America mourns former president Jimmy Carter at state funeral

Jimmy Carter was to be honored Thursday with a state funeral at Washington’s National Cathedral, amid a groundswell of tributes honoring the 39th US president and the last from the so-called Greatest Generation.The service caps a week of mourning that has seen Americans quietly filing past the flag-draped coffin in the US Capitol to pay their respects to Carter, who died on December 29 at the age of 100 in his home state of Georgia.President Joe Biden will deliver the eulogy for his fellow Democrat at the Episcopal church that has been a traditional venue for send-offs of US presidents, from Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan to George H.W. Bush.Biden revealed in an interview with USA Today published Wednesday that Carter had asked him to do the honors when the pair — longstanding friends — met for the last time four years ago.”Carter was a decent man. I think Carter looked at the world not from here but from here, where everybody else lives,” Biden said as he gestured from above his head towards his heart.Biden’s living predecessors — Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump — are expected to join around 3,000 mourners at the service, and Thursday has been designated a national day of mourning, with federal offices closed.Carter, who served a single term before a crushing election loss to Ronald Reagan in 1980, was perceived as naive and weak in the dog-eat-dog world of Washington politic.- ‘Decent and humble’ -A more nuanced image of him has emerged as the years passed, reassessing achievements like the brokering of a peace deal between Israel and Egypt.He also received high praise for his post-presidential humanitarian efforts, and a Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.The first president to reach triple digits, he had been in hospice care since February 2023 in his hometown of Plains, Georgia, where he died and will be buried next to his late wife, former first lady Rosalynn Carter.Mourners begun paying their respects on Saturday, as the carefully choreographed six-day farewell got underway with US flags flying at half-staff around the country.A black hearse bearing Carter’s remains paused at his boyhood family peanut farm in Plains, where a bell was rung 39 times and staff stood in silent tribute.Crowds gathered along the roadside to say their goodbyes, snap photographs or salute as the motorcade rolled slowly past.Carter’s flag-draped casket arrived at Washington’s snow-covered US Capitol on Tuesday atop a gun carriage.It was accompanied by hundreds of service members, with military pallbearers carrying Carter to the Rotunda to lie in state ahead of Thursday’s ceremony — the first presidential funeral since Bush Senior died in 2018.Chuck Schumer, the leader of the Democrats in the Senate, described Carter as “one of the most decent and humble public servants we have ever seen.” “President Carter was a living embodiment of leadership through service, compassion, and a thirst for justice for all,” he said.

‘We have lost everything’: Despair in the Los Angeles fires

Homes reduced to ashes, businesses in flames, and in the midst of the devastation, haggard residents: the California city of Altadena, ravaged Wednesday by a violent fire, looked like an area that has just been bombed. “This was our home,” William Gonzales told AFP, pointing to smouldering ruins where only embers and a chimney remain.”We have lost practically everything,” he sighed. “The flames have consumed all our dreams.” Swathes of the Los Angeles area have been ravaged since Tuesday by violent fires that have killed at least five people.More than 100,000 people have been told to flee their homes in the face of flames and violent winds that have gusted up to 100 miles (160 kilometers) per hour.In Altadena, behind the mountains north of Los Angeles, firefighters have been overwhelmed by the scale of a blaze that has already destroyed around 500 buildings, including many homes.On Wednesday, the streets were filled with ash, with buildings everywhere in flames.AFP met a shopkeeper in his sixties who was crying in front of the ruins of his liquor store.”This was my whole life,” he sobbed.A dazed Jesus Hernandez said he did not know if his parents would be compensated for their $1.3 million house.”Hopefully the insurance can pay for most of it, if not, then we’re going to have to stay with friends or someone,” he said.- Water cut – Fires have sprouted all over the Los Angeles area in little more than 24 hours, with the latest breaking out in the Hollywood Hills, mere yards (meters) from storied Hollywood Boulevard.Vicious winds have flung embers up to 2.5 miles (4 kilometers), sparking new spot fires faster than firefighters can quell them.The Santa Ana winds that are currently blowing are a classic part of Californian autumns and winters. But this week, they have reached an intensity not seen since 2011, according to meteorologists. That has combined with tinder dry countryside to create the perfect fire storm — and a nightmare for firefighters who have also struggled with water supplies.In the Pacific Palisades fire, hydrants stopped working after massive storage tanks ran dry.David Stewart said he was not prepared to just surrender his neighborhood to the flames.”The county turned off our water supply so we’re out there with shovels throwing dirt on fires,” he told AFP.”We saved I think three neighbors’ houses so far but the fires are still moving towards our house.”He struggled to make sense of the area he has lived his whole life.”This was a just a little antique shop, a pizza place. These places have been here forever, ever since I’ve been alive.”A fretful Jesse Banks was trying to make contact with his son, who had fled the flames earlier in the day.”My son left the house before us on foot, he doesn’t have a cell phone or anything like that, so I’m searching for him now,” he said.”I’ve lived in this area for over 20 years and we’ve seen fires in the mountains and the hills and that, but never anything like this.” The fight is far from over. Wind speeds were expected to moderate, but a Red Flag warning — alerting residents to high fire risk — was set to remain in place until Friday evening.Amid the catastrophe, scientists’ warnings, which regularly remind us that humanity’s dependence on fossil fuels is increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme events, are being felt in the flesh. “It’s probably climate change affecting everything,” said shop owner Debbie Collins.”I’m sure it’s added to it, made this happen. The world’s just in a really bad place and we need to do more.” 

