BusinessMirror September 05, 2021

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A broader look at today’s business n

Sunday, September 5, 2021 Vol. 16 No. 326

P25.00 nationwide | 12 pages | 7 DAYS A WEEK

IN this August 16, 2021, file photo, US soldiers stand guard along the perimeter at the international airport in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Hundreds of Western nationals and Afghan workers have been flown to safety since the Taliban reasserted control over the country. Yet still unprotected, and in hiding, are untold numbers of Afghans who tried to build a fledgling democracy. They include Afghans who worked with foreign forces, and who are now stranded and being hunted by the Taliban, along with aid workers.AP/SHEKIB RAHMANI

STAYING IN HELL

As thousands, understandably, flee what most predict would be certain hell under a restored Taliban regime, some remain, including a doctor who shows how Filipino care beyond borders might yet help heal Afghanistan.

A

By Cai U. Ordinario

Cua remembered the girls: one 9-year-old; the other, 10.

A break from the exchange of gunfire gave the girls a chance to play on the streets. A landmine caught their eyes.

One of the girls picked up and threw the instrument of war. The explosion ripped through a leg of the 9-year-old girl. The older one sustained injuries on her lower limbs.

“Losing your leg at the age of nine is really devastating. But this is the reality,” Cua said. “I have these nephews who are of the same age as them. Just imagining them being brought to the hospital with these injuries... I think it’s not fair.”

SCREECH of a vehicle, car doors opening and loud footsteps broke the afternoon silence enjoyed

by Evangeline Cua of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF or Doctors Without Borders).

In witness

CUA: “Afghans are just like any other people in the world. They also want to live a peaceful life.

They want to work in the morning and come home at night without fearing they’d get shot while walking to and from work.”

A scream of “Please save my son!” in Pashto and a staccato of commands from doctors punctuated the air as Cua and other health workers cut with surgical scissors the bloody perahan turban sticking to the skin of a young man.

A gunshot severed an artery and the loss of blood—it took four hours to get them to the hospital—threatened the young man’s life. Loss of limb or loss of life ran

through Cua and every medical personnel that day.

The father begging for a miracle already lost one son after an airstrike on Kunduz, some 300 kilometers from Afghanistan’s capital of Kabul. Kunduz, home to about 270,000 people, was the fourth regional capital to fall into the Taliban’s hands after the United States began withdrawing its troops from the landlocked coun-

PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 50.0120

A VICTIM receives medical assistance in a hospital after he was wounded in the deadly attacks outside the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, August 26, 2021. Two suicide bombers and gunmen attacked crowds of Afghans flocking to Kabul’s airport, transforming a scene of desperation into one of horror in the waning days of an airlift for those fleeing the Taliban takeover. AP/KHWAJA TAWFIQ SEDIQI

try at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia.

Continuing life

IT was one of the heavy days of fighting when the young man was brought to the hospital, recalled Cua, a Filipino field surgeon and hospital clinical director of MSF in Kunduz. It was only when the young Afghan was wheeled into the emergency room did they realize his father was also wounded.

“They were sleeping in their house when an air strike happened.

He had only two sons and one of his sons died immediately. The other one was wounded. [His gunshot wound punctured] an artery so he might have also died,” Cua said. “[Good thing] his father placed a tourniquet to stop the bleeding.

But it took them more than four hours to access the hospital and seek [treatment].”

Their initial assessment of the

young man’s injury made them less optimistic. The injury and the length of time it took them to get to the hospital threatened to cost the young man his arm, if not his life, according to Cua. It wasn’t happening that day: the young Afghan kept his arm and his life. Thanks to Cua and the medical team in Kunduz.

A reality

TWO girls were not so fortunate.

THESE are just some of the horrific images Cua witnessed working for the 92-bed hospital.

She was one of the survivors of the October 2015 US airstrike on the only center in the Afghan city of Kunduz that provided highquality, free surgical care to victims of all types of trauma.

According to the MSF, it was early morning of a Saturday, October 3, when a US AC-130 gunship “fired 211 shells on the main hospital building where patients were sleeping in their beds or being operated on in the operating theater.

“At least 42 people were killed, including 24 patients, 14 staff and 4 caretakers. Thirty-seven people were injured,” the MSF said. “Our patients burned in their beds, our medical staff were decapitated or lost limbs. Others were shot from the air while they fled the burning building.”

Cua was trapped in a pit.

Continued on A2

n JAPAN 0.4550 n UK 69.2016 n HK 6.4355 n CHINA 7.7465 n SINGAPORE 37.2584 n AUSTRALIA 37.0139 n EU 59.3893 n SAUDI ARABIA 13.3362

Source: BSP (September 3, 2021)

NewsSunday BusinessMirror

A2 Sunday, September 5, 2021

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Rich Asians jump booster shot queue amid vaccine shortages

By Claire Jiao

I

Bloomberg News

N some of Asia’s Covid-19 hotspots, powerful and wealthier citizens are nabbing booster shots even as most people remain unvaccinated, undermining the inoculation strategies of nations struggling with the highly infectious delta variant.

The growing trend in countries like Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines is worsening inequities at a time when they are grappling with vaccine shortages.

In Indonesia—where the health ministry has said boosters are only for health workers—members of the political elite, including the governor of a prominent region, were caught on camera discussing the boosters they received.

The conversation was inadvertently broadcast in a livestream of an event on the Presidential Secretariat’s official channel. President Joko Widodo could be heard saying he hasn’t received a booster because he was waiting for Pfizer Inc.’s shot to be available. Widodo’s office and the governor didn’t respond to requests for comment at the time, and the video has since been deleted.

Thailand is investigating a director and a doctor at two hospitals who allegedly gave Pfizer Inc. jabs meant for pregnant women and health workers to family members and aides. Ronaldo Zamora, a representative for San Juan City in

the Philippines, has spoken openly in a news conference about getting four Covid shots—a round of Pfizer, adding to the Sinopharm Group Co. vaccine he received last year before it was even approved by regulators. His son, a mayor of the same city, later said it was done under doctor’s orders because Zamora was immunocompromised.

The chase for added inoculations comes at a time when there is a growing global debate around booster shots, which have been shown to increase protection against the virus as the delta variant drives up cases worldwide. The World Health Organization (WHO) has urged developed nations to hold off on boosters until supplies are available for poorer nations.

Meanwhile, at the end of August, US President Joe Biden said his administration was considering giving boosters five months after the second dose.

‘Morally questionable’

FOR countries in Southeast Asia that are hamstrung by vaccine shortages, extra doses for the

PEOPLE make their way to a Covid-19 vaccination site set up inside the Marikina Sports Complex in Marikina City on Friday, August 6, 2021. The Philippines capital region is under a strict lockdown called enhanced community quarantine, most businesses are shut and only essential shops like supermarkets and pharmacies can fully operate. BLOOMBERG

well-connected means fewer stockpiles for health professionals or the vulnerable. In the Philippines, Malaysia and Thailand, daily infections are near record levels, while Indonesia’s death toll is among the world’s highest. Displacing others

“J

umping the queue harms not just one or two people. It puts the entire community at risk.”

—Leonila Dans, a clinical epidemiologist

at the University of the Philippines in the vaccine queue is “very morally questionable” and also puts the entire population at greater risk of the virus in the long run, said Voo Teck Chuan, assistant professor at the Centre for Biomedical Ethics of the National University of Singapore.

“You might or might not make yourself safer by taking a booster shot,” Voo said. “But if you let the virus continue to transmit and mutate across your community, you will see more variants and more infections. Then, you’re not sure if your vaccine, no matter how many you’ve taken, will be enough.”

Southeast Asia is particularly emblematic of the complexities of the debate around boosters because countries like Indonesia and the Philippines relied heavily on inactivated shots made by Chinese companies, which studies have found to be less effective than the mRNA vaccines made by Moderna Inc. as well as Pfizer Inc. and its German partner BioNTech SE. With the exception of Singapore, which has met its goal of inoculating 80 percent of its population, many Southeast Asian nations are falling behind their vaccination goals. Both the Philippines and Indonesia are at 13

percent. Vietnam and Thailand are at 10 percent and 11 percent, respectively. The Philippines has yet to approve booster shots, unlike Thailand and Indonesia which have greenlit extra doses for priority groups.

Money, connections, influence

OFTEN, it is money, connections or influence that help people jump the queue for vaccines. However, the rush to distribute shots as quickly and as widely as possible has also left open loopholes for many who want to take advantage.

In Indonesia, instances of booster misuse were spotted in the government’s registry after complaints were raised by whistle-blowers, according to crowd-sourcing platform LaporCovid-19.

