It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Tuesday, March 28, 2023
US establishes first permanent military garrison in Poland
The US has opened its first military garrison in Poland. It follows last year’s pledge by President Joe Biden to establish a permanent base – America’s first on NATO’s eastern flank – in Poland following Russia’s invasion of neighbouring Ukraine.
“We have been striving for this for years – for this word ‘permanent’ – and it has now become fact,” said Polish defence minister Mariusz Błaszczak at today’s opening ceremony. While Poland has long hosted US troops on a rotational basis, it had lobbied Washington for that to be turned into a permanent presence.
“This is a historic moment, a sign that the United States is committed to Poland and NATO, and that we are united in the face of Russian aggression,” declared Błaszczak.
The garrison – housed in Poznań at Camp Kościuszko, which is named after the 18th-century hero who fought for both Polish and US independence – will act as the headquarters for the US Army’s V Corps in Poland.
It is the eighth garrison of the US land forces in Europe, with the others located in Germany, Belgium and Italy.
“This garrison is a sign of the United States’ commitment to the security of Europe and Poles,” said Lieutenant General John Kolasheski, commander of the V Corps, quoted by RMF24. “It is evidence of strong NATO ties” and “essential for maintaining combat readiness…from the Suwałki Gap to Poznań and further west”.
Błasczak, addressing the US troops present, said that he was “proud that Polish soldiers can exercise and increase interoperability with you”.
“In the situation that Europe finds itself in, when Russia has invaded Ukraine, when Russia is trying to rebuild an empire, it is very important that the Western world is united, and that it feels safe,” he added. “And it feels safe when our armed forces are working together.”
The US ambassador to Poland, Mark Brzezinski, declared that the inauguration of the garrison was a sign that “the United States is committed to Poland and the NATO alliance, and that we are united in the face of Russian aggression”.
In recent years, the already close military cooperation between Poland and the US has been further strengthened, with Washington sending additional troops and equipment to Poland in response to Russian aggression. Currently, around 10,000 US troops are stationed in Poland.
Artur Kacprzyk, an analyst at the Polish Institute of International Affairs (PISM), a state-linked think tank, told the Polish Press Agency (PAP) that the significance of the new garrison “is primarily symbolic, but it also has a practical dimension”
“This is [intended] to show that American military involvement in Poland will be permanent,” he added. “In practical terms…a longer presence allows the [US] military and civilians to better understand the specifics of Poland and the region…and to cooperate more closely with the Polish armed forces.”
UK Landlords to get power to evict antisocial tenants with two weeks’ notice Private tenancy agreements in England and Wales will have to include clauses that specifically ban antisocial behaviour
Landlords are to be given new powers to evict problematic tenants with two weeks’ notice under government proposals to address antisocial behaviour. The measures would cover tenants who play loud music, use drugs, cause damage to their property or fall behind on their rent.
All new private tenancy agreements will have to include clauses that specifically ban antisocial behaviour – and the notice period for eviction on these grounds will be cut from four weeks to a fortnight.
Rishi Sunak’s action plan also requires homeowners who rent out their properties on the Airbnb website to register on a new database that will make it easier for local councils to deal with complaints about problematic guests.
Referencing noise problems, drunken behaviour and disorderly conduct, the plan promises the creation of a new registration scheme that would provide councils with the data to identify short-term lets in their areas.
If any short-term rental property proved “problematic”, local officials could take action against guests and owners.
Sunak was questioned on the issue of Airbnb guests causing a nuisance to local residents at an event in Chelmsford in Essex on Monday.
“Let me take that away. I’ve got a feeling we are looking at that, from memory,” he said.
Jeff Jones told the prime minister that his former pub had been turned into a large rental in the suburb of Great Baddow.
“These places are let by the owners to groups of people with no control whatsoever,” he said. “They can come in and they can use the facilities there – in this particular case they have 10-person hot tubs and karaoke rooms. Antisocial behaviour and especially noise nuisance can go on through the night and there is no restriction.”
Sunak said he recognised that disruptive Airbnb guests were “enormously frustrating” for neighbours.
An Airbnb spokesperson said: “Parties are banned on Airbnb and our industry-leading prevention technology blocked more than 84,000 people in the UK from making certain unwanted bookings last year alone.
“Our 24/7 hotline for neighbours means anyone can contact us directly about a concern with a listing and we investigate and take action on reports received.