Japan startup hopeful ahead of second moon launch

Japanese startup ispace vowed its upcoming second unmanned Moon mission will be a success, saying Thursday that it learned from its failed attempt nearly two years ago.In April 2023, the firm’s first spacecraft made an unsalvageable “hard landing”, dashing its ambitions to be the first private company to touch down on the Moon.The Houston-based Intuitive Machines accomplished that feat last year with an uncrewed craft that landed at the wrong angle but was able to complete tests and send photos.With another mission scheduled to launch next week, ispace wants to win its place in space history at a booming time for missions to the Moon from both governments and private companies.”We at ispace were disappointed in the failure of Mission 1,” ispace founder and CEO Takeshi Hakamada told reporters.”But that’s why we hope to send a message to people across Japan that it’s important to challenge ourselves again, after enduring the failure and learning from it.””We will make this Mission 2 a success,” he said.Its new lander, called Resilience, will blast off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on January 15, along with another lunar lander built by US company Firefly Aerospace.If Resilience lands successfully, it will deploy a micro rover and five other payloads from corporate partners.These include an experiment by Takasago Thermal Engineering, which wants to split water into oxygen and hydrogen gas with a view to using hydrogen as satellite and spacecraft fuel.- Rideshare -Firefly’s Blue Ghost lander will arrive at the Moon after travelling 45 days, followed by ispace’s Resilience, which the Japanese company hopes will land on the Earth’s satellite at the end of May, or in June.For the programme, officially named Hakuto-R Mission 2, ispace chose to cut down on costs by arranging the first private-sector rocket rideshare, Hakamada said.Only five nations have soft-landed spacecraft on the Moon: the Soviet Union, the United States, China, India and, most recently, Japan.Many companies are vying to offer cheaper and more frequent space exploration opportunities than governments.Space One, another Japanese startup, is trying to become Japan’s first company to put a satellite into orbit — with some difficulty so far.Last month, Space One’s solid-fuel Kairos rocket blasted off from a private launchpad in western Japan but was later seen spiralling downwards in the distance.That was the second launch attempt by Space One after an initial try in March last year ended in a mid-air explosion.Meanwhile Toyota, the world’s top-selling carmaker, announced this week it would invest seven billion yen ($44 million) in Japanese rocket startup Interstellar Technologies. “The global demand for small satellite launches has surged nearly 20-fold, from 141 launches in 2016 to 2,860 in 2023,” driven by private space businesses, national security concerns and technological development, Interstellar said.

