BusinessMirror June 04, 2023

PINOY FOOD: Next ‘big thing’ to conquer US

Fil-Am

By Terry Tang

The Associated Press

LIKE a lot of chefs, Aaron Verzosa has been hustling the past three years to get Archipelago, his Filipino restaurant in Seattle, through the pandemic and its ripple effects. Getting a James Beard Award nomination was a validating moment.

Being able to amplify and showcase stories about the Filipino-American culture, the communities here, specifically in the Northwest, and really the immigrant story that my parents came with.... I was just very humbled to be able to have the opportunity to showcase what the sacrifice was and be able to represent the region in that way,” said Verzosa, who is up for Best Chef: Northwest and Pacific.

The Pinoy contenders

IN the culinary world, the awards are the equivalent of the Oscars. Three Filipino restaurants will be represented at the James Beard Foundation’s annual awards ceremony, on June 5 in Chicago.

come into their own with multiple James Beard Award nominations

A bacá, in San Francisco, scored an Outstanding Pastry Chef or Baker nod for Vince Bugtong. And Kasama, in Chicago, earned a joint Best Chef: Great Lakes nomination for husband and wife Tim Flores and Genie Kwon. Last year, Kasama was nominated for Best New Restaurant and also became the first Michelin-starred Filipino restaurant. Past Filipino American winners include Tom Cunanan, who snagged Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic in 2019 for his now closed Washington, D.C., restaurant, Bad Saint.

A ll this recognition is welcome praise for a cuisine that has historically been stifled by colonialism and a general lack of appreciation.

These chefs are part of a younger generation giving voice to the Filipino American experience through the language of food.

Before joining Abacá in January, Bugtong said he was having an identity crisis as pastry chef for an Oakland cocktail bar. He wanted to do more Filipino-centric desserts, but at the same time felt he lacked authenticity. At Abacá, he said, chef and owner Francis Ang gave him the freedom to explore his culinary roots. He has since experimented with dishes from the Philippines’ pre-Spanish days, like rice-based desserts, or kakanin in Tagalog.

In the small amount of time that I’ve worked here, I definitely

learned so much,” Bugtong said. He enjoys playing around with ingredients from the Philippines. For example, he wants to make a granita with barako coffee, which is grown there, and pair it with muscovado jelly and leche flan ice cream. Leche flan is the Filipino version of crème caramel.

Bugtong doesn’t worry about whether something is unconventional and outside the usual traditions of Filipino culture.

“My thought process when I come up with stuff is, ‘Do I like it?’” he said. “Does it represent me as a Filipino American? Then the second thing that I think about is, ‘Is this approachable to other people? Filipino or otherwise?’ And then I

think of a composition that makes it aesthetically beautiful.”

Fil-Am ‘distinction’ IN Seattle, Archipelago, named because the Philippines is comprised of 7,100 islands, has been dishing out a seasonal tasting menu since 2018. Verzosa and his wife, Amber Manuguid, wanted a “Pacific Northwest restaurant first and foremost.” But there’s a “Filipino American-ness” intrinsic to the meals, too.

For instance, Verzosa might swap out tamarind for wild lingonberries. He does his own take on Filipino banana ketchup with sweeter tubers or root vegetables.

CRÈME Brûlée Tart, made of lemon cinnamon custard, strawberry guava jam, macadamia coconut streusel and ube espuma, a purple yam foam, is shown at Abaca restaurant in San Francisco, Monday, May 29, 2023.

CHIU

CHEF Aaron Verzosa, who is nominated for a 2023 James Beard Award, poses for a portrait in front of capiz windows displayed at his Filipino American restaurant Archipelago Wednesday, May 24, 2023, in Seattle. Verzosa is nominated in the Best Chef: Northwest and Pacific category. AP/LINDSEY WASSON

PINOY FOOD: Next ‘big thing’ to conquer US

Continued from A1

With only 12 seats in the restaurant, Verzosa chats with every patron.

“

When we have Filipinos coming from the Philippines and we have Filipinos that are here from the US—whether they be first, second, all the way to fifth generation—there’s a really beautiful way to connect with them differently,” Verzosa said. “I think the most important thing to realize is that there is absolutely—like anything—no one way to be Filipino.”

Neither Verzosa nor Bugtong seriously considered a culinary career until after college. Verzosa

of early Filipino immigrants into particular occupations, according to Martin Manalansan IV, an American Studies professor at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. In the 1920s and ’30s, he said, they came to the US for agricultural work. After 1965, they worked mostly in more technical fields like nursing and engineering.

Many young Filipino Americans were discouraged from becoming chefs “because that was seen as very lowly, especially if your parents are nurses, doctors, engineers, whatever,” Manalansan said.

Continued from A1

grew up on a diet of PBS and Food Network cooking shows, as well as the cooking of his father, aunts and uncles.

“I would come home from school, be eating my dad’s food and watching these shows,” said Verzosa, who was originally headed to medical school. “At some point, he was like, ‘Hey, listen, Aaron, if you love eating as much as you do, you need to learn how to love to cook.’”

Bugtong dropped plans to become a teacher and enrolled in a Bay Area culinary school in 2014. As a child, he hadn’t demonstrated any passion for making things from scratch.

I did stuff with Betty Crocker and thought I was badass, like substituting milk instead of water,” Bugtong said, chuckling. “When I was a kid, I used to put egg wash on Chips Ahoy! and bake them. They

came out very gooey inside and crispy on the outside.”

Next ‘big thing’ FILIPINOS have heard on and off for the last decade that their food is having a moment, about to be the next big thing in US cuisine. Its staples include steamed rice, meat, fish, and notes of sweet, salty and sour. Dishes like adobo (a meat braised in vinegar, soy sauce and garlic), lumpia (spring rolls) and pancit (fried noodles) are already part of the zeitgeist.

Yet Filipino restaurants make up only 1 percent of US restaurants serving Asian food, according to a Pew Research Center analysis released earlier this month.

There’s no one explanation why other Asian cuisines like Chinese grabbed a bigger foothold in the restaurant industry.

One reason is the “funneling”

In addition, Filipino food was often dismissed as a fusion of Chinese, Spanish and a dash of American. That perception annoys Manalansan because it doesn’t recognize the creativity of Filipino culture.

The late ’90s foodie revolution was really…about being adventurous and being called a ‘foodie,’ being into more ‘exotic,’ interesting cuisine,” Manalansan said. “The Filipino cuisine was seen as kind of homey, kind of blasé.”

W hether this year’s James Beard love is a coincidence or not, Verzosa says it feels like there are more rising, accomplished Filipino chefs than ever.

“Over the last five, 10 years or so now, they’re finally coming through and developing their own voice, and wanting to showcase their own families, their own communities, their own regions,” Verzosa said.

“Having the craft and ability to make delicious food—obviously that needs to happen to tell those stories.”

BUGTONG prepares a Crème Brûlée Tart, made of lemon cinnamon custard, strawberry guava jam, macadamia coconut streusel and ube espuma, a purple yam foam, at Abaca restaurant in San Francisco, May 29, 2023. AP/JEFF CHIU

PASTRY chef Vince Bugtong poses for photos at Abaca restaurant in San Francisco, May 15, 2023. AP/JEFF CHIU

BUGTONG prepares Yema Cakes, a salted egg cake with almond yogurt and salted egg yolk custard, at Abaca restaurant in San Francisco, May 15, 2023. AP/JEFF CHIU

CHEF Aaron Verzosa arranges the restaurant’s fermented and picked products like bagoong and buro, Wednesday, May 24, 2023, in Seattle. AP/LINDSEY WASSON

The World

Climate costs mount for poorer nations already troubled by debt

By Karl Ritter & Charlene Pele The Associated Press

STOCKHOLM—Summer is in the air, cigarette smoke is not, in Sweden’s outdoor bars and restaurants.

As the World Health Organization marked “World No Tobacco Day” on Wednesday, Sweden, which has the lowest rate of smoking in the Europe Union, is close to declaring itself “smoke free”—defined as having fewer than 5 percent daily smokers in the population.

Many experts give credit to decades of anti-smoking campaigns and legislation, while others point to the prevalence of “snus,” a smokeless tobacco product that is banned elsewhere in the EU but is marketed in Sweden as an alternative to cigarettes.

Whatever the reason, the 5 percent milestone is now within reach. Only 6.4 percent of Swedes over 15 were daily smokers in 2019, the lowest in the EU and far below the average of 18.5 percent across the 27-nation bloc, according to the Eurostat statistics agency.

Figures from the Public Health Agency of Sweden show the smoking rate has continued to fall since then, reaching 5.6 percent last year.

“We like a healthy way to live, think that’s the reason,” said Carina Astorsson, a Stockholm resident. Smoking never interested her, she added, because “I don’t like the smell; I want to take care of my body.”

The risks of smoking appear well understood among health-conscious Swedes, including younger generations. Twenty years ago, almost 20 percent of the population were smokers—which was a low rate globally at the time. Since then, measures to discourage smoking have brought down smoking rates across Europe, including bans on smoking in restaurants.

France saw record drops in smoking rates from 2014 to 2019 but that success hit a plateau during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic—blamed in part for causing stresses that drove people to light up. About one-third of people aged 18 to 75 in France professed to having smoked in 2021—a slight increase on 2019. About a quarter smoke daily.

Sweden has gone further than most to stamp out cigarettes, and says it’s resulted in a range of health benefits, including a relatively low rate of lung cancer.

“We were early in restricting smoking in public spaces, first in school playgrounds and after-school centers, and later in restaurants, outdoor cafes and public places such as bus stations,” said Ulrika Årehed, secretary-general of the Swedish Cancer Society. “In parallel, taxes on cigarettes and strict restrictions on the marketing of these products have played an important role.”

She added that “Sweden is not there yet,” noting that the proportion of smokers is higher in disadvantaged socio-economic groups.

The sight of people lighting up is becoming increasingly rare in the country of 10.5 million. Smoking is prohibited at bus stops and train platforms and outside the entrances of hospitals and other public buildings. Like in most of Europe, smoking isn’t allowed inside bars and restaurants, but since 2019 Sweden’s smoking ban also applies to their outdoor seating areas.

On Tuesday night, the terraces of Stockholm were full of people enjoying food and drinks in the late-setting sun. There was no sign of cigarettes, but cans of snus could be spotted on some tables. Between beers, some patrons stuffed small pouches of the moist tobacco under their upper lips.

Swedish snus makers have long held up their product as a less harmful alternative to smoking and claim credit for the country’s declining smoking rates. But Swedish health authorities are reluctant to advise smokers to switch to snus, another highly addictive nicotine product.

“I don’t see any reason to put two harmful products up against each other,” Årehed said. “It is true that smoking is more harmful than most things you can do, including snus. But that said, there are many health risks even with snus.”

Some studies have linked snus to increased risk of heart disease, diabetes and premature births if used during pregnancy.

Swedes are so fond of their snus, a distant cousin of dipping tobacco in the United States, that they demanded an exemption to the EU’s ban on smokeless tobacco when they joined the bloc in 1995.

“It’s part of the Swedish culture, it’s like the Swedish equivalent of Italian Parma ham or any other cultural habit,” said Patrik Hildingsson, a spokesman for Swedish Match, Sweden’s top snus maker, which was acquired by tobacco giant Philip Morris last year.

He said policymakers should encourage the tobacco industry to develop less harmful alternatives to smoking such as snus and e-cigarettes.

“I mean, 1.2 billion smokers are still out there in the world. Some 100 million people smoke daily in the EU. And I think we can [only] go so far with policymaking regulations,” he said. “You will need to give the smokers other less harmful alternatives, and a range of them.”

WHO, the UN health agency, says Turkmenistan, with a rate of tobacco use below 5 percent, is ahead of Sweden when it comes to phasing out smoking, but notes that’s largely due to smoking being almost nonexistent among women. For men the rate is 7 percent.

WHO attributes Sweden’s declining smoking rate to a combination of tobacco control measures, including information campaigns, advertising bans and “cessation support” for those wishing to quit tobacco. However, the agency noted that Sweden’s tobacco use is at more than 20 percent of the adult population, similar to the global average, when you include snus and similar products.

“Switching from one harmful product to another is not a solution,” WHO said in an e-mail. “Promoting a so-called ‘harm reduction approach’ to smoking is another way the tobacco industry is trying to mislead people about the inherently dangerous nature of these products.”

Tove Marina Sohlberg, a researcher at Stockholm University’s Department of Public Health Sciences, said Sweden’s anti-smoking policies have had the effect of stigmatizing smoking and smokers, pushing them away from public spaces into backyards and designated smoking areas.

“We are sending signals to the smokers that this is not accepted by society,” she said.

Paul Monja, one of Stockholm’s few remaining smokers, reflected on his habit while getting ready to light up.

“It’s an addiction, one that I aim to stop at some point,” he said. “Maybe not today, perhaps tomorrow.”

By Antony Sguazzin, Ronojoy Mazumdar & Prinesha Naidoo

PAKISTANI Prime Minister

Shehbaz Sharif warned world leaders at the COP27 climate talks last November that developing nations risk falling into a “financial debt trap” if they’re forced to turn to the markets to cover the mounting costs of climate change. Six months on, with rates and temperatures rising, his prediction looks prescient. So far this year cyclones have battered Southeast Africa, floods have killed hundreds in Rwanda, Congo and Uganda and the worst drought in four decades parched crops in the Horn of Africa. Record temperatures are currently being recorded across Southeast Asia, Cyclone Mocha has just ripped through Bangladesh and Myanmar and agricultural regions have dried up in Argentina.

Those events often become humanitarian crises; they’re also expensive and getting more so. The average cost of capital for a select group of 58 climate-vulnerable countries is 10.5 percent according to report published in April by the Boston University Global Development Policy Center. That compares to a sovereign bond yield of 4.3 percent over the past decade for a Bloomberg Barclays emerging markets index.

Many borrowed heavily when interest rates were much lower, meaning they are often already struggling to pay back debt when a natural disaster strikes. The shift in borrowing costs has also been transferred to small businesses such as farmers, exacerbating the problem for governments.

One such farmer is Thobani Lubisi. In February he was just beginning preparations for the annual harvest on Dwaleni Farm, a cooperative in eastern South Africa, when heavy raindrops began pounding his neat rows of sugarcane plants. Over two days almost half a year’s worth of rain gushed onto the fields, waterlogging crops and turning the dirt tracks used to deliver the harvest to the nearest mill to sludge. The nearby Mlumati River burst its banks, completely submerging the farm’s pump house.

In the weeks that followed, as work began to repair the damage from the worst flood locals had ever seen, Thobani and his colleagues were forced to face up to a new reality. The damaged harvest had blown a hole in household budgets and the repair work quickly drained savings. Ordinarily the farmers, who were uninsured, could tap the local agricultural bank, but the surge in global interest rates means loans now come with crippling monthly payments.

Lubisi, 43, whose father was one of the first Black farmers to start growing sugarcane in the area 40 years ago, has managed to keep going for now, but he is one of the lucky ones. Some in the region have sold their plots. Others are renting

out their fields because they can’t afford the repairs.

“You work the whole year for zero because there will be no income,” said Lubisi, holding an umbrella to shield himself from the sun in an interview earlier this month as a four-foot Nile monitor lizard slithered into the Mlumati, now a languid stream just a few feet across. “This kind of damage for me looks like it’s a first.”

