PAKISTAN

Who set fire to Jaranwala?

Umair Javed

INCIDENTS of anti-minority mob violence under the pretext of blasphemy allegations have risen steadily since the mid-2000s. As per the usual, formulaic response, last week’s incident in Jaranwala was followed by a range of condemnations from the civil and military leadership and from the mainstream, high-profile clerics of all denominations.

The specificity with which places of worship were targeted by a large crowd is evidence of both the scale of the rot within society and the high level of local organisation required to make it possible. TLP, other Barelvi extremists, and their backers have much to answer for.

A preliminary analysis of the Jaranwala tragedy shows that anti-minority mob violence has two aspects. The first of these is the law-and-order aspect, which is what state officials tend to focus on. The assumption is that in any society there will be instances where violence can become likely.

However, local authorities should be able to take administrative steps required to defuse any potential situation, such as a blasphemy allegation, that may result in violence. If law-and-order administration is effective and far-sighted enough, such an intervention would help mitigate the risk of a full-blown riot. In the Jaranwala case, it was not.


Failing to resolve a situation prior to its escalation, the law-and-order aspect of the response would then involve managing a mob to limit its ability to carry out violence. Whether this is through riot control, detention, or other use of force, is immaterial. The aim should be to prevent any loss of life and property of a community at risk.

In the Jaranwala case, this too did not happen. In fact, if video evidence is anything to go by, local law enforcement remained passive, while administrators attempted to negotiate with the extremists from a position of weakness.

Extremist clerics, pandering politicians, conniving generals, status-seeking businessmen, and honour-seeking young men all feed into it.

The third stage, having failed at the first two, involves punitive consequences for those involved in the violence. This would mean strong punishments that are sufficient to act as a deterrent. The idea being that while one unfortunate incident has happened, the consequences would be enough to prevent another one from taking place.

Worth pointing out that there were zero convictions from the 2013 Joseph Colony incident so there is no deterrence to speak of. A hundred houses were burnt and 115 accused persons were acquitted. It seems the houses set themselves on fire.

Beyond the law-and-order aspect, the second aspect of mob violence is social and political. Mobs are not instant creations. The ideas that rile them up do not appear out of nowhere. The methods they use for violence are not spontaneously learned. The resources they draw on do not magically descend from heaven (or, as would be more appropriate, ascend from hell). All of these things have definitive roots in society.

The sociopolitical aspect of violent incidents such as the one in Jaranwala is far harder to tackle because it is so wide-ranging. A toxic mix of extremist clerics, pandering politicians, conniving generals, status-seeking businessmen, and honour-seeking young men all feeds into it.

Over the past decade and a half, Pakistani society has witnessed the Barelvi far-right gain recognition, prestige, and massive followership by weaponising the issue of blasphemy and respect for the Prophet (PBUH).

Drawing on global incidents, they have domesticated the idea of a threat to Islam in a country that is 95 per cent Muslim. Incidents like Jaranwala happen because of the takeover of mosques, the discrediting of mainstream clerics, and the use of grassroots organising and digital outreach.

But they also happen because generals are happy to co-opt these movements for political ends. They happen, in part, because a braying mob paid a few thousand rupees each is useful to cut down a political government to size. And because a few thousand votes are useful to achieve the desired election result.

They happen because a politician who gets up and says he would cut off the head of an alleged blasphemer ends up validating vigilante violence as a source of prestige.

A politician who says he will not forgive others for endangering respect for the Prophet (PBUH) by attempting to make a procedural change in some legal document is also part of the problem.

A politician who makes unfathomable changes to marriage documents in a bid to publicise his pious credentials has also contributed to the issue. And an assembly that attempts to pass legislation widening the ambit of blasphemy and endangering an entire sect is adding explosive fuel to an already burning fire.

There are other contributions at play here as well. There is the local bureaucrat who doesn’t want to ruffle any feathers. There’s a businessman who wants to earn a bit of recognition in the community, so ends up sponsoring a few religious gatherings and donates to a local TLP chapter.

Maybe he does it under pressure, maybe he believes in what’s being preached, or maybe he’s just in it for the name on the banner or the plaque outside the mosque. The intentions are immaterial because the outcome is the same.

And then there is the actual mob itself. Young men, with little prospects of upward social and material mobility. Religious rhetoric provides them with a sense of community and of being a part of something bigger. Indoctrinated with notions of honour and masculinity that can only be validated by taking revenge from some vulnerable minority over an imagined crime they probably didn’t even commit.

Even in a state of heightened pessimism, one could see the possibility of a low-capacity state like Pakistan fixing the law and order aspect of mob violence to some degree. Addressing the toxic social and political aspect, however, seems far more difficult.

The writer teaches politics and sociology at Lums.

Twitter: @umairjav

Published in Dawn, August 21st, 2023

TODAY'S MEME: 

TRUMP MUGSHOT 

BECAUSE EVERYONE IS SHARING HIM

Reluctant Warriors: U.S. Allies Should Restrain Washington Regarding Taiwan


Ted Galen Carpenter

Senior Fellow, Randolph Bourne Institute

Throughout the Trump and Biden administrations, U.S. policy regarding Taiwan relations has become increasingly hardline. President Biden has even erroneously stated on several occasions that the United States has a legal obligation to defend Taiwan akin to its commitments under NATO or the bilateral security treaties with Japan and South Korea. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has reacted angrily to Washington’s increasingly blatant support for Taiwan’s de facto independence. A dramatic increase in the PRC’s military exercises near the island is just one manifestation of growing tensions. 

U.S. leaders have pressured its allies in East Asia to back Washington’s confrontational policies toward the PRC on the Taiwan issue. In terms of rhetorical support, the Biden administration has scored some significant successes. However, there is now growing evidence that U.S. allies are very uneasy about the escalating risks. Countries that the United States appears to be counting on to provide tangible military backing in the event of an armed clash between Washington and Beijing over Taiwan are noticeably reluctant to go that far. 

Eunomia analyst Daniel Larison concludes that “even the most reliable treaty allies, including Japan and Australia, would be reluctant to join what would be a very costly U.S. war effort.” And “in the absence of allied support, the already daunting challenge of defending Taiwan would become even more difficult.” The uneasiness is evident even in Japan, the country that the United States would need the most in any military showdown in the PRC. 