“We are committed to being good partners to local communities in the UK, and have long supported the introduction of a national short-term lets register to give authorities better visibility of activity in their area.”
Earlier this month, the communities secretary, Michael Gove, expressed concerns about the impact of short-term letting on local areas, promising to make changes aimed at restricting “the way that homes can be turned into Airbnbs”, amid concerns about problems with holiday lets preventing younger workers from living and finding a job near to home.
Elsewhere, the government promised to target the practice of cuckooing, where the home of a vulnerable person is taken over and used for illegal activity, with plans to make it a new criminal offence.
The government also announced that users of nitrous oxide, known as laughing gas, will face up to two years in jail and the substance will be categorised as a class C drug by the end of the year.
On-the-spot fines for littering and graffiti will more than treble to £500 and penalties for fly-tipping will more than double to £1,000.
As reported over the weekend, offenders will be forced to wear jumpsuits or high-visibility jackets while carrying out “community payback” within 48 hours of being caught, and members of the public will be given a greater say on how antisocial behaviour offenders are punished.
‘Being truthful is essential’: scientist who stumbled upon Wuhan Covid data speaks out
ACTUAL GENETIC CODE THAT WAS AVAILBLE THEN DISAPPEARED MEME CREATED JANUARY 2020
Florence Débarre’s discovery of genetic data online showed for first time that animals susceptible to coronavirus were present at market
One of the most compelling clues to the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic was uploaded without announcement to a scientific database, going unnoticed for weeks.
And then, just as suddenly, it vanished from public view.
Today in Focus podcast: ‘It’s way beyond just science’: untangling the hunt for Covid’s origins
The genetic data, from swabs taken at the Huanan seafood market in Wuhan, China, in the weeks after Covid-19 first emerged, were available online just long enough for a Parisian scientist to stumble upon them while working from her couch on a Saturday afternoon earlier this month.
“I have a bad work-life balance,” says Florence Débarre, an evolutionary biologist whose accidental discovery of the files led to confirmation for the first time that animals susceptible to the coronavirus were present at the Wuhan market.
Her findings, which she and her colleagues posted online last week, have illuminated the way forward for identifying the origins of the pandemic – as well as the treacherous path faced by scientists seeking to follow it. Since the publication, Débarre has been set upon by online mobs and received threats to her safety. “Last night, I was crying over the horrible things I’m reading about myself on social media,” she says.
Débarre, a senior researcher at France’s National Centre for Scientific Research, is one of thousands of scientists around the world attempting to trace the virus’s journey before it exploded among humans from late 2019. She was searching for data on Gisaid, a virology database, early in March when she stumbled on something unusual.
They were thousands of raw genetic sequences from swabs that Chinese scientists had taken in early 2020, from the floors, cages, walls and surfaces of the Wuhan market where the first cases of the virus were detected.
A pre-print analysis of the same swabs, released by the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CCDC) in February 2022 claimed they had included human DNA and coronavirus traces, but showed no evidence of the kinds of animals most likely to have been vectors for the virus.
Their findings supported arguments made by some Chinese officials that the Wuhan market was merely a site where the virus spread among humans, rather than the cradle where it made its first fateful leap from animals to people. But when Débarre and her colleagues analysed the same data, they received another result. “It was the Latin name for raccoon dog, multiple times,” she says. “It was one of the greatest emotions of my life.”
Raccoon dogs, omnivorous east Asian cousins of the fox, are highly susceptible to coronavirus infections and shed the virus in sufficient quantities to infect animals and humans around them. In other words: a suspect was confirmed to have been present at the scene.
Débarre stresses that other animal DNA was also found in the swabs, and that there is still no conclusive proof that raccoon dogs in the market were carrying the virus, or were the vehicle for its first spillover into humankind. “But now it cannot be denied that they were there,” she says.
The next step will be to investigate the illegal supply chains that brought the raccoon dogs and other animals to the Wuhan market during winter 2019 and see whether they might lead closer to the virus’s original reservoir, still suspected to be bats.
But a step forward in solving one mystery has spawned others.
In keeping with the rules of the Gisaid database, Débarre says her team had reached out to the Chinese scientists who posted the genetic data online to ask their permission to analyse it, which she said was granted. A day later, they emailed again, to share their discovery that raccoon dog DNA was present in the sequences.
