US energy firm payouts to oil investors top exploration spending for first time

Reuters
Tue, August 22, 2023 

A pumpjack is shown outside Midland-Odessa area in the Permian basin in Texas

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Top U.S. energy companies last year paid out more of their earnings to shareholders than they invested in new oil and gas fields for the first time, according to a report released on Tuesday.

The outlook for stronger energy prices has not changed the focus on investor returns from the U.S. industry, according to the report's authors, Ernst & Young LLP. U.S. energy companies have been focused on regaining favor with investors after years of overspending on production growth hurt returns and put them in the doghouse.

The returns focus has lifted the energy sector to about 4.5% of the S&P 500's market valuation, a doubling of its weighting since 2020, but well below its 8% average.

Spending on dividends and share buybacks by the top 50 U.S. independent oil and gas producers hit $58.8 billion last year, topping the $55.1 billion allocated to exploration and development, according to the EY research.

Combined profits of the group, which includes shale stars such as DiamondBack Energy, Pioneer Natural Resources, and ConocoPhillips, topped $333 billion last year, a third more than the $217 billion in 2014, when U.S. spot oil prices averaged $93 per barrel.

Last year's investor payouts were up substantially - 214% over 2021 and more than sevenfold over 2020 levels, the report said. Money spent on finding and tapping oil and gas also rose, but as a much slower pace.

"We expect this will continue even in a high interest rate environment or a high oil price environment," said Bruce On, a principal in EY's strategy and transactions group. One new outlet for the cash is acquisitions, which have risen this year and could continue next, he said.

Returns benefited from strong oil and gas pricing and a cost-consciousness that emerged after energy prices collapsed three years ago. Profit per barrel last year hit $32 compared to about $10 in 2014, when energy prices were about the same level as today, EY said.

Energy's market weight as a percentage of the S&P 500 remains below its historical average of about 8% even after doubling from three years ago.

RIGHT WING TROLL POLL

Ilhan Omar slams poll showing Biden beating her by 53 points: 'You all know I am not eligible'

Bryan Metzger
Mon, August 21, 2023 

• A pollster included Rep. Ilhan Omar in a hypothetical match-up against President Joe Biden.

• The poll showed Biden beating her by 53 points.

• Omar dismissed the poll, noting that she's not even eligible to serve as president.

Ilhan Omar for President?

That's the question that one pollster recently posed to a group of 2,500 registered voters, envisioning a hypothetical scenario in which the Minnesota Democrat launches a primary campaign against President Joe Biden.

The poll, conducted by The Center Square and Noble Predictive Insights, found that Biden would trounce Omar by 53 points, drawing 63% support against Omar's 10%.

Omar would narrowly outperform Marianne Williamson, which the poll found currently garners 9% of Democratic voters' support, but would fall short of the 16% held by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

But there's just one problem, aside from the fact that Omar is backing Biden's re-election: She's not eligible to serve as president anyway.

Article 2, Section 1 of the United States Constitution requires that the president be a "natural born citizen" — generally speaking, someone born in the United States.

Omar, who came to the US as a refugee in the 1990s, was born in Somalia.

"You all know I am not eligible to run for President," Omar wrote on Twitter on Monday, accusing the pollster of "wasting people's time."

 

One Scientist Believes We May Have Found Life On Mars 50 Years Ago

Jackie Appel
Wed, August 23, 2023 

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

Back in the 1970s, two little spacecraft had the honor of becoming the first to land on the surface of Mars and send us back photos. For the first time, we were able to physically interact with the Martian surface and run experiments on our planetary neighbor.

Three of those experiments constituted our first attempt at sussing out life on the surface of the red planet.

The results were…confusing. According to a NASA webpage on the missions, “These experiments discovered unexpected and enigmatic chemical activity in the Martian soil, but provided no clear evidence for the presence of living microorganisms in soil near the landing sites.”

The conclusion drawn from those results and accepted by the vast majority of the scientific community was that we did not discover life on Mars. It may have been somewhere else on the planet, but what we detected was not a sign of life. Rather, the odd signal was assigned to the chemical behaviors of perchlorates. The burden-of-proof standard for extraterrestrial life is incredibly high—and for good reason—and the Viking tests did not meet it.

But the conclusions of those tests did not satisfy everyone. Dirk Schulze-Makuch, a researcher focused on astrobiology and planetary habitability, recently published an article on Big Think re-doubling a call that he and his fellow (now retired) scientist Joop Houtkooper have been putting out to the world for several years now—we need to follow up on the Viking results.

Houtkooper communicated with John Wenz for Popular Mechanics in 2015 about his position regarding life on Mars. “The final conclusion by NASA was that Mars was dead, the surface was oxidizing and therefore no life was possible,” Houtkooper said in an email. “One of the Principal Investigators, Gilbert Levin, who designed the Labeled Release Experiment, remained a dissenter to this day, stating repeatedly over the years that his experiment detected life.”