A July 15, 2023, Wall Street Journal article notes that “The U.S. is seeking more clarity from Japan as the two sides try to develop a combined operational plan for a Taiwan conflict.” A Pentagon spokesman stated that “the U.S. and Japan share a commitment to peace in the Taiwan Strait,” and that “the U.S. welcomes Japan’s interest in expanding its roles, missions, and capabilities. This will enhance deterrence.”  However, the Journal also highlights the limits of probable Japanese support for Taiwan. “’If you ask the question of whether you are willing to risk your life to defend Taiwan, I think 90% of Japanese people would say ‘no’ at this point,’” concluded Satoru Mori, a professor of politics at Keio University in Tokyo. 

Larison provides even more evidence to support a pessimistic conclusion. “As an analysis for Voice of America noted last year, Japanese involvement in a Taiwan conflict is ‘far from certain and not popularly supported within Japan.’ According to a poll this spring conducted for The Asahi Shimbun, just 11 percent of Japanese respondents said that their armed forces should join the U.S. in the fighting, and 27 percent said that their forces should not work with the U.S. military at all.”

Military support from other East Asian allies seems even more uncertain. The Philippines government has explicitly ruled out letting the United States use bases on its territory to support a war over Taiwan.  South Korea has been noticeably quiet and noncommittal about its posture if an armed conflict erupted over Taiwan. Even Australia, an especially reliable, longstanding ally, has explicitly declined to give the United States a firm commitment of support in the event of a Taiwan war. That hesitation is significant, since Canberra joined the U.S. militarily even in Washington’s ill-advised ventures in Vietnam and Afghanistan.

If the East Asian powers do not want to risk the United States dragging them into a disastrous war with the PRC to defend Taiwan, they must become more proactive in restraining Washington. That task will not be easy, given the rising influence of Taiwan’s hawkish advocates in the United States. Indeed, a powerful, bipartisan narrative is becoming entrenched that America has both a strategic and moral imperative to back a vibrant democracy against the threats posed by an aggressive, one-party state. 

Pro-Taiwan hawks are making it a high priority to secure allied support for a U.S.  showdown with the PRC over Taiwan. A typical recent example is an article by Hal Brands, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He proclaims that the goal should be to “secure an explicit agreement that three crucial regional powers — Australia, Japan, and the U.S. — will all be in it together if war comes.” Brands’ ostensible purpose is to strengthen deterrence by making it clear to Beijing that the PRC would be fighting three major adversaries if it attacks Taiwan. Interestingly, Brands does not emphasize drawing South Korea into such an arrangement. Rather than deterrence, though, his more likely goal is to trap Canberra and Tokyo into a commitment they can’t escape if war broke out. 

The East Asian allies must not only recognize such snares, but they must also push back hard against the concerted campaign. Ambivalence on the Taiwan issue will not benefit those countries or regional peace. It is essential for allied governments to explicitly inform Washington that if it continues to escalate its support for Taiwan, the United States will have to fight any resulting war with the PRC on its own. There is no doubt that U.S. leaders would respond angrily to such a stance. There might even be threats to withdraw the U.S. security commitments to recalcitrant allies. Nevertheless, America’s East Asian partners need to save Washington from its mounting folly to prevent a potentially catastrophic impact on their own countries. This is no time for them to be coy.

CHINA US Focus

Society & Culture

Creators and Destroyers of Science

Aug 14, 2023
Philip Cunningham

Independent Scholar

“Oppenheimer” is more than a movie, it’s also a meditation on moral questions that ring as loud in today’s world as they did during the race to build the atomic bomb in the face of the rise of fascism and World War II. Questions about nationality and nationalism, ethnic origin and political loyalty pervade the film. It also vividly raises questions about competing loyalties, loyalty to friends and relatives in conflict with military discipline and the law. What about the conflict between loyalty to one’s conscience and loyalty to the state?

J. Robert Oppenheimer was a man of many worlds, a native New Yorker who fell in love with the high desert of New Mexico, a member of a Jewish minority in a predominantly Christian country. He was a scientist, a linguist, a philosopher, an American military man and a freewheeling socialist in intimate contact with orthodox pro-Soviet communists. As director of the vast Manhattan Project, he was a core member of the U.S. military industrial complex even before the term was coined by President Eisenhower.

It’s hard to sum up such a complex life in a few words, and Christopher Nolan, despite his inspired direction, and some clever cinematic tricks, struggles to find the essence of so complex a man in this rambling, three-hour film.

But if a physicist as unique and hard-to-fathom as Oppenheimer can be usefully compared to another person, the equally unique and hard-to-fathom Qian Xuesen of China immediately comes to mind.

Both men were castigated as disloyal to the U.S. by security authorities dealing with real security breaches and the fevered imagination of paranoid minds. Both men were true cosmopolitans, fluent in different languages and cultures, and both were on their sleeves internationalist ideas that transcended the narrow nationalisms of the day.

Both men had huge bureaucracies put at their command, and both men hastened the coming of the day when mutual assured destruction was paradoxically a means of keeping the peace.

Both men paid a price for being laser-sharp in their technical insights and blurry in politics. Both men were hard to pin down, both for their equivocations and perceived moral ambiguities, and during the Red Scare in the U.S., both men were pilloried for their political leanings and political contacts.

It’s worth noting that both Oppenheimer and Qian Xuesen adamantly denied being communists during the time period in question, but questions linger. What is known, ironically enough, is that both men were associated closely with card-carrying communists such as Robert’s younger brother Frank. Guilt by association, guilt by unconventional ideas, guilt by dint of minority ethnic status, and guilt by strident internationalism in a society rippled with intolerance proved sufficient to take them down.

Then, as now, some of the most outstanding scientists of the day were Jewish Americans or Americans of Chinese descent. That’s one reason why many of the targeted were Jews and Chinese, but prejudice was a factor, too. As America emerged victorious from a long, bloody war, a groundswell of American triumphalism and ideological intolerance swept society.