Lubisi’s story is one that’s being increasingly repeated across the developing world. Munich Re calculated the losses from global natural disasters in 2022 at $270 billion and estimates that roughly 55 percent of that total wasn’t insured. Weather-related natural disasters are already being influenced by climate change, and this influence is likely to grow stronger as temperatures rise.

Alvario Lario, president of the United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development, said he’s seen farmers driven out of business due to extreme weather in Ivory Coast, Madagascar, Kenya and Indonesia. “The depth or the intensity of these shocks is very clearly much more acute than what it was five or 10 years ago. That’s the reality,” he said.

Almost 3,500 miles north east of Dwaleni Farm is an archipelago that faces a similar financing problem on a national scale. The Maldives, a nation of 1,200 islands that are rapidly sinking into the sea, is spending 30 percent of its annual budget on seawalls, land reclamation and desalination plants. The country’s borrowing costs have surged since it sold a $500 million bond in early 2021, with the yield on the notes due in 2026 now trading at close to 19 percent.

To meet its coastal adaptation needs the Maldives would need to spend $8.8 billion, about four times its national budget, according to Aminath Shauna, the nation’s Minister for Environment, Climate Change and Technology. Already 64 percent of its islands

are experiencing erosion as a result of rising sea levels, she said.

“It is a horrible twist of irony that our climate vulnerability makes us risky, and because we are risky, we can’t borrow the money needed to protect us from climate change,” Shauna said in an e-mailed response to questions.

As natural disasters intensify and become more frequent, investors are increasing the interest rate they charge vulnerable countries, adding to the debt burden, according to the Boston University report. The elevated risk premium could trap countries into a “vicious cycle” of higher debt costs and a decreased capacity to invest in climate resilience, the researchers including Luma Ramos and Rebecca Ray wrote.

That’s a state of affairs already playing out on the southeastern coast of Africa, an area that’s been ravaged by a spate of violent storms in recent years, events that the World Weather Attribution initiative has linked to climate change. Mozambique’s finances were already in poor shape after the so-called tuna bonds scandal shut it out of international debt markets when Cyclone Idai hit in 2019, destroying crops and fueling inflation. The nation’s outstanding domestic debt has surged more than 100 percent to 301 billion meticais ($4.7 billion) since 2019 and a series of late debt payments earlier this year led Moody’s Investor Service to classify the nation as technically in default to local lenders. “Liquidity pressures emerged in the context of unusually high debt repayments and higher than foreseen spending” exacerbated by Cyclone Freddy, a storm that ripped through the region earlier this year, analysts at Moody’s wrote in a report. “Recent events also highlight the credit effects of Mozambique’s susceptibility to increasingly recurrent and severe climate shocks.”

The growing frequency of natural disasters has spurred governments in climate-vulnerable countries to step up calls for increased aid from rich nations that have historically contributed the bulk of emissions. A breakthrough agreement was reached at COP27 to create a loss-anddamage facility to pay poorer countries for the harm caused by climate change, but it’s not clear how the fund will be financed or structured and wealthy nations have historically handed

over much less climate aid than they’ve promised.

Others have called for measures that would encourage more private sector funding of climate adaptation measures. Green finance has been successful in channeling money into climate mitigation projects such as solar farms, but investors are less inclined to allocate funds to adaptation schemes like building sea walls because the future revenue stream is harder to calculate. The UN’s Lario estimates that for every $10-$12 invested in climate mitigation, just one dollar is currently invested in adaptation. One option would be for multilateral organizations such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank to step in as guarantors of projects to allow private investors to get involved without taking on so much risk.

“We need to focus on how to drive more private sector climate finance mobilization,” said Norbert Ling, ESG Credit Portfolio Manager at Invesco Asset Management in Singapore. “The role of multilateral development banks in scaling up climate finance is strong, they can de-risk projects for the private sector.” In Nkomazi, cane growers can access loans from Akwandze Agricultural Finance, a venture between 1,200 small farmers and mill owner RCL Foods Ltd. Akwandze doesn’t require land as collateral for its loans because the sugar is grown i n communal areas where there are no title deeds. Instead the borrowings are secured against the farmers’ income from their crops. But that isn’t much help when flooding has destroyed the sugar cane or prevented it from getting to the mill on time. Members of the cooperative that helped establish the bank can borrow at a reduced rate of 2 percent above the socalled prime rate, used by banks to lend to their most creditworthy clients. Currently the prime rate is 11.75 percent, the highest since mid-2009.

“We had to dig down into our pockets, I think some they did take loans,” since the flood, said Sabelo Shabangu, a farmer at Khanyangwane sugarcane project, a few miles from Dwaleni Farm, who has borrowed from Akwandze in the past and is still paying off the debt. “It gives farmers a huge burden. Once that money starts to be insufficient that loan will carry on and on and on.” With assistance from Matthew Hill and Janet Paskin/Bloomberg

Sweden close to becoming first ‘smoke free’ country in Europe

SUGAR cane farmer Sabelo Shabangu walks along a dirt track damaged by heavy rains not knowing how he will get his crop to the mill. GUILLEM SARTORIO/BLOOMBERG

As electric cars boom, locals fear Chinese battery plant will harm land in drought-stricken Hungary

By Justin Spike The Associated Press

DEBRECEN, Hungary—Just beyond the pastoral gardens and traditional homes of an eastern Hungarian village, a gigaproject of Chinese industry is taking shape.

Bulldozers and excavators are already preparing the land for construction of a nearly 550-acre electric vehicle (EV) battery plant. The 7.3 billion euro ($7.9 billion) factory will be one of Hungary’s largest-ever foreign investments, and the government hopes it will make the Central European country a global hub of lithium-ion battery manufacturing in an era where governments are increasingly seeking to limit greenhouse gas emissions by switching to electric cars.

But residents, environmentalists and opposition politicians worry that the sprawling factory—built by China-based Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Limited (CATL)—will exacerbate existing environmental problems, hit the country’s precious water supplies and further undermine its economy to China.

“You have this viscerally bad feeling when you walk past the area where they are building. I simply feel this bad feeling in my stomach,” said Eva Kozma, 47, a local mother who has joined with other residents of a village near the building site to oppose the project.

“This is progress, this is the future? Pouring concrete over

nature while we know how polluting the factory is going to be?” she said.

Kozma and others on the outskirts of Debrecen, Hungary’s second-largest city, say they were blindsided by the announcement that the factory would be built on valuable agricultural land. They fear that the large quantities of water diverted to the plant for cooling equipment will threaten their water supply, and that chemicals from the plant could leech into the soil and water, damaging the region’s natural resources.

That region, the Great Hungarian Plain, is threatened by desertification, a process where vegetation recedes due to high heat and low rainfall. Climate change-driven droughts and record heat waves in the area have compounded heavy water use by agriculture and depleted groundwater, resulting in devastating crop yields.

Last year, Hungary experienced its hottest summer on record, and nearly 2.5 million acres, or 20 percent of the country’s croplands, dried out. Experts say that unless a comprehensive water retention plan is enacted, much of the region will soon be unsuitable for agriculture.

Yet despite these environmental struggles, Hungary’s

government believes that the European Union’s ambitions to phase out the manufacture of internal combustion engine vehicles by 2035 present a unique opportunity for the country to take its place as a leader in EV battery production, and has embarked on a major push to attract such investments.

And there will likely be buyers: transport represents nearly a quarter of Europe’s greenhouse gas emissions, and more than 70 percent of those emissions are caused by road transport. If the EU is to reach its goal of net zero emissions by 2050, EVs will play a pivotal role.

CATL’s 100 GWh battery plant in Debrecen, which is expected to create around 9,000 jobs, is the largest of a number of EV battery factories popping up around the country, part of the government’s strategy to serve foreign car manufacturers present in Hungary—like German carmakers Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz—as they transition to battery-powered vehicles.

Hungary’s foreign minister, Peter Szijjarto, said earlier this month in Beijing that the presence of those German carmakers had “inspired” the recent spate of Chinese investments in EV battery plants, and that “the Chinese suppliers of these German companies continue to regard Hungary as the meeting point of East-West investment.”

Gabor Varkonyi, an auto industry expert, agrees that the effort to attract battery makers makes good sense for Hungary’s economy—especially given that more than 20 percent of the country’s exports comes from the automotive industry.

“It is very much in Hungary’s interest for these investments to appear here, especially arm in arm with German technology,” Varkonyi said. “This way, both can be tied here in the medium term, so that neither will be able to work successfully without the other. In this sense, it is an absolute national interest.”

But Dalma Dedak, an environ -

mental policy expert with WWF Hungary, says that despite intentions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by making cars electric, there’s been a lack of environmental impact studies on the longer term consequences for Hungary’s air, soil and water.

Details have only been released on the first phase of the CATL plant’s multi-stage construction, she said, so its footprint on the environment once it is fully running remains unknown—something that has eroded trust between the affected population and the government.

“It is of concern that the approval procedure for the first phase of the plant does not show what kind of water consumption and emissions can be expected when the entire plant is built,” she said. “That is, will Hungary’s resources be sufficient for these ambitious plans?”

The water consumption of the industrial park where the factory is located is expected to amount to more than 40,000 cubic meters (10.5 million gallons) per day— doubling the drinking water consumption of Debrecen and laying a major burden on a region in the midst of a historic water crisis, Dedak said.

“In the long run, it’s a problem and a question of how to supply water to such a water-scarce city,” she said.

CATL says that 70 percent of its water consumption will come from gray water—household wastewater that has been purified— though this plan was not present in the environmental impact study for the first phase of the factory. Hungary’s Ministry of Economic Development did not respond to a request for comment.

Other critics of the investment point to the economy’s dependence

on foreign-owned automobile companies, and see it as a deepening of the foothold Hungary has provided to China in Central Europe.

Laszlo Lorant Keresztes, president of the Hungarian parliament’s Committee on Sustainable Development, said that Hungary’s economy “is very vulnerable to the automotive industry, and this [plant] increases that vulnerability.”

Speaking at a protest opposing the factory in Debrecen this week, Keresztes said the roughly 800 million euros ($861 million) in infrastructure and tax incentives Hungary’s government will supply to CATL is “an unrealistic amount of money per job,” and that—as in the case of German car makers— the majority of capital generated would be exported.

“These are essentially assembly plants, and they take the profits away from here. It is also typical that they do not give work to Hungarian people, not to the local people, but to foreign guest workers,” he said.

Some of the residents outside Debrecen worry that the massive plant will bring traffic and noise that will spoil the idyllic community where they came to raise their children. But mostly, they’re afraid of the irreversible impact it could have on their natural world.

“They took the lands, they destroyed the soil, they destroyed the air, the water,” said Eniko Pasztor, 65, a local activist who plans to leave the area if the plant is completed as planned.

“There’s no amount of money that can fix what we have ruined. We have to make sure that what we have remains,” she said. “We’ve done a lot of damage already. I don’t understand why we need more, more, more.”

Trapped by Sudan fighting, infants, toddlers and children died in Khartoum orphanage

By Samy Magdy

The Associated Press

CAIRO—At least 60 infants, toddlers and older children perished over the past six weeks while trapped in harrowing conditions in an orphanage in Sudan’s capital as fighting raged outside.

Most died from lack of food and from fever. Twenty-six died in two days over the weekend.

The extent of the children’s suffering emerged from interviews with more than a dozen doctors, volunteers, health officials and workers at the Al-Mayqoma orphanage. The Associated Press also reviewed dozens of documents, images, and videos showing the deteriorating conditions at the facility.

Video taken by orphanage workers shows bodies of children tightly bundled in white sheets awaiting burial. In other footage, two-dozen toddlers wearing only diapers sit on the floor of a room, many of them wailing, as a woman carries two metal jugs of water. Another woman sits on the floor with her back to the camera, rocking back and forth and apparently cradling a child.

An orphanage worker later explained that the toddlers were moved to the large room after nearby shelling blanketed another part of the facility with heavy dust last week.

“It is a catastrophic situation,” Afkar Omar Moustafa, a volunteer at the orphanage, said in a phone interview. “This was something we expected from day one [of the fighting].”

Among the dead were babies as young as three months, according to death certificates as well as four orphanage officials and workers for charities now helping the facility.

The weekend was particularly deadly, with 14 children perishing Friday and 12 on Saturday.

This raised alarm and outrage across social media, and a local charity was able to deliver food, medicine and baby formula to the orphanage on Sunday, with the help of the UN children’s agency, UNICEF, and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Orphanage workers warned that more children could die, and called for their speedy evacuation out of war-torn Khartoum.

The battle for control of Sudan erupted April 15, pitting the Sudanese military, led by Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces commanded by Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo.

The fighting has turned Khartoum and other urban areas into battlefields. Many houses and civilian infrastructure have been looted or were

damaged by stray shells and bullets.

The fighting has inflicted a heavy toll on civilians, particularly children. More than 860 civilians, including at least 190 children, were killed and thousands of others were wounded since April 15, according to Sudan’s Doctors’ Syndicate, which tracks civilian casualties. The tally is likely to be much higher.

More than 1.65 million people have fled to safer areas inside Sudan or crossed into neighboring countries. Others remain trapped inside their homes, unable to escape as food and water supplies dwindle. The clashes have also disrupted the work of humanitarian groups.

More than 13.6 million children are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance in Sudan, up from nearly nine million prior to the war, according to UNICEF.

As of Monday, there were at least 341 children at the orphanage, including 165 infants between the ages of one and six months and 48 ranging from seven to 12 months, according to data obtained by the AP. The remaining 128 children were between the ages of one and 13 years.

Among those at the orphanage were two-dozen children who had been sent back from Khartoum hospitals after the outbreak of fighting. The hos -

pitals, where the children received advanced treatment, had to shut down because of lack of power or nearby shelling, said Heba Abdalla, who joined the orphanage as a child and is now a nurse there.

Spokespeople for the military, the RSF, the health ministry and the social development ministry, which oversees the orphanage, didn’t answer requests for comment about the orphanage.

The situation was particularly harrowing in the first three weeks of the conflict when fighting was heaviest. At one point during this time, the children were moved to the first floor away from windows, to avoid being hit by random fire or shrapnel, said another nurse, known as Sister Teresa.

“It looked like a prison...all of us were like prisoners unable to even look from the window. We were all trapped,” she said.

During this period, food, medicine, baby formula and other supplies dwindled because caretakers were unable to get out and seek help, Abdalla said.

“On many days, we couldn’t find anything to feed them,” Abdalla said. “They [the children] were crying all the time because they were hungry.”

As the facility became inaccessible, the number of nurses, nannies and other caretakers dropped. Many of the caretakers

were refugees from Ethiopia, Eritrea or South Sudan who fled the fighting like hundreds of thousands of others, said Abdalla.

“We ended up have one nanny or two serving 20 children or more, including disabled children,” said Moustafa, the volunteer.

Children started to die. At first, there were between three to six deaths per week, then the toll increased rapidly, nurses said, The peak came Friday, with 14 deaths, followed by 12 on Saturday.

The AP obtained 11 death certificates for children at the orphanage, including eight dated Sunday and three dated Saturday. All certificates listed circulatory collapse as a cause of death, but also mentioned other contributing factors such as fever, dehydration, malnutrition, and failure to thrive.

Even before the outbreak of fighting, the orphanage lacked proper infrastructure and equipment, said Moustafa. Twenty to 25 children were crammed into each room, many sleeping on the ground. Babies doubled up in pink metal cribs.