And this new piece continues the trend. In an article riddled with “perhaps-es,” “might-s,” and “assume-s,” Schulze-Makuch writes that he believes that we may, in fact, have discovered alien life on that first visit to Mars—and that we may have killed it in the process.

“Many of the Viking experiments involved applying water to the soil samples, which may explain the puzzling results,” Schulze-Makuch claimed in his article. “Perhaps the putative Martian microbes collected for the labelled release experiments couldn’t deal with that amount of water and died off after a while.”

Schulze-Makuch calls into question the context under which the conclusions of the Viking experiments were drawn. After all, we’ve learned a lot since the 1970s. For instance, we now know that Mars does have organic compounds of its own—though, in a different form. In the Viking experiments, organic compounds were dismissed as Earth contamination. We’ve also learned quite a bit about what the environment of Mars is actually like, allowing us to entertain the idea that life could survive using different mechanisms than originally hypothesized.

One of those different mechanisms has been at the center of Schulze-Makuch’s and Houtkooper’s hypothesis for some time. They believe that microorganisms on Mars—in the way that our cells are heavily comprised of water—may be instead heavily comprised of a mixture of water and hydrogen peroxide. This could allow life to exist at lower temperatures than expected, and if we then accidentally drowned that life during the Viking tests, it would offer an alternate explanation for the murky result.

But the proposal being put forth here is not “this is definitely what happened.” Most scientists don’t speak about their hypotheses in those black-and-white terms. Instead, Schulze-Makuch’s argument is that it may be time to re-do our initial experiments and see if Round 2 confirms or contradicts our initial conclusions.

In an age of high investiture in Martian exploration—one filled with rovers, (hopefully) a Sample Return Mission, and plans for an eventual human visit—Sulze-Makuch calls for a re-do. Which, to be fair, is incredibly common scientific practice. Replicating results to confirm their accuracy is one of the most important parts of the scientific process.

Most likely, if a re-do does get approved and funded, we will get the same results as we did in the original test. But confirmation is never a bad thing to have.

SPACE RACE 2.0 

UPDATES

India moon landing: Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft successfully lands near lunar south pole

Gabe Hauari, USA TODAY
Updated Wed, August 23, 2023

Chandrayaan-3 successfully landed on the moon Wednesday, etching India into history as the fourth country to land a spacecraft on the lunar surface.

The Indian Space Research Organization launched Chandrayaan-3 over a month ago with the goal of landing near the lunar south pole, where it made a soft landing at about 8:33 a.m. EDT Wednesday.

The mission marks the first landing of any country near the south pole and the first lunar landing for India. With the landing, India became the fourth country − after the United States, the former Soviet Union, and China − to achieve the feat.

Chandrayaan-3, the word for “moon craft” in Sanskrit, took off from a launchpad in Sriharikota in southern India in July with an orbiter, a lander and a rover in a demonstration of India’s emerging space technology.

The world watched the progress of Chandrayaan-3 after the loss of Russia's Luna-25, which crashed into the lunar surface Sunday preparing for a pre-landing orbit of the moon. The Russian space agency Roscosmos said the craft "ceased its existence as a result of a collision with the lunar surface."

The six-wheeled lander and rover module of Chandrayaan-3 is configured with payloads that would provide data to the scientific community on the properties of lunar soil and rocks, including chemical and elemental compositions, said Dr. Jitendra Singh, junior minister for Science and Technology.

DIG DEEPER: Chandrayaan-3 attempt India's first moon landing after Russian Luna-25 crash


India Chandrayaan-3 mission is expecting to land near the lunar South Pole

India’s previous attempt to land a robotic spacecraft near the moon’s little-explored south pole ended in failure in 2019. It entered the lunar orbit but lost touch with its lander which crashed while making its final descent to deploy a rover to search for signs of water. According to a failure analysis report submitted to the Indian Space Research Organization, the crash was caused by a software glitch.

Contributing: The Associated Press

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Chandrayaan-3: Indian spacecraft lands near lunar south pole

India's Chandrayaan-3 lands on Moon, becoming 4th country to touchdown on lunar surface

Emilee Speck
Wed, August 23, 2023 

India became the fourth country to successfully land on the Moon with the Chandrayaan-3 robotic mission, just days after Russia's lander failed to touch down on the lunar surface.

Cheers and applause erupted at the India Space Research Organisation (ISRO) mission control on Wednesday when telemetry confirmed a soft landing on the lunar South Pole of the Chandrayaan-3 mission.

"I reached my destination and you too!" a message from Chandrayaan-3 read.

ISRO's live coverage of the landing included a side-by-side of the spacecraft with India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose reaction was broadcast in real-time.

Smiling, Modi waved a small Indian flag right after the landing. "India is now on the moon," Modi said.

Congratulations from space officials around the world were pouring on Wednesday after the milestone landing.

NASA's series of arrays on Earth known as the Deep Space Network were used by ISRO to track and communicate with the spacecraft throughout the spaceflight to the Moon.