The sheer brilliance of outstanding scientists working on dual-use technology such as nuclear fission and rocketry is itself a double-edged sword, their knowledge can be put to good or evil, and the scientists themselves can be painted good or evil. One brilliant stroke in the film uses a concept derived from the Schrodinger Cat thought experiment in quantum mechanics to illustrate the internal divisions of a man who is simultaneously winning big and losing big, simultaneously creating and destroying.

During the period in question, Jews and Chinese, for a variety of historical reasons, family ties and educational links to the “old country,” be it war-torn China or war-torn Central Europe, were often more conversant with communism than immigrants from other lands. In the 1930s in particular, many Americans of diverse backgrounds had reasons, not unreasonable in the day and age they lived, to view communism as a progressive force, at least in terms of combating fascism, racism and fighting for worker’s rights.

America’s domestic flirtation with the far left was by no means limited to ethnic minorities; the rise of Hitler and collapse of capitalism and explosion of poverty at the outset of the Great Depression provided fertile ground for new ideologies and paradigms to live by.

Be that as it may, the moment Josef Stalin showed his truly brutal opportunistic colors by aligning with Adolf Hitler under the terms of the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact should have put paid to the idea of Soviet communism as a progressive force, if the Moscow show trials and other abuses did not provide sufficient evidence of murderous malfeasance already.

An important difference in the trajectory of the lives of these two politically vulnerable physicists is the way losing security clearance played out. For Oppenheimer, it was a fall from grace, if being in the good graces of a blood-stained military establishment can be considered a form of grace, and descent into infamy and obscurity with an uptick of recognition at the end.

For Qian Xuesen, who, unlike Oppenheimer, had a homeland to go back to, newly-liberated China provided an out that proved definitive. He left the U.S. forever and re-dedicated his efforts advancing rocketry in China.

During the height of war, both China, then under KMT representation, and Russia, under the same old Joe Stalin, were deemed worthy allies of the U.S. in the joint cause to rid the world of Hitler and Nazis who were inflicting incomparable horrors on humanity. China and the U.S. also shared a joint mission, in the indomitable spirit of the Flying Tigers, to rid the world of Tojo’s imperial invaders and free China from Japanese domination.

By the time Mao announced the establishment of a new China in 1949, the U.S.-China honeymoon was over and intractable problems related to the Taiwan-mainland split fed directly into the animosities of the Cold War pitting communism against capitalism.

Qian Xuesen had convincing credentials as a scientist, willing and able to contribute to the advance of American science before he fell victim to a McCarthyesque witch hunt in 1950, part of the same maelstrom of intolerance and paranoia that also netted Oppenheimer four years later.

Qian studied at MIT and taught at Caltech. In collaboration with the Hungarian physicist Theodore Von Karman, (who like Oppenheimer was multilingual, studied in Europe and was of Jewish descent) Qian helped found the Jet Propulsion Lab. During the war, Qian worked for the U.S. Defense Department and Department of War and achieved the U.S. military rank of colonel.

One of the many virtues of doing a film about physicists is that physics itself provides a template to handle, if not reconcile, seemingly contradictory forces. The Schrodinger effect, by which a particle is, and isn’t, at the same time was utilized in filmic terms to show Oppenheimer both as hero and villain, guru and monster, a shining light and a force for darkness. When the Trinity test of the world’s first atomic bomb results in a suitably demonic explosion, Oppenheimer is shown navigating both thunderous applause and the imagined bodies of victims reduced to ash.

Despite his contributions, Qian Xuesen’s 1955 move to China, a China no longer in the U.S. orbit, could not be construed a lateral move to an erstwhile ally but rather was seen as an act of defiance, a wholesale defection to the enemy camp. The duality inherent in the structure of Nolan’s cinematic vision of Oppenheimer suggests that it may be possible, though not easy, for both the U.S. and China to be grateful for Qian Xuesen’s contributions to science.

On the other hand, it is worth remembering that the inventions most closely associated with the stellar minds of these two indisputably brilliant men were weapons of destruction.

When it came time for Oppenheimer to reflect on his greatest “success” which was simultaneously a catastrophic “failure” in humanistic terms, he turned to Sanskrit scripture which he was conversant with in the original. Borrowing a line from lord Krishna addressing his loyal charioteer Arjuna, he says:

"Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds"

Despite the depressing topic, “Oppenheimer” has done great box office in the U.S. market, and has been cleared for showing in China, where the retention or deletion of nude scenes has generated more advance interest in potential viewers, and is likely to be more a problem for the censors, than the harrowing Cold War politics.

CHINA US Focus

‘No more water’: Iraq drought claims lakeside resort


By AFP

Declining rainfall and rising temperatures have hit Lake Habbaniyah and the rest of Iraq - Copyright AFP Yuki IWAMURA
Laure Al Khoury

Iraqi merchant Mohamed has never seen such a grim tourist season: years of drought have shrunken the majestic Lake Habbaniyah, keeping away the holidaymakers who once flocked there during summer.

“The last two years, there was some activity, but now there’s no more water,” said 35-year-old Mohamed, asking to be identified by his first name only.

He laid out inflatable water floats, nets and shirts in front of his lakeside shop, but expected few if any customers.

“This year, it’s dry, dry!” Mohamed told AFP, his shirt soaked in sweat in the inhospitable heat of nearly 50 degrees Celsius (120 Fahrenheit).

Shorelines at Habbaniyah, about 70 kilometres (45 miles) west of the capital Baghdad, have receded by several dozen metres after four consecutive years of drought ravaged parts of the country.

The United Nations ranks water-stressed Iraq as one of five countries most impacted by some effects of climate change.

When full, as it last was in 2020, the lake can hold up to 3.3 billion cubic metres (117 trillion cubic feet) of water, said Jamal Odeh Samir, director of water resources in Anbar province, where Habbaniyah is located.

But now “the lake contains no more than 500 million cubic metres of water”, he told AFP.

Shops like Mohamed’s and holiday homes by the lake now sit empty in the height of summer. On the beach, stray dogs wander between unused umbrellas.

To get to the water, visitors must walk through foul-smelling mud that was once submerged under the lake surface.

– ‘Only place to relax’ –

The resort was created around the artificial lake in 1979, becoming a popular destination for tourists from across the Middle East in the following years.