The next day, the files had been made inaccessible, apparently at the request of the Chinese researchers, who include the top virologist George Gao, a former director general of the CCDC. “We were shocked,” says Débarre. “But not surprised.”
A member of her team has been in contact with their Chinese counterparts to find out why the data was locked away. “It’s a complicated story,” Débarre says delicately. “The short answer is that we’re not collaborating right now. But that collaboration was offered [by her team].”
Gisaid said in a statement that it removed the sequences from view because they were incomplete and part of a study that was still undergoing peer review, suggesting Débarre and her team might have “scooped” the Chinese scientists if they published first. Débarre has said her team made their best effort to collaborate and that their report was never intended to compete with a peer-reviewed journal article. Gao declined to respond to a request for comment.
To the storm of questions swirling around Covid-19’s origins, this latest episode has added more. Why were the results of the swabs taken in the early months of Covid-19 withheld from the scientific community for more than three years? Why did the first version of the Chinese study claim not to have found any raccoon dog DNA? And why were the genetic sequences quietly uploaded to Gisaid – left online long enough to be discovered – and then removed from public view?
Débarre is determined not to be distracted by the intrigue around her report. “I’m a scientist,” she says. “I’m not a politician, and I’m not an activist.”
It is a vital distinction, but in pursuit of an answer to arguably the most charged scientific question in the world, she is learning it may also be naive.
Since her report went online last week, Débarre has been the subject of abuse and conspiracy theories circulating online, largely among people who support the theory the virus emerged from a leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, located about 30 minutes away from the market. “I’m not living the best days of my life right now,” she says.
Most concerning has been a threat by a stranger who claims to know where Débarre lives. But she is also stung by the accusations that she, as a scientist, might be disloyal to the truth. “It’s horrible to have people discuss the fact you may be lying, when you’re not lying,” she says. “When you have a profession in which being truthful is essential.”
The lab-leak theory lacks hard evidence, but has been re-energised in recent weeks by reports that US government agencies have concluded it is possible, albeit with low-to-moderate confidence. The Biden administration has said it will release the evidence underlying its agencies’ assessments over the next months.
Despite the pressure, Débarre says she will continue researching the virus’s origins. “I mean, who doesn’t want to know?” she asks.
As well as shedding light on Covid, her quest might reveal the answer to that question, too.
Northern Ireland terrorism threat level rises to ‘severe’
Chris Heaton-Harris tells MPs MI5 has increased level from ‘substantial’, meaning an attack is highly likely
The terrorism threat level in Northern Ireland has been increased from substantial to severe, meaning an attack is highly likely.
In a written statement to MPs, the Northern Ireland secretary, Chris Heaton-Harris, said MI5 had increased the threat to the country from Northern Ireland-related terrorism and the public should remain vigilant but not be alarmed.
The move by the Security Service comes a month after the senior police officer John Caldwell was shot by masked gunmen in Omagh, County Tyrone. The detective chief inspector is understood to be in a critical but stable condition in hospital after he was shot while he packed footballs into his car alongside his son after a football training session. Thirteen arrests have been made in connection with the attempted murder.
In his statement, Heaton-Harris said: “Over the last 25 years, Northern Ireland has transformed into a peaceful society. The Belfast (Good Friday) agreement demonstrates how peaceful and democratic politics improve society. However, a small number of people remain determined to cause harm to our communities through acts of politically motivated violence.
“In recent months, we have seen an increase in levels of activity relating to Northern Ireland-related terrorism, which has targeted police officers serving their communities and also put at risk the lives of children and other members of the public. These attacks have no support, as demonstrated by the reaction to the abhorrent attempted murder of DCI Caldwell.”
Threat levels are designed to give a broad indication of the likelihood of a terrorist attack. MI5 is responsible for setting the threat level from Northern Irish-related terrorism in Northern Ireland, while the threat level for the UK from international terrorism is set by the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre.
The threat to the UK from terrorism is substantial, meaning an attack is likely.
Simon Byrne, the chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, said: “This is part of an ongoing process of monitoring the threat level in Northern Ireland, which is conducted by MI5. We have spoken publicly about the number of attacks that have taken place in recent months, not least the attempted murder of DCI John Caldwell on 22 February.
“We will relentlessly pursue those who seek to cause harm and terrorise our communities, and attack my officers and staff, and I pay tribute to them as they continue to deliver for our communities.