The orphanage was established in 1961. Though it gets funds from the government, it depends heavily on donations and assistance from local and international charities.

The orphanage made head -

lines in the past, most recently in February 2022 when at least 54 children were reported dead in less than three months. At the time, activists launched an online appeal for help, and the military sent food aid and other assistance.

The government-run facility is in a three-story building with a playground in the Daym area in central Khartoum. The area has experienced some of the fiercest fighting, with stray shells and bullets hitting nearby homes and other civilian infrastructure, according to workers and a freelance photographer working with the AP who lives close to the orphanage.

The news of the deaths caused public outcry, with activists appealing for help for the children.

Nazim Sirag, an activist who heads the local charity Hadhreen, has led efforts to provide volunteers and supplies to the orphanage.

Starting Sunday, food, medicine and baby formula reached the facility, he said. The charity also repaired the equipment, electricity lines and a backup generator.

Sirag said the situation remains difficult, and orphanage workers called for the children to be moved out of Khartoum. Otherwise, said, Abdalla, “you don’t know what will happen tomorrow.”

RESIDENTS gather in Debrecen, Hungary, during a demonstration against a factory that will produce batteries for electric vehicles built by a China-based company on May 23, 2023. Residents, environmentalists and opposition politicians are worried that a sprawling battery factory will exacerbate existing environmental problems and use up the country’s precious water supplies. AP/DENES ERDOS

Investors zero in on China local debt blowup as top risk in Asia

By Amy Bainbridge, Cynthia Li & Kyungji Cho

China local government financing vehicles, or LGFVs, were the most frequently cited top risk in a Bloomberg survey of 53 economists, money managers and strategists at financial institutions ranging from sovereign wealth funds to banks and pensions.

Frontier market sovereign debt loads also featured among the most elevated risks for Asia, followed by mortgage-backed bonds and loans, according to the survey conducted May 9-15. Japan’s banks were the subject of lively debate as their piles of developed-market debt left some investors nervous on the outlook.

The poll offers a snapshot of the asset classes and geographies occupying the minds of financial market players tasked with navigating the world’s vulnerabilities.

As the global economy sputters and markets bet interest rates are nearing the peak of the current cycle, the weak links flagged show where ructions may occur during the remainder of this year.

Other worries stemming from outside Asia such as the potential for further interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve and ongoing wrangling over the US debt ceiling also featured heavily on radars of the survey respondents.

Here’s an in-depth look at some of the main risks highlighted in the poll, with some accompanying key metrics to monitor:

Local government financing vehicles

WITH a slew of data showing

China’s economic rebound is faltering, focus is once again turning to troubled spots in the world’s second largest economy. In one recent example, a last minute bond payment by a local government owned firm highlighted weakening debt serviceability that’s threatening to extend worries beyond the country’s credit traders and into other markets.

The vehicles are a key method of funding China’s public infrastructure as well as its property market. S&P Global Ratings put the total debt of LGFVs at more than 46 trillion yuan ($6.5 trillion) at the end of last year. Of that, onshore bonds due in 2023 are at a record high at about 4.3 trillion yuan. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. estimates China’s total government debt is about $23 trillion, a figure that includes the hidden borrowing of thousands of financing companies set up by provinces, cities and state policy banks.

“We believe any hawkishness by Beijing on local debt would intensify the financial vulnerabilities of local governments, jeopardizing the budding economic recovery,” said Carl Liu, economist at KGI Securities in Taipei. “We think LGFVs’ debt-servicing ability is weak, and it seems that LGFVs rely on new financing to service debt, strengthening the default risk.”

Debt repayment pressure has mounted in recent years as the average bond tenor shortened. The number of missed payment cases

this year is expected to exceed that of previous years as the pandemic served to squeeze some local governments’ financial resources.

The struggle for many LGFV’s is already being captured in bond markets. The financing cost of LGFVs in provinces from Guizhou to Guangxi and Yunnan had an average coupon in 2022 above 5 percent, reflecting their troubles raising money from capital markets, according to Laura Li, an analyst at S&P Global Ratings.

The worry is that defaults of shadow bank instruments could lead to souring of publicly traded bonds, creating financial risks that weigh on an already sluggish economy further down the line. Mortgage-backed bonds STRAINS have been spreading globally in real estate-related debt. The widening gap between property debt trading at distressed prices and other sectors is among key metrics to monitor. But perhaps no region in the world has experienced more upheaval with borrowings backing the sector than Asia.

Some signs were showing long before the market for mortgagebacked securities was shaken by failures of banks in the US including Silicon Valley Bank, after which the government hired BlackRock Inc. to sell the collapsed lenders’ securities.

In China, a property debt crisis has kept the mortgage-backed debt issuance market effectively shut for almost a year and a half. There have been no sales of residential mortgage-backed securities in yuan since February 2022, one of the longest dry spells on record.

And in Australia, a hawkish outlook for rates after the central bank’s hike in May could lead to a rise in arrears on residential mortgage-backed securities there, Bloomberg Intelligence analysts wrote in a recent report. “Loans originated during 2020-22 contain more risk as interest rates now ex -

ceed sensitized levels at approval.”

“Mortgage-backed bonds and loans will pose a major financial risk to the region, given growing housing market stress stemming from the impact of rising mortgage rates,” said Lloyd Chan, economist at Oxford Economics in Singapore, who chose the topic as his top risk. “Vulnerabilities will likely be acute in economies with highly leveraged households and property developers” and where house prices are declining.

Frontier market debt

INVESTORS in frontier markets face a heightened risk of currency devaluations and sovereign defaults as the rising cost of importing fuel and other essential items in past years drained the nations’ foreign-exchange reserves. Ballooning debt levels as a proportion of a country’s gross domestic product are among one useful metric to monitor.

There are 16 emerging markets around the world with sovereign dollar debt that trades at distressed levels—yields more than 10 percentage points above that of similar-maturity Treasuries, which can indicate investors believe a default is a real possibility. Many of those include small frontier markets.

Pakistan has been negotiating with the International Monetary Fund to restart its $6.7 billion bailout to avert a default. Authorities are focusing on the restoration of foreign exchange market functioning, the passage of a fiscal year 2024 budget consistent with program goals and adequate financing. Columbia Threadneedle Investments estimates the nation faces about $22 billion of external debt service for the fiscal year starting in July, about five times its reserves.

There’s also Laos. Natixis SA estimates its net external payment this year will surge more than 12 times to $600 million. That’s equivalent to about 55 percent of its reserves, among the highest

ratios for Asian frontier nations. Meantime, in Bangladesh, Moody’s Investors Service cut the nation’s credit rating earlier this week as reserves dwindle.

The impact on investors can linger long after defaults. BlackRock and Pacific Investment Management Co., among those who suffered losses from defaults in Sri Lanka in 2022, have argued that domestic debt holders should share billions of dollars of those losses.

Project finance

SOUTH Korea’s real estate projectfinance, used to fund the nation’s construction boom, was at the heart of South Korea’s debt crisis last year after a local governmentbacked developer unexpectedly missed a debt payment. While the nation’s bond market has stabilized after authorities pledged billions of dollars in support last year, some strains linger in the face of a depressed property market that’s seen a surge in unsold housing inventories and a decline in home prices.

Korean banks and other financial firms have about 140 trillion won ($108 billion) of exposure to project-financing loans as of September, according to the Bank of Korea, one key metric to watch. Underscoring the strains in the industry, securities firms’ delinquency ratio on such loans surged by 2.22 percentage points from the previous quarter to 10.38 percent at the end of last year, compared with a 0.33 percentage point increase to 1.19 percent for overall financial institutions.

Korea is taking steps to accelerate restructuring of troubled assets that involve project financing. A group of about 3,000 financial firms involved in such projects signed an agreement in April on swift debt restructuring steps. The slump in the property market may lead to more defaults on projectfinancing loans and a collapse of any big financial institution or construction company would lead to a systematic problem on the

economy and financial markets, the nation’s financial watchdog chief has said.

Japan banks

RISKS at Japanese banks have come into focus since the collapse of several US regional lenders and emergency rescue of Credit Suisse Group AG earlier this year. Japanese lenders are big investors in foreign bonds, which have plunged as central banks around the world hike interest rates to combat inflation.

The nation’s three largest banks are sitting on paper losses of 2.4 trillion yen ($17.3 billion) on their foreign bond holdings as of March. That’s down from the previous three months, and the Bank of Japan says banks have become more resilient to risks of higher rates as they rebalance their asset portfolios. Higher rates are also boosting their margins on overseas loans. Still, one key risk is that under a scenario where the Fed needs to keep rates higher for longer to combat inflation, this stress may spill over if these unrealized losses start to spiral.

Stress in the global financial sector may also hurt shareholder returns. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc. – Japan’s two biggest banks—said in May that they will hold off buying back shares for now, even after forecasting bumper profits this fiscal year.

Meanwhile, Japanese banks face the opposite problem at home, where interest rates remain close to zero. New BOJ Governor Kazuo Ueda has signaled he is not in a hurry to end the negative-rate policy, meaning domestic lending profitability is likely to remain low. That’s a blow especially for smaller regional lenders, which have fewer resources to expand abroad. With assistance from Russell Ward, Georgina McKay, Andrew Monahan, Yuling Yang, Richard Henderson, David Ramli, Jing Zhao, Taiga Uranaka, Karl Lester M. Yap and Richard Frost/Bloomberg

Russia accuses US intelligence of hacking thousands of iPhones

By William Turton & Jake Rudnitsky

RUSSIA’S main security ser -

vice accused a US intelligence agency of hacking several thousand iPhones, including devices belonging to Russian nationals and others linked to diplomatic missions and embassies in the country.

The statement from Russia’s Federal Security Service, known as the FSB, was scant on details and didn’t identify which US intelligence agency was behind the alleged attacks. The Russian security agency claimed that Apple Inc., the maker of iPhone, works closely with US intelligence, particularly the National Security Agency. The attacks were linked to SIM cards registered with Russiabased diplomats for NATO countries, Israel and China, according to the statement.

A spokesperson for Apple didn’t comment on whether any Russian iPhones were breached. But the spokesperson said the company hadn’t helped any government breach iPhones, as the FSB suggest -

ed, and “never will.” Apple halted product sales in Russia following that country’s invasion of Ukraine, but iPhones are still widely available via parallel import schemes.  A representative for the NSA declined to comment. Spokespeople for the Chinese and Israeli embassies in Washington didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Separately, the Moscow-based cybersecurity company Kaspersky published a blog post saying iPhones belonging to several dozen of its employees had been hacked, and it included technical details of how the operation allegedly worked. The hack went undetected for years, according to the timeline on the blog post. Kaspersky didn’t identify who it believed was behind the attack, which it described as “extremely complex, professional targeted cyberattack.”

In an e-mail, a Kaspersky spokesman said the hacking campaign was discovered at the beginning of the year. Russian authorities have indicated the attacks are linked, he said, and a Kaspersky employee tweeted that the FSB’s

and Kaspersky’s statements were related. Kaspersky said the spyware worked on an older version of Apple’s operating system.

It wasn’t possible to confirm the allegations, which were made at a time of exceptionally fraught relations between the US and Russia over the ongoing war in Ukraine. The US is providing Ukraine with intelligence support and military hardware but is at pains to avoid a direct confrontation with Russia. In addition, just last month, the US Department of Justice announced that it had disrupted a years-long hacking campaign carried out by an infamous FSB unit called “Turla.” The malware, called “Snake,” allegedly impacted over 50 coun -

tries and was used by Russian hackers for more than 20 years, according to the US authorities.

The US government banned the use of Kaspersky software from federal systems in 2017, citing espionage fears, and last year, the US Federal Communications Commission placed the Russian firm on a list of companies whose equipment and services have been deemed a national security threat. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year, Rob Joyce, the NSA’s director of cybersecurity, told Bloomberg News he was “very worried” about US companies using Kaspersky antivirus products, saying it was “ill-advised with this global situation.”

Cybersecurity experts who reviewed the Kaspersky blog said the hackers appeared to use advanced techniques to breach iPhones, but they added that more information was needed to know definitively.

“The sophistication of these attacks narrows it down to just a handful of the world’s most powerful players in the offensive space, and I have a feeling that we will know more about the origin as soon as Apple starts to notify the victims,” said Zack Ganot, chief executive officer of Israel-based Sunday Security, who reviewed Kasperky’s findings.

The hackers infiltrated the devices by sending a malicious attachment via iMessage, according to Kaspersky. A user isn’t required to click on anything in order for the hack to work, known as a “zero-click” attack. The method is considered the gold standard for hackers breaking into computers or mobile devices and is sold by commercial surveillance companies, including Israel’s NSO Group.

“Kaspersky, arguably one of the best exploit detection companies in the world, was potentially

hacked via an iOS zero-day for five years and only now discovered it,” said Patrick Wardle, the founder of the Objective-See Foundation, a nonprofit specializing in Apple security tools and a former NSA employee.

“It would be super risky to go after Kaspersky, basically you’d have to assume eventually you’d get caught,” he said.

The US government and USbased cybersecurity companies often detail the inner workings of alleged hacking operations by foreign actors, particularly those based in Russia, China, Iran and North Korea. But it is unusual for those countries to provide technical details of alleged US hacking campaigns.

In the blog post, CEO Eugene Kaspersky said the spyware, dubbed “triangulation,” “transmits private information to remote servers: microphone recordings, photos from instant messengers, geolocation and data about a number of other activities.” The threat from the attack at the company had been “neutralized,” he said. Bloomberg News

INVESTORS across Asia earmarked

China’s ballooning levels of municipal borrowing as the region’s number one financial risk this year in a survey that ranked their biggest concerns.

AN Apple spokesperson said the company hadn’t helped any government breach iPhones, as the FSB suggested, and “never will.” BLOOMBERG

Exclusive secrets of National Spelling Bee: Picking the words to identify a champion

By Ben Nuckols The Associated Press

OXON HILL, Md.—As the final pre-competition meeting of the Scripps National Spelling Bee’s word selection panel stretches into its seventh hour, the pronouncers no longer seem to care.

Before panelists can debate the words picked for the bee, they need to hear each word and its language of origin, part of speech, definition and exemplary sentence read aloud. Late in the meeting, lead pronouncer Jacques Bailly and his colleagues— so measured in their pacing and meticulous in their enunciation during the bee—rip through that chore as quickly as possible. No pauses. No apologies for flubs.

By the time of this gathering, two days before the bee, the word list is all but complete. Each word has been vetted by the panel and slotted into the appropriate round of the nearly century-old annual competition to identify the English language’s best speller.

For decades, the word panel’s work has been a closely guarded secret. This year, Scripps—a Cincinnati-based media company—granted The Associated Press exclusive access to the panelists and their prebee meeting, with the stipulation that The AP would not reveal words unless they were cut from the list.

They’re tough on words

THE 21 panelists sit around a makeshift, rectangular conference table in a windowless room tucked inside the convention center outside Washington where the bee is staged every year. They are given printouts including words Nos. 770-1,110— those used in the semifinal rounds and beyond—with instructions that those sheets of paper cannot leave the room.

Hearing the words aloud with the entire panel present—laptops open to Merriam-Webster’s Unabridged dictionary—sometimes illuminates problems. That’s what happened late in Sunday’s meeting. Kavya Shivashankar, the 2009 champion, an obstetrician/gynecologist and a recent addition to the panel, chimed in with an objection.