Declining rainfall over the past four years and rising temperatures have hit Habbaniyah — alongside much of the rest of the country — hard.

Baghdad blames upstream dam construction by Turkey on a staggering low water level in the Euphrates river, which feeds the lake and also runs through Syria.

“The strategic water reserves in Iraq are at their lowest point” in nearly a century, Khaled Shamal, spokesman for the water resources ministry, has warned.

Last week during a visit to Baghdad, United Nations human rights chief Volker Turk warned that “rising temperatures plus the drought, and the fact that the loss of diversity is a reality, is a wake-up call for Iraq and for the world”.

Sada’a Saleh Mohamed, a local official overseeing finances at the Habbaniyah resort, said “the lake has receded” and tourism has become “really very weak”.

“The lake has become a pond of stagnant water, unsuitable for consumption or for swimming,” he said.

When evening fell and temperatures dropped slightly, a few people finally arrived to barbecue on the beach.

Qassem Lafta came with his family from the nearby city of Fallujah.

“Before, we would come here and it was much better, the water was higher,” said the 45-year-old merchant.

He said he hoped authorities would revive the lake.

“It’s the only place where people from Anbar, southern Iraq and Baghdad can come to relax.”

‘Animals are thirsty’: Dust and bones on Turkey’s shrinking lake


By AFP
August 25, 2023

Carcasses of dead gulls like the shoreline of Turkey's shrinking Lake Van 

- Copyright AFP ILYAS AKENGIN

Fulya OZERKAN

Shepherd Ibrahim Koc recalls his youth with fondness as he grazes cattle on a barren field that was once lush with vegetation on the edge of Turkey’s largest lake.

An occasional shrub marks the spots from where Lake Van has retreated over years of global heating and drought.

“The animals are thirsty,” the 65-year-old lamented.

“There is no water,” Koc said, echoing sentiments expressed by a growing number of Turks who have watched their mountains lose ice caps and their water reservoirs dry up.

A weather map of Turkey — an agricultural superpower stretching from Bulgaria in the west to Iran in the east — shows much of the country suffering from a prolonged drought.

Shrinking shorelines are exposing lakebeds that pollute the air with a salty dust. Scientists fear the problems could grow only worse.

“I think these are our good days,” Faruk Alaeddinoglu, a professor at Van Yuzuncu Yil University, told AFP.

“We will witness the lake continuing to shrink in the coming years.”

Lake Van covers approximately 3,700 square kilometres (1,400 square miles), reaching a maximum depth of 450 metres (1,475 feet).

Its surface area has shrunk by around 1.5 percent in recent years, according to measurements Alaeddinoglu carried out last autumn.

“That is a terribly large amount of water for a 3,700 square kilometre area,” he said.

– ‘Barren land’-

In the Celebibagi neighbourhood on the lake’s northern shore, the waters have receded by around four kilometres.

A long walk along the exposed lakebed is littered with bird bones, craggy bushes and dried dirt covered with sodium and other minerals.

“We are walking in an area which was once covered with the lake’s waters,” said Ali Kalcik, a local environmentalist.

“Now, it’s a barren land without a living thing.”

The sight of dazzling flamingos dancing in the air against the backdrop of mountains signals the spot where the lake finally begins.

Alaeddinoglu said the lake’s size had changed in the past because of rifts in tectonic plates that make Turkey into one of the most active earthquake zones in the world.

But he blamed the ongoing water loss on rising temperatures that result in “less precipitation and excessive evaporation”.

Almost three times as much of the lake’s water evaporates than comes back down in the form of rain, Alaeddinoglu said.

Lush gardens of newly-built summer cottages are also draining water from the region, where President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has built a government retreat.

– ‘Business is dying’ –

The problem has become so severe that officials are urging local farmers not to grow crops requiring too much water.

This means farmer Kinyas Gezer can no longer afford to grow sugar beets, which are a particularly thirsty vegetable.

“All my labour has been wasted,” the 56-year-old lamented, pointing to his shrivelled apricots.

“If it goes on like this, we will abandon farming. The business is dying.”

The water’s loss also exposes pollution, according to Orhan Deniz, a professor of Yuzuncu Yil University, whose campus sits on the lake’s shore.

“Large patches of slime mixed with mud give off a bad smell and make human pollution more evident,” he said.

“In the 1990s, we would swim during lunch break and then go back to university,” he said, gazing at the lake from his office.

“Now it’s not possible to step in the water, let alone swim in it,” he said.

– ‘A bird massacre’ –

The lake is still popular with tourists and some locals swim along its more scenic parts.

Van Governor Ozan Balci said his office has spent 80 million lira ($3 million) cleaning up the lake.

“We are doing our best to protect the lake because of its cultural heritage and people’s common memory,” he told AFP.

In the shoreline village of Adir, some locals swam and others picnicked under a tree.

But dead gulls lying not too far from the vacationers betrayed the ecological problems facing the lake.

Experts say pearl mullets that form the basis of the gulls’ diet migrated early this year because of the drought.

Deprived of food, the gulls simply starved to death.

“The remaining birds here have one more week. Then they will also die,” local villager Necmettin Nebioglu, 64, said.

“In the past, the seagulls would follow us while we were swimming. Now look, it’s a bird massacre,” he said, pointing to a pile of carcasses on the shore.

In search for Hawaii fires cause, lawyers probe power lines

ByMark Chediak and Jef Feeley
August 14, 2023 — 

San Francisco: While the cause of the deadly Maui fires remains under investigation, lawyers are sending experts to the island to look into utility power lines as being a possible source of ignition.

Attorneys with Watts Guerra, Singleton Schreiber, and Frantz Law Group said they have been collecting evidence, interviewing witnesses and reviewing reports that indicate that damaged power infrastructure owned by Hawaiian Electric Industries created the spark for the flames.

What appear to be power lines down at the scene at one of Maui’s tourist hubs which was reduced to wreckage by the fires.CREDIT:AP

“All evidence – videos, witness accounts, burn progression, and utility equipment remaining – points to Hawaiian Electric’s equipment being the ignition source of the fire that devastated Lahaina,” said Mikal Watts, a Puerto Rico-based plaintiffs lawyer at Watts Guerra who has won millions of dollars in settlements in other wildfire cases, including against California utility giant PG&E Corp.

