangs that went on for blocks.

Participants were encouraged to participate in a best-dressed contest of "attire inspired by their favorite period in Mustang history, from the 1960s through today," with the first-place prize a two-year car lease for a new Mustang.

The event also appeared to be intended as a morale boost for "Motor City," where the auto show has been revived for the first time since 2019 after pandemic cancellations. Presenters repeatedly acknowledged the contribution of local Ford employees, especially at the nearby Flat Rock Assembly Plant, where the Mustang is built.

TORTURE ROOMS
Syrian ex-prisoners haunted by horrors of 'salt rooms'

Author: AFP|Update: 15.09.2022 

Qais Murad, 36-year-old former inmate at Syria's Sednaya prison now living in Turkey, re-enacts an episode from his prison treatment / © AFP

When a Syrian prison guard tossed him into a dimly-lit room, the inmate Abdo was surprised to find himself standing ankle-deep in what appeared to be salt.

On that day in the winter of 2017, the terrified young man had already been locked up for two years in war-torn Syria's largest and most notorious prison, Sednaya.

Having been largely deprived of salt all that time in his meagre prison rations, he brought a handful of the coarse white crystals to his mouth with relish.


Moments later came the second, grisly, surprise: as a barefoot Abdo was treading gingerly across the room, he stumbled on a corpse, emaciated and half-buried in the salt.

Abdo soon found another two bodies, partially dehydrated by the mineral.

He had been thrown into what Syrian inmates call "salt rooms" -- primitive mortuaries designed to preserve bodies in the absence of refrigerated morgues.

Syrian ex-prisoners haunted by horrors of 'salt rooms' / © AFP

The corpses were being treated in a way already known to the embalmers of ancient Egypt, to keep up with the industrial-scale prison killings under President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

The salt rooms are described in detail for the first time in an upcoming report by the Association of Detainees and the Missing in Sednaya Prison, or ADMSP.

In additional research and interviews with former inmates, AFP found that at least two such salt rooms were created inside Sednaya.

Abdo, a man from Homs now aged 30 and living in eastern Lebanon, asked that his real name not be published for fear of reprisals against him and his family.

Diab Serriya, of the Association of Detainees and the Missing in Sednaya Prison, views a computer screen showing an image of the prison / © AFP

Speaking in his small rental flat in an unfinished building, he recounted the day he was thrown into the salt room, which served as his holding cell ahead of a military court hearing.

"My first thought was: may God have no mercy on them!" he said. "They have all this salt but don't put any in our food!

"Then I stepped on something cold. It was someone's leg."

- 'My heart died' -

Up to 100,000 people have died in Syrian regime prisons since 2011, a fifth of the war's entire death toll, according to Britain-based monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Moatassem Abdel Sater, a 42-year-old former inmate at Sednaya prison, with his wife Bara'ah and their children Othman, on the left, and Abdel Sattar / © AFP

Abdo, fortunate to have survived, described the salt room on the first floor of the red building as a rectangle of roughly six by eight metres (20 by 26 feet), with a rudimentary toilet in a corner.

"I thought this would be my fate: I would be executed and killed," he said, recalling how he curled up in a corner, crying and reciting verses from the Koran.

The guard eventually returned to escort him to the court, and Abdo lived to tell the tale.

On his way out of the room, he had noticed a pile of body bags near the door.

Like tens of thousands of others, he had been jailed on blanket terrorism charges. He was released in 2020 but says the experience scarred him for life.

"This was the hardest thing I ever experienced," he said. "My heart died in Sednaya. If someone announced the death of my brother right now, I wouldn't feel anything."

Around 30,000 people are thought to have been held at Sednaya alone since the start of the conflict. Only 6,000 were released.

Most of the others are officially considered missing because death certificates rarely reach the families unless relatives pay an exorbitant bribe, in what has become a major racket.

Moatassem Abdel Sater, a 42-year-old former inmate at Sednaya prison, accompanied by his child Othman, gives an interview at his home in Turkey / © AFP

AFP interviewed another former inmate, Moatassem Abdel Sater, who recounted a similar experience in 2014, in a different first-floor cell of around four by five metres, with no toilet.

Speaking at his new home in the Turkish town of Reyhanli, the 42-year-old recounted finding himself standing on thick layer of the kind of salt used to de-ice roads in winter.

"I looked to my right and there were four or five bodies," he said.