“I would also like to thank the community and political leaders of Northern Ireland for their overwhelming support for the police service in recent times.”
At least 39 dead after fire at Mexican migrant facility on US border
The INM said there were 68 adult men from Central and South America at the facility. Fire in Ciudad Juárez is latest example of dangers facing those taking route to US from Latin America
At least 39 people have died and dozens been injured after a fire ripped through an immigration detention centre in Ciudad Juárez, a Mexican city on the US border.
Images of the aftermath showed dozens of lifeless bodies on the ground, some covered by silver thermal blankets. Television footage showed emergency workers attending to stunned survivors, who sat on white sheets gasping for breath.
Reports in the Mexican press suggested a large number of the victims were Venezuelan migrants, millions of whom have abandoned their economically devastated country in recent years in search of a better life.
Colombia’s consul in Mexico, Andrés Camilo Hernández Ramírez, said he was trying to verify whether citizens of his country had been affected by the fire, and would travel to the region if they had.
The newspaper El Universal said immigration officials had spent the hours before the fire, on Monday afternoon, rounding up Venezuelan migrants who had been begging for money on the streets of Ciudad Juárez, which is just over the US border from El Paso, Texas. Some of those migrants are believed to have been transported to the immigration centre where the fire broke out.
The toll of dead and injured was given by an official with Mexico’s national immigration institute, which runs the facility. No explanation has been given for the cause of the fire but in a cryptic statement the INM said it “energetically rejects the acts which resulted in this tragedy”. The agency did not explain the nature of those “acts”.
The INM said there were 68 adult men from Central and South America at the facility.
Ciudad Juárez is a popular crossing point for migrants entering the US. Its shelters a host migrants waiting for opportunities to cross or who have requested asylum in the US.
Mexico’s attorney general’s office has launched an inquiry and has investigators at the scene, according to media reports.
The local news website Norte Digital said several of the victims had been found in the bathrooms of the detention centre, where inmates are believed to have sought refuge from the flames.
The fire is the latest disaster this year to highlight the multitude of dangers facing the hundreds of thousands of migrants and refugees who continue to flock to the US’s southern border each year after a perilous journey through South and Central America.
Last month at least 39 migrants died in a bus accident in Panama after trekking for days through the Central American country’s southern jungles on their way to the US.
The victims included citizens of Venezuela, Ecuador and Haiti. According to CNN Español the bodies of 13 victims – from Eritrea, Haiti and Nigeria – were buried by authorities last week after their families did not claim them.
Emergency services at the scene of the deadly blaze in Ciudad Juárez. Photograph: Luis Torres/EPA
THAT IS A TINY BOMB
Ecuadorian TV presenter wounded by bomb disguised as USB stick
Lenin Artieda was one of several journalists targeted by explosive devices mailed out across the country
Staff and agencies in Quito
Tue 21 Mar 2023
An Ecuadorian television presenter was wounded after a bomb disguised as a USB stick exploded when he inserted it in his computer, after explosive devices were sent to journalists across the country.
Lenin Artieda suffered minor injuries in the blast, which happened in the newsroom of Ecuavisa TV in Guayaquil.
The country’s attorney general’s office announced on Monday that it had launched a terrorism investigation after journalists at several news outlets were sent envelopes containing similar explosive devices.
“It’s a military-type explosive, but very small capsules,” said Xavier Chango, the national head of forensic science, referring to the explosive sent to Ecuavisa.
The envelopes sent to journalists had similar characteristics and the same contents and so would be investigated jointly, the attorney general’s office said in a statement, without naming the media organizations affected.
The police carried out a controlled detonation of a device sent to the news department of TC Television, also in Guayaquil, prosecutors said earlier on Monday.
Regional freedom of expression advocacy group Fundamedios said a third television station and radio outlet in Quito had also received envelopes with explosives.
The Television channel Teleamazonas said one of its journalists had received an anonymous envelope on Thursday and upon opening it had discovered a device, which the police confirmed contained explosives.
“Any attempt to intimidate journalism and freedom of expression is a loathsome action that should be punished with all the rigor of justice,” it said in a statement.
Ecuador, which sits between Colombia and Peru, the world’s two largest cocaine-producing countries, is a strategic drug-smuggling route due to its long Pacific coastline and large shipping and fishing fleets.