"Congratulations ISRO on your successful Chandrayaan-3 lunar South Pole landing!" NASA Administrator Bill Nelson wrote on X. "And congratulations to India on being the 4th country to successfully soft-land a spacecraft on the Moon. We're glad to be your partner on this mission!"

India joins the U.S., the former Soviet Union and China to successfully land on the Moon.

The world was watching to see if India's second landing attempt would be a success. Chandrayaan-3 is a follow-up to India's Chandrayaan-2 mission, and consists of a lunar lander, called Vikram, and a small rover, named Pragyan. The Chandrayaan-2 mission ended with the lander crash-landing on the Moon in 2019, however, the spacecraft continues to send data, according to the ISRO.

NASA ASTRONAUTS WILL LAND IN SHADOWED REGIONS ON THE MOON'S SOUTH POLE

NASA's former head of science Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen was in Switzerland watching the landing.

"I watched --we all did. So proud of our ISRO friends! Wow-congrats," Zurbuchen said. "The entire staff of (the) Swiss Space Office and reps of top universities were watching and delayed their meeting!"

The rover and lander are designed to operate for about 14 days on the lunar surface, collecting data with a suite of science instruments.

India's success comes a few days after Russia's Luna-25 spacecraft crashed into the Moon on Monday, ending the first Russian lunar landing attempt in nearly 50 years.

The Moon's South Pole is an unexplored area of the lunar surface and also where NASA plans to land humans in the next few years as part of the Artemis program. Craters on the South Pole are believed to contain water ice, which could be harvested to create fuel and resources for further space exploration.

India joins exclusive club after successful moon landing - with innovative, low-cost spacecraft

Sky News
Wed, 23 August 2023 



Nearly four years ago, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi hugged the director of India's space agency who was reduced to tears after losing Chandrayaan-2 - his country's first attempt to land on the moon.

Today, it was tears of joy.

This isn't just a huge triumph for Indian scientists and engineers.

As Chandrayaan-3 touched down near the lunar south pole, it landed India in an exclusive club of just three other nations who have achieved the feat - the US, China and the former USSR.

Mr Modi will rightly revel in his nation's achievement but this is about business as well as politics.

By its engineers' own admission, Chandrayaan-3 isn't the most sophisticated spacecraft ever built.

But they have achieved what other countries (most recently Russia) failed to do with an innovative, low-cost design.

Read more:
India makes history in space - here's what we learnt

Moon landing - as it happened

Leaders in space like the USA, Europe and Japan are now looking to the private sector to explore and commercialise space.

Sticking a moon landing is about the best pitch India's high-tech sector could have wanted for its readiness to partner in international space projects.

Just as with NASA's moon landings in the 1960s and 70s, the achievement of ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) will also inspire millions of young Indians pursuing careers in science and engineering.

It Worked! India First to Land Near Moon’s South Pole

Jackie Appel
Wed, August 23, 2023 


India has successfully landed a craft in the southern polar region of the Moon.

This marks the first time any country has landed a craft in that region, and makes India only the fourth country to land on the Moon.

The success comes just days after a Russian mission crashed into the lunar surface attempting to hit the same milestone.

Slow and steady wins the race. After a long journey and the crash of a Russian lander, India has become the first country to successfully perform a soft landing (aka not a crash) in the southern polar region of the Moon. The landing has also made India only the fourth country to ever land on the Moon at all.

According to Reuters, India’s prime minister Narendra Modi called the moment of landing “unforgettable.”

“It is phenomenal,” he continued. “This is a victory cry of a new India.”

The Chandrayaan-3—comprised of a lander called Vikram and a rover called Pragyan—marks a huge success for the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), which generally operates on a much smaller budget than other world space powers. The mission set off on its way to the Moon on July 14, slowly making its way through space to arrive today, the day the Sun rises and begins the two-Earth-week-long lunar day.

Vikram and Pragyan will have until the lunar night sets in to complete the bulk of their work. The robots will run a number of experiments, including an analysis of the mineral composition of the local area.

The area around the Moon’s south pole is of particular interest to researchers, largely because it is home to a fair amount of ice. Scientists hope that this ice can eventually be leveraged to provide water, oxygen, and even fuel—if future MOXIE-like missions have their way—for lunar missions still to come.

And India got there first, which was not an easy task. The terrain in the Moon’s southernmost region is not exactly hospitable, so it’s hard to find a good place to land. And even if you pick one, everything on your approach has to go right.

We saw incredibly recently that “everything going right on the approach” is far from a given, as Russia attempted their own landing in the southern polar region earlier this week. The Luna-25—Russia’s first attempt at a Moon landing since 1976—crashed into the Moon on Monday. Had it succeeded, it would have just beat India to the region, despite launching almost a full month after Chandrayaan-3 on August 11.