The word gleyde (pronounced “glide”), which means a decrepit old horse and is only used in Britain, has a near-homonym—glyde— with a similar but not identical pronunciation and the same meaning.

Shivashankar says the variant spelling makes the word too confusing, and the rest of the panel quickly agrees to spike gleyde altogether. It won’t be used.

“Nice word, but bye-bye,” pronouncer Kevin Moch says.

For the panelists, the meeting is the culmination of a yearlong process to assemble a word list that will challenge but not embarrass the 230 middle- and elementary-schoolaged competitors—and preferably produce a champion within the twohour broadcast window for Thursday night’s finals.

The panel’s work has changed over the decades. From 1961 to 1984, according to James Maguire’s book “American Bee,” creating the list was a one-man operation overseen by Jim Wagner, a Scripps Howard editorial promotions director, and then by Harvey Elentuck, a then-MIT student who approached Wagner about helping with the list in the mid-1970s.

The panel was created in 1985. The current collaborative approach

In 2019, a confluence of factors— among them, a wild-card program that allowed multiple spellers from competitive regions to reach nationals—produced an unusually deep field of spellers. Scripps had to use the toughest words on its list just to cull to a dozen finalists. The bee ended in an eight-way tie, and there was no shortage of critics.

didn’t take shape until the early ‘90s. Bailly, the 1980 champion, joined in 1991.

“Harvey...made the whole list,” Bailly says. “I never met him. I was just told, ‘You’re the new Harvey.’”

It’s not just picking words

THIS year’s meeting includes five full-time bee staffers and 16 contract panelists. The positions are filled via word of mouth within the spelling community or recommendations from panelists. The group includes five former champions: Barrie Trinkle (1973), Bailly, George Thampy (2000), Sameer Mishra (2008) and Shivashankar.

Trinkle, who joined the panel in 1997, used to produce the majority of her submissions by reading periodicals like The New Yorker or The Economist.

“Our raison d’etre was to teach spellers a rich vocabulary that they could use in their daily lives. And as they got smarter and smarter, they got more in contact with each other and were studying off the same lists, it became harder to hold a bee with those same types of words,” Trinkle says.

Now, more often than not she goes directly to the source—Merriam-Webster’s Unabridged. That’s easier than it used to be.

“The dictionary is on the computer and is highly searchable in all kinds of ways—which the spellers know as well. If they want to find all the words that entered the language in the 1650s, they can do that, which is sometimes what I do,” Trinkle says. “The best words kind of happen to you as you’re scrolling around through the dictionary.”

Not everyone on the panel submits words. Some work to ensure that the definitions, parts of speech and other accompanying information are correct; others are tasked with ensuring that words of similar difficulty are asked at the right times in the competition; others focus on crafting the bee’s new multiple-choice vocabulary questions. Those who submit words, like Trinkle and Mishra, are given assignments throughout the year to come up with a certain number at a certain level of difficulty.

Mishra pulls his submissions from his own list, which he started when he was a 13-year-old speller. He gravitates toward “the harder end of the spectrum.”

“They are fun and challenging for me and they make me smile, and I know if I was a speller I would be intimidated by that word,” says the 28-year-old Mishra, who just finished his MBA at Harvard. “I have no fear about running out (of words), and I feel good about that.”

How the Bee has evolved

THE panel meets a few times a year, often virtually, to go over words, edit definitions and sentences, and weed out problems. The process seemed to go smoothly through the 2010s, even amid a proliferation of so-called “minor league” bees, many catering to offspring of highly educated, first-generation Indian immigrants—a group that has come to dominate the competition.

Scripps, however, didn’t fundamentally change the way the word panel operates. It brought in younger panelists more attuned to the ways contemporary spellers study and prepare. And it made format changes designed to identify a sole champion. The wild-card program was scrapped, and Scripps added onstage vocabulary questions and a lightning-round tiebreaker.

The panel also began pulling words avoided in the past. Place names, trademarks, words with no language of origin: As long as a word isn’t archaic or obsolete, it’s fair game.

“They’ve started to understand they have to push further into the dictionary,” says Shourav Dasari, a 20-year-old former speller and a co-founder with his older sister Shobha of SpellPundit, which sells study guides and hosts a popular online bee. “Last year, we started seeing stuff like tribal names that are some of the hardest words in the dictionary.”

There’s a meticulousness to it all MEMBERS of the panel insist they worry little about other bees or the proliferation of study materials and private coaches. But those coaches and entrepreneurs spend a lot of time thinking about the words Scripps is likely to use—often quite successfully.

Dasari says there are roughly 100,000 words in the dictionary that are appropriate for spelling bees. He pledges that 99 percent of the words on Scripps’ list are included in SpellPundit’s materials. Anyone who learns all those words is all but guaranteed to win, Dasari says—but no one has shown they can do it.

“I just don’t know when anybody would be able to completely master the unabridged dictionary,” Dasari says.

Since the bee resumed after its 2020 pandemic cancellation, the panel has been scrutinized largely for the vocabulary questions, which have added a capricious element, knocking out some of the most gifted spellers even if they don’t misspell a word. Last year’s champion, Harini Logan, was briefly ousted on a vocabulary word, “pullulation”—only to be reinstated minutes later after arguing that her answer could be construed as correct.

“That gave us a sense of how very, very careful we need to be in terms of crafting these questions,” says Ben Zimmer, the language columnist for The Wall Street Journal and a chief contributor of words for the vocabulary rounds.

Zimmer is also sensitive to the criticism that some vocabulary questions are evaluating the spellers’ cultural sophistication rather than their mastery of roots and language patterns. This year’s vocabulary questions contain more clues that will guide gifted spellers to the answers, he says.

There will always be complaints about the word list, but making the competition as fair as possible is the panel’s chief goal. Missing hyphens or incorrect capitalization, ambiguities about singular and plural nouns or transitive and intransitive verbs—no question is too insignificant.

“This is really problematic,” Trinkle says, pointing out a word that has a homonym with a similar definition.

Scripps editorial manager Maggie Lorenz agrees: “We’re going to bump that word entirely.”

In Amazon region where pair was killed, neglect and allegations of harsh justice

By Fabiano Maisonnave The Associated Press

LADARIO, Brazil—One year ago on a Friday afternoon, Bruno Pereira, an expert on Indigenous peoples, and Dom Phillips, a British journalist, motored along the Itaquai River in far western Brazil, to the settlement of Ladario. The line of wooden houses here marks a boundary—between the sprawling Javari Valley Indigenous Territory in the Brazilian Amazon and the nonIndigenous world.

They were greeted by the man everyone knows as Caboclo, Laurimar Lopes Alves. Pereira’s relationship with people like him in these river communities had often been tense. Pereira had been a lead official with the nation’s Indigenous agency until recently, and these non-Indigenous communities were frequent trespassers onto Indigenous land to hunt and fish. He had fought those practices fiercely, confiscating and destroying fishing gear.

But Pereira now sought a different approach. He was on leave from the government, helping to build alternative livelihoods in these remote and desperately poor communities, which receive virtually no support from the government, although they are legally entitled to it.

“I told Bruno that by the end of the month, I would harvest 700 clusters of bananas. He said, ‘I will go to Brasília and come back with a solution for you to sell bananas,’” Caboclo told The Associated Press. But Bruno would not return.

Within 48 hours, on June 5, 2022, he and Phillips, who was writing a book on how to preserve the Amazon, would be ambushed and shot,

their bodies burned, dismembered and buried in a shallow river grave.

As the one-year anniversary of the killings approached, The Associated Press returned to the Javari Valley to describe the backdrop against which they took place and what unfolded next.

Caboclo, 46, who cannot read and supports five children, did not find a new market for his banana harvest. Instead, the Federal Police came looking for him. They accused him of taking part in illegal fishing and took him to the nearby city of Tabatinga, where the prison is run by criminal organizations. Caboclo admits he had fished illegally in the past, but claims he stopped doing so years ago.

Ripple effects

TO pay for a lawyer, his mother-inlaw had to sell her house. He now lives in the city of Benjamin Constant, far from the banana grove and cassava patch that provided his livelihood. In March, when the AP met him, his home detention allowed him out four hours a day, while his fields are five hours away. Their only income now for a household of 10 is $240 per month from a federal benefit.

Caboclo was charged with participation in an illegal fish organization and spent 124 days in prison without trial, which his attorney, Mozarth Bessa Neto, says surpassed the legal limit of 81 days.

Upstream, the community of Sao Gabriel is just a few wooden houses, several of them empty. There, an AP reporter found Maria de Fátima da Costa, 60, knee-deep in the river, cleaning a wooden plank.

Da Costa is the mother of Amarildo da Costa de Oliveira, a fisherman who confessed to the killings and is in a maximum-security prison thousands of kilometers away. She agrees her son must pay for the crime he committed, but tears up recounting that her other son, Oseney da Costa de Oliveira, was also charged with murder, something he denies. He is just as far away, in a different prison.

“He is innocent. I am sure he is innocent. And his house is abandoned, his family is abandoned, everything is falling apart,” she said, with tears in her eyes. Oseney has four children, who live with his wife in Atalaia do Norte. She cleans houses now.

“The other accused individuals say that Oseney is innocent,” Goreth Rubim, Oseney’s attorney, agreed. There is no concrete evidence in the federal case of

his involvement in the murders, he said.

The AP sent inquiries to the Federal Police but did not receive a response.

In Sao Gabriel, there is no electricity or plumbing. Without Internet access, the community relies on one public phone, which was out of service when the AP visited. The only government help comes from the city hall, which distributes food during flood season, when fish are scarce and there are no crops.

The federal government promised things were going to be very different here.

These river communities, of mixed African and even Indigenous ancestries, date back to the rubber era, which began in the late 1800s. That industry steadily declined after World War II and never recovered, leaving thousands of families in poverty across the entire Amazon region.

Many rubber tapper descendants turned to logging, but when Indigenous lands were legally recognized in 2001, they were no longer permitted into that forest. Those who had built there, had to move.

Although a main distinction of these settlers is that they are nonIndigenous, their actual ancestry is African and Indigenous, from other parts of the country, so they

live with color-ranking racism.

To address their conditions, in 2011, the federal government created a land reform project called the Lago de Sao Rafael Agroextractivist Project that on paper, seemed promising: 71,000 hectares of forest (175,000 acres), where they may fish and harvest.

It was supposed to bring electricity, rural lines of credit, and technical assistance for managed fishing and acai-growing and other non-depleting ways of making a living. But none of this happened.

The National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform, known as Incra, only allocated $5,100 for five families, it said. In other words, the Brazilian government spent $425 per year on average for a sustainable land reform project that covers an area four times the size of Washington, D.C.

The closest Incra office is in Manaus, a 2-hour flight if a resident were able to get to the nearest airport.

The government’s absence is so profound here that 81-year-old Martins dos Santos, who actually founded the São Gabriel community, was unaware that he is living in an official settlement until he was informed of it by the AP.

“I have never seen an Incra official,” he said. He wasn’t aware the place is called Lago de Sao Rafael. When the AP mentioned the acronym for the government effort, PAE, which is well known in some Amazon regions, he and other residents confused it with the Portuguese word for father, “pai.”

The broader area, Atalaia do Norte, ranks third-worst among more than 5,500 Brazilian municipalities on the UN Human Development Index, scored on illiteracy, standard of living and health.

State of the case

AMARILDO DA COSTA DE OLIVEIRA was not the only person to confess to the killings. Another fisherman, Jeferson da Silva Lima, did too, and is also in prison awaiting trial.

Amarildo claims that military police suffocated him with a plastic bag to get his confession.

Documents from a medical exam at the time show the two brothers had minor injuries after being arrested by Amazonas state police. The agency did not reply to questions about whether the claim was investigated.

A Colombian businessman, Rubens Villar Coelho, stands accused of masterminding the crime, and is also in custody. As the owner of a floating fish warehouse outpost, he financed fishermen who ventured onto Indigenous land on trips that could last weeks. He denies any involvement in the killings.

Some see the crime as a reflection of how much Brazil’s Indigenous agency, Funai, was dismantled under far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro, who long opposed the very concept of Indigenous land rights. He wanted to open up the territories for economic activities such as mining and commercial agriculture.

Experiencing that pressure firsthand in his job at Funai, Pereira requested a leave of absence and was working as an advisor for Univaja, an organization that brings together six Indigenous peoples living in the Javari Valley Indigenous Territory, when he was killed. It is an area roughly the size of Portugal and home to the world’s largest population of isolated Indigenous groups, at least 16.

Pereira’s intention for communities to raise their standard of living through legal activities remains a distant reality now.

Recently a local fishermen’s association reported that police were using harsh tactics against them, and managed to secure free federal legal assistance. The police and other officials “are entering homes without a warrant and confiscating fishing gear under the justification that they belong to illegal fishermen. Not all fishermen are criminals, but they are being treated as such,” it said.

The crime also changed Caboclo’s life.

During the conversation with AP, he wept recalling his time in prison. “I didn’t know what a criminal gang was. Now I know.”

CEOs got small hikes: It would take a typical worker two lifetimes to make their annual pay

By Alexandra Olson AP Business Writer

AFTER ballooning for years, CEO pay growth is finally slowing. The typical compensation package for chief executives who run S&P 500 companies rose just 0.9 percent last year, to a median of $14.8 million, according to data analyzed for The Associated Press by Equilar. That means half the CEOs in the survey made more and half made less. It was the smallest increase since 2015.

Still, that’s unlikely to quell mounting criticism that CEO pay has become excessively high and the imbalance between company bosses and rank-and-file workers too wide. Discontent over that gap has helped fuel labor unrest, and even some institutional investors have pushed back against a few of the most eye-popping packages.

The smaller increase came after CEO pay soared 17 percent in 2021, when boards rewarded top executives handsomely for steering their companies through the pandemic-induced recession.

Many of the compensation packages were approved early in 2022 but even a small raise might seem lavish in retrospect against the backdrop of a year in which stock markets tanked to their worst performance since 2008, inflation erased wage gains, fears of a recession grew, and tech giants began laying off workers.

“I’m not surprised that after two record

years in a row, pay hikes cooled somewhat,” said Sarah Anderson, who directs the Global Economy Project at the progressive Institute for Policy Studies. “What we shouldn’t lose sight of is that CEO pay is still off the charts by historical measures.” She said even a small hike last year was “outrageous.”

In contrast to recent years, CEO pay gains were lower than the 5.1 percent increase in wages and benefits netted by private-sector workers through 2022.

Still, worker pay failed to keep up with inflation, which was sitting at 6.4 percent at the end of last year. And the pay disparity between CEOs and rank-and-file workers, which has been widening for years, narrowed only slightly.

The median pay for workers at companies included in the AP survey was $77,178, up 1.3 percent from $76,160 the previous year. That means it would take that worker 186 years to make what a CEO making the median pay earned just last year. At the same group of companies in 2021, it would have taken 190 years.

The timing of some of the biggest pay packages struck a discordant note against the backdrop of difficult times for their industries.

Alphabet’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, ranked No. 1 in the AP’s pay survey this year with a package valued at nearly $226 million. The vast majority of his compensation came from a grant of restricted stock, valued at

$218 million, and which Google grants its CEO every three years.