Analysts say criminal gangs emboldened by lucrative links to Mexican drug cartels are using terror tactics to intimidate the authorities and civilians as the country of nearly 18 million teeters on the edge of becoming a narco-state.
Ottawa still advertising on TikTok despite banning it on government devices due to security concerns
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Some tech experts argue federal government is sending
Ottawa told CBC News it's running several taxpayer-funded ad campaigns on TikTok, a video-sharing service popular with young people.
The ads promote government messaging on topics such as public safety, armed forces recruitment and online disinformation, said the Privy Council Office last week.
The advertising campaigns pose no security concerns for the government because a third party ad agency posts them on TikTok, said Privy Council spokesperson Stéphane Shank in an email.
But some tech experts argue Ottawa is sending Canadians a contradictory message and should suspend all advertising on the app.
"It seems a little bit like a double standard to me to say, 'Well, it's it's too dangerous for any of our employees to have, but it's okay for reaching teenagers,'" said Brett Caraway, an associate professor at the University of Toronto's Institute of Communication, Culture, Information and Technology.
The federal government should drop its ad campaigns on TikTok, says Vass Bednar, executive director of McMaster University's Master of Public Policy in Digital Society Program. (McMaster University)
At a news conference last month, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he suspects that, following Ottawa's device ban, many Canadians will reflect on using TikTok "and perhaps make choices in consequence."
However, Ottawa's ongoing ad campaigns look like "an implicit endorsement" of the app, said Vass Bednar, executive director of McMaster University's Master of Public Policy in Digital Society Program.
"I don't think it's the right use of tax dollars if we are in fact so newly serious and cautious about this one app," she said. "You sort of have to pick a lane."
Spokesperson Shank said it's up to Canadians to decide whether they want to use TikTok.
The government did not provide the cost of this year's TikTok campaigns. Last year, it spent $1.7 million advertising on the platform. That's more than the $1.6 million Ottawa spent advertising on LinkedIn last year, but far from the $11.4 million it spent on Facebook and Instagram ad campaigns.
Several provinces halt TikTok ads
Like other social media apps, TikTok collects users' personal information and monitors their use of the service.
However, it has received additional scrutiny because the platform's parent company, Bytedance, is based in Beijing, and Chinese laws allow the government to demand access to companies' user information.
TikTok says it does not operate in China and does not believe the country's laws apply to the platform.
Nevertheless, several countries, including the United States, have banned the app from government devices as a precautionary measure. All Canadian provinces have made the same move.
WATCH | Department of National Defence TikTok ad:
This Department of National Defence recruitment ad appeared on TikTok between Feb. 27 and March 19.
CBC News asked each provincial government if their ban extends to ad campaigns.
Ontario, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Quebec said they have stopped advertising on TikTok.
Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, Manitoba and Alberta said they have no current plans to run ads on the app.
Saskatchewan and B.C. said they're still advertising on the platform, but Saskatchewan said it has paused work on future campaigns.
The U.S. government told CBC News it will not use TikTok, except in connection with national security, law enforcement or security research activities.
Toronto-based cybersecurity analyst Ritesh Kotak said he believes Ottawa maintaining its ads is a smart move, because it can harness the power of TikTok without involving government devices. The app boasts more than one billion active users worldwide, including millions of Canadians.
"If you need to get messaging across, you've got to use the most effective medium possible," said Kotak.
But tech expert Caraway said Ottawa's continued ad campaigns appear hypocritical as federal opposition parties have, as a result of the ban, stopped using TikTok to get their message out.
"You're asking them to give up quite a bit," he said. "Yet [the Liberal government is] still leveraging it to reach people."
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh had nearly 880,000 TikTok followers before he deactivated his account on Feb. 28.
The Privy Council Office said Ottawa's TikTok ads are non-partisan and promote awareness of its services and programs.
The Office of the Privacy Commissioner declined to comment on the federal government's TikTok ad campaigns while the investigation is still active.
WATCH | Breaking down TikTok concerns:
The National's Ian Hanomansing asks cyber security experts Brian Haugli and Alana Staszcyszyn about how worried TikTok users should be about having the app on their devices.
Kotak said if the government were to actually ban TikTok for all Canadians, then it would have to drop all ads on the app.
Ottawa has not said whether it's considering a country-wide ban. According to TikTok, the U.S. has demanded that its Chinese owners sell their stakes in the app or face a possible ban there.
