As migrants try to reach EU, Germany's left calls for 'pact of humanity'

FILE PHOTO: Syrian refugee children are seen after disembarking from a Cyprus coastguard boat off the south-east of the island in the region of Protaras, January 14, 2020.REUTERS/Yiannis Kourtoglou

BERLIN (Reuters) - Social Democrat state premieres on Saturday called for Germany to take in vulnerable refugees from crowded reception camps in Greece, in the latest sign of discord in the ruling coalition over the prospect of a new refugee wave hitting Europe.

Tens of thousands of migrants have been trying to get into Greece, an EU member state, since Turkey said on Feb. 28 it would no longer try to keep them on its territory as agreed in 2016 with the EU in return for aid.

But since Chancellor Angela Merkel’s 2015 decision to let in more than a million migrants, migration has been among Germany’s most divisive issues, splitting her conservative party and fuelling a far-right surge.


The Social Democrats, Merkel’s national coalition partners, control seven of the 16 states that make up the German Federal Republic, and represent a more urban voter base which is more relaxed about immigration.

“Putting all political calculation aside, now is the time to act and at the very least get at least children and young unaccompanied refugees out of this situation,” said Michael Mueller, mayor of Berlin.

While immigration is a federal issue, Germany’s states have great autonomy and control huge budgets that can be allocated to related areas ranging from refugee integration to healthcare and housing.

In Saturday’s statement, the left-wing premieres, including the mayors of the three city-states of Berlin, Hamburg, and Bremen, and the minister-president of Lower Saxony, a major industrial region, demanded a “pact of humanity” under which vulnerable refugees could be shared out across the country.

The leaders’ intervention comes as Merkel’s Christian Democrats squabble over who should succeed the 65-year-old as party leader. She remains personally popular 14 years after taking office, but her potential successors have different positions regarding her signature act from 2015.

While two candidates are seen as close to Merkel on migration, Friedrich Merz, the contender from the party’s right, has said the refugees must be sent back to Turkey and be given no hope of entering the EU or Germany. Many observers believe his victory would strain the coalition beyond repair.

Six years on, families demand new search for missing Malaysia Airlines plane

PUTRAJAYA (Reuters) - Six years since Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 vanished from radars, relatives of the 239 people who were on board are calling on authorities to revive efforts to find the missing plane.


Badges are displayed during the sixth annual remembrance event for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 in Putrajaya, Malaysia, March 7, 2020. REUTERS/Lim Huey Teng

The fate of flight MH370 became one of the world’s greatest aviation mysteries when it disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014. Repeated searches for the aircraft were called off in 2018.

Holding star-shaped signs reading “Never give up”, “Waiting”, and “Resume the search”, the relatives of those who were on the flight marked the sixth anniversary of their disappearance by making a fresh appeal for answers.

“The pain is still the same, the fact that the plane is still missing is still the same, and the fact that we don’t know what happened to the plane is still the same, “ said Grace Nathan, a lawyer whose mother was on the flight, during the event in Malaysia’s administrative capital, Putrajaya.

“There are more questions than there are answers and that shouldn’t be the case after six years,” she told reporters after the event.

A piece of aircraft debris, believed to be from the missing plane, was on display at the gathering.

Malaysia, China and Australia ended a two-year, A$200 million ($132.90 million) underwater search in the southern Indian Ocean in January 2017 after finding no trace of the plane.

In 2018, Malaysia contracted U.S. firm Ocean Infinity to resume the search on a “no-cure, no-fee”-basis, meaning it would pay the firm up to $70 million if it found the plane. But the 138-day search was also fruitless.

“We depend a lot on the government to take some initiative. We want the government to come forward and say that they are open to companies coming to search,” Nathan said, calling for the government to engage Ocean Infinity again.

Last month, the Transport Ministry said it had not received any new credible evidence to initiate a new search following a report that a fresh effort to find the plane could be mounted.

Meanwhile, Najib Razak, who was prime minister when MH370 disappeared, said he hoped the new government would restart search efforts.

“We spent a lot of money looking for the plane... But unfortunately, we couldn’t locate it,” Najib told Reuters during an interview on Wednesday,

“There is no finality to what actually happened,” he said.

Both Najib and former Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai have dismissed claims by former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott that the tragedy was a murder-suicide by the pilot.

IT WAS NOT MURDER SUICIDE IT WAS A WATERSPOUT

SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=MH370

SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=WATERSPOUT

March 7 (UPI) -- On this date in history:
In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell was granted a patent for the telephone.