The leader of Google won’t reap most of the benefits of the stocks awards right away and how much he realizes ultimately depends on how Alphabet’s stock performs.

Alphabet noted in its annual proxy filing that, compared with Pichai’s 2019 stock awards, a greater proportion of the latest batch will only vest if the company reaches goals for shareholder return.

Even so, Pichai received a total compensation package 15 times higher than this year’s median CEO pay just before Google laid off tens of thousands of workers. The company’s total shareholder returns fell 39 percent last year.

Stephen McMurtry, a Google software engineer and member of the Alphabet Workers Union-CWA, said he was not impressed when Pichai told employees shortly after the layoffs that executives would take significant bonus cuts in 2023 because “bonuses are a small part of executives’ primarily stock-based compensation.” Pichai didn’t receive a bonus in 2022.

“The clear disparity between executive rewards and our jobless former coworkers erodes trust and further underscores the need for transparency,” McMurtry said in a statement e-mailed to AP.

Like many companies, Alphabet’s equity portion of executive compensation is designed to reflect results over several

years. Since Pichai started as CEO in 2015, Alphabet’s stock has nearly quadrupled, and the company has become the third most valuable on Wall Street.

Alphabet declined to comment beyond its proxy statement.

Nearly 130 CEOs in the AP’s survey saw pay cuts last year. Among them was UPS CEO Carol Tomé, who received a total compensation package valued at nearly $19 million, most of it in stock awards. That’s down 31 percent from $27.6 million in 2021. UPS said Tome’s compensation was lower because she didn’t exceed performance targets by as much in 2022 as she did in 2021.

Tomé is trying to stave off a potentially crippling strike by unionized workers, who feel they saw little of the company’s windfall in profits, which nearly tripled during the pandemic as consumer reliance on deliveries grew.

“I don’t feel bad for her that she got a decrease,” said Jimi Hadley, UPS package driver in Roswell, Georgia, and Teamsters shop steward. “Nineteen million? Most workers will never make that in their entire life.”

Tomé’s pay was 364 times higher than $52,144 median pay for UPS workers, although the company notes that the average pay for full-time drivers is $95,000. UPS says its executive pay is “at the midpoint when compared to other companies of similar size and global scale.” Some boards put the brakes on CEO

compensation following pushback from institutional investors, who get the chance to vote in “Say On Pay” tallies at annual shareholder meetings, although such votes are only advisory and don’t compel boards to make changes.

Homebuilder Lennar, for example, capped the annual cash bonuses for its coCEOs, Rick Beckwitt and Jonathan Jaffe, at $6 million each in response to complaints from investors about their $16.6 million bonuses in 2021. Just 63 percent of Lennar’s investors voted to approve the pay packages at last year’s shareholder meeting, compared to 84 percent in 2021. Beckwitt and Jaffe saw their total compensation fall 11 percent and 12 percent in 2022, respectively, to $30.4 million and $30 million.

Higher up the pay scale, Apple CEO

Tim Cook was no. 3 in the AP survey with a compensation package valued at $99.4 million, nearly identical to what Apple gave him in 2021. But Cook has requested a 40 percent pay cut for 2023, in response to the vote at last year’s annual meeting, where just 64 percent of shareholders approved of Cook’s pay package, compared to 94 percent the previous year.

Such shareholder pushback remains rare, however. The vast majority of companies included in AP’s survey received more than 90 percent support for their executive compensation programs in 2022.

The AP’s and Equilar’s compensation study included pay data for 343 CEOs at S&P 500 companies who have served at least two fiscal years at their companies, which filed proxy statements between Jan. 1 and April 30. Some well-paid CEOs are not included because they don’t fit the criteria, such as Amazon’s Andy Jassy and Microsoft’s Satya Nadella. The biggest cuts to CEO pay last year were in annual performance-based cash awards, which were down 15.5 percent to a median of $2.3 million. On the other hand, stock awards rose 10.5 percent to a median of $8.5 million. Cash salaries and bonuses comprised less than a quarter of compensation for the typical CEO in the survey. The bulk comes from stock and stock options because shareholders have advocated for CEO pay to closely aligned with their own returns.

Executives will likely see steeper pay cuts in 2023 when boards consider the full effect of the stock market’s downturn, said Kelly Malafis, a partner at Compensation Advisory Partners, a consulting firm that works with boards.

“We’re not seeing companies slash and burn,” Malafis said. “We might see some of that next year.”

AP Business Writers Alex Veiga in Los Angeles, Matt Ott in Silver Spring, Maryland, and Michael Liedtke in San Francisco contributed to this story.

LAURIMAR LOPES ALVES, who goes by Caboclo, poses for a photo with his family at their home in Benjamin Constant, Amazonas state, Brazil, March 2, 2023. One year ago, Caboclo met Bruno Pereira, an expert on Indigenous communities, and Dom Phillips, a British journalist, shortly before they were killed. The Associated Press returned to the Javari Valley ahead of the anniversary to describe the place where the two were killed. AP/FABIANO MAISONNAVE

‘Tala hybrid rocket launch to stimulate space S&T applications research’

By Rizal Raoul Reyes

THE Philippines needs to accelerate the development of its spacefaring capabilities to stimulate the economy, develop its sustainability and safeguard the environment.

Philippine Space Agency (PhilSA) Director General Joel Joseph Marciano said the launching of Tala hybrid rocket could be a stepping stone for the country to hasten the advancement of the local space program. Tala means “bright star” in English.

“We can build on top of these several innovations,” Marciano said during an online news briefing after Tala was launched on May 20.

“The technology demonstration of a hybrid-propelled rocket is seen to further stimulate space science and technology applications research in order to advance innovation and development of our own space assets for research, exploration and commercial activities,” Marciano added.

Tala, the first high-powered hybrid rocket developed in the Philippines, successfully lifted off at 11:57a.m. from Crow Valley Gunnery Range in Capas, Tarlac, on May 20.

It should be noted that Tala was developed in 2018 by students and mentors from St. Cecilia’s College-Cebu.

It was able to deploy its Can Satellite payload before going into fast descent and eventual deployment of its main parachute for safe landing.

According to PhilSA, the rocketry team of Tala has retrieved the rocket body and is now working on the collection and analysis of launch data to determine the rocket flight details.

As a hybrid rocket, Tala used both solid fuel and liquid oxidizer, which make handling, shipping and storage much safer. The manufacturing cost is also lower.

Marciano pointed out that having a robust space technology capability, the Philippines has a strategic advantage because it can possibly be a launching site of space rockets from the country as it is “facing the Pacific Ocean on the east.”

H e added that the Philippines has a lot to offer as there are several places where

BASED ON FILIPINO, JAPANESE SCIENTISTS’ RESEARCH IN AN ICE CORE IN GREENLAND

Nuclear signals could mark start of Anthropocene epoch

the country can show its spacefaring capabilities.

Besides producing rocket scientists and engineers, the Philippines will also employ people who are experts in various disciplines, such as the granting of permits, risks assessment policies and processes.

“It will need an entire effort of a community to build our space capability,” he said.

For his part, Wilfredo K. Pardorla Jr., one of the mentors of Team Tala and a teacher of environment, science and physics at the senior high-school department in Saint Cecilia’s College, Cebu, said the launching of Tala will have a big impact on research on the humidity, pressure and temperature of the country’s atmosphere.

“It will help the country study the quality of our carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide,” he said.

“Spac e technology can help us study the state of our environment,” Pardorla added.

Tala was developed by students and mentors from St. Cecilia’s College-Cebu under the Young Innovators Program of the Philippine Council for Industry, Energy, and Emerging Technology Research and Development.

It was supposed to be launched in March 2020 but had been postponed due to the pandemic. In 2022, the Tala team and PhilSA began working together to refuel the launch.

The Tala team members are Christian Lawrence Cantos, team leader and avionics systems lead; John Harold Abarquez, group support equipment systems lead; Joshua Pardorla, propulsion system lead; Joseph Emmanuel Capangpangan, structural systems lead; Dorothy Mae Daffon, recovery and ejection system lead; Almida Plarisan and Wilfredo Pardorla Jr, mentors.

Tala’s launch was made possible through the partnership of the PhilSA with the Philippine Air Force of the Col. Ernesto Ravina Air Base, the 710th Special Operations Wing, Air Force Research and Development Center, Air Force Systems Engineering Office, 950th Cyberspace and Electronic Warfare Wing, Air Force Public Affairs Office, and the 790th Air Base Groups.

By Lyn Resurreccion

FILIPINO and Japanese sci -

entists have proposed, as a result of their study, that the beginning of the new Anthropocene epoch, or its “golden spike,” is best recorded as “nuclear bomb peaks.”

Scientists are deep into the study on the start of the proposed new period of human activities called the Anthropocene epoch.

The Holocene epoch immediately preceded the Anthropocene. Holocene began 11,700 years ago after the last major ice age.

All periods, including the Jurassic Age, has a start flag called the golden spike, an event marker that signals a tremendous physical, chemical, or biological change across the Earth, the Department of Science and Technology’s-Philippine Nuclear Research Institute Nuclear Materials Research Section (DOST-PNRI NMRS) said in a news release.

The Filipino and Japanese scientists involved in the research— were two Filipinos from the DOSTPNRI, two from The University of Tokyo, and one each from Rikagaku Kenkyūjyo (Riken, or Institute of Physical and Chemical Research of Japan), Hirosaki Univercity and Hokkaido University.

‘Excellent candidate’

THE scientists found the peaks of the radionuclide iodine-129, or I-129, in an ice core at the Greenland Southeast Dome site as an “excellent candidate for the Anthropocene period’s golden spike.”

“The ice core was taken in August 2015,” said Dr. Angel Bautista VII, Scientist I, Supervising

Science Research Specialist, and section head of the Nuclear Materials Research Section, Atomic Research Division at the DOSTPNRI, one of the Filipino scientists involved in the research, and who was its first and corresponding author.

“I started this work as part of my PhD dissertation, but continued on even after my graduation in 2016, then finally culminated with the publication of our work in May 2023,” Bautista told the BusinessMirror in a social media interview.

He explained that the Greenland Southeast Dome is an “excellent site” for the study because the location features “high amounts of precipitation, resulting in high accumulation rates of the ice core.”

“The ice thickness increases significantly more as time passes, compared to other sites. Practically, this means we can analyze at a higher resolution. Particularly, in our study’s case, we reconstructed the history of nuclear impacts at a resolution of every four months—one of the most detailed reconstructions of the effects of nuclear activities to date,” Bautista pointed out.

Scientific debate

IDENTIFYING the Anthropocene’s golden spike is a comprehensive scientific debate that started in 2009 and has been ongoing for years.

A growing consensus within the scientific community is that the most pronounced global start of the Anthropocene is within the mid-20th century. Called the “Great Acceleration,” it is a period of exponential human population, economic and

Filipino scientist heads intl study on dark quantum matter

FILIPINO physicist Dr. Jayson Cosme from the University of the Philippines-Diliman College of Science National Institute of Physics (UPD-CS NIP) recently led a team of six German researchers in pioneering a way to make a special kind of “dark” matter that can’t be observed using standard laboratory methods, UPD CS said in a news release.

Cosme’s team’s findings were published in the prestigious international journal, Physical Review Letters.

Scientists are able to use laser beams to slow down the movement of the atoms in a material, causing its temperature to drop.

When the temperature goes down almost to absolute zero, the individual atoms can condense together into a new state of matter with quantum properties that behaves almost like a single giant atom, UPD CS said.

Renowned physicists Albert Einstein and Satyendra Nath Bose were the first to predict its existence, hence it was named after them and is now called a

Bose-Einstein Condensate (BEC).

BECs can be observed and studied using special cameras. However, Cosme’s team was able to use lasers to further manipulate them

technological growth at a scale that caused massive changes in the Earth’s environment.

Quest for the golden spike SCIENTISTS have explored several probable golden spikes in the Great Acceleration.

Among those considered were the global fallout signals from nuclear weapons testing, particularly of the radionuclides carbon-14 (C-14) and plutonium-239 (Pu-239)..

However, these radionuclides will decay and disappear a few hundred thousand years into the future, and their signals will be impossible to be found by humans by then. Thus, they may not be quite enduring to serve as the golden spike, the DOST-PNRI NMRS explained.

In their quest, the Filipino and Japanese scientists found a more fitting golden spike indicator—iodine-129, whose half-life is 15.7 million years. This means that its signals can be found by humans even millions of years into the future.

Bautista further explained that there were many other possible markers that were explored—such as increases in carbon dioxide, fly ash, organic compounds and heavy metals.

“However, nuclear bomb peaks are a prime candidate—if not the best one—because they can be observed/measured all over the earth virtually at the same time. They can be measured in a variety of material—such as tree rings, ice core, corals, sediments—meaning it can be found anywhere easily. This degree of global ubiquity and synchronicity makes nuclear bomb peaks a great candidate,” he pointed out.

Ice recordings

THE authors in the study measured I-129 in ice deep in the Greenland Southeast-Dome site, even as they explored its potential as the likely Anthropocene golden spike. As they took the core out from the 90-meter deep ice drilling, the researchers found that the I-129 in the ice core recorded almost the entire history of the nuclear age, particularly the period 1957 to 2007.

“It was in unprecedented detail at a resolution of about every four months,” the Filipino and Japanese scientists said.

More specifically, the I-129 in the ice core recorded signals from nuclear weapons testing in 1958, 1961 and 1962, the Chernobyl Accident in 1986, and other various signals from nuclear fuel reprocessing within the same year, or a year after.

The relationships between I-129 in the ice core and the human nuclear activities were defined and quantified through a mathematical model, they said.

Most importantly, having the I-129 nuclear signals were also seen in other records from different locations and environments worldwide, which means that these signals can be found virtually anywhere—a good characteristic of a potential golden spike, they added.

This global presence is comparable with those of the C-14 and Pu-239 bomb signals, but the much longer half-life of I-129 makes it a more enduring and ideal golden spike.

The study was published in Science of the Total Environment, one of the world’s leading environmental science journals with an impact Factor of 10.75.

so that they can’t be observed using these standard methods.

“By shaking BECs in the right way, we can cause them to become quantum objects that don’t absorb, reflect, nor emit light— hence, ‘dark,’” he explained.

Cosme expressed pride and gratitude at being given the opportunity to helm an international team composed of some of the foremost researchers in his field.

“I’m very honored and thankful to have been the last author on this paper, as my colleagues are all from Germany,” he said.

“This has been a very deep cooperation between myself and the group of Prof. Andreas Hemmerich, who studied under Nobel Laureate Theodor W. Haensch; as well as Prof. Ludwig Mathey’s group, which includes my close collaborator, first author Jim Skulte,” Cosme explained.

Roadmap workshop sets Quezon coconut industry on track

LUCENA CITY—A recent workshop held in this city has set the stage for the development of a comprehensive roadmap that aims to shape the future of Quezon province’s coconut industry.

T he workshop held in May was organized by the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (Searca), the provincial government of Quezon through the Office of the Provincial Agriculturist, and the Philippine Coconut Authority Region IV.

Noting that the workshop brought together key stakeholders from various sectors, Searca Director Dr. Glenn Gregorio said it yielded significant outputs that will serve as crucial inputs for the formulation of the coconut roadmap document.

According to Dr. Ana Clarissa Mariano, Quezon’s provincial agriculturist, Quezon province has the highest number of coconut trees and a substantial population of coconut farmers.