Hawaiian Electric said it doesn’t have information on what caused the fires, according to an email statement from spokesman Darren Pai. “Access to the impacted area is also limited for safety and emergency response concerns,” Pai said. “After the immediate emergency has passed, we will work with the County and others to investigate what happened on Maui.”

Officials haven’t said what sparked the blazes that were fanned by hurricane-force winds and levelled the historic town of Lahaina. The investigation into what Hawaii Governor Josh Green described as the state’s largest-ever natural disaster could take weeks or months to produce an official determination of the cause.

Burnt areas in Lahaina on the Maui island, Hawaii.CREDIT:AP

Emergency workers on Saturday continued to dig through the ash and rubble, with the official death count from the fires rising to 93.

Hawaiian Electric, which operates the Maui Electric utility, has come under criticism for not turning off power despite warnings of critical fire conditions due to predicted dry, gale-force winds.

The utility earlier this week said strong winds downed electric power lines and snapped power poles ahead of the blazes.

That said, many things can spark a fire in the right conditions, including backfiring cars and trucks dragging chains along a road.

A burnt coconut tree in Lahaina, Hawaii.CREDIT:AP

Sensors that monitor power flow into households detected a major grid fault just after 11.38pm local time on August 7, about 20 minutes before a fire was first reported in Maui, followed by dozens of faults overnight, said Bob Marshall, chief executive officer of Whisker Labs.

The company’s plug-in household devices determine whether a fault is taking place on utility equipment through the magnitude of voltage swings. In Maui, the strongest readings came around Lahaina.

While Marshall cautioned that it’s not clear whether the faults were the ignition sources, he said that fires need a spark and there is “clear data showing dozens of major grid faults in the area of the fires and around the start times of the fires”.

There was no reported lightning at the time and it’s unlikely people were camping with high winds and a red flag warning, he added.

RELATED ARTICLE


Maui fires
Warning sirens did not sound on Maui, Hawaii official confirms

Michael Wara, a wildfire expert who is director of the Climate and Energy Policy Program at Stanford University, said there is “no question” that the utility should have cut power to reduce wildfire risk with the forecast of gusty winds.

The controversial practice is now used by utilities in California, Nevada and Oregon after power lines sparked catastrophic fires during dry windstorms in California.

“We had a situation here with very high winds, very high heat,” said James Frantz, whose firm, Frantz Law Group, is looking at power lines as a culprit and has been signing up residents and businesses in Maui who lost their homes.

“And all those factors call for de-energising those lines when that event occurs. They did not do that and they had the power to do it.”

Frantz Law Group has an office in Honolulu and is working with a local law firm on the investigation.

Hawaii Electric doesn’t have a formal power shutoff program for fire risk, Pai said.



The death toll from the wildfires in Hawaii has risen to 80, making it one of the deadliest blazes in recent US history.

“Preemptive, short-notice power shutoffs have to be coordinated with first responders and in Lahaina, electricity powers the pumps that provide the water needed for firefighting,” Pai said. The utility has a “robust wildfire mitigation and grid resiliency program that includes vegetation management, grid hardening investments and regular inspection of our assets,” he added.

The blaze that razed Lahaina damaged or destroyed 2207 structures, the majority of them residential, with an estimated capital cost of approximately $US5.5 billion ($8.5 billion), according to a damage assessment released Saturday by the Pacific Disaster Centre and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Plaintiff lawyers often dispatch representatives of their offices to sign up clients in the wake of wildfire disasters. The plaintiff law firms now working in Maui represented fire victims in a $US13.5 billion settlement with PG&E, which was driven into bankruptcy in 2019 after its utility equipment sparked some of the deadliest wildfires in California history.

Attorney Gerald Singleton said his group, Singleton Schreiber, was flying investigators to Maui this weekend to look into witness accounts of falling power lines and then fires starting, although an actual cause has yet to be determined.

“This wasn’t something they couldn’t have predicted,” Singleton said of the high winds taking down lines. “It’s hard to understand why more precautions weren’t taken.”

If there is a link to power lines, Hawaiian Electric will have to be shown to be negligent or that it could have reasonably prevented a loss, a higher legal standard than the one applied to utilities in California, according to a note Friday by Guggenheim Securities.

Bloomberg

Biodiversity ‘calculator’ aims for better outcomes for nature in areas slated for development

Infrastructure Consulting firm Aecom recently tested the metric on the former location of the Keppel Club golf course. 

SINGAPORE – Hoping to see better outcomes for nature before they are affected by building and development projects, a biodiversity specialist had a vision to put a value on all of Singapore’s habitats and land spaces.

Over 1½ years, Mr Ashley Welch and his colleagues from infrastructure consulting firm Aecom, and partners from biodiversity consultancy Camphora, built the Singapore Biodiversity Accounting Metric – a free online calculator that estimates the amount of biodiversity that may be lost from planned building projects.

The tool can be downloaded from this website.

Mr Welch, a biodiversity consultant, is hoping that putting tangible numerical values on habitats and green spaces will spur developers to avoid encroaching on high-value habitats to minimise biodiversity loss.

To calculate the value of a forest or freshwater pond at a development site, the spreadsheet-based tool considers different parameters, including the type and size of the habitat, the condition it is in, its ecological importance and whether it can be replaced. The ecological importance parameter, also known as distinctiveness, is given a score from zero to eight, with eight indicating that the habitat carries very high ecological importance.

For rare habitats or secondary forests dominated by native species, the metric may advise users to avoid touching them at all costs.

A secondary forest will have a higher value than an abandoned carpark with planter boxes, for instance. The value of each land area is represented as numerical biodiversity units. Biodiversity gains and losses in post-development scenarios are shown as percentages.

This tool could spur developers or agencies to build on brownfield sites, or previously developed land, instead of on undeveloped land, said Mr Welch.

But due to limited land space in Singapore, the clearing of more forested land and vegetation is inevitable, he acknowledged. To limit biodiversity loss in these cases, proposed developments should prioritise nature by redesigning the infrastructure to reduce its toll on the environment, enhancing or restoring degraded habitats and introducing urban greenery, he added.