In the Philippines, it’s possible to register in one city as a resident and in another as an employee, with no unified database. That’s helping a privileged few with better jobs and higher salaries get added jabs.

A project manager in metropolitan Manila, who asked not to be named discussing his inoculations, initially signed up for a jab with his company because the Philippines allows the private sec-

Staying in hell Continued from A1

On the MSF website, she wrote: “When the volley of shots in the surroundings stopped, we started crawling towards a building, several meters from where we were.”

But instead of leaving, Cua stayed as they tried to rebuild the MSF Trauma Center.

Becoming complicated

ACCORDING to Cua, her primary motivation in doing so has been her desire to help people who are most in need of services that doctors like her can provide. In many of these places, access to medical services can be difficult and knowing that she can do something to help unburden these people is enough reason for her to go back.

The work that she does in war

zones is challenging but it also comes with a sense of fulfillment that, at the end of the day, a child’s life was spared or a young man can look toward a future with his limbs intact.

She admitted that the situation now in Afghanistan has, indeed, become complicated. This despite the uneasy calm in the city after the Taliban, also known as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, took control of the country.

More awareness

MUCH uncertainty clouds the hearts and minds of these workers in Afghanistan. Many know the work that needs to be done is as immense as the threats to their persons.

Cua said some of these include weighing whether the new dispensation in the country would respect the neutrality of medical workers,

tor to procure and vaccinate workers. However, with little clarity on when his vaccine would arrive this year, he chose to take two shots from China’s Sinovac Biotech Ltd. through the government program when supplies became available in a nearby city.

Still, the limited data then available on Sinovac’s effectiveness against the delta strain weighed on his mind, he said. He didn’t report the vaccination to his company and went on to take a round of the Moderna vaccine through the firm this August.

In Indonesia, meanwhile, the military chief, who was also seen and heard on the livestream on the Presidential Secretariat’s official channel, denied getting a vaccine booster and said he had used the term “booster” to refer to a stem cell treatment he had received.

Amid shortages, some in Southeast Asia have resorted to traveling great distances or camping out at health centers just to vie for first or second shot. As governments start to ease lockdown measures for the vaccinated, crowds have swelled further, increasing the risk of infection.

Illicit booster shots undermine the government’s surveillance abilities because if authorities don’t know how many people have been inoculated or what segments of society remain exposed, it hinders their ability to track transmission, said Leonila Dans, a clinical epidemiologist at the University of the Philippines.

“Jumping the queue harms not just one or two people,” Dans said. “It puts the entire community at risk.”

especially women like her, and not lead them to harm.

Yet, she still chooses to be optimistic because of what she knows about the Afghan people. And she believes the world should also know this about them.

“Afghans are just like any other people in the world. They also want to live a peaceful life. They want to work in the morning and come home at night without fearing they’d get shot while walking to and from work,” Cua said.

“Kids here are also like kids in other parts of the world. They also want to go to school; they also just want to play. I don’t know what the political solution will be for this one; it’s beyond my comprehension,” she added. “But everyone has to be more aware that these things are happening.”

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The World

Hurricane Ida aftermath delivers deadly lesson on climate change

A

s Hurricane Ida’s deadly waters receded Thursday from subway stations and roads, playgrounds and apartments, stunned residents of New York and New Jersey confronted their vulnerability, as the old norms of weather no longer apply.

The remnants of a hurricane that first hammered distant New Orleans unleashed a torrent intense enough to kill at least 40 people across the Northeast, to paralyze the nation’s largest and wealthiest city, to halt its lifeblood transit system and conjure a future where residents and economy are constrained by recurrent disasters.

New York and its suburbs, which rebuilt power grids, subways and tunnels after 2012’s Hurricane Sandy flooded lower Manhattan, were paralyzed again. Roads were closed, commuter rail was hobbled and hundreds of flights were canceled. But lasting damage to infrastructure appeared far less this time.

Only 170,000 homes and businesses remained without electricity by noon Thursday, according to PowerOutage.us. Airports were open, though at reduced capacity. Officials promised to have subways running at something like normal service by the evening.

But the storm and its death toll are grim reminders that as the climate changes, weather once considered freakish strikes with regularity, threatening the viability of all coastal economic centers.

“The future threat we spoke about in dire terms, that future is now—it’s happening,” New York Governor Kathy Hochul said in a briefing Thursday. “We’re losing lives, we’re losing property and we can’t continue down this path.”

The summer has already brought deadly flooding in Tennessee and Germany, heat waves shattering all-time temperature records in western Canada, and wildfires raging in California and Greece.

Surprise attack

Ida’s parting hit on New York and the Northeast likely pushed the storm’s overall economic losses and damages into the $50-billion to $60-billion range, said Chuck Watson, a disaster modeler with Enki Research. This would place it fifth on the list of the most costly hurricanes to hit the US, behind Katrina, Harvey, Maria, and Sandy.

Its path through the Northeast had been predicted for days, but its strength was a surprise. The storm collided with the jet stream at the hottest time of the day, when the air was already unstable, said Zack Taylor, a meteorologist with the US Weather Prediction Center.

An area from eastern Pennsylvania to southern New England, including New York, got as much as 8 inches of rain in a few hours. In Central Park, 3.15 inches fell in one hour, setting a record, Taylor said.

“It was the perfect set-up for extreme rainfall, and unfortunately, it happened over one of the most populous corridors of the United States,” Taylor said.

Most residents didn’t see it coming, sometimes with fatal consequences. On the Gulf Coast, Ida killed at least five people. In the Northeast, a weakened storm killed at least eight times that many.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio early Thursday said the storm killed people “who were alive at this exact moment yesterday, with no idea that such a horrible fate could befall them,” he said. In the borough of Queens, three members of the same family died in their basement apartment.

By evening, officials said the city’s death toll had reached 13, while noting that the numbers were preliminary. Eleven fatalities were in Queens and two were in Brooklyn, NYPD Chief of Department Rodney Harrison said at a briefing late Thursday.

The department’s Emergency Service Unit, which evacuated more than 800 people from the subway, also made 166 rescues in response to distress calls, Harrison said. While the unit constantly trains for disasters, this rainfall event was unprecedented, said Harry Wedin, chief of special operations, who oversees the ESU. “Preparing for these storms is something we take very seriously,” Wedin said. “These storms are getting worse and worse.”

In Hillsborough Township, New Jersey, where many roads remained submerged, Governor Phil Murphy said the storm had claimed at least 23 lives across his state. Most died in vehicles, he said. Four people were found dead in an Elizabeth apartment complex. Residents said Thursday that the water rose rapidly.

“It was terrible,” said Yvette Baker, 34. “The water was so high. They had one rowboat trying to save all these people. People were screaming for help.”

Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, officials reported three deaths.

In Connecticut, a state police sergeant was swept away by floodwaters.

Nutley awash

Thirteen miles outside Manhattan in Nutley, New Jersey, a town of about 28,000, a stretch of the business district became inundated as a tributary to the Passaic River overflowed its banks. Franklin Avenue, lined with Italian bakeries and pizzerias, doctor offices and a Dollar Tree, became a raging river, stranding motorists, sending debris crashing through the window of a vacant pork store and flooding businesses.

Mark Vitiello, 51, showed up at his bakery at 3 a.m. to find an abandoned car in his entrance and about a foot of water in his kitchen.

“I’ve been here my whole life and this is the worst I’ve ever seen,” said Vitiello, the third generation of his family to own the local landmark.

Some in low-lying areas fled their homes. Danny Calle, 40, and his 3-month-old daughter, Jolene, were rescued by emergency workers in an inflatable raft who came to their flooded Cranford, New Jersey, home about 10 a.m. Thursday.

“It happened so quick,” said the US Customs and Border Protection employee. “I’m grabbing diapers, grabbing formula, grabbing onesies.

I’m a new dad, so I’m just grabbing everything.”

Unequal inundation

The storm flooded the basements of many businesses and homes in the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Bedford-Stuyvesant and Crown Heights, said Chi Ossé, a Democratic candidate for City Council. “It is mostly black and brown folks or working-class folks who are dealing with the flooding right now,” he said.

With homes and belongings soaked and few resources, they face a rough recovery, he said. “Many of our residents who live in basements have flooded homes,” he said. “Their items are ruined.”

The Thursday morning commute brought idled trains and confusion. At Newark Liberty International Airport, workers cleaned up the flood damage in Terminal B. At Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan, all Metro-North Railroad trains were cancelled in both directions.

Wanda Campbell of Brooklyn, was trying to get to White Plains. She had been waiting for a train for hours but said she might just head home.