TikTok contends the divestiture would solve nothing. "A change in ownership would not impose any new restrictions on data flows or access," said an unnamed spokesperson in an email to CBC News. "The best way to address concerns about national security is with the transparent, U.S.-based protection of U.S. user data and systems."
TikTok also argues that banning the app on government devices is a pointless exercise. "All it does is prevent officials from reaching the public on a platform loved by millions of Canadians," said the spokesperson.
However, the federal government is still able to reach Canadians on TikTok via its ad campaigns.
CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
Venezuela oil czar in surprise resignation amid graft probes
Venezuelan Petroleum Minister Tareck El Aissami arrives to a signing ceremony with California-based Chevron, in Caracas, Venezuela, on Dec. 2, 2022.
The man responsible for running Venezuela's oil industry -- the one that pays for virtually everything in the troubled country, from subsidized food to ridiculously cheap gas -- has quit amid investigations into alleged corruption among officials in various parts of the government.
Tareck El Aissami's announcement Monday was shocking on multiple counts. He was seen as a loyal ruling party member and considered a key figure in the government's efforts to evade punishing international economic sanctions.
And he led the state oil company PDVSA in a Venezuelan business sector widely considered to be corrupt -- in a country where embezzelment, bribery, money laundering and other wrongdoing are a lifestyle.
"Obviously, they are giving it the patina of an anti-corruption probe," said Ryan Berg, director of the Americas program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank.
"Rule of law is not being advanced here," Berg added. "This is really a chance for the regime to sideline someone that it felt for some reason was a danger to it in the moment and to continue perpetuating acts of corruption once particular individuals have been forced out of the political scene."
Hours after El Aissami revealed his resignation on Twitter, President Nicolas Maduro called his government's fight against corruption "bitter" and "painful." He said he accepted the resignation "to facilitate all the investigations that should result in the establishment of the truth, the punishment of the culprits, and justice in all these cases."
Venezuela's National Anti-Corruption Police last week announced an investigation into unidentified public officials in the oil industry, the justice system and some local governments. Attorney General Tarek William Saab in a radio interview Monday said that at least a half dozen officials, including people affiliated with PDVSA, had been arrested, and he expected more to be detained.
Among those arrested is Joselit Ramirez, a cryptocurrency regulator who was indicted in the U.S. along with El Aissami on money laundering charges in 2020.
Corruption has long been rampant in Venezuela, which sits atop the world's largest petroleum reserves. But officials are rarely held accountable -- a major irritant to citizens, the majority of whom live on US$1.90 a day, the international benchmark of extreme poverty.
"I assure you, even more so at this moment, when the country calls not only for justice but also for the strengthening of the institutions, we will apply the full weight of the law against these individuals," Saab said.
Oil is Venezuela's most important industry. A windfall of hundreds of billions in oil dollars thanks to record-high global prices allowed the late President Hugo Chavez to launch numerous initiatives, including state-run food markets, new public housing, free health clinics and education programs.
But a subsequent drop in prices and government mismanagement, first under Chavez's government and then Maduro's, ended the lavish spending. And so began a complex crisis that has pushed millions into poverty and driven more than 7 million Venezuela to migrate.
PDVSA's mismanagement, and more recently economic sanctions imposed by the U.S., caused a steady production decline, going from the 3.5 million barrels a day when Chavez rose to power in 1999 to roughly 700,000 barrels a day last year.
David Smilde, a Tulane University professor who has conducted extensive research on Venezuela, said the moves by Maduro's government are more than just an effort to clean its image.
"Arresting important figures and accepting the resignation of one of the most powerful ministers in a case that involves $3 billion does not improve your image," he said. "It is probably because the missing money actually has an important impact on a government with serious budgetary problems."
The Biden administration recently loosened some sanctions, even allowing oil giant Chevron for the first time in more than three years to resume production. Maduro's government has been negotiating with its U.S.-backed political opponents primarily to get the sanctions lifted.
U.S. congressional researchers saw El Aissami as an impediment to Maduro's goals.
"Should Al Aissami remain in that position, it could complicate efforts to lift oil sanctions," a November report from the Congressional Research Center said.
The U.S. government designated El Aissami, a powerful Maduro ally, as a narcotics kingpin in 2017 in connection with activities in his previous positions as interior minister and a state governor. The Treasury Department alleged that "he oversaw or partially owned narcotics shipments of over 1,000 kilograms from Venezuela on multiple occasions, including those with the final destinations of Mexico and the United States."