But the hare couldn’t stick the landing, and the tortoise reigned supreme. The impressive and reportedly very cost-effective landing is a real feather in India’s cap, one they hope to add to in the near future. The country is looking forward to another lunar expedition —this time in partnership with Japan—also aimed at exploring the Moon’s southernmost region. They’re also prepping to launch a mission intended to study the Sun in September. And on top of all of that, the ISRO is gearing up for what it hopes will be its first manned space mission.

Hopefully, this success will be an adrenaline shot that can propel India into even more wins in space. But for right now, those involved in the Chandrayaan-3 mission are reveling in their current victory.

“We have achieved soft landing on the moon,” S. Somanath, the director of the Indian Space Research Organization, said in a New York Times article. “India is on the moon.”

India becomes first to land on moon's south pole

Clyde Hughes
Wed, August 23, 2023 

An artist's illustration shows India's Vikram moon lander. Image courtesy of Indian Space Research Organization/EPA-EFE


Aug. 23 (UPI) -- India made history Wednesday, becoming the first to land on the south pole region of the moon.

The Indian Space Research Organization landed the unmanned Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft on the lunar surface shortly after 8:30 a.m. EDT. The mission, streamed live on YouTube, comes days after a robotic Russian spacecraft lost control and crashed trying to do the same thing.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi joined the ISRO via video from South Africa, where he is attending the BRICS Summit, waving the Indian flag as the Chandrayaan-3 safely landed on the moon. Many at the ISRO control center stood up and applauded at the altitude meter reached 0.00, indicating the spaceship had landed.

Modi gave brief comments commending the space agency on the historic landing as they prepared for the next phase, the deployment of the lunar rover.

India became the third country to make a soft landing on the moon, behind the United States, the former Soviet Union and China, and the first to land on the south pole.

There is significant scientific interest in the south pole because researchers believe it may contain frozen ice, which could be used as drinking water and help make fuel and oxygen allowing for life to be sustained there.

Chandrayaan-3's lander, the Vikram, holds a lunar rover that will be deployed to do a chemical analysis of the moon's sole pole surface in an effort to confirm some of the theories about frozen water and other elements.

While NASA's Artemis program is expected to return astronauts to the moon in 2025, India and Russia have been in a race for the first to reach the south pole. Its failed mission over the weekend has put Roscosmos considerably behind again.

Images released by the Indian space agency last weekend revealed craters on the moon's surface, which will help it avoid potential hazards. Highlighting the danger of such a landing, Japan, Israel and the United Arab Emirates have all failed to safely land on the moon before Russia's mishap.

 

SEE

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2023/08/luna-3-indias-moon-landing-could-make.html

RUSSIAN NEO COLONIALISM

Wagner boss Prigozhin claims to be in Africa, pledges to 'make Russia even greater on all continents'

Alexander Query
Mon, August 21, 2023 

Wagner Group chief and war criminal Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed that he was in Africa in a video shared on Aug. 21 by the "Razgruzka Vagnera" ("Unloading Wagner") Telegram channel linked to the mercenary group.

In the video, Prigozhin, dressed in full army gear, stands in front of a deserted piece of land that he claims is in Africa, with a handful of soldiers behind him.

"Wagner conducts reconnaissance and search operations. Makes Russia even greater on all continents, and Africa - even more free. Justice and happiness for African peoples. Nightmares for ISIS, Al-Qaida, and other gangs," he says in the video.

In addition to fighting alongside the Russian regular army in Ukraine before a short-lived mutiny against the Kremlin in June, the Wagner Group has been accused of committing human rights abuses, including torture and extrajudicial killings, in Mali alongside the Malian army fighting jihadists, as well as in Syria, Libya, the Central African Republic, Sudan, and Mozambique.

The U.K. government announced on July 20 a new wave of sanctions against 13 individuals and businesses connected to the Wagner Group's activities in Mali, Central African Republic, and Sudan.

One of the persons the U.K. has targeted is Ivan Maslov, head of the Wagner Group in Mali, for his role in the massacre of more than 500 people in Moura in March 2022.

Prigozhin's recorded video message follows information that over a thousand Wagner Group mercenaries have departed Belarus because they are unhappy with their pay, the Ukrainian military's National Resistance Center reported on Aug. 19.

Sources in Belarus told the Center that the number of Wagner fighters had fallen from 5,800 to 4,400.

According to the center's report, "lack of funding from Russia" is the cause. Dissatisfied with their earnings, Wagner mercenaries stationed in Belarus have signed contracts to fight in African nations or left for vacation without the intention of returning.

The Belarusian government established a partnership with the Wagner Group in July, when the private military company relocated to Belarus in the aftermath of Yevgeny Prigozhin's June rebellion.

Wagner members have since been training Belarusian soldiers on combat techniques.

Given the low payment for Wagner instructors, "most of them do not plan to stay in the country for a long time," the Center said.

While Wagner troops appear to have withdrawn from Ukraine, their presence in Belarus has increased regional tensions. Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia have threatened to close their borders to Belarus due to Wagner activity along the border.