At Penn Station, attorney Matthew Marino was trying to get to Staten Island for court, meaning he needed to catch a downtown subway to reach the ferry. “I did not think the subways would be this bad,” said Marino, 54, “They have no idea what, when, or how service will be restored.” Bloomberg News

BusinessMirror

Sunday, September 5, 2021

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Investors face ‘transitional shock’ as climate crisis hits

P

By Charles Daly

ut simply, the climate crisis represents the “biggest market failure of all time.”

The observation comes from Knut Kjaer, the founding chief executive of what is now the world’s biggest sovereign wealth fund and, more recently, an evangelist for planet-preserving investment strategies.

The 65-year-old Norwegian, who’s also a co-author of the United Nations-backed Principles for Responsible Investment, says good climate strategies require much longer time horizons than stock markets generally allow.

Asset managers need to prepare for the “massive change” that’s coming over the next decade, Kjaer said in an interview. From both an investment and policy perspective, that means anticipating new behavior patterns as people try to adapt to a hotter and less stable environment. Failure to adapt implies “a much bigger transitional shock later,” he said.

Today, as the chairman of a private equity firm called FSN Capital, Kjaer won’t touch fossil fuels: “We normally don’t take a bad company and make it good.”

In fact, he says FSN’s investment models, which look at a company over horizons as long as 10 years, flash “Don’t Touch” when it comes to “brown companies.”

Kjaer doesn’t use the same jargon as many of his peers in environmental, social and governance investing. Instead, he speaks of the dismal future ahead after a persistent mispricing of carbon that’s led to chronic overuse. He also blames “irrational human behavior” for the mess in which the planet now finds itself.

Such comments have begun to strike a nerve as some of the puffery around ESG investing starts bumping up against reality. Former insiders have come forward to expose what they say are the misleading ESG claims being made by investment professionals. And asset managers that made bold declarations about their ESG credentials now find themselves the target of international investigations.

Meanwhile, scientists have made clear that the planet is over-

heating at a more dangerous pace than previously thought. And only by dramatically cutting carbon emissions does humanity stand a chance of avoiding a climate catastrophe, they say.

Adapting to heat

The financial industry has responded to the looming planetary crisis by creating a $35-trillion ESG market, in which many products come at a premium. And money keeps pouring in. Investment in ESG exchange-traded funds more than doubled last week, marking a 52nd straight week of inflows. But a growing army of climate watchdogs is increasingly finding gaping holes in products sold as green.

Kjaer says he’s not convinced the global finance industry has the power to deliver the needed change. In part because any meaningful ESG strategy should apply to much longer time horizons than those typical of publicly traded markets, though he readily acknowledges that not all investment models can allow themselves the selective approach FSN takes.

The companies Kjaer’s firm invested in saw an 11-percent jump in total revenues last year, while their operating profit (Ebitda) went up 35 percent, according to its website. In June, FSN said it had to take in more investor cash than planned after its latest financing

Tangled Vietnam supply chain shows threat to global economy

V

ietnam is on the front lines of the battle for global supply chains.

The troubles are increasingly clear in trade and manufacturing data, with the latest purchasing managers index readings for August falling to their lowest level since April 2020, deep in contractionary territory.

Of 53 countries in Bloomberg’s Covid Resilience Ranking, the bottom five are all in Southeast Asia, with Vietnam—at No. 50—down four spots from the previous month amid a resurgent outbreak and lagging vaccination drive. Those same five countries provide about 6 percent of global exports and supply crucial inputs to the world’s top economies, including half of US semiconductor imports, according to estimates

by Natixis.

That’s not just a crisis for Vietnam, which remained one of the world’s rare high-growth trade powerhouses even well into the pandemic. Global brands already struggling with sky-high shipping costs are scrambling to protect workers in the trade powerhouse’s factories, and to untangle supply chains that snarl further with every port closure or production suspension across Asia—just as the order period for the year-end holiday shopping season is under way.

“We’re quickly moving into a situation where American kids are going to open gift-wrapped boxes under the Christmas tree to find a little note that says, ‘Sorry, that cool present from your Mom and Dad isn’t available right now. Please wait about six months,’” said Adam

Sitkoff, executive director of the American Chamber of Commerce in Hanoi.

Calling Pfizer

Last week’s visit to Hanoi by US Vice President Kamala Harris, which brought an additional 1 million vaccine doses on top of the 5 million the US had already given donated to Vietnam, couldn’t alter the stark reality: Less than 3 percent of Vietnam’s 100 million-plus population is fully vaccinated, and infections and deaths are reaching grim levels each day.

The 1 million additional vaccines were half of what China pledged to Vietnam a day before Harris’s arrival. China has donated 2.7 million vaccine doses to Vietnam, including 500,000 prioritized for Chinese citizens working in Vietnam, Vietnamese who need to travel to China for work or study and residents along the Chinese border.

Vietnam’s government has prioritized vaccinating workers at factories, from Samsung Electronics Co. in the north to Intel Corp. and garment factories in Ho Chi Minh City.

“The big US companies should call Pfizer and Washington and say it’s critical for US companies to keep their production live, so give more vaccines to Vietnam quickly,” said Csaba Bundik, Hanoi-based chief executive officer of CETA Consulting, and former executive director of the European Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam.

‘Minor’ donation

On her two-day visit, Harris acknowledged Vietnam’s

supply to the US of personal protective equipment early in the pandemic, and opened the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Southeast Asia regional office in Hanoi. The US added $23 million in aid for Vietnam’s pandemic response, bringing the total it has supplied to about $44 million, according to the White House.

The vaccine donation is “a sign that the Biden administration has listened to the concerns raised by our industry,” Steve Lamar, president and CEO of the American Apparel and Footwear Association, said by e-mail this week. “That said, there is still a long way to go in the battle with Covid-19, and we will continue to highlight the difficulties faced by our partner countries and the need for more vaccines.”

Vietnamese businesses and consumers expressed gratitude for the vaccine donations, while echoing the cry of many developing nations that advanced economies should do more to share their vaccine supplies in the interest of all.

“Six million is so minor for such a big vaccine-producing country, especially when we have been supplying a lot to the US,” said Nguyen Sy Hoe, deputy general director of Vietnamese furniture producer Phu Tai Corp., which makes home furnishings for WalMart Stores Inc. outlets in the US and European markets.

“Many Vietnamese companies are facing a big chance of not being able to make the planned deliveries for the coming holiday season, so helping us is also benefiting them.” Bloomberg News

round was oversubscribed. The 1.8 billion euros ($2.1 billion) it generated will by placed into mid-sized companies in Northern Europe that live up to so-called Article 8—or light green—standards as defined in the EU’s Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation.

Rebecca Svensoy, FSN’s legal counsel, says part of the firm’s strategy is to assume that the world will look different as the fallout of climate change makes itself felt.

“We have prepared for a transition scenario and an adaption scenario, on a portfolio level,” she says. Part of that involves having a “separate due diligence approach” that specifically targets climate change, she said.

Kjaer says that “for every investment we do and every action we take in a portfolio company, we must have a 10-year-plus horizon.”

The upshot is that the strategy at FSN “is aligned with” limiting temperature increases to 1.5 degrees Celsius, as targeted in the Paris Agreement.

But Kjaer isn’t one to kid himself on the broader outlook. Even that level of temperature rise implies a “huge worsening” of the climate compared with today, he acknowledges.

So adaption is a strategy that “we need to apply,” he said.

Bloomberg News

More than 1 billion Asians will join global middle class by 2030

M

ore than 1 billion Asians are set to join the global middle class by 2030, according to a new study that predicts the pandemic will prove just a temporary pause in the world economy’s great demographic shift.

The middle class—households where per-capita spending is between $11 and $110 a day— amounts to some 3.75 billion people this year, according to the World Data Lab. That cohort is projected to keep growing through 2030 with India and China, the most populous countries, adding about threequarters of a billion members between them.

The other biggest contributors are also in Asia. They include countries like Indonesia— projected to have the world’s fourth-biggest middle class by 2030, overtaking Russia and Japan—and Bangladesh, a densely populated country the size of Iowa, which is set to rise up the rankings faster than any other nation. It’s forecast to jump from 28th to 11th place, adding more than 50 million middleclass consumers.

Asian countries already make up more than half of the world’s middle class, but they account for only 41 percent of that group’s consumer spending, according to the study. The share is set to exceed 50 percent by 2032.