She emphasized the need for a wellstructured coconut plan tailored to the

province’s unique circumstances.

OPAg economist Russel Manuba gave an overview of the status of the coconut industry in Quezon province. He presented the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) of the province’s coconut industry, which were gathered from the stakeholders during previous workshops in February 2023.

T he initial SWOT findings were augmented by SWOT analyses of specific coconut-based commodities, namely, virgin coconut oil, copra, coco sugar and lambanog undertaken and presented by the workshop participants.

Planning officer John Arrish Ocampo facilitated the discussions after presenting the roadmap’s vision, mission, goals and key result areas (KRAs) and noted the comments from the stakeholders. This set the stage for the action planning wherein the participants identified specific strategies and key performance indicators in relation to the identified KRAs for each of the four coconut-based commodities.

DOST-PNRI’s Dr. Angel Bautista VII presents a segment of the ice core containing the I-129 radionuclide signals which the researchers, including himself, propose as the most probable golden spike indicator of the

UPD-CS Physicist Dr. Jayson Cosme led a team of German researchers in the creation of a darkstate Bose-Einstein condensate. Their groundbreaking work was published in Physical Review

JAYSON COSME

Synodality leads Filipino youth to listen and engage with God

“Synodality is actually walking together, and I think that kind of accompaniment is needed from the youth,” he explained.

“Synodality is not something we explicitly teach because it is very important for us that this everyday living is being synodal in character; we directly teach it by practice and it comes with catechism, formation, and reminders,” he explained.

Valdez also shared that the parish seeks to strengthen the relationship of the young people with Christ by “meeting them regularly on Sunday to have a Bible sharing and training them to enhance their skills in singing and dancing for the ministry,” he continued.

“They are scholars of Quiapo church, so we give them formation and education,” he added.

Besides inspiring young people to be with God, he also emphasized that they provide “more than just holistic formation. We also give them leadership duties, and leadership duties come with consultation, listening and directing.”

Pope’s June prayer intention focuses on abolition of torture

said. “Listening is not just passive; listening also entails having the obligation to prepare somebody to take the right actions and to hear the right things that they need to hear.”

He added that “synodal is also part of my theological orientation that the Church is everybody.”

Valdez expressed the vital role of the Church. “The Church is very synodal, I think that is our lifeblood.”

As a youth ministry coordinator, he hopes that the Church will continue to involve more young people and bring them closer to Christ.

“I hope that the Church can continue and accommodate greater interaction among young people,” he said.

Living with Christ

VALDEZ said that young people in the Philippines recognize their belief in God.

POPE Francis’s monthly prayer intention for June is for the abolition of torture in all of its forms throughout the world.

The pope made this appeal to eradicate the phenomenon in his Pope Video message, entrusted to the entire Catholic Church through the P ope’s Worldwide Prayer Network.

The Holy Father decried torture as a scourge that is not just a thing of the past, but is still present today.

Our Lord’s torture

He expressed that his task as a priest is to enlighten people about God.

“I see primarily the ministerial priesthood as a gift. Something that God gives and has a reason to exist,” Valdez said. “I believe the Lord trusts us with something that He can do, so He can transcend through us.”

Valdez told Vatican News that the gift that he received and his perspective in Synodal Church

move him to include and educate the youth.

“My particular vocation is formation to our young people, not just the usual catechism and common worship and activities of Church but a holistic formation,” he stated.

The Filipino priest believes that synodality reflects the essence of togetherness and the importance of youth participation in their journey with the Church.

As a priest and youth coordinator, he revealed that the parish is putting more effort to contribute positively to the lives of young people.

“We do a lot of work because you need to talk to them, listen to them, understand where they are coming from,” he said.

Responsibility of Listening

VALDEZ also conveyed the significance of helping young people listen to each other.

“In terms of synodality, we have to be prepared to go through those rough edges of listening,” he

“Filipino youth see the value of their faith,” he added. “It is important to have discerning encounter with reality and the Filipino youth can offer a faith that continuously discerns.”

Valdez hopes that those who joined and will join the synodal activities will “not just be part of the Church but will remain.”

He encouraged everyone to contribute to the journey of the Synodal Church.

“We can only work one step at a time to try and build a better future through our own efforts; synodality will bring better visions of who we are to our faith,” he pointed out.

Rechilda Estores/Vatican News

POINTING out that our Lord, Jesus Christ, endured torture; and how many endure such suffering today, the pope urged the international community to commit itself concretely to eradicating this source of suffering.

The pope questioned how is it possible that the human capacity for cruelty is so great.

There are extremely violent forms of torture, the pope observes, including “sophisticated ones,” such as “degrading someone, dulling the senses, or mass detentions in conditions so inhumane that they take away the dignity of the person.”

But this, he warned, is not something new.

“Let’s think of how Jesus Himself was tortured and crucified,” he said.

Stopping the horror

LET us put a stop to this horror of torture. It is essential to put the dignity of the person above all else,” he pointed out.

Otherwise, the pope warned, “the

victims are not persons, they are ‘things,’ and can be mistreated mercilessly, causing death or permanent psychological and physical harm lasting a lifetime.”

The pope also insisted that the international community guarantee support to victims and their families.

Commitment vs ongoing phenomenon

THE timing of his condemnation of the practice, and the prayer intention itself, is not accidental.

June 26th is the United Nations

International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, for it was on this date in 1987 that the UN Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment went into effect. The convention was ratified by 162 countries after its adoption in 1984.

Torture is a practice dating back to antiquity. In the 18th and 19th centuries, western countries officially abolished its official use through the judicial system. Today, it is entirely prohibited by international law.

Nevertheless, it continues to be practiced in many countries.

Since 1981, the United Nations Fund for Victims of Torture has assisted an average of 50,000 victims of torture each year, in countries in every corner of the globe. Debor ah Castellano Lubov/ Vatican News

Sr. Dulce Inlayo: Celebrating 100 yrs of Carmelite presence in the Philippines

SR . Dulce Inlayo, OCD, a Filipina Prioress of the Infanta Carmel, lives by her mission to serve God in the congregation of Discalced Carmelites of the Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel, a community of cloistered contemplative nuns in the diocese of Prelature of Infanta in Quezon province.

Establishment of Infanta Carmel

THE Infanta Carmel was founded in 1981 by the Federation of Carmels in the Philippines and the late Bishop Julio Xavier Labayen, OCD, as a response to the call of Vatican II for renewal in religious life.

“Five Carmel volunteers responded to the invitation of Bishop Labayen, to found a poor, simple and inculturated Carmel in the Church of the Poor,” Inlayo told Vatican News.

Through personal relationships with the poor, the Carmelite nuns formed their charism and were “evangelized by the poor,” she added, “The Carmel took evangelical poverty as its foundational charism.”

Along with this, Inlayo said that Philip Sainz de Baranda, then the Father General of the Infanta Carmel, also motivated the Carmelite nuns in their mission.

“Continue to live your lifestyle, to be a witness to simplicity of life, in your buildings and surroundings and being very close to the

poor,” de Baranda encouraged them. “Bear testimony that this way of life is possible for Carmelite nuns.”

100th anniversary of Carmel in the Philippines

INLAYO highlighted the significant role of St. Teresa of Avila in their congregation.

“St. Teresa of Avila is considered the foundress and mother of the Teresian Carmel.

Together with a group of nuns from the Monastery of the Incarnation,” Inlayo recalled, “[St. Teresa] founded the first monastery of Discalced Carmelite Nuns, the St. Joseph’s Monastery in Avila.”

Inlayo expressed that they also commemorate the founders of the first Carmelite convent in the country.

“This year we celebrate the 100th year of the Carmelite presence in the Philippines. It is fitting to also remember the French Carmelite nuns who founded Jaro Carmel, the first

Carmel in the Philippines,” she said. The Carmelites in the Philippines will celebrate the event in Jaro, Iloilo City, on November 9.

“At present, there are 22 Carmel [convents] in the Philippines and 1 in Kuching, Malaysia, which belongs to the Philippine Federation of Discalced Carmelite Nuns,” she added.

Pure Love and Constant Prayer INLAYO also pointed out their responsibility to serve the Church in love.

“Our vocation as Contemplative Carmelite nuns is to be love in the heart of the Church and to express this overflowing love through our mission as praying hearts in the mystical body of Christ, the Church,” she explained. She recalled a saying of St. John of the Cross, who helped St. Teresa of Avila in her mission to found the Discalced

Carmelites: “One act of pure love is more beneficial to the Church than all other works combined.”

“Our apostolate is prayer. With our minds and hearts centered on Jesus, the love of our life, we offer to our Triune God a pleasing sacrifice of unceasing prayer from the rising of the sun to its setting, while carrying in our hearts the needs and intentions of the Church, especially our priests and the poor,” Inlayo added.

“Our apostolic fruitfulness as Carmelites springs from our deep and intimate friendship with Christ.”

The Carmelite prioress also reiterated the words of Pope Francis’s Apostolic Constitution Vultum Dei Quarere on Women’s Contemplative Life which stated: “Women’s contemplative life has always represented in the Church, and for the Church, her praying heart, a storehouse of graces

and apostolic fruitfulness, and a visible witness to the mystery and rich variety of holiness.”

Devotion in God

THE Filipina Carmelite expressed her heartfelt gratitude to God for the 29 years she has dedicated her life totally to Christ.

“I consider my Carmelite vocation as the greatest blessing in my life. For with this gift, came countless blessings,” she continued. “Thanks for the gift of Carmelite vocation. I find meaning and joy in my life as a Carmelite nun.”

Inlayo said she hopes to offer a light of faith for others.

“Pope Francis calls us beacons that guide the Church, torches that illumine in the darkness, and sentinels heralding the morning,” she recalled.

She firmly believes that her duty as the Spouse of Christ in leading people to the Church will be fulfilled in

her life. “To save souls and draw them to God, that moves me to serve the Lord. Is there an end to love?” she asked. “Even death would only be a continuation of a life of love.”

Faith and Filipino values WITH her many years of contemplative life, Inlayo seeks to help other women communicate with God.

“Let us be grounded and rooted in our dignity as God’s beloved and our identity as Filipinas, and as women religious,” she encouraged.

“Let us celebrate, be grateful, and give witness to the joy and beauty of belonging totally to Jesus.”

She added that her life as a Carmelite also embodies what she sees as Filipino values.

“Central to our life as Carmelite nuns are the values of interiority, authenticity, prayer as deep friendship, and intimacy with Christ, which are also Filipino values.”

Inlayo expressed her belief that true Catholic faith is experienced through faithfulness to God.

“Our life of hidden union with Christ in God, in silence of cloister, in poverty and in simplicity of our life gives witness to the eternal truth, in St. Teresa’s words that ‘All things are passing. God alone is enough,’” she pointed out.

FR. Earl Valdez, a Filipino priest and director for youth, has expressed his dedication in educating and involving the youth with Christ in the Minor Basilica of the Black Nazarene in Quiapo, Manila.

FR . Earl Valdez (center) of the Minor Basilica of the Black Nazarene, more popularly known as Quiapo Church, calls on young people to participate in the synodal mission of the Church, to understand the importance of listening and communicating with the Lord. PYMQUIAPO

POPE Francis delivers his blessing as he attends the world’s first meeting of the “Educational Eco-Cities” promoted by the “Scholas Occurrentes” at the Vatican on May 25. AP/ANDREW MEDICHINI

BISHOP Julio Labayen (right) with the pioneering Carmelite nuns in Infanta, Quezon province. PHOTOS COURTESY OF SR. DULCE INLAYO

CARMELITE nuns from Infanta, Quezon

Biodiversity Sunday

Editor: Lyn Resurreccion

Offshore renewable energy projects threat to biodiversity?

By Jonathan L Mayuga

PHL scientist co-invents ballast water treatment system vs invasive species

By Lorenz S. Marasigan

BALLAST water has always been a requirement for ships. It helps trim or balance the vessels. But it also poses potential harm to environments where the water is disposed of.

This is because ballast water often carries invasive animals, plants, microorganisms and other alien species that can devastate local marine biodiversity and coastal ecosystems.

According to the study titled “Science of the Total Environment,” the biological impact of such invasive species have cost $1.1 trillion in damages all over the world in the last 62 years.

The cost of managing the invasions, meanwhile, was projected at $95.3 billion since 1960.

To mitigate this problem, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) issued a Convention on Ballast Water Management, which imposes regulations on the proper handling and treatment of ballast water.

The Philippines ratified the convention in 2018, requiring it to have a port-based ballast water treatment system.

According to the convention, all ships are expected to treat their ballast water before release by 2024.

Filipino invention

AS the Philippines guns to be compliant to the IMO Convention, a Filipino scientist co-invented a port-based water filtration system that could potentially help reduce the costs of ballast water releases in the country.

Implemented under the Ballast Water and Biofouling Management Research Program, the Ballast Water Management System (BWMS) essentially treats the ballast water to get rid of any invasive species that may come with it—for only a fraction of the cost.

Prof. Benjamin Vallejo Jr. of the University of the Philippines Diliman-College of Science (UPD-CS) Institute of Environmental Science and Meteorology (IESM) professor and Ballast Water and Biofouling Management Research program leader, said the system will just cost only P12 million, or about $200,000, a lot cheaper from the commercially-available systems that run between $1 million to $5 million.

“Our system utilizes UV sterilization and mechanical methods to treat ballast water, and has proven promising in initial tests in decreasing the number of invasive species translocated from port to port,” Vallejo said.

The system will comply with the IMO’s D-2 Standard for Ballast Water Treatment and can be used until the local industry can install its own onboard treatment systems.

The D-2 Standard means that the planktons should be less than 10 cells per cubic meter.

“We hope this treatment system will be cheaper than other costly comparable systems. Now is the opportunity for Filipino investors to break into Southeast Asia’s ballast water treatment market,” he said.

Currently, the BWMS has a working prototype that was developed through a funding from the the Department of Science and Technology (DOST).

Vallejo said his team is looking for investors to potentially fund the commercial launch of the BWMS.

“We need about P200 million in investments. We have to put a testing facility and a storage facility,” he said. “It needs further optimization for the second prototype, which is near the commercial launch.”

He said the group is open to both local and foreign financing, including green financing packages from lenders.

“There is interest from our government. And also some local investors are interested in it. We have to consider that we are on step one. There is still more research and development that needs to be done and it might be good if the private sector will take in some of the next steps in R&D,” he said.

Vallejo added that there have been feelers from financial institutions, given that the development of the local maritime industry has been deemed a priority of the current administration.

“Hopefully, within the next three years, we can launch,” he said.

“If we do not provide this service, then the foreign market will enter.”

Likewise, Vallejo is keen on exporting the BWMS.

“We will have to partner with a foreign company since we [the Philippines] are now a globalized economy. We should be able to partner with international companies to firm the market,” he pointed out.

He cited as example, “if we break into the Indonesian market, we need to have an Indonesian partner. We have to also consider the fact that we need to export technology to other countries that may need it—especially in developing economies in the Asean.”

Vallejo discussed his invention at the iStories webinar, a series of innovation-themed talks, storytelling and activities featuring local and international scientists.

ENVIRONMENT Secretary Maria

Antonia Yulo-Loyza

ga has suspended the acceptance, processing and approval of environmental compliance certificates (ECC) for offshore wind and floating solar energy projects pending the approval of guidelines for these renewable energy (RE) projects.