On This Day

U.S. troops cross Rhine after capturing Ludendorff Bridge
On March 7, 1945, the U.S. 1st Army crossed the Rhine at Remagen, Germany after capturing the strategically important, Ludendorff Bridge (also known as the Bridge at Remagen).


The Ludendorff Bridge over the Rhine between Erpel (foreground, east side) and Remagen (background, west side) after it was captured by U.S. troops on March 7, 1945. File Photo courtesy of the U.S. Signal Corps

On This Day: 

In 1965, hundreds of civil rights marchers trying to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., were turned back by state troopers and sheriff's deputies. Dozens of people were beaten and injured in what became known as "Bloody Sunday." Marchers voluntarily turned around on a ceremonial walk to the bridge two days later and, on March 21, with protection by federal and National Guard troops, the main Selma-to-Montgomery march began.

File Photo by David Tulis/UPI

Latin American women prepare for record feminist marches
SANTIAGO (Reuters) - Millions of women are expected to hit the streets across Latin America on Sunday to mark International Women’s Day, against a backdrop of wider social unrest in the region.


FILE PHOTO: Riot police officers detain Camila Miranda after she was shot with 6 rubber bullets, 4 of which pierced her skin during a protest which she was demonstrating at against Chile's government in Santiago, Chile November 4, 2019. REUTERS/Henry Romero/File Photo

This year’s event coincides with attempts to pass laws to penalize femicide, legalize abortion, and give women an equal voice in drafting a new constitution.

On Monday, women around the region are planning to stay home from work, school, and university to illustrate what public life would look like without them.

In Chile, some have called for men to be blocked from the planned marches. The demonstrations are expected to be bolstered nonetheless by participants in broader protests against social inequality that began in October and at their peak included more than one million people.

A particular focus this year will be justice for women hurt during those protests. According to Chile’s Institute for Human Rights, 439 women were injured. It has laid six complaints against police for sexual assault.


This week, Chilean senators approved a bill aimed at giving women equal representation in drawing up a potential new constitution and Chile’s center-right President Sebastian Pinera signed a law strengthening punishment for femicide.

Javiera Arce, a political scientist at the University of Valparaiso, estimated there could be double the number of participants from last year’s march in Santiago, which she put at 500,000. “I don’t know a single woman not going,” she said.

Colombian women are expected to mark the day with events hosted around Bogota by the office of new - and first female - mayor Claudia Lopez.

Protests are likely to focus on a Constitutional Court ruling earlier this week, which upheld limits on abortion to cases of sexual assault, fetal deformity or maternal health risks.

In Mexico, there are plans for multiple marches and strikes in protest over what many perceive to be the authorities’ inadequate response to a doubling of femicide cases compared to five years ago.

In recent weeks, these include the kidnapping and murder of a seven-year-old girl and the gruesome murder of a 25-year-old woman.

Argentine women will hold a general strike on Monday. The new leftist government of President Alberto Fernandez has announced plans to create a minister for women and support a fresh effort to legalize abortion after previous attempts were defeated in Congress.

Feminism had to be established as “an indisputable thread” running through all public policy, said Ofelia Fernandez, a 19-year-old woman newly elected as a lawmaker, in her maiden speech to Argentina’s Congress on Thursday.

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon recovering from emergency heart surgery

DOCTORS COULD NOT FIND HIS HEART SO THEY PUT A LUMP OF COAL IN ITS PLACE

March 6 (UPI) -- Jamie Dimon is now awake, alert and recovering well, company officials said.

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon recovering after emergency heart surgery
JPMorgan Chase & Co CEO and Chairman Jamie Dimon is recovering from emergency heart surgery done on Thursday morning, with two deputies taking over as he recuperates, the largest U.S. bank said.MAR 06 2020


JPMorgan CEO Dimon 'feels really good' after emergency surgery: sources
JPMorgan Chase & Co Chief Executive and Chairman Jamie Dimon told senior colleagues he "feels really good" after undergoing emergency heart surgery, and his doctors are "happy" with his recovery so far, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Friday.

#METOO 

Publisher drops plans to release Woody Allen's memoir
WORKERS WALK OUT AGAINST THE BOOK
(Reuters) - The publisher of filmmaker Woody Allen’s forthcoming memoir said on Friday it had scrapped plans to release the book following criticism and a walkout by staff over a longstanding allegation he molested his daughter.

Hachette Book Group had previously announced it would debut Allen’s book, “A Propos of Nothing,” in April. Allen has repeatedly denied the accusation that he molested his adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow, in 1992.