China, India and the US are projected to retain the top three rankings as the countries with the largest middle-class populations, according to World Data Lab. Slow or negative population growth in some advanced economies will lead to a shrinking middle class in countries like Japan, Germany, Italy and Poland. Bloomberg News

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Sunday, September 5, 2021

The World BusinessMirror

Lithium fuels hopes for revival on California’s largest lake By elliot spagat

C

The Associated Press

ALIPATRIA, California—Near Southern California’s dying Salton Sea, a canopy next to a geothermal power plant covers large containers of salty water left behind after super-hot liquid is drilled from deep underground to run steam turbines. The containers connect to tubes that spit out what looks like dishwater, but it’s lithium, a critical component of rechargeable batteries and the newest hope for economic revival in the depressed region.

Demand for electric vehicles has shifted investments into high gear to extract lithium from geothermal brine, salty water that has been overlooked and pumped back underground since the region’s first geothermal plant opened in 1982. The mineral-rich byproduct may now be more valuable than the steam used to generate electricity.

California’s largest but rapidly shrinking lake is at the forefront of efforts to make the US a major global player in the production of lithium.

Despite large deposits of the ultralight metal in the US, Nevada has the country’s only lithium plant, and US production lags far behind Australia, Chile, Argentina and China.

Decades of environmental ruin have left some residents on the Salton Sea’s receding shores indifferent or wary. They have been disappointed before, most recently by solar plants that failed to be the economic engine many hoped.

The Salton Sea formed in 1905 after the Colorado River breached a dike and two years of flooding filled a sizzling basin, earning it the nickname “The Accidental Sea.” In the 1950s, the lake thrived as a tourist destination, drawing anglers, boaters and celebrity visitors including Frank Sinatra.

But storms in the 1970s destroyed marinas and resorts.

Flooding wrecked many homes in the tiny, former resort town of Bombay Beach, and after the water dried, left an almost apocalyptic atmosphere that has recently attracted artists.

The lake level peaked in 1995 but, with little rain, has since been evaporating faster than Colorado River water seeping downhill through farms can replenish as farmers conserved more water.

Since 2003, the 324-squaremile (839-square-kilometer) lake has shrunk 40 square miles (104 square kilometers), exposing vast lakebed with microscopic windblown dust that contributes to poor air quality and asthma.

The sea has been a key stopover for migrating birds. But as the lake has shrunk, the fish population has declined, chasing away about 25 percent of the more than 400 bird species that populated it five years ago, said Frank Ruiz, Audubon California’s Salton Sea program director. Carcasses of oxygen-starved tilapia no longer blanket shores periodically with a stench that could reach Los Angeles because there are so few left.

In Salton City, a town of about 6,000, roads curve along empty lots, a legacy of its first developer who stopped construction in 1960.

Street signs with idyllic names like Harbor Drive and Sea Shore Avenue mark a barren landscape of cracked pavement.

Pat Milsop, a 61-year-old retired restaurant owner, hits golf balls across a dry canal. His view is filled with dilapidated docks on bone-dry soil that harbored boats when his mother-in-law bought his house in 2004. He is skeptical that lithium will restore some of the lake’s glory.

“Are they going to do something good for the community or just buy up all the land and kick everybody out?” he asks. Nostalgic for livelier days, he plans to move to his farm near Lubbock, Texas.

The lake is at the southern tip of the San Andreas Fault, which has shifting tectonic plates that bring molten material closer to Earth’s surface. The only other part of the US known to have more geothermal brine available is on the fault’s other end in Northern California.

Rod Colwell, chief executive of Controlled Thermal Resources Ltd., oversees construction of what would be the region’s first geothermal power plant in nearly a decade.

General Motors Corp. said it invested in the project as it seeks to eliminate tailpipe emissions from light-duty vehicles by 2035.

The lake’s southern shores are dotted with small, volcano-like pots of bubbling mud caused by geothermal activity. In 2011, Colwell walked about a mile in the Salton Sea’s knee-deep water—all of it now evaporated, with a fine powder below a white, cracked crust.

Lakebed is considered an ideal spot for lithium. The company says it plans to drill down 8,000 feet (2,438 meters) for super-hot liquid.

“There is no brine resource like this anywhere on the planet,” said Colwell, who relied on years of extensive, publicly available reports analyzing the area’s soil.

He said the $520-million plant will start producing lithium in 2024.

Owners of 11 existing geothermal plants around the lake’s southern shores are retooling for lithium and possibly other brine minerals instead of building from scratch. Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Energy Co. has state and federal grants for lithium demonstration projects and says it could begin construction for commercial operations in 2024.

EnergySource LLC opened its geothermal plant in 2012 and its sister company, EnergySource Minerals, has extracted lithium there on a small scale since 2016, said Derek Benson, chief operating officer. It plans to start building a $500 million addition for mineral extraction by the end of March.

Rod Colwell, CEO of Controlled Thermal Resources, walks on the company’s property, which will be mined for lithium, in Niland, Calif., near the shores of the Salton Sea, on July 15. Demand for electric vehicles has shifted investments into high gear to extract lithium from geothermal wastewater around the shrinking body of water. The ultralight metal is critical to rechargeable batteries. AP/Marcio Jose Sanchez

An easily overlooked metal structure faces the plant across a two-lane rural road. Bolted down by tons of concrete, it drills more than 4,000 feet (1,219 meters) underground for steam that allows for electricity to be generated and delivered to the Salt River Project, a utility with 2 million customers in central Arizona.

Before it’s pumped back underground, the brine is “borrowed” for a few hours to extract lithium under a nearby canopy, Benson said.

Extracting lithium from geothermal brine has never been done on a commercial scale. There are two dominant production methods: mining for rocks and using cooler brine that bakes under the sun in large ponds for about two years until the water evaporates. The Nevada plant uses evaporation ponds.

San Diego-based EnergySource operates on the former site of Simbol Materials, a heavily hyped company that used geothermal brine and flopped in 2015 after negotiations collapsed over Tesla Inc.’s $325-million offer to buy it. Business decisions caused the company’s demise, according to industry experts and executives affiliated with the latest projects. Technology has since improved, they say, and so have market conditions.

Demand for lithium has soared as more carmakers shift to electric. California has targeted 2035 to achieve zero emissions from all cars and trucks sold in the state.

The Biden administration hopes to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.

“This is the moment where a number of trends, the conf luence of them, have finally come together,” Benson said.

Detailed environmental impact reviews, required by California law, have not been released. Benson says his company’s geothermal brine technology uses much less land and about one-fifth the water of evaporation ponds and emits one-seventh the carbon dioxide of rock-mining.

Unique geochemical characteristics bring risk regardless of technology, said Alexander Grant, principal at research firm Jade Cove Partners.

“It’s very easy to fall into this narrative that the technology is not proven, but that is fundamentally not the right way to look at it,” said Grant, a Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory research affiliate. “The fact is that it’s hard to build lithium projects.”

Smokestacks shooting steam at geothermal power plants are a towering presence amid flat fields of lettuce, melons and alfalfa.

Despite hugely productive land that stocks US supermarkets with winter vegetables, Imperial County has a poverty rate of 22 percent, among California’s highest. El Centro, the county seat, perennially

has one of the highest unemployment rates among 389 US metropolitan areas.

Many farmworkers commute daily from Mexicali, Mexico, to pick vegetables in winter and melons in spring. In the summer, snowbirds flee stifling heat and people stay inside, making towns and fields look deserted.

Lithium has generated cautious optimism. EnergySource expects to contribute $80 million to $90 million annually to the economy, largely through payroll, taxes and royalties. Controlled Thermal Resources is expected to create 1,400 jobs, according to the Imperial Valley Economic Development Corp.

“How do we end up with this great opportunity before us but at the same time not get burned?” said Luis Olmedo, executive director of Comite Civico del Valle, which advocates for low-income and underserved residents, and a member of the Lithium Valley Commission, a state panel to promote the lake’s lithium resources.

The lake depends entirely on Colorado River water gravitating through canals across hundreds of thousands of acres of chemical-laden farms. Amid growth, Arizona demanded its full entitlement of river water, forcing California to end its overuse. In 2003, squabbling California agencies settled on shifting large amounts of the state’s share to San Diego, meaning less water for Imperial County farms and, by extension, the Salton Sea. Persistent drought tied to climate change raises the prospect of even less Colorado River water seeping downhill into the lake.

Longtime residents miss when eared grebes, cormorants and white and brown pelicans were more abundant.

“The noise was awesome,” said Carlene Ness, 74, who bought a western shore house with her late husband in 1999. “That’s what everybody bought for, and we have to fight for it.”