Whole streets burn as fires rage around Los Angeles

At least five people have been killed in wildfires rampaging around Los Angeles, officials said Wednesday, with firefighters overwhelmed by the speed and ferocity of multiple blazes — including in Hollywood.Up to 1,500 buildings have burned in fires that have broken out around America’s second biggest city, forcing over 100,000 people from their homes.Hurricane-force winds whipped up fireballs that leapt from house to house in the upmarket Pacific Palisades area, incinerating a swathe of California’s most desirable real estate favored by Hollywood celebrities.On Wednesday evening, a new fire erupted in the Hollywood Hills, just a few hundred meters (yards) from the storied Hollywood Boulevard, sparking an evacuation order for the world’s entertainment capital.Los Angeles County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone said his crews were overwhelmed by the scale and speed of the unfolding disasters.”We’re doing the very best we can. But no, we don’t have enough fire personnel in LA County between all the departments to handle this,” he said.The fire raging in Pacific Palisades had consumed around 16,000 acres (6,500 hectares) as of Wednesday afternoon, taking 1,000 homes and businesses with it.A separate 10,600-acre (4,300-hectare) fire was burning around Altadena, north of the city, where flames tore through suburban streets.Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said five people were known to have perished, with more deaths feared.”Remember, this is still a very fluid situation, there’s zero containment on this fire. I’m really praying we don’t find more, but I don’t think that’s going to be the case,” he said.William Gonzales got out alive, but his Altadena home was gone.”We have lost practically everything; the flames have consumed all our dreams,” he told AFP.- Hydrants run dry -Pasadena fire chief Chad Augustin said up to 500 buildings had been lost to the flames.He hailed the bravery of first responders. “Our death count today would be significantly higher without their heroic actions,” Augustin told reporters.Vicious gusts pushed the flames, whipping red-hot embers hundreds of yards (meters) and sparking new spot fires faster than firefighters could quell them.Late Wednesday, a fire began in Runyon Canyon in the heart of Hollywood, close to historic sites like the Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, the Walk of Fame and the El Capitan Theatre, as well as the AFP bureau.An evacuation order was put in place for a number of streets, all the way down to Hollywood Boulevard, as firefighters took to the skies to dump water on the blaze.”There is no time to delay,” Margaret Stewart of LAFD said.”We do not want people stuck. We want everyone safely exiting, get in your vehicles, grab your friend who doesn’t have a car, and head south.”The sudden eruption created gridlock on Hollywood’s streets, hampering efforts by people who live in the area — a mixture of ritzy homes and rent-controlled apartments — to leave.Los Angeles Department of Water and Power chief executive Janisse Quinones pleaded with people to save water after hydrants in Pacific Palisades ran dry.President-elect Donald Trump took to his social media platform on Wednesday to claim — wrongly — that the lack of water was the result of the state’s environmental policies.In fact, much of Los Angeles’ water comes from the Colorado River, and farming — rather than residential use or firefighting — takes the lion’s share of all water that flows into Southern California.US President Joe Biden cancelled a trip to Italy this week to instead focus on the federal response to the fires. “We’re doing anything and everything, and as long as it takes to contain these fires,” Biden earlier told reporters.- ‘Panic mode’ -Having razed perhaps hundreds of multimillion-dollar homes, the Pacific Palisades fire looked set to be one of the costliest blazes on record.AccuWeather said it estimated up to $57 billion of losses.More than 300,000 households were without electricity in the region, according to Poweroutage.us. Utilities in California frequently de-energize lines during high winds to minimize the risk of new fires.Wildfires are part of life in the US West and play a vital role in nature.But scientists say human-caused climate change is altering weather patterns.Southern California had two decades of drought that were followed by two exceptionally wet years, which sparked furious vegetative growth — leaving the region packed with fuel and primed to burn.Meteorologist Daniel Swain said the fierce winds — which have gusted up to 100 miles (160 kilometers) an hour — are stronger than the usual seasonal Santa Ana winds, but are not unexpected.”The winds are the driver, but the real catalyst… is this incredible antecedent dryness,” he said.”That’s something that we haven’t seen in records going back to the 1800s.”