The “freeze order” momentarily keeps at bay applications for ECC for these projects.

Renewable energy policy, targets RECOGNIZING the country’s renewable energy potential, Congress passed into law Republic Act 9153, or the Renewable Energy Act of 2008.

Among others, it aims to accelerate the exploration and development of renewable energy resources, such as biomass, solar, wind, hydro, geothermal and ocean energy resources, including hybrid systems, among others, to achieve energy self-reliance.

To further demonstrate the country’s commitment to promoting renewable energy, the government has put in place the National Renewable Energy Program (NREP).

Through NREP, the Philippines affirmed its commitment and set an ambitious target to increase the share of renewable energy in the country’s energy mix to 35 percent by 2030 and 50 percent by 2040.

Offshore wind, floating solar what?

OFFSHORE wind power, and floating solar energy, however, are both new to the Philippines.

Offshore wind is defined as the generation of electricity through wind farms in bodies of water, usually at sea.

As the title suggests, floating solar power, or floating photovoltaic system, captures sunlight to generate electricity.

But instead of sitting over land, floating solar sits atop platforms that float over bodies of water.

Huge investment

THE Department of Energy (DOE) continues to receive applications seeking to secure service contracts for both offshore wind and floating solar projects.

There are already 57 approved service contracts waiting for the green light for an ECC for offshore wind power alone.

The 57 projects have a potential combined capacity of 42,000 megawatts.

Similarly, the DOE is expecting more investments for floating solar energy generation.

According to DOE, there are currently a total of 237 solar energy contracts with an aggregate installed capacity of 1,282 MW and a potential capacity of 21,452 MW that have been awarded by the DOE.

These have generated around P8.46 billion in investments for the country.

Precautionary principle

RENEWABLE energy, however, has some issues. They require space and often are in conflict with other equally important sectors in the utilization of the same limited and very important economic resources—land and water.

Worse, they can also impact the environment and threaten biodiversity.

Environment Undersecretary

for Finance, Information System and Climate Change Analiza R. Teh said there were a lot of uncertainties, particularly in implementing offshore wind projects.

Teh said the proposed projects are mostly eyed to be built in the Verde Island Passage (VIP), a biodiversity-rich region that it is regarded by experts as the “center of the center of marine shore fish biodiversity” in the world.

“Even the noise created by turbines has impacts on marine mammals. Even during the pre-operation phase, [when] structures will be put up, we believe several projects in one area may have a cumulative impact [on marine resources],” Teh told the BusinessMirror via telephone on May 29.

Floating solar energy also has environmental impact, Teh pointed out, because putting a blanket of solar panels may also deny fisherfolk access to their source of income and livelihood.

The solar panels alone, she explained, can also deny sunlight to the underground environment, which might affect the ecological balance, including the spawning behavior of fish.

Marine spatial planning

ACCORDING to Teh, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) also needs to do marine spatial planning to further boost safeguards that will be integrated into the guidelines.

“Because there are many uncertainties, we are applying the precautionary principle, including the climate lens. This is something we must consider to protect the investment. We need sciencebased, not merely generic mitigation measures, for all our projects,” Teh pointed out.

“We need to map out first how to use our ocean [and inland water resources]. Anyway, the pre-development stage is five years to seven years yet. During that period, we will be able to get the necessary data and complete the marine spatial planning,” she explained.

More importantly, Teh said that in implementing the projects, the DENR is also putting in place measures that will protect and conserve biodiversity, such as identifying “no-go zones” like protected areas, which are set aside for conservation.

Alternative source of energy ENVIRONMENT and climate advocates support the decision of the DENR in stopping the acceptance, processing and approval of ECC applications for RE projects.

Asked to comment, Asean Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) Executive Director Theresa Mundita S. Lim said that with the increasing intensity of climate change impacts, RE has become a very viable alternative as a source of power in order to reduce dependency on fossil fuels.

“Addressing climate change, however, should not only be

through technological and engineering solutions, but must also consider harnessing nature, including biodiversity, as a costeffective measure for adaptation and mitigation that can achieve a multitude of benefits,” Lim, an expert on biodiversity, told the BusinessMirror via Messenger on May 22. She said it is for the same reason that when establishing renewable energy infrastructure, one must also ensure that “we leave as little footprint as possible, especially in areas known to be rich in biodiversity.”

Environmental impact assessment

LIM added that environmental impact assessments (EIAs) should include biodiversity and ecosystem services as essential elements.

Biological Diversity-focused Strategic Environmental Assessment “is another tool that can be used to guide the planning processes at a seascape/landscape level,” she added.

Lim pointed out that the following considerations in selecting the specific location for a project should be included, among others: Is it a habitat for species (flora or fauna) that are limited in range? Is it a migratory species pathway? Is it adjacent, connected to, or within a unique ecosystem that provides vital services, such as water, flood control, food source, aesthetic and cultural value, pharmaceutical potential, etc?

“To respond to these queries, it is important to have baseline information, an inventory and a profile of the biodiversity in the area prior to the development,” Lim explained.  These data, in addition to symbiotic relationships and dependency studies, should also be useful to determine ecological capacity thresholds, and, hopefully, allow us to move forward on the development of renewable energy while preserving nature-based solutions, providing a holistic and integrated means to address the climate crisis, she added.

Proceed with caution

OCEANA Philippines, an international nongovernment organization that advocates ocean conservation, also expressed full support behind the DENR’s move to hold in abeyance the approval of ECCs for offshore renewable energy projects pending the crafting of guidelines.

Atty. Lisa Osorio, Oceana Philippine’s Legal and Policy head, highlighted to the Business Mirror the need for guidelines that will help hasten the country’s energy transition.

However, she said via Zoom on May 29 that the DENR must proceed with caution, and should strengthen and strictly implement the EIA for every environmentally critical project, especially in areas

like Laguna de Bay and the VIP. “I am for local energy transition, such as RE, but we must make it a last resort to put it in ecologically critical areas,” she said.

Broad stakeholder participation

RONNEL ARAMBULO, Pamalakaya national spokesman, for his part, said: “We recognize Environment Secretary YuloLoyzaga’s consideration of the impacts of offshore-based renewable energy projects on the marine environment.”

Arambulo added: “We agree that such projects deserve thorough scrutiny from experts and stakeholders to assess their environmental and economic sustainability.”

However, he pointed out that the DENR “should directly involve stakeholders, including fishing communities, progressive environmentalists, scientists and experts with regards to the guidelines of offshore-based renewable energy.”

He told the BusinessMirror via Messenger on May 23 that “broad stakeholder participation will ensure that no rights to socioeconomic, as well as balanced and healthful ecology, will be compromised in the course of promoting renewable energies.”

Due diligence

CENTER for Energy, Ecology and Development (CEED) Executive Director Gerry Arances told the BusinessMirror via e-mail on May 23 that there is no doubt to the urgency of ending the Philippines’ dependence on coal, gas and other fossil fuels, and in shifting to renewable energy.

However, the CEED leader said the success of renewables and the country’s ability to optimize its benefits would depend greatly on exercising due diligence to prevent any unwanted and avoidable negative impacts of their development.

Saying that they welcome DENR’s freeze order, he added that the delays and losses for renewables that come alongside it is a wake-up call to the need to be proactive to ensure t hat necessary studies are conducted long before projects are pursued,” Arances said.

“At the same time, we ask the DENR to employ the same level— if not higher—of due diligence for notoriously polluting fossil fuels.

Coal and gas should not be allowed to continue recklessly polluting our environment and communities host to their facilities,” he added.

Thorough study

KHEVIN YU, Energy Transition Campaigner at Greenpeace Philippines, for his part, said that like any other project, there’s a need for thorough study or safeguards for offshore wind and solar projects.

Citing the plan for a floating solar energy project in Laguna de Bay, he agreed that there’s a need to do more research and establish baseline data on the target area.

The same due diligence, he told the BusinessMirror via telephone on May 23, should be done in offshore wind projects, although he said there’s a study that says such projects have their benefits to marine ecosystems.

“Of course, each area is unique. Especially in the Verde Island Passage, if there’s offshore wind structures, definitely navigation will be limited, therefore, there will be added layer of protection for biodiversity,” he added.

LAGUNA de Bay, the country’s largest inland lake, is now being eyed for floating solar energy projects that will add pressure and further threaten the lake’s carrying capacity. PHOTO COURTESY OF GREGG YAN

SHIPBOARD personnel oversee a live demonstration of the ballast water treatment system co-developed by UPD-CS IESM scientist Dr. Benjamin Vallejo Jr. The system is just a fraction of the cost of other commercially available solutions. DR. BENJAMIN VALLEJO JR.

PREGNANCY AND SPORTS

LOS ANGELES—Pro soccer player Jess McDonald was traded across six teams in her first five years as a single parent, making it difficult to find, let alone afford, child care in new cities. She and her then-8-month-old son were often forced to share a hotel room with a teammate—and sometimes she had no choice but to bring him with her to practice.

If I’d have a bad game, you know, my kid would be blamed for it at

times, and it was just like, ‘Oh, was your kid up late at night?’” the US Women’s National Team player said in a recent interview.

A rizona State basketball coach Charli Turner Thorne had three children without taking maternity leave. And New York Liberty head coach and former Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) player Sandy Brondello— acknowledging the difficulties that she would face if she got pregnant— waited to have kids until she retired

BusinessMirror

as a player at age 38.

Juggling the demands of parenthood with those of a professional sports career is just one of myriad challenges female athletes face in an industry that also has been rife with pay disparities, harassment and bullying in the 27 years since the WNBA, the first women’s professional sports league, was formed.

The issue once again drew national attention right before the season began, when WNBA player Dearica

A12 SundAy, June 4, 2023 mirror_sports@yahoo.com.ph

Hamby said she had been harassed by her coach for getting pregnant during the season.

L as Vegas Aces Coach Becky Hammon, one of the league’s marquee figures and a six-time WNBA AllStar, denied bullying Hamby; she said the player wasn’t traded to the Los Angeles Sparks because she was pregnant. The trade, she said, had “everything to do with freeing up money to sign free agents.”

Still, Hammon said she may have made a “misstep” by asking

Hamby at one point about her pregnancy, and she indicated that the rules in the WNBA “regarding pregnant players and how that looks within an organization” have to be better defined, shining a light on the balancing act of having a family and maintaining a professional sports career.

Women have never been formally banned from the WNBA for getting pregnant; in fact, the first player to

ALLYSON FELIX gives her daughter Camryn her bronze medal after the 4x400-meter mixed relay final at the World Athletics Championships on July 15, 2022, in Eugene, Oregon. AP

sign with the league in 1997, Sheryl Swoopes, was expecting when she did so. But pregnant athletes have encountered attitudes ranging from ambivalent to outright hostile from leagues, coaches, fellow players and sponsors throughout the years.

A s recently as 2019, Olympic runners Allyson Felix and Kara Goucher spoke out against Nike for slashing their pay and then dropping them for becoming pregnant. And it’s taken years for professional women’s leagues to provide their athletes with the support systems they need to balance their family and career obligations.

I’ve been walking on eggshells as a mom in this league since Day 1,” said McDonald, who last week announced her second pregnancy.

McDonald said that back in 2012, she trained up until two weeks before giving birth; it wasn’t until last year that players in the league were guaranteed paid maternity leave. Arizona State’s Thorne told the AP she once returned to work just two days after giving birth.

We’re light years ahead of where we were, you know, 20-some years ago in terms of people understanding that they have to support women’s rights,” Thorne said. Still, “there is pressure on you as the athlete, as the coach, as that person, that woman either starting their family or having kids, to get back to their job” soon after giving birth.

Native Hawaiians divided over artificial surf lagoon

EWA BEACH, Hawaii—Brian

Keaulana is the quintessential

Native Hawaiian waterman, well-known in Hawaii and beyond for his deep understanding of the ocean, gifted with surfing and lifeguarding skills passed down from his big-wave rider father.

N ow, as one of the islands’ standard-bearers of surfing, Keaulana wants to further boost the sport in his homeland by building an artificial wave pool just down the road from the beach—a spot where competitive surfers could always be guaranteed the perfect breaks that are sometimes elusive in nature.

T he bold proposal has made waves in Hawaii, particularly among some Native Hawaiians, and raised questions about how a modernday sport followed by millions worldwide fits into the cultural legacy of islanders who have been riding waves for millennia.

The project has landed in court and reflects the unease some

Native Hawaiians feel about the commercialization of what long has been a cultural touchstone.

They’re profiting off a cultural practice by controlling it by making these wave pools, which are going to destroy the actual beach that is nearby,” said Healani Sonoda-Pale, a plaintiff in a civil case seeking to stop the wave pool. “I cannot speak for other Hawaiians. All I can I say is as a Hawaiian...it goes against my culture.”

Surfer and writer Mindy

Pennybacker said the controversy

highlights a struggle over how to balance tradition with a booming sport. In researching her book, “Surfing Sisterhood Hawai‘i: Women Reclaiming the Waves,” she learned of creative ways Hawaiians compensated when there was no surf, including finding standing river waves or sledding down hillsides.

She also sees how wave pools help athletes improve, noting a World Surf League championship tour competition over Memorial Day weekend at a California wave pool developed by pro surfer Kelly Slater.

The beauty of surfing, and the frustration of surfing at the recreational and competitive level, remains the unpredictability and how surfers have to have the reflexes to deal with changing conditions,” she said.

The lawsuit—filed in state environmental court by a group of Hawaiians and residents near the proposed site—alleges the 7 milliongallon (26-million liter) artificial pool would damage nearshore limu, or seaweed, and desecrate iwi kupuna, or ancient Hawaiian remains.

B idding to halt the project, the lawsuit challenges the Hawaii Community Development Authority’s approval and finding that it will have no significant environmental impacts. The development authority and the state attorney general’s office declined to comment on the lawsuit, which seeks a new environmental review.

A hearing is set for July and it’s not clear when a judge might rule.

Sonoda-Pale pointed out that the artificial lagoon would be 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) from a beach called White Plains, long a popular surf spot.

A w ave pool recently opened nearby and opponents say another one is unnecessary and a waste of water. But Keaulana remains committed, noting ocean conditions aren’t always ideal for learning how to surf or save lives.

O ne recent afternoon, no one was surfing at Makaha beach in west Oahu, where Keaulana grew up. Conditions were too calm despite Makaha’s world-famous reputation for its ferocious shore break.

“ The ocean is the greatest treasure that we have,” he said, but “it can be flat. It can be big. It can be dirty. It can have, you know, sharks here and there.”

H e worries Hawaii’s Olympic surfing hopefuls are at a disadvantage to competitors who can easily train at one of several surf parks worldwide. A wave pool allows for more time on a surfboard in an hour than most surfers get in the ocean in a week, he said.

You see these surfers going to these surf parks and catching wave after wave and they are honing their skills and then they go into the ocean when there’s a swell,” he said. “Boom. They’re already primed and ready.”

Using the latest technology, the facility would simulate ideal conditions needed to keep top surfers competitive and serve as a “lifesaving lab” for teaching safety skills in a controlled setting, he said. AP

Fastech celebrates 40 years with golf fund-raiser

F ASTECH Synergy Philippines

Inc. kicked off its 40th anniversary celebration with a fellowship golf tournament that aimed to raise funds for the company’s scholarship programs.