In Calipatria, a city of 8,000 closest to the geothermal investments, lithium may be the biggest boon since two state prisons opened in the early 1990s. On a stifling July day, a gas station on the main street was the only establishment with activity.

Ruben Hernandez, 54, has worked for an Imperial Valley landowner since he was 8. He and his wife own a Mexican restaurant in the largely deserted town of Niland.

His wife wants to stay, but “there’s nothing here, no town,” he said.

Lithium project backers who come for breakfast tell him he could eventually be feeding 20 to 30 people and delivering lunches to their plant.

“If they are going to lift this tow n up, it wou ld be g reat,” Her na ndez sa id.

Editor: Angel R. Calso • www.businessmirror.com.ph

Resilient demand keeps driving India’s world-beating growth

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he economic toll from a deadly second wave of Covid-19 that swept through India last quarter doesn’t appear to be as bad as feared, with analysts still seeing the nation pulling off the world’s fastest growth this year.

A better-than-expected manufacturing performance and a milder hit to services, combined with a robust pace of vaccinations, have helped keep the annual growth outlook for the economy steady at 9.2 percent, according to a Bloomberg survey. That pace is the same seen in a poll last month and the quickest among major economies.

“The economic damage appears to be less than previously expected,” said Rahul Bajoria, chief India economist at Barclays Bank Plc. “With the second outbreak brought under control, a rapid recovery appears under way,” he said.

Data due later Tuesday will likely show gross domestic product grew 21 percent in the three months through June from a year ago, according to the median of 45 estimates compiled by Bloomberg, mainly as a bounce back from last year’s crash.

The big pop, however, will likely obscure a slowing from the previous quarter, caused by activity curbs to stem the second wave of the virus.

While the government doesn’t report an official quarter-on-quarter figure, Bloomberg Economics estimates the economy slumped sequentially, contracting 12 percent from the JanuaryMarch period.

“There is some pent-up demand but there is also a fair amount of scarring in the Indian economy,” Raghuram Rajan, a professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and former governor of the Reserve Bank of India, told Bloomberg TV. The poor and small businesses “are going to be stressed entities and their demand is going to be much more limited as we come out of the pandemic.”

In recent months, India’s annual growth forecast has gone from being upgraded to double digits to slashed by the steepest rate amid uncertainty about Covid’s devastation on the economy. But recent data from highfrequency indicators have shown the

impact of pandemic restrictions were less severe than last year, with demand staying resilient.

Factory managers in India saw a surge in activity in July, reflecting a pick up in new orders, while a similar survey of services’ purchasing managers showed the sector was inching back toward expansion. Exports, which account for nearly a fifth of the economy, have been growing for the past eight months signaling strong global demand.

“The recovery from the second wave has been faster with activity indicators recovering lost ground in less than three months compared to 10 months in the first wave,” said Gaura Sen Gupta, an economist with IDFC First Bank. “High frequency growth indicators show that the economic cost of the lockdowns was lower.”

The milder hit to the economy coincides with India’s vaccination rate picking up pace over the last few weeks. And there’s room for further improvement, given that the country has managed to inoculate only just over 10 percent of it’s population— a key vulnerability given risks from a possible third wave of infections.

India started seeing a swift recovery in June and July-September quarter has so far been very good, Shubhada Rao, founder at QuantEco Research in Mumbai, said in an interview to Bloomberg TV. But risks loom in the form of an impending third wave and if monsoon continues to disappoint, she added.

The threat from the pandemic has also kept the nation’s central bank from unwinding its ultra-easy monetary policy, with Governor Shaktikanta Das last week reiterating that policy-makers wouldn’t reverse course suddenly despite mounting inflationary pressures.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi plans to complement the monetary stimulus with fiscal measures. His government aims to raise 6 trillion rupees ($81.9 billion) by leasing out state-owned infrastructure assets over the next four years to fund new capital expenditure without further widening the budget deficit.

Bloomberg News

Fraying relations with China to hit Australian economy

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ustralia’s econom ic resilience in the wake of China’s efforts to punish it for diplomatic slights has some Down Under declaring victory.

They might be speaking too soon.

Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said last month that China’s campaign to “make us more compliant” has “completely backfired.” Beijing’s pressure, he added, “has demonstrated to China that they can pull all these levers and it doesn’t actually work.”

Exports continue to scale record heights even as China has blocked or limited a growing number of imports from Australia since May 2020. Still, the dispute—China accuses Australia of taking a hostile approach on issues ranging from a clampdown on foreign investment to questions on the origins of Covid-19—is casting a shadow over the future.

Even as Beijing has left the immensely profitable iron ore sector untouched until recently, it’s focusing on Australian products that would form the backbone of future trade, such as lobsters and wine, and warning its students against studying there.

“In the future that’s where the growth will be, all this middleincome stuff, and unfortunately that’s what’s being impacted in this conflict with China,” said Bob Gregory, a professor at Australian National University who has studied the economy for half a century.

It’s a dramatic change from 2014, when President Xi Jinping visited Australia and agreed to sign a free-trade agreement meant to expand Australian exports and bring jobs.

Now the hopes for larger markets and more jobs are in tatters, as tariffs drive up the costs for some

goods and Australia’s reputation in China tumbles. The flow of investment has also fallen away, at least partly due to Canberra’s newfound hostility to money from Chinese companies.

Longtime bonanza

Australia had ridden the China bonanza for nearly two decades, earning windfalls from mineral exports and income gains from cheap imports. That continues for now, with China’s punitive trade actions targeting commodities from coal to barley, lobsters and wine, but leaving iron ore untouched.

Yet while the metal has scaled new heights this year, pushing imports to a record $15.2 billion in July, China is now reining in its steel industry, and the price of iron ore has fallen 39 percent from a May peak. Demand will likely wane further as China’s economy shifts toward greater emphasis on services, and as Beijing tries to diversify iron-ore supply and cut carbon emissions.

Relations have soured since 2018, when Australia barred Huawei Technologies Co. from building its 5G network, and went into freefall last year as Prime Minister Scott Morrison led calls for an independent probe into the origins of the coronavirus that first emerged in China.

C h i nese Foreig n Mi n i st r y Spokesman Zhao Lijian made clear in July that the trade sanctions were in retaliation for Australia’s actions.

“We will not allow any country to reap benefits from doing business with China while groundlessly accusing and smearing China and undermining China’s core interests,” he said. Bloomberg News

Science

BusinessMirror

www.businessmirror.com.ph • Editor: Lyn Resurreccion

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Sunday, September 5, 2021

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DOST to present 21 high-impact programs, STI projects for the future

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s the country grapples with the negative effect of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) continues to find practical solutions that will help the Filipinos surpass these challenges.

The Science department, backed by a strong pool of competent scientists, researchers and innovators will present the 21 high-impact technologies and research and development (R&D) projects in the areas of health and nutrition, industry competitiveness, enterprise development, disaster management and risk reduction, education, and agriculture, among others.

Dubbed as Big 21 in 2021, the special launching will be aired live on September 7 at 10 a.m. via

Zoom and the DOST Philippines Facebook page.

According to Science Secretary Fortunato T. de la Peña, the 21 big-ticket technologies, projects and R&D initiatives are poised to alleviate the conditions of the Filipinos particularly in the regions not only during this pandemic but beyond.

“We already envisioned the changes imminent to creating collective value for our people and our communities using science,

Virgin coconut oil as adjunct therapy for Covid-19 is one of the technologies and projects to be showcased in the "Big 21 in 2021" by the DOST on September 7. Photo from DOST web site

technology and innovation much earlier, even without Covid-19 yet, and this made us future-ready as we intensified our efforts in developing solutions to current problems involving health, food security, livelihood enhancement and utilizing emerging technologies towards a better normal,” de la Peña said.

Some of the technologies and projects to be bannered during the launch are the following: nutritional genomics of the Food and Nutrition Research Institute; the Biosafety Level 2+ Laboratory for the Virology and Vaccine Institute of the Philippines; virgin coconut oil as adjunct therapy for Covid-19; the Nicer Projects on Smart Water

Infrastructure Management Research and Development Center in Region II and the Center for Sustainable Polymers in Region X. The Advanced Manufacturing Center as a hub for additive manufacturing, or 3D printing; the Advanced Mechatronics, Robotics, and Industrial Automation Laboratory; the Spectral Acceleration Maps Atlas, the latest probabilistic seismic hazard model developed

by Phivolcs.

The Establishment of Early Warning Systems and Observing Stations from Pagasa; the partnership of DOST with Coursera spearheaded by DOST- Caraga to provide free access to 3,800 courses offered by international universities online.