“The metric incentivises you to try and put back as much (nature) as you can to get a better score. There will be projects here that will have a 10 per cent net loss in biodiversity... and it’s better than a 50 per cent net loss,” said Mr Welch.

“Biodiversity accounting assessments encourage us to break down the complexity of nature and allow us to make better decisions that the average person would have otherwise been unaware of.”

The tool is designed to be used at a project’s master planning stage or alongside environmental impact assessments and field surveys. The metric can currently calculate the values of terrestrial, freshwater and intertidal habitats.

Environment consultancy DHI Group, for instance, has a biodiversity metric for the marine environment called EBM BioQ.

The metric can currently calculate the values of terrestrial, freshwater and intertidal habitats. PHOTO: SINGAPORE BIODIVERSITY ACCOUNTING METRIC


A key reason that drove Mr Welch to build the metric was to reduce the subjectivity with environmental impact assessments and their following mitigation measures.

Dr Anuj Jain, founding director of bioSEA, a company that specialises in ecological design, agreed that a site’s value can be interpreted differently by consultants.

“The tool presents a standard set of values that can be collectively debated and agreed upon by the conservation and ecology community,” he said.

“In the past, projects have also got around to clearing ecologically valuable forested areas and replacing them with streetscapes and park connectors. In cases where the impact of development is huge, the tool may be able to help save valuable ecological habitats from being developed.”

Aecom and Camphora have been using the tool on some master planning work and environmental impact assessments, but they are unable to disclose the ongoing projects.

Aecom recently tested the metric on a 48ha site in the Greater Southern Waterfront, which will be redeveloped to house around 9,000 public and private housing units. In 2022, the authorities said the first Build-To-Order project would be launched for sale within three years.

The company previously conducted an environmental impact study on the site and its connecting green spaces, and later used the tool to check if its proposed mitigation measures were optimal.

The site, which is the former location of the Keppel Club golf course, has three high-value habitats bordering it, said Mr Welch. They are Berlayer Creek, which is one of two remaining mangrove patches in southern Singapore, the Bukit Chermin secondary forest dominated by native trees, and a marine area with seagrass meadows and rocky shores.

The first decision made was to leave those high-value habitats untouched.

As for the 48ha golf course, it was a nesting and foraging ground for birds and acted as an ecological bridge between the Southern Ridges and Labrador Nature Reserve.

To help preserve the site’s connectivity for wildlife, the authorities have announced that green corridors will be formed alongside the housing blocks, with one running through the future estate, and another next to Berlayer Creek to buffer the vulnerable habitat from urban light and noise.

A page in the Singapore Biodiversity Accounting Metric which shows users how to use the tool. PHOTO: SINGAPORE BIODIVERSITY ACCOUNTING METRIC

The tool calculated a 10 per cent net gain in biodiversity with those proposed changes – a rare instance where development seems to give nature a boost.

“The project prioritised development on a habitat suboptimal for biodiversity, a golf course. The green corridors – comprising a secondary forest and some urban streetscapes – will connect with the existing forest and mangroves,” said Mr Welch.

The tool is loosely based on a British biodiversity metric created by conservation agency Natural England.

In Britain, such metrics are part of policy. From November, new housing and commercial projects there must ensure that their developments leave habitats in a better state than before, with at least a 10 per cent gain in biodiversity. This can be done by restoring a habitat off-site, but as a last resort.

Mr Welch and his team are looking to improve the metric – which was built with the help of a grant from the Economic Development Board – with feedback from other consultants and the nature community. They aim to eventually create a similar tool for the whole of South-east Asia.

Assistant Professor Lim Jun Ying from the National University of Singapore’s Department of Biological Sciences noted that any methods or metrics relying on biodiversity values should be regarded as a convenient “shorthand” based on available data.

“In reality, species with different attributes will respond to land-use changes in different ways, and over different timeframes... It is important to remember that there are many aspects of biodiversity and ecosystems that are hard to capture quantitatively,” he said.

At mass grave exhumation, daughter of Spanish Civil War victim seeks closure

A total of 108 civilians, many associated with Leftist parties and unions, were executed and buried at the Colmenar Viejo cemetery between April and December of 1939

Reuters Colmenar Viejo Published 14.08.23, 

Representational imageTwitter/ @SniffOutStocks

Benita Navacerrada is a 91-year-old Spanish woman with a yearning to know where her father was buried more than 80 years ago.

She hopes the answer will lie in an exhumation outside Madrid of the remains of more than 100 people who were executed by forces of late dictator Francisco Franco in 1939, in the aftermath of Spain’s Civil War.

“I want to know where he is because I have never known,” Navacerrada told Reuters this week at the cemetery of Colmenar Viejo where two mass graves have been found.

Navacerrada said locating her father, who was a union leader and died when she was seven, would bring joy and closure: “I could say he is resting in peace and not thrown out there like pigs”.

Forensic scientists were analysing this weekend the second mass grave, located in a pathway at the cemetery, collecting skulls with signs of bullet holes and bones to genetically identify them and later hand them to their family members.

A total of 108 civilians, many associated with Leftist parties and unions, were executed and buried at the Colmenar Viejo cemetery between April and December of 1939.

The exhumation of the first mass grave started last year with the financial support of Spain’s Leftist government and led to finding of the remains of 12 people.

Spain transitioned to democracy following Franco’s death in 1975 but the legacy of his four-decade fascist dictatorship still divides Spanish society. The issue of exhumations was a hot topic in the run-up to a national election in July in which both a Right-wing and Left-wing bloc failed to win a majority.

Arrest of Saudi scholar and influencer another sign of social media crackdown

Detention of public health expert Mohammed Alhajji surprised many observers as he was seen as apolitical


Stephanie Kirchgaessner

THE GUARDIAN 
@skirchy

Sun 13 Aug 2023 


A prominent Saudi scholar and Snapchat influencer has been arrested by Saudi authorities in what experts said was evidence of the kingdom’s extreme crackdown on social media users.

The arrest of Mohammed Alhajji, a public health expert who completed his dissertation in the US, follows the disappearance and recent arrests of other prominent influencers for “crimes” that include the perceived criticism of the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, and support for women’s rights.