More than 170 players from over 50 companies across the electronics industry supported the event held recently at the Sta. Elena Golf & Country Club in Cabuyao, Laguna.

Fastech, a semiconductor manufacturing company, has grown over the last 40 years by focusing

its passion for manufacturing

excellence. The company remains committed to providing a highly proficient technical workforce for complex engineered products.

T hrough the years, Fastech has supported various scholarship programs because the company sees its scholarship programs as a great opportunity to assist in the strengthening of the science and technology base of the country.

I n 1995, Fastech started a scholarship program in partnership with Polytechnic University of the Philippines with

80 pioneer scholars.

The company’s most recent program was in 2018 when it sponsored a scholarship program in partnership with Ateneo De Manila University and FAITH Colleges.

Fastech is expanding its scholarship programs in partnership with Batangas State University, National Engineering University of the Philippines, FAITH Colleges and University of Cabuyao.

Th at sight and sound has disappeared from some North American racetracks that have replaced traditional dirt with a synthetic surface made of wax-coated sand, fibers and recycled rubber.

It mutes hoofbeats and limits whatever kickback might fly in the faces of trailing horses.

F rom owners to trainers to jockeys to  bettors , the debate is vigorous on whether synthetic surfaces are a potential answer to creating safer training and racing conditions.

The deaths of 12 horses at Churchill Downs, including two on Kentucky Derby day, in the last month have reignited public outcry about what horse racing is doing to prevent catastrophic injuries.

I nvestigations of the Churchill deaths are underway, including necropsies on the horses and probes of the track’s dirt surface.

Synthetic surfaces, known by such trademarked names as Tapeta and Polytrack, are gaining traction in some major racing locales.

IRT flying as horses race around the track. Fans cheering as their favorite thunders down the stretch, hooves pounding toward the finish line.POLYTRACK

is a material made up of recycled rubber, carpet fibers and silica sand all coated in wax. AP

Gulfstream Park in Florida added Tapeta in 2021 to go with its dirt and grass courses. Woodbine near Toronto switched from dirt to Polytrack and then to Tapeta in 2016.

In 2015, Turfway Park near Cincinnati was the first track in North America to install Polytrack and five years later replaced it with Tapeta.

Tiny Presque Isle Downs near Erie, Pennsylvania, has a Tapeta track.

Statistics from The Jockey Club’s Equine Injury Database show the surface with the fewest deaths per 1,000 horses is synthetic.

From 2009-2022, there were 534 fatalities on synthetic from 482,169 starts or 1.11 per 1,000 starts.

During that same period, there

Under the WNBA’s most recent collective bargaining agreement , which was ratified in 2020, league members receive their full salary while on maternity leave, though each player has to individually negotiate the length of her leave. During the season, players with children under 13 can receive up to $5,000 a year for child care, and a paid-for two-bedroom apartment. AP

were 6,036 fatalities on dirt from 3,242,505 starts or 1.86 per 1,000 starts. And on grass, there were 1,032 fatalities from 728,445 starts or 1.41 per 1,000 starts.

The overall rate of fatal injury in 2022 was 1.25 deaths per 1,000 starts, down from 1.39 the year before. It’s the fourth straight year the rate has decreased, according to the EID, and the first time the rate has been below 1.3 deaths per 1,000 since the database began in 2009.

“ In my opinion, synthetic is safer,” said veteran trainer Mark Casse, who estimates he starts about 1,200 horses a year on dirt, grass and synthetic in the US and Canada.

It hasn’t taken hold everywhere, however.

C alifornia racing officials mandated a switch from dirt to synthetics in 2007. Santa Anita , nowdefunct Hollywood Park and Del Mar north of San Diego spent millions tearing out their dirt tracks in what proved to be a failed experiment.

Golden Gate Fields in the San Francisco Bay area is the only California track still racing on synthetic. Eight horses have died at that track this year—three involved musculoskeletal issues; the others had varied reasons.

If they didn’t have so many issues early on in California, we’d all probably be racing on synthetic tracks,” said Casse, citing the initial steep learning curve involved in installing and maintaining such surfaces. AP

and

support programs. F or the next five years, Fastech will be donating P15 million in scholarships for students in senior

Editor: Jun Lomibao

IKAIKA KAULUKUKUI surfs in a wave pool in Ewa Beach, Hawaii. AP

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FINDING HIS VOICE

Autotelic’s Josh Villena on making his mark as totâ

Lourdes M. Fernandez

Aldwin M. Tolosa

Jt Nisay

Edwin P. Sallan

Eduardo A. Davad

Niggel Figueroa

Anabelle O. Flores

Tony M. Maghirang, Rick Olivares, Patrick Miguel

Jill Tan Radovan

Photographers :

Bernard P. Testa

Nonie Reyes

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By Patrick V. Miguel Interview by Edwin P. Sallan

IN writing songs, Josh Villena, or totâ, sometimes runs out of words—a typical writer’s block.

But with the emotions and the creativity still lingering, his pen still touches the paper and finds release with illustrating creatures. That’s how totâ writes songs, visiting back on his drawings and harvesting the words to finish his songs.

“It’s not just the music,” totâ said. “It’s also the visual arts.”

“While i was writing my songs as tota, sinasabay ko siya sa illustrations. Minsan [when] I get stuck or hindi ako makasulat, I tend to draw yung mga gusto ko isulat,” he recalled.

During the pandemic, totâ experienced anxiety and fear from the uncertainties brought by the lockdown. He suffered a writer’s block writing for Autotelic. That’s where he came up with the idea to write for himself instead.

“Nagkaroon ako ng writer’s block writing for Autotelic so i decided to write for myself, and ‘di ko akalain na lalabas ang ganitong sound,” he told Soundstrip.

totâ released his first single “Malikmata” last May 5.

As an introvert, totâ said

the song is about the fear of being left out and realizing that the fear is only a phantasm. “All of a sudden, nawala lang lahat pero imagination mo lang siya— namamalikmata ka pala,” he said.

Asked on what took him long to produce his own single, totâ said it took him some time to build confidence as a solo artist.

He explained, “For the longest time, sanay na sanay ako mag play sa banda and sanay mag write ng songs with a band, and hindi for myself.”

Throughout his career, he played guitar for Peryodiko and Reese Lansangan, wrote songs and performed with bands Maya’s Anklet and especially Autotelic.

“But during the pandemic, nagkagulo gulo, nagka-shift sa mindset and creative outputs,” he said. That was the time when

he finally earned the courage to try venturing the music scene as a solo artist—as totâ himself.

Why “totâ?” He explained that it was what people called him growing up. “Hanggang ngayon, sa bahay, ‘yon ‘yung tawag sa akin,” he shared.

totâ promises to release more music in the future as totâ himself. He revealed he already wrote an album and is looking forward to releasing it sometime this year. He is also considering future collaborations, saying, “I have artists in mind.”

But the question is: is totâ or Josh still a part of Autotelic? The answer is yes.

totâ said he is still performing songs with Autotelic, sharing that they have a lot of upcoming gigs as a band.

He compares the songwriting process as Josh and as totâ, saying, “I can say that the way I write for Autotelic is a general feeling, [‘yung] parang mas pagdadaanan ng pangkaraniwang tao… sa everyday life nila.”

Sa totâ, it’s more personal like I’m talking to myself.

Hinanda ko na rin ang sarili ko na hindi lahat siya madi-digest ,” he reflected.

“I separate myself from Autotelic as totâ,” he said.

“Malikmata” is now available on all major streaming platforms.

T. Anthony C. Cabangon

Josh Villena aka totâ

SoundSampler

by Tony M. Maghirang

New singles to swoon in June

the inside and out and she literally expressed it well with her analogy using porcelain dolls.

band said, “We put a part of ourselves in every music we create to connect and keep our listeners immersed in our own sound.”

“Ballad Of The Golden Pearl”

DIWA Felipe de Leon is a Filipino composer, arranger and producer best known for his world music themed tracks for film and TV. His newest single, the instrumental “Ballad of The Golden Pearl,” Is a tribute to life, peace and love.

In conversation with SoundStrip, Diwa said his latest work is “inspired by the dramatic themes from fantasy role-playing games such as Final Fantasy and Legend of Zelda. The writing itself is very heavy on melodic recall and the harmonies borrow a lot from pop songs and even Filipino kundiman.”

The new track is a “side project” for him but Diwa hopes it takes off among lovers of instrumental music, which is its main target audience. And subsequently, the ballad will lead new fans to his main output--video game music covers on Spotify and YouTube under the pseudonym “String Player Gamer”.

WHILE young singer-songwriter and producer Will Mikhael was trying to discover his muse, he worked on a love song. The result? Will came up with a honeyed and heavenly composition that proved apt to his latest release titled “Sweet & Divine.”

The young music maker shared, “I needed a love ballad on my catalog for people to slow dance to and that’s how “Sweet & Divine” came about. Will also said it’s all about adoring your woman to the fullest. “The song is about nothing but good vibes with your lover,” he added, evident in lines, “Wonderland is where I stand / when I’m with you, baby it’s you / I just wanna fly to the moon with the girl I’m into” The love song is accompanied by a dreamy music video which depicts a romantic escapade in a personal “wonderland”.

THIS OPM pop track from Nichimi revolves solely around sensitivity to personal affection. But being with a partner who is cold and suspicious only makes things a lot worse, so one’s doubts grow even stronger each day. That is, if he could only read her mind, he would understand why she’s distant to him. Nicholas Cioco, professionally known as singer/songwriter, and producer Nichimi, hails from Cavite and is best known for Filipino digital singles like “Crush“, “Langit “, and “Unang Kabanata“.

“PLAY Pretend” from Reanne Borela, a 20-year-old Filipino singer-songwriter from Western Visayas, is a song about breakups. With its melancholic melody, the new track unveils the sad realization how some relationships can’t be mended, leaving the lovers with no choice but to let go. The song does not just refer to the relationship breaking up but also to the persons falling apart as well. Reanne unraveled how heartbreaks could sometimes break you from

SYLTH is a Filipino alternative rock band from Bulacan and their latest offering is an emotional and powerful song about heartbreaks and failed relationships. It’s a metaphorical representation of taking the first step towards a new life together, and how, despite the happy beginning, things can slowly fall apart. The full band version features dramatic strings, guitars, and soulful vocals, making the track touch the heart. The

SB19’ puts forward their unique talent and confidence into the spotlight with their latest single, “Gento” highlighting their collective strength and versatility as a group. The song offers a catchy word play, effortlessly weaving ganito (like this), ginto (gold), and gento, the Caviteño word for ganito. It draws inspiration from transformational change—how incremental and everyday acts lead to success and change. Often, it is the little, simplest acts that lead to triumphs.

Check out these charming singles on your favorite digital music platform.

DIWA DE LEON

REANNE BORELA “Play Pretend”

WILL MIKHAEL “Sweet & Divine”

SYLTH “Pinto”

NACHIMI “Maramdamin”

SB19 “Gento!”

Yeezy shoes are back on sale—months after Adidas cut ties with Kanye West

By Wyatte Grantham-Philips The Associated Press

Adidas ended its yearslong partnership with Ye in late October, in light of his antisemitic remarks and other harmful behavior. In the months that followed, the fate of 1.2 billion euros ($1.3 billion) worth of unsold Yeezys remained unknown—until earlier this month, when Adidas CEO Bjørn Gulden announced the company would be selling a portion of the remaining inventory and donating some of the proceeds to social justice organizations.

The first batch of Adidas’ remaining Yeezys went on sale Wednesday. At this time, the sneakers appear to be available through Adidas’ app “Confirmed,” according to the retailer’s website. Part of the profits will be donated to organizations including the Anti-Defamation League and the Philonise & Keeta Floyd Institute for Social Change, Adidas says.

Wednesday’s release marks the first time that Adidas has sold Yeezys since the partnership termination in October. The Yeezy products up for sale will include already-existing designs as well as those that were initiated in 2022 and set to be released

in 2023, Adidas previously noted.

“We believe [selling and donating these Yeezys] is the best solution as it respects the created designs and produced shoes, it works for our people, resolves an inventory problem, and will have a positive impact in our communities,” Gulden said in an May 19 statement.

At a May 11 annual shareholder meeting, Gulden explained the company made the decision to sell and donate Yeezys after speaking with nongovernmental organizations and groups that were harmed by Ye’s comments and actions.

Some details of Adidas’ plans are still unclear—including how many Yeezys will eventually go on sale and what portion of

sales will be donated. The Associated Press reached out to Adidas for further information on Wednesday.

Cutting ties with Ye cost Adidas hundreds of millions of dollars—contributing to a loss of 600 million euros ($655 million) in sales for the last three months of 2022, which helped drive the company to a quarterly net loss of 513 million euros.

Adidas reported 400 million euros ($441 million) in lost sales at the start of 2023, the company announced earlier this month.

Net sales declined 1 percent in the first quarter, to 5.27 billion euros, the company said. It reported a net loss of 24 million euros, a plunge from a profit of 310 million

euros in the same period a year ago. Operating profit, which excludes some items like taxes, was down to 60 million euros from 437 million euros a year earlier.

Meanwhile, investors also filed a classaction lawsuit against Adidas in late April, alleging the company knew about offensive remarks and harmful behavior from Ye years before terminating its pact with him. Adidas has pushed back on the allegations.

n AP Business Writer David McHugh in Frankfurt, Germany, and AP Retail Writer Anne D’Innocenzio in New York contributed to this report.

Adidas can’t freeze Ye’s $75-million Yeezy marketing payment

ADIDAS AG lost a court bid to freeze $75 million it paid to Ye, the rapper and designer formerly known as Kanye West, to market Yeezy shoes.

At a Tuesday hearing, US District Judge Valerie Caproni in Manhattan rejected Adidas’s arguments that it needed a temporary restraining order to ensure that the funds remain available as its dispute with Ye over the blow-up of their partnership due to his antisemitic statements continues in arbitration.

Adidas had cited press reports that Yeezy could be sliding toward insolvency in arguing that the funds were at risk. But Caproni said the company hadn’t advanced any evidence to support that

claim “beyond tabloid speculation.” She also said Adidas hadn’t shown that it would suffer “irreparable harm” if the funds weren’t frozen.

Caproni said it seemed likely that

Adidas would ultimately prevail in recovering the $75 million in arbitration, where the company is contending Ye violated his contract by making antisemitic remarks. But she said that the company

hadn’t shown it met the legal standard for a restraining order on the money.

At the hearing before Caproni on Tuesday, a lawyer for Ye said the partnership contract called for Yeezy to receive $100 million a year from Adidas in quarterly installments. It’s not clear if the $75 million Adidas sought to freeze is part of that annual payment, but the company claims the funds are restricted to marketing purposes.

Mark Goodman, a lawyer representing Adidas, declined to comment on the ruling. The case is in the matter of application of Adidas AG for an Order of Attachment in Aid of Arbitration, 22-mc00320, US District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan). Bloomberg

WASHInGTOn Some of Adidas’ remaining Yeezy shoes are back on sale—months after the German sportswear company cut ties with Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West.

Cover photo by Ankur Bagai/pexels.com

Yeez Y shoes made by Adidas are displayed at Laced Up, a sneaker resale store, in Paramus, N.J., Tuesday, October 25, 2022. Some of Adidas’ remaining Yeezy shoes are back on sale last week, months after the German sportswear company cut ties with Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West. AP