Under the government of Chavez, El Aissami headed the Ministry of Internal Affairs. He was appointed minister of oil in April 2020.
"El Aissami was a key player in the Maduro government's sanctions evasion strategy. We're talking about someone who knows where all the bodies are buried, so it will be key to watch where he ends up," said Geoff Ramsey, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council focused on Colombia and Venezuela. "If El Aissami ends up being implicated himself, it could have serious implications for the entire power structure."
In September, Maduro's government renewed wrongdoing accusations against another former oil minister, Rafael Ramirez, alleging he was involved in a multibillion-dollar embezzlement operation during the early 2010s that took advantage of a dual currency exchange system. Ramirez, who oversaw the OPEC nation's oil industry for a decade, denied the accusations.
In 2016, Venezuela's then opposition-led National Assembly said $11 billion went missing at PDVSA in the 2004-2014 period when Ramirez was in charge of the company. In 2015, the U.S. Treasury Department accused a bank in Andorra of laundering some $2 billion stolen from PDVSA.
Middlemen have left Venezuela's PDVSA with $21.2 billion in unpaid bills
By Marianna Parraga
HOUSTON, March 21 (Reuters) -Venezuela's state-run oil company PDVSA has accumulated $21.2 billion in accounts receivable, according to documents viewed by Reuters, after turning to dozens of little known intermediaries three years ago to export its oil under U.S. sanctions.
The internal disclosure of the enormous amount of unpaid sales - about 84% of PDVSA's total value of invoiced shipments - reveals for the first time the depths of revenue losses due to the withdrawal of established oil company buyers since 2020.
The scale of the receivables explains a January freeze on supply contracts by PDVSA's new boss Pedro Tellechea, who sought to halt unpaid cargoes immediately after taking office. A series of attempts to tighten contract terms came after some vessels absconded without payment in recent years.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Monday accepted the resignation of oil minister Tareck El Aissami, who served the government for two decades, amid a corruption probe focused on PDVSA and the judiciary. In recent days, the investigation has resulted in the jailing of dozens of officials.
El Aissami has said he will collaborate with the probe.
According to documents provided to the office of Venezuela's attorney general during a long-standing audit of PDVSA contracts, out of a total $25.27 billion in oil exports between January 2020 and this month, PDVSA was only able to confirm the reception of $4.08 billion in payments excluding some swaps like the one with Cuba, which means it has only successfully cashed 16% of exports, according to its count.
POTENTIALLY UNRECOVERABLE
The $21.2 billion in commercial accounts receivable includes about $3.6 billion of potentially unrecoverable bills tied to tankers that left the country without prepaying at least a portion of the cargoes' value, even though customers had agreed to those terms, according to the documents.
The accounts receivable also includes an outstanding balance to be paid by Iran for its receipt of cargoes from Venezuela since 2020 as part of an oil swap between the two countries, the documents show.
Some customers have fought PDVSA's count of failed payments by providing supporting documents that had not been registered with the state company's contract administration system, a company source said.
PDVSA and Venezuela's oil ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
During the audit, PDVSA's departments of International Finances and Accountability said that according to documentation registered by the company's contract system, executives at the Trade and Supply division had been authorizing cargoes to leave Venezuelan waters without completing the payment verification process.
EXECUTIVES ARRESTED
PDVSA's former vice president of supply and trade, Antonio Perez Suarez, and about 20 executives who worked for him have been arrested, according to people familiar with the matter.
Reuters was unable to reach any representative of Perez Suarez for comment.
When the United States first imposed oil sanctions on PDVSA in 2019 in an effort to oust Maduro after a reelection that was denounced as a sham by opponents, PDVSA turned to units of Russian oil firm Rosneft ROSN.MM to trade most of its sales to Asia and to compensate for the loss of its main market, the United States.
But those Rosneft units faced sanctions by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2020, forcing PDVSA to first resort to a Mexico-based network of intermediaries that were also sanctioned by Washington, and later to dozens of less known middlemen, which exacerbated the failed payment issue.
Reporting by Marianna Parraga; Editing by Gary McWilliams and Daniel Wallis
Dark Microbiome in the Atacama Desert Highlights Life Detection Limits on Mars
Red Stone in the Atacama Desert. These rocks are similar to ones found in ancient lake beds and river deltas on Mars. Credit: Armando Azua-Bustos.