The successful entrepreneurs under the Small Enterprise Technology Upgrading Program 4.0 to align with the initiatives of the 4th Industrial Revolution; and the model communities under the Community Empowerment

through Science and Technology program that has been expanded; among others.

According to DOST Undersecretary Dr. Rowena Cristina L. Guevara for Research and Development, despite the many setbacks brought by the Covid-19 pandemic, the DOST, in launching the 21 technologies and R&D projects, remains very bullish and optimistic that through science, technology and innovation, the country can definitely move forward and adapt to the new normal.

“We invite you to create our own future by discovering our local technologies and new knowledge products with the Big 21 in 2021," Guevara said.

"Similarly, we call on the government policy-makers, technopreneurs, integrators and investors to share with us your ideas and resources so we can shape our future together as development partners,” Guevara added.

S&T Media Services

PHL’s Maya-3 and Maya-4 cube sats reach ISS

By Lyn B. Resurreccion

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Anti-dengue capsules developed by Pharmalytics Corp. containing ingredients from locally available plants. DOST-PCHRD photo

Clinical trial on anti-dengue herbal capsule near completion

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he Tuklas Lunas program of t he De pa r t me nt of Science and Technology (DOST) remains in full swing as one of its projects is set for completion soon.

The clinical trial, which costs nearly P12 million and is being implemented by Pharmalytics Corp., is funded by the DOST through its Philippine Council for Health Research and Development (PCHRD).

The randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study being conducted in Cavite, aims to determine the efficacy and safety of an herbal capsule when taken orally by adults with dengue fever but showing no warning signs.

Dengue is a mosquito-borne

infection which incidence has been steadily increasing in tropical countries, like in the Philippines, where it is considered as one of the top health problems.

Once proven safe and effective, the herbal capsule will be the first definitive treatment for dengue.

It could pave the way for use in cases showing warning signs and even in severe types.

On the economic side, farmers can benefit from cultivating any of the three medicinal plants, the increased demand for which may come from local pharmaceutical companies that could manufacture the treatment for domest ic and even overseas markets.

Allyster A. Endozo, S&T Media Services

aya-3 and Maya-4, the first Philippine university-built cube satellites (cube sats), have successfully reached the International Space Station (ISS) on August 30.

The two cube sats were loaded, together with 4,800 pounds of supplies and science experiments, in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (Nasa) SpaceX’s Commercial Resupply Services 23 mission (CRS23) Dragon Cargo Spacecraft that docked at ISS. The docking of Dragon to ISS was beamed live on Nasa’s web site, which was covered by the media worldwide, including the BusinessMirror.

T h e Na s a a n no u n c e d t h e confir mation of the dock ing.

“We have confirmed the contact and capture [of Dragon Cargo to ISS] at 9:30 a.m. Central Time, 10:30 a.m. Eastern Time [10:30 p.m. Philippine time, when the space station was] over Western Australia,” it said in live broadcast.

S p a c e X ’s C R S -2 3 D r a g o n Cargo Spacecraft, through the Space X Fa lcon 9 rocket, was launched on August 29 at past 3 p.m., Philippine time.

Once the cube sats are released from the ISS, they will move along an orbit similar to the space station’s at an altitude of approximately 400 kilometers.

The SpaceX’s CRS-23 Dragon Cargo Spacecraft docks at the International Space Station on August 30. Screenshot from Nasa live stream by Lyn B. Resurreccion

“Stay tuned for news about the Maya-3 and Maya-4 cube sats’ deployment from the ISS in the coming weeks. Once the cube sats are released to space, the ground team can begin to check its health and prepare for operations,” said the Sustained Support for Local Space Technology and Applications Mastery, Innovation and Advancement (Stamina4Space) Program in its Facebook page after the docking last August 30.

A “crowning moment” for the Philippines was how Science Secretary Fortunato T. de la Peña described the launching of the cube sats into space, as he also felt “proud and hopeful” as a Filipino for having the Maya-3 and Maya4 developed in the country.

Maya-3 and Maya-4 were the first Filipino cube sats built in a university in the country, at the

University of the Philippines Diliman (UPD).

T hey were built under the Space Science and Technology Proliferation through Universit y Pa r t nersh ips (S TeP- U P) project of the Stamina4Space Program, which is funded by the Department of Science and Technology (DOST).

It is implemented by the UPD and the DOST-Advanced Science and Technology Institute, in collaboration with the Kyushu Institute of Technology in Japan, and with scholarship support from the DOST’s Science Education Institute.

M ay a - 3 a nd M ay a - 4 we re developed by the first batch of STeP-UP scholars composed of eight students, namely Gladys Bajaro, Derick Canceran, Bryan Cu stod io, L or i ly n Daqu ioag ,

To ”commemorate the experience,” Nasa sent this passport stamp via e-mail to those who watched online the launching of SpaceX CRS-23 Resupply Mission to space on August 29. Nasa.gov

Mar iel le Magbanua- Gregor io, Christy Raterta, Judiel Reyes, and Renzo Wee. The cube sats’ development was part of the course requirements of the Master of Science or Master of Engineering under the nanosatellite engineering track.

Each cube sat weighs approximately 1.15 kg with 10-cubic cm frames. They have components that are desig ned to demonstrate nanosatellite-based remote data collection systems and optical imaging.

Their mission and payloads were conceptualized and developed to test and demonstrate technologies that can on be used to provide data that may be used in applications of various sectors, such as agriculture, environment and natural resources, and disaster risk reduction and management, among others.

UN PHL and DOST seek to strengthen South-South and Triangular Cooperation

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he United Nations Country Team (UNCT) in the Philippines and the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) pursue collaboration on strategic opportunities in science, technology and innovation (STI) in the country.

The UN aims to set up a South-South and Triangular Cooperation (SSTC) facility.

Dr. Harnik Deol, the Lead International Consultant on SSTC of the UNCT in the Philippines, met with DOST’s Assistant Secretary Leah J. Buendia on August 27 to discuss and identify their respective agencies’ possible strategic partnership on STI. Based on the 2019 UN

Dr. Harnik Deol (left), the Lead International Consultant on South-South and Triangular Cooperation of the United Nations Country Team in the Philippines, and DOST’s Assistant Secretary Leah J. Buendia. DOST-ITCU photo

Conference on South-South Cooperation, the member states of the United Nations development system have urged the international agency to “enhance assistance for developing countries and

to act as an enabler in seeking or facilitating potential cooperation partners in several strategic areas.”

It is in line with national development priorities, as well as to continue to support

regional and subregional organizations in promoting sustainable development practices.

Buendia and Deol discussed the Philippines’ strengths in STI, such as in food processing

and innovation, agriculture and waste management.

Buendia pointed out the various priority areas of the department in accordance with the DOST Agenda 2017-2022, such as health sufficiency, food and nutrition, agriculture, biodiversity, transport and mobility, industrial manufacturing, creative industry, renewable energy, OneLab and OneSTore.

Deol, on the other hand, said the Philippines can also benefit from SSTC, and asked about the preferred modalities of cooperation of the DOST and the areas where it can explore more.

For her part, Buendia

identified that the country can learn more on artificial intelligence, industrialization/Industry 4.0, and nuclear science research, especially for medical applications.

The UN official, upon learning the DOST’s strengths, expressed optimism about the possible future collaborations.

Buendia pointed out that the DOST will remain committed to contribute to the success of the UN’s initiative in SSTC, and the Department will continue to cooperate with the UN Country Team in the Philippines to establish the SSTC facility. Karen Lou Mabagos, S&T Media Services

Faith

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Editor: Lyn Resurreccion • www.businessmirror.com.ph

Laudato si’: Science offers faith tools amid climate crisis

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audato si’ speaks to people in ways that a scientist cannot.

Pope Francis really gives us a gift to communicate where science plays into integral ecology, as part of a larger responsibility.”

Dr. Gregory Asner shows Pope Francis a map on biodiversity at a papal audience last Thursday. VaticanMedia

That remark sums up for one scientist the pope’s contribution to promoting integral ecology among people of all religions.

According to Dr. Gregory Asner, a US-born climate and biodiversity scientist, faith and science can work together on the

Bishop condemns killing of Cebu HR lawyer

Human-rights lawyer Rex Fernandez.

PHOTO FROM ATTY. FERNANDEZ’S FACEBOOK ACCOUNT

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C atholic bishop e xpressed grief over the “senseless mu rder” of human-rights lawyer Rex Fernandez and urged authorities to investigate the incident.

Bishop Gerardo Alminaza of San Carlos, head convenor of the Visayas Clergy Discernment Group (VCDG), said the killings of innocents must stop.