Alhajji’s arrest was confirmed by two sources with close knowledge of the matter.

There was no indication of why the influencer – who was seen as apolitical and supportive of the Saudi government – was detained.


Alhajji had been scheduled to speak at an event in Riyadh on Sunday, but observers noted that a tweet describing the event had been deleted in recent days.


Saudis accused of using Snapchat to promote crown prince and silence critics

It followed the recent news of the arrest of Manahel al-Otaibi, a 29-year-old certified fitness instructor and artist who frequently promoted female empowerment on her social media accounts. Among other charges, Otaibi was accused by Saudi authorities of using a hashtag – which can be translated as #societyisready – to call for an end to male guardianship rules. Another Snapchat influencer, Mansour Al-Raqiba, who had more than 2 million followers, was sentenced to 27 years in jail for allegedly privately criticising the crown prince.

In one of his last Washington Post columns before his brutal murder in 2018, Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist, criticised waves of arrests by the crown prince’s government and the “public shaming of intellectuals and religious leaders who dare to express opinions contrary to those of my country’s leadership”.

Yahya Ibrahim Assiri, a UK-based Saudi dissident and founder of human rights group ALQST, said Saudi Arabia was no longer seeing “mass arrests” as described by Khashoggi five years ago.

“The prisons are full and the society is completely threatened. No one criticises the violations or the corruption,” Assiri said. “However, the authorities are still looking for more victims and still targeting anyone they feel could express their opinion at any time. Alhajji is not criticising the authorities – he is trying to be on the safe side – but he has been arrested unfairly, like a lot of people.”

Alhajji has a verified Snapchat account and 385,000 followers on Twitter. In interviews highlighting his academic success in the US, where he attended graduate and undergraduate university, Alhajji was described as a social media personality who wanted to use his platform to explain public health issues to a Saudi audience.


“It’s like a reality TV show, a lens for people 7,000 miles away to observe my PhD life in the US, my life in Philly,” he was quoted as telling a Temple University news outlet.

Describing his then recent move back to Saudi Arabia, he noted that he had built enough of a following to get recognised. “They call me Dr Mohammed,” he said. Alhajji graduated from Temple with a PhD in 2020. His research on the spread of sickle cell disease, a common genetic disease in Saudi Arabia, earned him an award from the American Public Health Association Genomics Forum and the Society of Behavioral Medicine.

Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Dawn, a human rights group founded by Khashoggi, said Saudi Arabia was notably now arresting prominent voices that had “nothing to do with politics” because any independent voice was seen as a threat in the mind of “MBS”, as the crown prince is known. The disappearance of people like Alhajji, for no known reason, was one of the “terror” tactics used by the crown prince, she said.

“MBS also knows he’s free to do whatever he wants in the country because he is secure in his impunity, with the likes of Biden, Macron and Sunak falling over themselves to woo him for weapons purchases and happy to look the other way about anything else,” she said.

Alhajji was described by those who have followed his work as member of Saudi Arabia’s elite, who had formerly represented the Misk Foundation, a government organisation meant to encourage Saudi youth, which was founded by Mohammed bin Salman. He also appeared before a UN body in 2019 representing Saudi Arabia.

Omar Abdulaziz, a Canada-based Saudi dissident who was a close confidant of Khashoggi’s, said it was “shocking news” given that Alhajji was largely seen as a supporter of the current government.

Social media companies have declined to comment on the disappearances and arrests of their most prominent users in the kingdom, including the decades-long sentences against two women – Noura al-Qahtani and Salma al-Shehab – for tweets and likes on Twitter that were deemed offensive.

Snapchat CEO and founder Evan Spiegel was in Saudi Arabia in December 2022. The company, which has more than 20 million users in the kingdom, including an estimated 90% of 13-to-34-year-olds, declined to comment on Alhajji’s arrest.

The Saudi embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

MONGOLIA’S RARE EARTHS DIPLOMACY AND ITS GEOPOLITICAL IMPLICATIONS



By Marina Zhang

Note: This article appeared in The Diplomat on August 12 2023.

Mongolia, rich in minerals especially copper and rare earths, but sandwiched between China and Russia, is making a pivotal shift toward a ‘third neighbour’ – the United States. During a recent visit to Washington, Prime Minister Oyun-Erdene Luvsannamsrai aimed to fortify US ties concerning critical minerals and particularly to enhance cooperation in rare earth mining. Additionally, Mongolia and the US brokered an ‘Open Skies’ aviation agreement, intended to bolster direct trade.

Should these agreements be realised and rare earths air-shipped from Mongolia to the United States, what are the implications for China-US strategic competition?

‘Chokepoint’ strategy

The China-US relationship has been the world’s most pivotal bilateral dynamic since the end of the Cold War. Recently, competition has taken precedence over cooperation between these two superpowers, with Beijing and Washington jockeying for advantage from trade and technology to control over critical mineral supply chains.

Global supply chains have evolved due to two intertwined factors: advancements in ICT and cross-border logistics, along with the reduction in institutional barriers facilitated by organisations like the WTO. As a result, supply chain management has become crucial for optimising efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and uninterrupted capital and information flows for both businesses and national economies.

However, supply chains present a paradox: As they grow more complex, weaving in multilayered arrays of suppliers each chosen for their competitive advantages, they also become more vulnerable to external shocks. This includes natural disasters, pandemics, and unpredictable geopolitical shifts. Recent events like the China-US tech war and the economic sanctions on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine highlight the fragility of today’s global supply chains.

In the context of a volatile geopolitical environment, certain chokepoints within supply chains are regarded as potential vulnerabilities. A ‘chokepoint‘ denotes a critical and irreplaceable component or link within a supply chain, susceptible to control by potentially adversarial entities. At its core, a chokepoint is characterised by a form of monopoly. While businesses may wield monopolies to achieve heightened economic gains, nations often cultivate them for political objectives. Beyond the establishment of monopolies to create strategic chokepoints, an alternative and more aggressive strategy also exists: targeting an opponent’s chokepoint to intentionally disrupt their crucial supply.