Read also: Russia comes to the brink of civil war: How we got here and what it means

The notorious Wagner mercenary force, once often called “Putin’s private army,” occupied two major regional capitals and began a march on Moscow on June 23 following a long-running conflict with the Defense Ministry, which had ordered the mercenaries to be integrated into the regular army by July 1.

Prigozhin turned his sights not only on his arch-rivals, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and head of the Russian General Staff Valerii Gerasimov, but, de facto, on the entire Russian regime, including dictator Vladimir Putin.

Prigozhin started the rebellion after claiming the Russian army had attacked the mercenaries.

Several thousand Wagner mercenaries took over Rostov-on-Don, a major city in southern Russia.

They marched all the way to the vicinity of Moscow, stopping just 200 kilometers south of the capital.

According to Russian media reports, the Wagner troops shot down several helicopters and one plane and killed more than 10 Russian soldiers, including pilots.

During most of the march, there was little resistance to the mercenaries, which prompted speculation that the police, the National Guard, and the army were reluctant to confront Wagner.

Eventually, Prigozhin concluded a deal with Putin late on June 24 and halted the mutiny, with Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko as an intermediary.

The Russian authorities agreed not to prosecute Prigozhin and the mercenaries and let them move to Belarus.

India blocks independent news outlet in Kashmir

#KASHMIR IS #INDIA'S #GAZA

Larissa Gao
Tue, August 22, 2023 

An independent news outlet in Indian-administered Kashmir says it has been evicted from its office after Indian authorities blocked access to its website and social media accounts, adding to concerns about press freedom in the disputed region.

The Kashmir Walla, based in the capital of Srinagar, said it had lived a “horrifying nightmare” since February 2022, when its founder and editor, Fahad Shah, was arrested under anti-terror and sedition laws.

On Saturday, the outlet said in a statement, “we woke up to another deadly blow of finding access to our website and social media accounts blocked.”

The outlet said it was told by its service provider that the website had been blocked on government orders. Its Facebook page, where it has almost 500,000 followers, is also no longer available in India, while its account on X, formerly known as Twitter, appears with a message saying it has been blocked “in response to a legal demand.”

The outlet added that it was in the process of vacating its office after being served an eviction notice by the landlord.

“This opaque censorship is gut-wrenching,” said the outlet, which was founded more than a decade ago. “There isn’t a lot left for us to say anymore.”

Critics have accused Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a highly popular Hindu nationalist who is expected to seek a third term in elections next year, of cracking down on press freedom, particularly in Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority region. The highly militarized Himalayan region is also claimed by neighboring Pakistan, which controls part of it.

In August 2019, Modi revoked the limited autonomy that Indian-administered Kashmir had enjoyed for 70 years and put it under federal control, an order that was followed by a months-long internet blackout. Rights advocates say civil liberties in Kashmir have been curbed since the order, which is being challenged at India’s top court.

Government officials have not commented on The Kashmir Walla’s closure.

'The Kashmir Walla' reporters seen removing the office board 

Faisal Bashir / SOPA / Lightrocket via Getty Images)

Indian news organizations and other supporters criticized the actions taken against the outlet.

The Kashmir Walla was “one of the few portals that dared to speak truth to power,” Mehbooba Mufti, former chief minister of Kashmir, said on X.

The Digipub News India Foundation, a group of digital media organizations that promote a healthy news environment, said in a statement on X that The Kashmir Walla’s sudden closure was “yet another act of intimidation of journalists in Kashmir who have been facing threats, harassment and arrests at a growing pace since August 2019.”

Human Rights Watch reported last year that since 2019, at least 35 journalists in Kashmir had faced “police interrogation, raids, threats, physical assault or criminal cases” over their reporting. They include Sajad Gul, a trainee reporter with The Kashmir Walla who was arrested in January 2022 and like Shah remains in prison.

Also in January 2022, the Kashmir Press Club, the largest media organization in Indian-administered Kashmir, was forcibly shut down after it was raided by armed police, according to the International Federation of Journalists.

India, the world’s largest democracy, ranks 161st out of 180 countries on this year’s World Press Freedom Index, down from 150th last year.

Disclaimer: Kashmir Walla interim editor Yashraj Sharma has reported for NBC News.

'The fear is not going away': Christians in Pakistan afraid to return home

Tue, August 22, 2023 




Christians displaced by sectarian violence taking shelter in a school in Jaranwal


By Charlotte Greenfield

JARANWALA, Pakistan (Reuters) - Eighteen-year-old Kanwal had just returned from hospital with her newborn baby, Samuel, when a vigilante mob launched a violent attack on their home in a Christian area of eastern Pakistan.

Terrified, she swept up the baby and fled barefoot with the rest of her family, narrowly escaping the mob that torched their house last week, causing the loss of their pet birds and all their belongings.

"We are very scared of our neighbours ... we don't want them to destroy whatever little we have left," said Kanwal, cradling Samuel as she sat in a school classroom converted into a makeshift dormitory in the bustling market town of Jaranwala.