Venancio Mondlane, inspiring protests that rocked MozambiqueThu, 09 Jan 2025 03:26:52 GMT

Mozambican protesters kept up the heat for weeks on the ruling party they say stole elections in October, inspired by charismatic opposition leader Venancio Mondlane who mounted a formidable social media campaign from a hiding place abroad.Known simply by his first name, the 50-year-old former MP and media commentator has vowed to return home Thursday …

Venancio Mondlane, inspiring protests that rocked MozambiqueThu, 09 Jan 2025 03:26:52 GMT Read More »

Bangladesh garment industry rebounds, but workers say little change

In a vast Bangladeshi factory hall thrumming with sewing machines, garment workers churn out seemingly endless pairs of mountain hiking trousers for customers in Europe and North America.Bangladesh’s key clothing manufacturing industry supplying global brands was crippled by a revolution that toppled the government last year, in which garment sector protesters played an important role.While owners say business has bounced back, frustrated workers say hard-won concessions have done little to change their circumstances, and life remains as hard as ever.”It is the same kind of exploitation,” said garment worker Khatun, 24, asking that only her first name be used as speaking out would jeopardise her job.Production in the world’s second-largest garment manufacturer was repeatedly stalled by the months-long violence, before protesters forced long-time autocrat Sheikh Hasina to flee in August.An interim government, led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, took over.Protests, however, continued in a string of garment factoriesfor better conditions and more pay, with the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) warning in October of $400 million in losses.Scores of factories closed and tens of thousands lost their jobs.But after a five percent wage hike was agreed in September, the industry rebounded.- ‘Operating at full swing’ -“We are doing well,” said garment producer factory owner S.M. Khaled, who heads the Snowtex company, employing 22,000 workers.The South Asian nation produces garments for global brands — ranging from France’s Carrefour, Canada’s Tire, Japan’s Uniqlo, Ireland’s Primark, Sweden’s H&M and Spain’s Zara.The apparel industry accounts for about 80 percent of Bangladesh’s exports, earning $36 billion last year, dropping little despite the unrest from the $38 billion exported the previous year.”I am working with at least 15 international brands, and our products will be available in 50 countries,” Khaled said.”Almost all garment factories are operating at full swing after waves of unrest. We are on the growth side.”Despite challenges with a cooling of demand, Anwar Hossain, the government-appointed administrator of BGMEA, said the industry was returning to strength.”The largest contributor to exports was the apparel sector,” Hossain said.The garment industry recorded a 13 percent increase from July-December 2024 — the period after the revolution — compared to the same period the year before, he said.- ‘Half my basic wage’Workers tell a different story.Khatun welcomed the wage rise but said factory managers then hiked already onerous demands for “nearly unachievable production targets”.Scraping by in the capital Dhaka’s gritty industrial suburb of Ashulia, she earns $140 a month including overtime and benefits to support a family of four.The wage increase of $8.25 a month seems a miserly addition.Opening her fist, she showed a 500-taka note, just over four dollars, all she had left after paying rent and other expenses.”We have good facilities inside the factory, like toilets, a canteen, and water fountains,” she said. “But we don’t get even a 10-minute break while trying to meet the targets”.Many factory owners were close to the former ruling party.In the immediate days after Hasina was toppled, several factories were damaged in retaliatory attacks.Some owners were arrested and accused of supporting Hasina, who is herself in exile in India skipping an arrest warrant for “massacres, killings, and crimes against humanity”.Mostfactories are now back in operation, but employees say some offer conditions far worse than before.”We weren’t receiving salaries on time after the owner was arrested,” said worker Rana, also asking not to be identified.”Now, they’ve offered me half my basic wage, around $60 to $70. I have a six-month-old child, a wife, and elderly parents to support”, he added.Hussain, who lost his job in the unrest, tells a common tale.While he has since found work packing clothes, the new job means he “doesn’t benefit from the increment” deal, while living costs have risen.”House rents have shot up with the news of the pay rise,” he said.- ‘Take more responsibility’ -Taslima Akhter, from the Bangladesh Garment Workers’ Solidarity (BGWS) group, a labour rights organisation, said that “workers are struggling to maintain a minimum standard of living”.Akhter said factory bosses must push back against global purchasers wanting to maximise profits at the expense of a living wage.”Garment (factory) owners need to take more responsibility and learn to negotiate better with international buyers,” she said.”This industry is not new, and problems are not impossible to solve.” Despite the industry’s apparent fiscal success, Abdullah Hil Raquib, a former BGMEA director, warned it was on fragile ground.”The stability in the garment sector we see now is only on the surface,” he said.