On Thursday, dozens of Hachette employees in New York staged a midday walkout to protest the company’s decision to publish Allen’s book.
In a statement on Friday, Hachette said it had “extensive” conversations with staff and others and concluded that publishing the book “would not be feasible.”

“The decision to cancel Mr. Allen’s book was a difficult one,” the statement said. “At HBG we take our relationships with authors very seriously, and do not cancel books lightly. We have published and will continue to publish many challenging books.”

Representatives for Allen did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Dylan Farrow and her brother, journalist Ronan Farrow, had both criticized Hachette’s plan to release their father’s book. The decision was “deeply upsetting to me,” Dylan Farrow wrote on Twitter earlier this month.

Allen has denied the allegation by Dylan Farrow, which was also made by her mother, Mia Farrow, who appeared in Allen films and was his longtime partner.

Allen has not been charged. He is the winner of four Oscars, including best director for 1977’s “Annie Hall,” which also won best picture.

Hachette Book Group is a unit of Lagardere SCA (LAGA.PA)

NEW YORK (AP) — Woody Allen’s publisher has decided to cancel the planned release of his memoir “Apropos of Nothing.”

The announcement Friday by Hachette Book Group followed days of criticism focused on allegations that Allen sexually abused his daughter Dylan Farrow. On Thursday, dozens of Hachette employees staged a walkout.

“The decision to cancel Mr. Allen’s book was a difficult one. At HBG we take our relationships with authors very seriously, and do not cancel books lightly,” the publisher announced.

“We have published and will continue to publish many challenging books. As publishers, we make sure every day in our work that different voices and conflicting points of views can be heard.”

Allen’s book was scheduled to come out next month.

Allen has denied any wrongdoing and was never charged after two separate investigations in the 1990s. But the allegations have received new attention in the #MeToo era.

Allen’s agreement with Hachette meant that he briefly shared a publisher with one of his biggest detractors, his son Ronan Farrow, whose “Catch and Kill” was released last year by the Hachette division Little, Brown and Company.

“Hachette’s publishing of Woody Allen’s memoir is deeply upsetting to me personally and an utter betrayal of my brother whose brave reporting, capitalized on by Hachette, gave voice to numerous survivors of sexual assault by powerful men,” Dylan Farrow said in a statement Monday hours after details of the book were released by The Associated Press.

Ronanarrow followed up a day later, calling Hachette’s decision “wildly F unprofessional.” Both he and his sister complained that the publisher had not reached out to fact check their father’s book.

'Fear of the unknown': U.S. pregnant women worried by lack of virus research

Gabriella Borter

(Reuters) - After the first two cases of the novel coronavirus in the state of Georgia were confirmed this week, Leigh Creel, who is 20 weeks pregnant and lives outside Atlanta, made a nervous phone call to her doctor to ask about the risk to her and her fetus.

FILE PHOTO: A woman in a face mask walks in the downtown area of Manhattan, New York City, after further cases of coronavirus were confirmed in New York, U.S., March 5, 2020. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly/File Photo

THIS IS NOT THE RECOMMENDED 3M N95 RESPIRATOR FACE MASK THIS IS A HOSPITAL MASK FOR PROTECTING OTHERS FROM YOUR COUGH

The response she got was not comforting. Health experts do not know if pregnant women are more susceptible to the virus or if contracting it will increase the likelihood of adverse pregnancy outcomes, such as pre-term labor or transmission of the virus in utero.

They are racing to learn more about the sometimes fatal respiratory disease that has rapidly spread worldwide from China, including how it might uniquely affect pregnant women.

For expectant mothers, the mystery surrounding the virus is worrying.

“It’s concerning to me when I feel like I know as much as the healthcare professionals,” said Creel, who works in sales and lives with her husband and toddler.

The U.S. death toll from COVID-19 now stands at 14, most of them in Washington state, where 12 people have died in a cluster of at least 50 infections in the Seattle area. More than 3,400 people have died worldwide.

Public health officials in Washington’s Seattle and King Counties have advised that people at “higher risk of severe illness,” including pregnant women, should avoid physical contact and going out in public.

Dr. Laura Sienas, an obstetrician-gynecologist at the University of Washington Medical Center, said most of her pregnant patients have asked what they can do to protect themselves.

Sienas said her hospital has stopped short of urging pregnant women to quarantine themselves, contrary to local public health official guidelines.

Instead, she has emphasized diligent hygiene and avoiding close contact with others, the same guidance the U.S. Centers for Disease Control has offered on its website.

To that end, Sienas has tried to arrange check-ups via telephone, aiming to limit the number of in-person visits pregnant patients make to the hospital.