"We should be shifted somewhere else," she added. Her 11-year-old brother and sisters aged seven and 11 are too scared to return to school, where they are among a tiny minority of Christian students.

"Today was the first day of school after summer vacations but I did not send them because of fear," said their mother, Kiran. "I told them, 'You will get an education if you stay alive.'"

Nearly 160 people have been arrested over Wednesday's hours-long rampage by a mob that residents said consisted of people carrying iron rods, knives and sticks, and which set fire to churches and scores of homes.

Police and residents said the attack started after someone took allegedly desecrated pages of the Muslim holy book, the Koran, to a mosque prayer leader, which was followed by announcements calling for punishment.

Police have arrested two Christian men accused of blasphemy and are investigating.

Blasphemy is punishable by death in Pakistan but no one has ever been executed, although numerous people accused of blasphemy have been lynched by outraged mobs in the past.

A former provincial governor and a minister for minorities were shot dead for trying to reform the blasphemy law.

A large contingent of armed paramilitary troopers has fanned out to restore calm in Jaranwala, set in the rural heartland of Pakistan's Punjab province, amid farms growing wheat, rice and sugarcane.

Provincial and federal authorities have pledged financial help for the Christian community, which forms less than 2% of Pakistan's population of 241 million, many of whom live in poverty, to help pick up their lives.

Caretaker prime minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar visited the area on Monday, announcing relief for affected families, calling the attack an atrocity and promising Pakistan's minority religious communities that the government would protect them.

But community members and advocates say the trauma and fear will be tough to heal and their safety is not assured. Many are afraid to return home but, still in shock, do not know where to rebuild their lives.

"Everyone is focusing on giving them food, giving them shelter, but what they are feeling, how they are broken from the inside, how they will accept that they are equal citizens, this is the (important) thing," said Naseem Anthony, a member of a rights group, Awam.

"There is very serious concern from the civil society side about the psychological damage," added Anthony, speaking outside a gathering of civil society organisations held near a salmon-pink church, its insides blackened with soot.

A few streets away about 240 people live in the makeshift shelter in the school along with Kanwal's family.

String and wood cots have been set up among classroom walls still plastered with charts showing the alphabet and how to count.

Many here spent the first few days after the attack living outside, in fields and roads in sweltering heat.

They described feelings of depression and anxiety, a fear of open spaces, trouble sleeping and frequent outbursts of weeping when they recall Wednesday's events.

"Most of the people from the Christian colony in Jaranwala are afraid of returning home because of the unrest and uncertainty about their protections," said community leader Akmal Bhatti.

"All this is triggering a sense of fear," he added. "The majority of children are suffering psychological issues ... Now, children and girls are afraid of people, they don't want to go out in markets and crowded places."

Government officials at the heavily-guarded shelter said they would let people stay as long as needed, adding that it has been staffed with doctors and nurses to provide support.

Non-government organisations estimate hundreds of people have been physically displaced with thousands of Christians in the area affected by the violence. Some are staying in makeshift shelters nearby, and others with relatives.

Kanwal and her mother, Kiran, are not sure how long the family will stay.

"My greatest wish now is that I want security," said Kiran. "I want a safe place for my family to live in. The fear that has got embedded in my heart and my children's minds is just not going away."

(Reporting by Charlotte Greenfield and Mubasher Bukhari; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

How a mix of natural and human-caused factors cooked up Tropical Storm Hilary's soggy mess

SETH BORENSTEIN
Updated Mon, August 21, 2023

 - Vehicles cross over a flood control basin that has almost reached the street, Sunday, Aug. 20, 2023, in Palm Desert, Calif. Scientists figure a natural El Nino, human-caused climate change, a stubborn heat dome over the nation’s midsection and other factors cooked up Hilary’s record-breaking slosh into California and Nevada.

(AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill, File)

A natural El Nino, human-caused climate change, a stubborn heat dome over the nation’s midsection and other factors cooked up Tropical Storm Hilary’s record-breaking slosh into California and Nevada, scientists figure.

Cooked up is the key phrase, since hot water and hot air were crucial in rapidly growing Hilary and then steering the storm on an unusual path that dumped 10 months of rain in a single weekend in normally bone-dry places. Nearly a foot of rain fell in parts of Southern California's mountains, while cities smashed summertime records.

“It was a combination of sort of a perfect situation of everything coming together in a way that made the storm possible,” said University of Albany atmospheric scientist Kristen Corbosiero, an expert on Pacific hurricanes.

It’s never easy to attribute a single event to climate change, especially so quickly and with El Nino being a prominent factor, said former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration hurricane and climate scientist Jim Kossin, now with the nonprofit First Street Foundation.

To understand Hilary's unusual path, it's best to go where the storm began.