In the competition between the United States and China, both nations are employing chokepoint strategies. To start, the US utilised its dominant position within semiconductor supply chains to exert extensive technological and geopolitical influence. This manoeuvre effectively curbs China’s progress in advanced chipmaking. China, in response, has implemented its own countermeasures, including export controls of critical metals. These reciprocal actions have transcended the realm of economic sanctions, signifying a broader form of economic warfare between the two powers.

In the midst of these various measures and countermeasures, China holds a wild card: its control over the separation and refinement of rare earths. Presently, China is the sole provider of a continuous, uninterrupted supply of high-energy permanent magnets suitable for high-temperature applications such as electric motors used in EVs.

The geopolitics of rare earths

Rare earths play a crucial role in numerous modern technologies. Specifically, the rapid growth of renewable energy and related technologies, such as electric vehicles, wind and solar energy, spurred a 37 percent increase in rare earths demand in 2022, a trend expected to continue for at least the next five years. Yet, the supply chains for rare earths are mired in geopolitical vulnerability. Notably, China boasts the most substantial natural reserves of all 17 rare earth elements and has cultivated a unique ability to refine and separate each one.

Moreover, since 2012, China has intensified its efforts to move up the value chain. Notably, it has consolidated rare earth mining and processing under state-owned enterprises and established pivotal research centers. Despite commencing patent filings nearly two decades after the United States and Japan, China held more than 80 percent of all rare earth-related patents by 2020.

China is now the largest importer and exporter of rare earths, meaning it controls the bulk of rare earth processing including refinement, separation, and fabricating magnet materials. During the first half of 2023, China imported 90,920 tons of rare earth ores and metals, a substantial portion from the United States, and exported 26,236 tons of refined rare earths, primarily magnet materials. While theoretically feasible, decoupling from China’s rare earth supply chains would involve substantial costs and potentially disruptive supply chain stability.

Beyond just rare earths, China is the leading and most cost-effective supplier of many critical minerals vital for clean energy transition. Given the geopolitical and environmental risks tied to mining and processing minerals, concerns about rare earth supply security have intensified. Recognising their potential vulnerability to Chinese restrictions, Western governments are actively seeking to level the playing field. This includes seeking to diversify mining sources and building facilities independent of China’s input.

In the face of geopolitical competition between the US-led West and China, more nations, including Mongolia, are gravitating toward the democratic bloc to mitigate risks from China’s dominance in critical supply chains. Reacting to a series of export controls and technology sanctions on semiconductors imposed against it, China has felt compelled to employ reciprocal actions.

For example, Beijing, with precision and deliberation, initially curtailed exports of gallium and germanium – two rare metals integral to the manufacturing of several strategically significant products, including military weapons systems. This move came in the wake of China’s new Foreign Relations Law enacted on July 1, which asserts that the nation may employ countermeasures when facing external restrictions. Moreover, the recent introduction of China’s drone export control policy indicates a potential escalation in these tit-for-tat measures.

In light of China’s countermeasures, the Pentagon is investigating partnerships with US and Canadian companies to recycle rare metals from waste and refine both gallium and germanium. Furthermore, the United States has declared limitations on American investments in China’s tech sector.

Given this backdrop, the Mongolian prime minister’s visit to Washington to discuss potential rare earth collaborations can be seen as bolstering the United States’ position, potentially tipping the balance of power in this geopolitical tug-of-war.

Can Mongolia’s rare earths diplomacy shift the power balance?

The potential rare earth partnership between the United States and Mongolia holds promise for mutual gains. For the US, the collaboration could serve to diversify its sources of rare earths. Meanwhile, Mongolia stands to benefit from expanded diplomatic ties and potential US investments that could fuel its economic growth. However, as with any international relationship, the devil is in the details.

Several significant barriers cast shadows over the potential partnership. First, the economic viability of mining rare earths, which come in oxide concentrations ranging from 1 percent to 70 percent, is far from guaranteed. Uncertainties persist regarding the quality of Mongolia’s rare earth reserves and the requisite investment for extraction and processing.

Second, Mongolia may face domestic opposition to rare earths mining operations, which come with a heavy environmental cost. Across its entire value chain, this process consumes substantial energy and water resources while generating various wastes and pollutants, including toxic mining residues, wastewater laden with heavy metals, radioactive waste, and air pollutants such as carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide. China learned this lesson the hard way: Reports indicate that it could take anywhere from 50 to 100 years for the environment to fully recover in a county in Jiangxi Province where heavy rare earth deposits are rich. The estimated price tag for this restoration is approximately 38 billion yuan, equivalent to around $5.5 billion.

Third, the absence of critical infrastructure in Mongolia, including adequate roads for transporting heavy machinery and reliable electricity, compounds the challenges. Ironically, Mongolia’s best hope for addressing this situation is China. The two countries have agreed to cooperate on a variety of infrastructure projects, including cross-border railways, trade ports, and roads and highways.

Lastly, Mongolia’s landlocked status leaves it reliant on road transport to reach the nearest Chinese ports for global trade. While the ‘Open Skies’ aviation agreement offers an alternative, the cost of air shipping minerals can easily negate any economic benefits. Additionally, the agreement’s implementation depends on the consent of either China or Russia, as their airspace must be crossed for flights to proceed.

Therefore, though bolstered ties between the United States and Mongolia could be disadvantageous for China geopolitically, Mongolia’s pivot seems more symbolic than rooted in economic pragmatism. The potential drawback of this shift is that it could jeopardise the existing cooperation between China and Mongolia. China remains the most significant destination for Mongolia’s mineral exports, including copper and coal. Should Mongolia decisively tilt toward the West, Mongolia’s exports could face constraints.

Conclusion

As China-US tensions escalate, other countries often feel pressured to align with one of these superpowers. Smaller countries have less weight in shifting the China-US dynamic than larger ones, and nevertheless their decisions reflect shared geopolitical anxieties. As pointed out by Oyun-Erdene, countries like his own could suffer greatly if superpower competition boiled over.

In the race against time to combat climate change, global unity rather than fragmentation is the need of the hour.

Dr Marina Zhang is Associate Professor – Research at the Australia-China Relations Institute, University of Technology Sydney.