The search for life on other planets has long been of interest to humanity. However, we have been limited to what orbiters and their scientific instruments can detect and restricted to the specific locations of landers and rovers. Another approach is to study places on Earth with geologic and climatic resemblances to other planets. One such analog for Mars is the Atacama Desert in Chile. The Atacama is the oldest, driest desert on the planet, but life still thrives there.
Recently, Armando Azua-Bustos, from the Centro de Astrobiología in Madrid, Spain, and his team studied an alluvial fan delta called Red Stone in the Atacama Desert to test the limitations of scientific instruments designed to detect life. A slew of instruments and techniques that are either already on Mars or will be sent there were tested. While the instruments correctly determined sample mineralogy, concentrations of organics were generally near or below the detection limits of the instruments. The team also analyzed some biology. While Red Stone shares similarities to the sedimentary rocks of ancient Mars, it has about 1μg of DNA per gram of soil. Azua-Bustos’s team found that 8.9% of the identified DNA and RNA at Red Stone fell into an “unclassified” category, and another 40.8% could not be identified until looking at their distant relatives higher up the animal kingdom chain. They proposed the term “dark microbiome” to refer to microorganisms that can be detected but whose identity cannot be determined. In the case of Red Stone, this dark microbiome could be a species not found anywhere else on Earth, or it could be a relic of a species (or multiple species) that has died out and has no close relatives in existing databases. This adds to the already complex task of detecting past or present life on Mars and highlights the importance of sample return missions. READ MORE
U of A Students celebrate successful launch of wildfire-monitoring satellite 'The moment it launched there was a pin-drop silence,' says lead manager of the project
A student-built satellite from the University of Alberta that will capture images of active wildfires has made it into orbit after a successful launch last week.
The satellite Ex-Alta 2, a miniature satellite about the size of a loaf of bread and weighing about two kilograms, launched from NASA's Kennedy Space Centre aboard the Falcon 9 SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft on March 14.
"The moment it launched there was a pin-drop silence," Thomas Ganley, lead manager on the AlbertaSat's project, told CBC's Edmonton AM.
The atmosphere was celebratory and he and his teammates were there to watch the countless years of their hard work blast off into space as part of a resupply mission to the International Space Station.
"Everyone was in awe and just jaw dropped looking at the amazing marvel happening in front of us."
Students from various degrees at the University of Alberta have been working on the Ex-Alta 2 project for six years now (Submitted by Thomas Ganley and Nikhil Velagapudi)
The satellite, known as a cubesat, is a small, light and affordable device that will burn upon re-entry, meaning it doesn't leave behind space debris. Each mission could take up to a year to complete.
AlbertaSat builds cubesats composed of three units.
Ex-Alta 2 includes a multispectral camera, called an Iris, to take the images they need.
"We're going to be studying active wildfires post-burn, the effect on vegetation to hopefully enable wildfire scientists to make some conclusions that will help us mitigate wildfires in the future," Ganley said.
"It's quite impressive the amount of technology that you can pack into there and the really valuable science that you can still do with such a small size," he said. Content continues below
Real space mission opportunity for students
Students from various degrees at the university have been working on the Ex-Alta 2 project for six years now. In 2017, they launched Ex-Alta 1.
Ex-Alta 1 was designed to study space weather and carried instruments that measured the electron density of the ionosphere, magnetic signatures and radiation of the spacecraft.
The student-built IRIS camera will photograph wildfires. (Liam Droog/AlbertaSat)
Both satellites are part of the Canadian Space Agency's Canadian CubeSat Project and the Northern Space Program for Innovative Research and Integrated Training (Northern SPIRIT), which aim to give students the opportunity to experience a real space mission.
The project is made up of a collaboration between three post-secondary institutions to create a nanosatellite design.
AlbertaSat worked with Yukon University and Aurora Research Institute in the Northwest Territories to build three cubesats.
"It really sets you up for leadership in the industry," said Nikhil Velagapudi, a third-year chemical engineering student.
"Having that leadership and management skills from an early age in the student group sector really helps us, it sets us up for success in the workforce."
AlbertaSat plans on partnering up with the Canadian Space Agency to develop a satellite that will monitor snow and ice in the country's northern region.