"They looked a bit like me," Moatassem said, describing how their skeletal limbs and scabies-covered skin matched his own emaciated body. "They looked like they had been mummified."

He said he still wonders why he was taken to the makeshift mortuary, on the day of his release, May 27, 2014, but guessed that "it might have been just to scare us".

- Black hole -

The ADMSP, after extensive research on the infamous prison, dates the opening of the first salt room to 2013, one of the deadliest years in the conflict.


Moatassem Abdel Sater draws a rudimentary sketch of the prison plan / © AFP

"We found that there were at least two salt rooms used for the bodies of those who died under torture, from sickness or hunger," the group's co-founder Diab Serriya said during an interview in the Turkish city of Gaziantep.

It was not clear whether both rooms existed at the same time, nor whether they are still being used today.

Serriya explained that when a detainee died, his body would typically be left inside the cell with the inmates for two to five days before being taken to a salt room.

The corpses remained there until there were enough of them for a truckload.

The next stop was a military hospital where death certificates -- often declaring a "heart attack" as the cause of death -- were issued, before mass burials.

The salt rooms were meant to "preserve the bodies, contain the stench... and protect the guards and prison staff from bacteria and infections," Serriya explained.

US-based professor of anatomy Joy Balta, who has published extensively on human body preservation techniques, explained how salt could be used as a simple and cheap alternative to cold rooms.

"Salt has the ability to dehydrate any living tissue ... and can therefore be used to significantly slow down the decomposition process," he told AFP.

The salt rooms were "used for the bodies of those who died under torture, from sickness or hunger," the group's co-founder Diab Serriya said / © AFP

A body can remain in salt without decomposing longer than in a purpose-built refrigerated chamber, "although it will alter the surface anatomy", said Balta, who founded the Anatomy Learning Institute at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego.

The ancient Egyptians are known to have used the mummification process, which includes the immersion of the body in a salt solution called natron.

The tonnes of rock salt used in Sednaya are thought to have come from Sabkhat al-Jabul, Syria's largest salt flats, in Aleppo province.

The report by ADMSP is the most thorough study yet of the structure of Sednaya, which has manufactured death on a terrifying scale for years.

It provides detailed schematics of the facility and of how duties were split between various army units and wardens.

"The regime wants Sednaya to be a black hole, no-one is allowed to know anything about it," Serriya said. "Our report denies them that."

- 'Salt was a treasure' -

Qais Murad, 36-year-old former inmate of Syria's Sednaya prison, gives an interview at his house in Gaziantep, in southeastern Turkey / © AFP

The fighting in Syria's brutal war has ebbed over the past three years, but Assad and the prison that has become a monument to his bloody rule are still there.

New layers to the horror of the war are still being uncovered as survivors abroad share their stories, and investigations into regime crimes by foreign courts fuel a drive for accountability.

"If a political transition ever occurs in Syria," said Serriya, "we want Sednaya to be turned into a museum, like Auschwitz."

Prisoners recall that, aside from torture and disease, their biggest torment was hunger.

Moatassem said his weight more than halved, from 98 kilograms when he was jailed in 2011 to 42 kilograms when he got out.

The ex-inmates also see as a sickening irony the fact that the salt they craved so badly formed an integral part of the horrific death machine that was decimating them.

The wheat, rice and potatoes they were sometimes fed were always cooked without salt, or sodium chloride, a lack of which can have serious health impacts on the human body.

Low sodium levels in the blood can cause nausea, dizziness and muscle cramps and, if sustained, coma and death.

Detainees used to soak olive pits in their water to salt it, and would even spend hours sifting through laundry detergent to pick out tiny crystals which they treated like a delicacy.

Former inmate Qais Murad recounted how, on a summer day in 2013, he was called out of his cell to see his parents, but on his way to the visitation area was shoved into a room.

Inside, he stepped on something like grit on the floor. Kneeling with his bowed head against the wall, he caught a glimpse of guards dumping around 10 bodies behind him.

Qais Murad, 36-year-old former inmate at Sednaya prison, re-enacts an episode from his prison treatment / © AFP

When a cellmate returned from a visit later that day, his socks and pockets stuffed with salt, Murad understood what the substance was.

"From that day onwards, we always made sure to wear socks, and trousers with pockets, for visits in case we found salt," Murad told AFP, also in Gaziantep.

He remembered how the excited cellmates ate boiled potatoes with their first pinch of salt in years that day, oblivious to its provenance.

"All we cared about was the salt," Murad said. "Salt was a treasure."