“We join the call for a speedy investigation of his [Fernandez] murder,” Alminaza said.

A hooded gunman ambushed Fernandez’s car and killed the lawyer in Cebu City on August 26. His driver was also hurt in the attack.

Alminaza said the lawyer, a former Redemptorist seminarian, “had a heart for the people and had touched so many lives.”

Since 2010, Fernandez had actively supported the bishops and clergy of VCDG and the Archdiocese of Cebu Discernment Group on issues, such as labor rights, urban poor welfare, environment protection and good governance.

The prelate added that when the clergy, religious and lay people in the Visayas needed legal assistance, the law yer readily offered his time and expertise.

“We pray that Attorney Rex did not die in vain. In fact, his sacrifice should lead us to a conversion of heart and mind to that of Jesus’,” Alminaza added.

“In effect, we can courageously and consistently pursue efforts to address the roots of sinful social structures and evil practices,” he pointed out. CBCP News

issue of climate change and are not opposed, as seen in the Pope’s 2015 encyclical.

Asner spoke to Jean-Charles Putzolu on the sidelines of a papal audience in the Vatican on Thursday with the Laudato si’ Movement, formerly known

as the Global Catholic Climate Movement.

Faith and science work together

“Hear ing Pope Francis, the Church, and Laudato si’, I see an understanding that [the issue of climate change and biodiversity] is critical,” Asner said. “We have to play a role in improving our conditions across the planet for people and for nature.”

Science and faith, he added, can “absolutely” work together to achieve that goal.

In his travels to many of the world’s nations, Asner noted that he often encounters the idea that science and faith are opposed to one another.

He said his upbringing showed him that the two are both important, but for different reasons.

“Faith gives us compass, understanding, and much more than science will ever give us,” Asner said.

“But science gives us something unique: tools.”

The tools offered by science, he added, can help us move from points A to B and improve our world.

Science offers tools

Referring to his own country, the United States, Asner said he

often hears people almost raising climate change to the level of belief, saying “I don’t believe in climate change.”

His response is that climate change is not a belief but a scientific measurement using tools.

“It’s difficult for people to realize that science is not in combat with belief; it’s a utility, a tool, a way to navigate forward,” he said, offering the example of turning on a car’s headlights while driving at night.

“They just show me where to go.”

Laudato si’ bridges the gap

The encyclical Laudato si ’, according to Asner, bridges the gap between faith and science, calling it “such a unique perspective.”

The pope’s mentality, he said, is that the two work together.

“Belief—whichever belief system you associate with—cannot ignore the fact that science is speaking loudly, telling us that we have to change our habits, the way we are consuming the Earth’s resources, and change the stress we are putting on ecosystems, biodiversity, and the climate,” he added.

He said humanity must “take responsibility for what we’ve been given—this Earth—and take care of it.” Devin Watkins/Vatican News

Catholics welcome Bishop Joseph Durero to the Diocese of Daru-Kiunga in Papua New Guinea on August 29. PHOTO COURTESY OF CBCPNG

Third Filipino ordained, installed as bishop in PNG

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F i l i pi no m i s s ion a r y priest has been ordained bishop in Papua New Guinea (PNG) on August 29, signaling the start of his new ministry.

In a ceremony held at the St. Gerard Cathedral, Bishop Joseph Durero assumed his post as the third shepherd of the Diocese of Daru-Kiunga.

He replaced retired Canadian Bishop Gilles Côté of the Missionaries of the Company of Mary, who served the diocese for 22 years.

The episcopal ordination was presided over by Cardinal Sir John Ribat of Port Moresby, with Archbishop Fermin Emilio Sosa Rodriguez, Apostolic Nuncio to PNG and Solomon Islands, and Bishop Côté as co-consecrators.

They were joined by nine other

bishops from different dioceses across PNG, priests, religious and laypeople from the diocese.

Born in Surigao del Norte province’s Dapa town, the 53-year-old Bishop Durero has been a missionary of the Society of the Divine Word in Papua New Guinea for more than 20 years.

T he newly ordained is the third Filipino bishop in Papua New Guinea. He joins Vincentian Bishop Rolando Santos of AlotauSideia and Salesian Bishop Pedro Baquero of Kerema.

Pope Francis on May 23 appointed Durero as bishop of DaruKiunga, a suffragan of the Port Moresby archdiocese.

At the time of his appointment, Durero was the vicar general of the Archdiocese of Madang. CBCP News

Mormon vaccine push ratchets up, members divided

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ALT LAKE CITY— After more than a year of attending church virtually, Monique Allen has struggled to explain to her asthmatic daughter why people from their congregation of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints don’t wear masks.

Allen said she has taught her daughter that wearing a mask is Christlike, but now she worries her child feels like an outcast.

Church leaders recently issued their strongest statement yet urging people to “limit the spread” by getting Covid-19 vaccines and wearing masks.

But Allen said she fears it’s still not enough to convince the many families in her congregation who refuse to wear masks and have succumbed to anti-vaccine misinformation.

Members of the faith widely known as the Mormon church remain deeply divided on vaccines and mask-wearing despite consistent guidance from church leaders as the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus spreads.

About 65 percent of Latterday Saints who responded to a recent survey said they were vaccine acceptors, meaning they’ve gotten at least one dose or plan to soon.

Another 15 percent identified as hesitant, and 19 percent said they would not get the vaccine, according to the survey this summer from the Public Religion Research Institute, a polling organization based in Washington, and Interfaith Youth Core.

The survey found 79 percent of white Catholics and 56 percent of white Evangelical Protestants identified as vaccine acceptors.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints President Russell M. Nelson speaks during a news conference on June 14 in Salt Lake City. AP/Rick Bowmer

Allen, a church member living in Wisconsin, is among a contingent who fear fellow members who refuse to get vaccinated are allowing their political views to supersede their loyalty to a faith that largely prioritizes unity and obedience.

The message she has shared with her 8-year-old daughter is that “of course Christ would wear a mask, of course he would get vaccinated because he’s a loving person,” she said. “And that’s the only way you can take care of people these days is doing these simple things.”

Other church members are upset that their leaders aren’t letting them exercise their own decision-making about vaccines and masks.

The Utah-based religion of 16 million members worldwide is one of many faiths grappling with how best to navigate the pandemic’s lingering effects.

Divisions on masking and vaccinations in the Latterday Saint faith appear to be tracking along political lines, with conservative members being more hesitant, said Patrick Mason, associate

professor of religion at Utah State University.

Mason said the church’s divide is indicative of a larger pattern in the United States of political ideologies shaping people’s religious commitments.

“The common perception of Mormons and Mormonism is that when church leaders speak, church members listen and do what they’re told,” said Mason. “This has revealed sometimes how conditional that loyalty can be.”

The Latter-day Saint faith was one of the first to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic.

In March 2020, church leaders suspended all church gatherings and closed temples.

The church has also held three consecutive major conferences remotely since the pandemic began. The twiceyearly conference usually brings about 100,000 people to Salt Lake City over two days.

Many faith leaders have spoken in support of vaccinations, including Church President Russell M. Nelson, a former heart surgeon who got the vaccine in January and encouraged members to follow

his example.

Church-owned Brigham Young University in Utah has asked students to report their vaccination status but is not requiring vaccinations.

Masks are required in classrooms and any indoor spaces where social distancing isn’t possible.

Missionaries who are not fully vaccinated are also unable to receive an assignment outside of their home country.

Regarding masks at services, top church officials have said it’s up to bishops to encourage people to follow local public health guidelines.

In mid-August, they went so far as to release a statement calling on members to get the vaccine, which they described as “safe and effective.”

Among other denominations in the US, faith leaders have varied widely in how they address the issues of vaccinations and mask wearing.

To a large extent, there has been vocal support for getting vaccinated—including from top leadership of conservative bodies, such as the Southern Baptist Convention and the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.

However, some Catholic prelates and evangelical pastors have been sharply critical of the the vaccine campaign and masking mandates, and others have shied away from addressing those issues for fear of angering some congregation members.

An August AP-NORC poll found that among white evangelicals, 51 percent are at least somewhat confident in the vaccines to be effective against variants, compared with 73 percent of Catholics, 66 percent of white mainline Protestants, such as Presbyterians and Lutherans,

65 percent of nonwhite Protestants and 67 percent of the religiously unaffiliated.

Kristen Chevrier, co-founder of a Utah-based health freedom group that has advocated against vaccine mandates, said the church should not be involved in health choices, and she worries people are being discriminated against based on their vaccine status.