“There’s definitely that fear of the unknown, and pregnancy is a time when there are a lot of things that you don’t know and can’t control,” Sienas told Reuters. “Trying to give people small steps that they are able to control, like handwashing, has been a bit reassuring to patients.”

‘WE DON’T REALLY KNOW’

Scientists have not yet developed a vaccine against the virus, and research on its transmission and effects on pregnant women has been limited.

A narrow study of nine coronavirus-positive pregnant women in the Wuhan region of China, all in their third trimester, found no evidence that COVID-19 was transferred in utero. The women showed symptoms similar to non-pregnant adult patients.

The World Health Organization published an analysis of 147 pregnant women (64 of whom were confirmed to have COVID-19, 82 who were suspected and 1 who was asymptomatic) and found that 8% had a severe condition and 1% were critically ill.

“There’s some suggestion from other coronaviruses such as SARS that pregnant women may have a more severe disease, but we really don’t know,” said Dr. Denise Jamieson, chief of gynecology and obstetrics at Emory Healthcare in Atlanta and a former epidemic intelligence officer at the CDC.

Normal immunologic and physiologic changes in pregnant women might make them more susceptible to viral infections, including COVID-19, according to the CDC.

“There doesn’t seem to be any great answers out there for anyone, so your mind can really run wild with the possibilities,” said Rachel Storniolo, 36, who lives in Philadelphia and is due to give birth in May.

The study of the Chinese women, published in the scientific magazine The Lancet, found no traces of the virus in breast milk. Still, Jamieson said she would warn coronavirus-positive mothers that they risk transmitting the virus to their infants through respiratory droplets if they choose to breastfeed.

“If a woman has confirmed coronavirus, the safest thing in terms of ensuring that the infant does not get infected from the mother is to separate the mom and baby,” she said, adding that separation might be necessary for several days until the mother is asymptomatic.

Officials have not reported any cases of pregnant women with coronavirus in the United States, and they believe pregnant women - and the rest of the general public - who live outside the outbreak areas are at low risk.


But some women, like Brandi Cornelius, 36, of Portland, Oregon, who is 23 weeks pregnant, are not taking any chances.

“I went to the bank and I used hand sanitizer three times while I was there,” she said. “It helps my body to go to prenatal yoga, for example, but do I want to be in a room full of people?”

---30---

REUTERS INSIDE STORY: Metalor’s gold was used in phones including those from Apple and Samsung.

How suspect gold reached top brands

PHOTO ESSAY LONG READ

Sleeping Beauty

In the Peruvian highlands, a Swiss refinery said it had a sustainable source of artisanal gold. Prosecutors suspect its main supplier was a front for dirty money. What went wrong?


By BRENNA HUGHES NEGHAIWI, MITRA TAJ and PETER HOBSON March 6, 2020


From the Andes mountains, thousands of artisanal gold diggers for years sent fragments of metal to a Swiss valley. There, a refinery purified the gold to sell to banks, watchmakers, fine jewelers and electronics companies. It circulated as ingots, phones and trinkets - some branded with names including Apple and Tiffany & Co.

A trade worth billions of dollars, it was championed by the Swiss refinery, Metalor Technologies, as part of a program with Peru’s government to integrate gold prospectors into the economy.

In early 2018, Metalor stopped taking the gold. The reason: It couldn’t be sure where the metal came from. Peruvian prosecutors had come to suspect Metalor’s main supplier was a front used by criminals to filter illegally produced gold into the world market.

RELATED CONTENT

Video: Life in La Rinconada, a “forgotten zone”

Video: “The Big Iron” is one of the hazards

Photo essay: Meet the women gold-pickers of Peru

What is artisanal gold and why is it booming?

Metalor is not under investigation in Peru, and there is no suggestion of illegality by the refiner. But the story of the project - and of how it was monitored by the companies and regulators involved - illustrates the risks of illicit commerce that lie beneath gold’s glamor.

Peruvian authorities are exploring criminal charges against Metalor’s supplier, a trading firm named Minerales del Sur, after seizing a cargo worth nearly $4 million destined for Metalor in 2018, prosecutorial and customs documents seen by Reuters show. Customs inspectors found some participants in the program were selling more gold than they could produce, according to customs reports. The prosecutors allege these inflated volumes suggest Minerales del Sur was a cover to launder metal from illegal sources, such as mines financed by narcotics dealers or in banned sites in the Amazon rainforest.

Minerales del Sur, which declined to comment for this article, has told Peruvian authorities it obtained gold legally.

RICH ROCK: Miners in one of the gold tunnels in La Rinconada. 