Hilary formed in an area south of Baja California and west of Mexico. Many storms form in the Eastern Pacific there, but most move harmlessly west into the open Pacific or into Mexico and then eventually — weaker — into the U.S. Southwest.

It’s one of the most active birthing places for tropical cyclones, Corbosiero said. But the water — fuel for the heat engine that is a hurricane – was about 3.5 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit (2 to 3 degrees Celsius) hotter than normal at the surface and that warmth went deep, said UCLA western weather scientist Daniel Swain.

So Hilary rapidly intensified, gaining 75 mph in wind speed strength in just 24 hours — going from nearly nothing to a Category 4 hurricane in no time.

“We’ve been seeing (rapid intensification) more and more recently,” said Kossin, who did a study showing this phenomenon increasing.

“For a storm to intensify the way Hilary did everything has to be ideal,” Kossin said. There has to be warm water, it has to run deep and there has to be little to no crosswinds decapitating the storm, he said. Hilary checked all those boxes.

The water was warm both because of the natural El Nino, a warming of parts of the equatorial Pacific that changes weather worldwide, and because of long-term climate change that has been shattering records for heat deeper in the oceans, scientists said.

UCLA’s Swain said there are three main reasons storms that form where Hilary did don't normally swamp Southern California.

First, unlike the hurricane-prone Atlantic coast where the warm Gulf stream is ideal for storms, the coast along California and Baja California is cold and it brings cold water up from the deep, Swain said: “That’s a real hurricane killer.”

The normal atmosphere in California is also a hurricane killer. It’s dry and has downward motion, while storms like upward motion, Swain said.

But Hilary had grown so strong and big that even though it rapidly weakened when it hit the cold water, it was still packing enough of a punch when it got to California, Kossin said.

The reason it got to California is that the third factor — usually prevailing winds pushing storms from east to west – failed to protect the Pacific coast this time, Swain said.

Hot air to the east and a low-pressure system to the west combined to push and pull Hilary up into California instead of the normal paths for eastern Pacific storms, Corbosiero and other scientists said. And a big hot air mass sitting over the middle United States blocked the storm from turning east.

What’s unusual is that big hot air mass just hasn’t been moving. Some scientists, including Woodwell Climate Research Institute’s Jennifer Francis, have theorized that especially in summer there are more and more situations where weather patterns get stuck and it seems to be connected to changes in the Arctic because of global warming. Other scientists disagree. It's one of the biggest unresolved issues in mainstream climate science, Swain said.

“Hilary is a rare storm but almost certainly we will see equally bizarre and destructive but different events unfold as the globe continues to warm generally and this El Nino continues to strengthen,” Francis said.

Last October, MIT hurricane scientist Kerry Emanuel was at UCLA giving a guest lecture on the rare chance of a tropical storm or hurricane hitting Los Angeles. His computer models, factoring in climate change and other ingredients, found that the type of storm that would dump 15.7 inches of rain (40 centimeters) on downtown Los Angeles used to have a one-in-108-year chance of happening, at least until 2010. But now that type of storm has a one-in-30-year chance, he figured.

“Hilary was substantially more probable today than it would have been 20 or 30 years ago,” said Emanuel, who also calculated the likelihood of a storm flooding New York City, months before 2012’s Superstorm Sandy.

But it’s not just climate change, Emanuel said: “We do know for sure that El Nino tends to enhance” hurricane activity in that region.

And when storms like Hilary hit, the warmer air also holds more moisture and that means more rain falling down, Corbosiero, Swain and Emanuel said. Studies show that worldwide tropical cyclones are getting rainier.

For the next two to three weeks, expect the eastern Pacific hurricane basin to be active – peak season is near the end of the month – Corbosiero said. Other weather and climate conditions may provide the region a break in early to mid-September only to get busier again at the end of next month, she said.

U.S., Canada mark 10th anniversary of Syrian chemical attack in Ghouta

Don Jacobson
Mon, August 21, 2023

The United States and Canada on Monday marked the 10th anniversary of a chemical attack on civilians by the Syrian regime that killed hundreds near Damascus. The United States has blamed the government of Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad (pictured greeting Syrian troops in Ghouta, in 2018) for the chemical attack in 2013. 

Photo by Syrian Arab News Agency for EPA-EFE

Aug. 21 (UPI) -- The governments of the United States and Canada on Monday marked the 10th anniversary of a chemical attack on civilians by the Syrian regime that killed hundreds near Damascus.

The United States has blamed the government of Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad for the chemical attack on Aug. 21, 2013, carried out during the Syrian Civil War, that killed 1,429 people, including at least 426 children.

The State Department says the Artillery and Missile Directorate of the Syrian Armed Forces, under the command of Assad, launched rockets carrying the nerve agent sarin, a deadly chemical, onto Ghouta, a suburb of Damascus, which at the time was held by anti-Assad rebels.

Last year, the United States sanctioned three Syrian regime military officials involved in the airstrikes, namely Brig. Gen. Adnan Aboud Hilweh, Major Gen. Ghassan Ahmed Ghannam and Major Gen. Jawdat Saleebi Mawas.