REUTERS/Nacho Doce


Bullets Through the Head

As global hunger for gold accelerates, so too do problems in its production.

Industrial mines have long been accused of depriving indigenous people of land, polluting their homes and breeding crime. Now, high gold prices are making it attractive for individuals to try what the industry calls artisanal and small-scale mining. Every year around 500 tonnes, worth $25 billion at current prices, of gold is dug in this way, according to industry estimates - 15% of all the gold that is mined.

Metalor is one of at least five major refineries, including two in the United States, which have come under legal scrutiny in the last two decades after taking artisanal gold from countries including Colombia and Peru, where most of the world’s cocaine is produced and narcotics gangs have invested in gold production. One U.S. refinery closed after its employees were jailed for trading illegal and smuggled gold.
People of La Rinconada’s “forgotten zone.”

This Metalor program was supposed to be part of the solution - a state-backed scheme to bring informal diggers into the formal market and improve their conditions.

Minerales del Sur was hired to collect and check gold from small miners across the highland region of Puno, which extends from the fringes of the Amazon to Lake Titicaca. The region’s apex, and the source of some of the gold, is a shantytown of about 50,000 people located 16,700 feet above sea-level. Called La Rinconada, it sits below a glacier-capped mountain known as La Bella Durmiente, or Sleeping Beauty.

Said to be the highest permanent human settlement in the world, La Rinconada is no fairytale. Last year, authorities reported rescuing at least 68 trafficking victims from the shantytown’s nightclubs. Last April, seven gold miners were found in a tunnel beneath the mountain with bullets through the head.

Media organizations and NGOs repeatedly published reports that Metalor’s Peruvian gold suppliers may have been infiltrated by criminals. The Swiss company - which prosecutors estimated processed about 106 tonnes of gold worth $3.5 billion from Minerales del Sur since 2001 - said it was confident of the checks it imposed on its suppliers.


“We believe this was done in a proper way.”Metalor CEO Antoine de Montmollin

“To our knowledge, we believe that this was done in a proper way,” said Metalor CEO Antoine de Montmollin. “But due to the complexity of the supply chain, we cannot have 100% certainty. We await the conclusion of the current investigation.”

In 2018, Metalor supplied gold to firms including Tiffany, Samsung Electronics Co. and Apple Inc. Gold is used to conduct electricity in phones and other electronic devices.

Apple said it is committed to setting the highest standards for responsible sourcing, and has stopped working with 60 gold refiners since 2015 because they were unable or unwilling to meet its standards. It declined comment on whether it continued to accept gold from Metalor.

Tiffany said it upheld industry-leading standards aligned with its commitment to responsible sourcing. It said Metalor was among several refiners which provided gold used in non-jewelry items. Its website shows these include $375 golden drinking straws and $1,500 paper-clips.

Samsung declined to comment.

INSIDE STORY: Metalor’s gold was used in phones including those from Apple and Samsung. REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage

TRINKET TROUBLE: Tiffany & Co. was another customer for the metal. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes

Metalor said its executives and local staff made dozens of visits, including to Minerales del Sur’s offices, to ensure suppliers were operating legally. Each time gold was shipped, it also verified documentation to ensure the metal came only from members of the state formalization program.

But Metalor told Reuters it did not inspect mines. And its executives were not aware of two independent audit reports, produced for a Peruvian state firm involved in the program and seen by Reuters, that found flaws which made it easy for gold from unknown sources to be slipped into shipments.
$4 billion


Worth of gold traded illegally in Peru in 2015

Peruvian prosecutors have said their investigation will remain open in a preliminary phase through 2020. No charges have been issued, and the case may be closed if not enough evidence is assembled.

Peru’s Energy and Mining Ministry said it was working on improvements to the program, which it said has helped hundreds of thousands of people. In 2014, the incomes of as many as 600,000 people in Peru depended on artisanal and small-scale mining, according to estimates accessed on Delve, a global platform for information on such mines.

“You’re not going to find any country where traceability of small-scale mining is 100% trustworthy,” Lenin Valencia, director of mining formalization in the ministry, told Reuters. Small-scale mining is so important to society and the economy that compromises have to be made, he said. “If we stuck to the law, there probably wouldn’t be enough jails in the country to imprison so many people.”

Minerales del Sur declined to comment. A company representative told a judge in Lima its gold was all sourced legally. Daniel Jo Villalobos, attorney for Minerales owner Francisco Quintano Mendez, did not respond to emails.

Metalor has been owned since 2016 by Japan’s biggest gold retailer, Tanaka Kikinzoku, which said it had nothing to add.

EXCERPT READ THE REST HERE