Syrian human rights campaigners say a total of more than 1,500 people were killed and 11,000 injured in at least 200 chemical weapons attacks carried out by the Syrian regime between 2012 and 2019.

The bodies of men lie in a makeshift morgue in eastern Ghouta, on the outskirts of Damascus, on August 21, 2013. The United States says more than 1,400 died in a large-scale chemical attack by the Assad regime on the rebel-held suburb. 

File Photo by Diaa El Din/UPI

On Monday, the Biden administration again called attention to the "massacre."

"The Assad regime, backed by Russia, is hoping the world will forget the atrocities that have occurred in Syria. We will not," National Security Council Spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a statement.

"The horrifying images from that early morning still haunt us to this day, and they drive this administration's efforts to rid the world of chemical weapons and to secure a safer future for all Syrians," she said, adding that no child, "in Syria or anywhere else in the world, should live in fear of these heinous weapons."

Syria and Russia, she said, are "obstructing" the efforts of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to verify the full elimination of Syria's chemical weapons program and document violations of international law and human rights in the country.

Ottawa similarly marked a decade "since the atrocious attack in Ghouta" in a statement issued by Global Affairs Canada.

"The Syrian regime continues its flagrant disregard for its obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention and UN Security Council Resolution 2118 and refuses to take responsibility for its horrific crimes," the statement read.

"It has also repeatedly failed to submit a complete and accurate declaration of its chemical weapons program to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons."

The Syrian Network for Human Rights, based The Hague, Netherlands, observed the 10th anniversary of the Ghouta attack with a statement blasting Syria's "criminal regime," which, is still "protected by its impunity."

"Even though an entire decade has passed since that terrible day, time has not erased the memories of that barbaric and monstrous attack," the group said, noting that the Assad regime has "still not been held accountable for perpetrating such unimaginable evil."

Protests rock government-held areas in southern Syria as economy crumbles

KAREEM CHEHAYEB and BASSEM MROUE
Updated Mon, August 21, 2023 



 In this image made from amateur video released by the Shaam News Network and accessed, protesters carry Syrian revolutionary flags during a demonstration in Daraa, Syria, May 2, 2012. Protests spread Monday, Aug. 21, 2023, to new areas in southern Syria amid widespread anger over increasing prices, the crash of the Syrian pound and dwindling purchase power of most people in the war-torn country, opposition activists said.

 (Shaam News Network via AP, File)

BEIRUT (AP) — Protests spread Monday in two government-held provinces in southern Syria amid widespread anger over the crash of the Syrian pound and the dwindling purchasing power of many people in the war-torn country, opposition activists said.

The rare protests are still limited to southern Syria and are far from government strongholds along the Mediterranean coast, the capital Damascus and the largest cities, including Aleppo and Homs.

The protests came a week after Syrian President Bashar Assad issued two decrees doubling public sector wages and pensions, sparking inflation and compounding economic woes for others.

The U.S. dollar has strengthened from 7,000 Syrian pounds at the beginning of 2023 to 15,000 now. At the onset of Syria’s uprising turned-civil war in 2011, the dollar was trading at 47 pounds.

The protests were concentrated in the southern city of Sweida, home to the country’s Druze minority, and the nearby province of Daraa, often considered the birthplace of Syria’s uprising 13 years ago. Sporadic protests in Sweida against the government and corruption have intensified and turned violent, while Daraa, back under government control since 2018, has experienced high crime and clashes between militias.

There was no immediate comment Monday from the government about the second day of protests in Sweida and Daraa.

On Sunday, the pro-government Sham FM radio station reported that final exams at branches of Damascus University in Sweida were postponed until further notice because some students could not reach campuses because of road closures.

Assad’s decision to hike wages and pensions comes as the cash-strapped government continues to restructure an expensive subsidy program for fuel, gasoline and wheat for bread. Soon after the decision, public transport and fuel fares increased. The economy has already been struggling after years of conflict, corruption and mismanagement, and Western-led sanctions on the government over accusations of war crimes and involvement in the illicit narcotics trade.

“We only kneel to God,” chanted dozens of protesters in the city of Sweida who were accompanied by Druze clerics, according to Suwayda 24, a news website run by activists in the region.

It said protesters were coming to the provincial capital from nearby villages.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, reported that protesters closed main roads in Sweida, including the road leading to the local headquarters of Assad’s ruling Baath party.

In Daraa province, where protests against the government in March 2011 spread across the country, protesters marched in villages including Nawa, Jasem Sanamein and Dael calling for the downfall of Assad’s government and for the expulsion of Iranian influence from the region, according to opposition activist Ahmad al-Masalmeh. Iran has been a main backer of Assad, helping to tip the balance of power in his favor.

The United Nations estimates that 90% of Syrians in government-held areas live in poverty and that over half of the country’s population of 12 million struggles to put food on the table.