Chevrier, who is a member of the faith, said she rejects the idea that people who are anti-vaccine are apostates. She cited the church’s history of encouraging members to seek their own personal revelations with God. One member, Marie Johnson, said she has been disappointed that so many in her community have heeded misinformation on social media rather than church leadership’s continued calls for vaccination.

“You can find something on the Internet to support any position you want to take,” said Johnson. “Why would you choose the side that doesn’t include your faith leader?”

But some churches began resuming masking practices even before the leaders’ statement.

One Salt Lake City church has been encouraging vulnerable people to participate in meetings virtually and sent a message to congregants in early August recommending that everyone wear masks and get the vaccine.

“Our faith leaders have been so consistent from the very beginning,” said Søren Simonsen, of Salt Lake City.

“And to hear people say, ‘This is a hoax, it doesn’t matter, it’s not affecting us,’ when millions of people have died, it’s heartbreaking.” AP

Biodiversity Sunday BusinessMirror

Asean Champions of Biodiversity Media Category 2014

Sunday, September 5, 2021

Editor: Lyn Resurreccion

A7

Birds of prey in PHL, worldwide face decline from habitat loss and poisons The bathymetric drone with echo sounder to be housed in the CoastER Center will be used to quickly and efficiently acquire data for the coastal modeling of storm surge and tsunami events Image from aerospectrum.com, DOST-OUSECRD.

2 Nicer centers on environmental concerns to rise in North Luzon

E

nvironmental management activities are bound to get nicer in northern Luzon as two projects under the Niche Centers in the Regions for Research and Development (Nicer) program had been approved recently.

The Coastal Engineering Research (CoastER) Center will be established in Region 1, while the Smart Water Infrastructure and Management (SWIM) Research and Development Center will be setup in Region 2.

The P79.93-million CoastER is funded by the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) through the Office of the Undersecretary for Research and Development (OUSECRD).

The Mariano Marcos State University, along with Don Mariano Marcos Memorial State University and the University of the Philippines Diliman will co-implement the project in partnership with Urdaneta City University and the University of Northern Philippines.

With the aim of mitigating disasters based on strategies addressing coastal erosion and climate change, the CoastER Center would aid in building a resilient seaside community and reducing

agricultural and fishery losses by 20 percent, or equivalent to P1 billion in savings.

Meanwhile, the P77.27-million SWIM Center will be co-implemented by Isabela State University, Cagayan State University and Quirino State University.

Partners will include the Office of Civil Defense, the National Water Resources Board, the Department of Public Works and Highways, the Department of Agriculture, the National Irrigation Administration, and various local government units.

The SWIM Center aims to develop technologies in water management and promote disasterresilient infrastructures. Its innovations are expected to improve safe water supply, quality, access, utilization, and reuse—as well as reduce agricultural and infrastructural damages through better forecasting of droughts and extreme rainfall.

Interested parties may contact Dr. Nathaniel R. Alibuyog through email at natzalibuyog@ gmail.com for more on the CoastER Center, and Dr. Orlando F. Balderama at orly_isu@yahoo.com for the SWIM Center.

Allyster A. Endozo/S&T Media Services

A view of a traffic jam in Algiers, Algeria, on September 29, 2010. AP/Anis Belghoul

UN hails end of toxic leaded gas use in cars worldwide

B

ERLIN—Leaded gasoline has finally reached the end of the road, the UN environment office said the other day, after the last country in the world halted the sale of the highly toxic fuel.

A lger ia stopped prov id ing leaded gas last month, prompting the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) to declare the “official end” of its use in cars, which has been blamed for a wide range of human health problems.

“The successful enforcement of the ban on leaded petrol is a huge milestone for global health and our environment,” UNEP’s Executive Director Inger Andersen said in a statement.

Petroleum containing tetraethyllead, a form of lead, was first sold almost 100 years ago to increase engine performance. It was widely used for decades until researchers discovered that it could cause heart disease, strokes and brain damage.

UNEP said studies showed leaded gas caused measurable intellectual impairment in children and millions of premature deaths.

“The cost of environmental degradation is real,” said Andersen, citing what she described as

a “very, very ballpark number” of $2.45 trillion in damage to the global economy prevented by the ban.

Janet McCabe, deputy administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency, said measurements showed blood lead levels “plummeted, literally, literally plummeted” after the fuel was banned in the United States.

Most r ic h nat ions star ted phasing out the fuel in the 1970s and 1980s, but it was still widely used in low- and middle-income countries until 2002, when the UN launched a global campaign to abolish it.

Leaded gas is still used in aviation fuel for small planes, an issue that McCabe said the EPA was working with the Federal Aviation Administration to address.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the successful abolition of leaded gas, like the ban on ozone-depleting chemicals, showed the impact that international treaties could have on addressing environmental issues.

“We must now turn the same commitment to ending the triple crises of climate disruption, biodiversity loss and pollution,” he added. AP

W

ASHINGTON—Despite a few high-profile conservation success stories—like the dramatic comeback of bald eagle populations in North America—birds of prey are in decline worldwide.

A new analysis of data from the International Union for Conservation of Nature and BirdLife International found that 30 percent of 557 raptor species worldwide are considered near threatened, vulnerable or endangered or critically endangered.

Eighteen species are critically endangered, including the Philippine eagle, the hooded vulture and the Annobon scops owl, the researchers found.

Other species are in danger of becoming locally extinct in specific regions, meaning they may no longer play critical roles as top predators in those ecosystems, said Gerardo Ceballos, a bird scientist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and co-author of the study published on August 30 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “ The golden eagle is the national bird of Mexico, but we have ver y few golden eagles left in Mexico,” he said. A 2016 census estimated only about 100 breeding pairs remain in the countr y.

Harpy eagles were once widespread throughout southern Mexico and Central and South America, but tree cutting and burning has dramatically shrunk their range.

Of threatened birds of prey that are active mostly during the day— including most hawks, eagles and vultures—54 percent were falling in population, the study found.

The same was true for 47 percent of threatened nocturnal raptors, such as owls.

That means “the factors causing the decline have not been remedied” and those species need immediate attention, said Jeff Johnson, a biologist at the University of North Texas, who was not involved in the study.

Globally, the biggest threats to these birds are habitat loss, climate change and toxic substances, said Evan Buechley, a research associate at the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center and a scientist at nonprofit HawkWatch International who was not involved in the study.

The insecticide DDT thinned egg shells and decimated bald eazleading to its ban in the US in 1972.

“Girlie,” a 29-year-old Philippine Eagle at the Parks and Wildlife Center in Quezon City is shown in this photo taken on March 14, 2010. AP/Bullit Marquez

But Buechley said other threats remain, including rodent pesticides and the lead in hunters’ bullets and shot pellets. Many raptors feed on rodents and dead animals.

The Andean condor is declining due to exposure to pesticides, lead and other toxic substances, said Sergio Lambertucci, a biologist at the National University of Comahue in Argentina.

Widespread use of an anti-inflammatory drug in livestock led to the rapid decline of vultures in South Asia. The birds died after eating carcasses, shrinking the population of some species by 95 percent in recent decades.

In East Asia, many raptor species are long-distance migrants: They breed in northern China, Mongolia or Russia and travel down the eastern coast of China to spend summers in Southeast Asia or India.

“Certain areas of the coast will

see 30 to 40 species during peak migration,” said Yang Liu, an ecologist at Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou, who was not involved in the study.

But eastern China is also the most populous and urban part of the country, with steep development pressures.

“Sites that are bottlenecks for migration, with thousands of birds passing through, are important to protect,” he said.

Of 4,200 sites identified by conservation groups as critical for raptor species globally, most “are unprotected or only partly covered by protected areas,” said Stuart Butchart, chief scientist at BirdLife International in the United Kingdom.

A 2018 study in the journal Biolog ical Conser vation found that 52 percent of all raptor species worldwide are decreasing in population. AP

Online classroom gives voice to fishers in fisheries governance

O

ceana initiated a virtual classroom for fisherfolk recently to prepare the food frontliners for their important role in fisheries governance and in the protection of the Philippines’ mar ine env ironment through the Fisheries Management Areas (FMA) mechanism, a news release said.

The Philippine territorial waters have been subdivided into 12 FMAs based on approximate stock boundaries, range, distribution, and structure of its resources.

The FMAs were established following the issuance of the Fisheries Administrative Order 263 by the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) in 2019.

Under the FMA system, a management body issues sciencebased policies for sustainable management of fisheries, with representatives from the BFAR, national government agencies, local governments, and sectoral representatives, including fisherfolk, commercial fishing industry, civil society groups and academic institutions.

“Oceana is excited to be pioneering the Classroom for Fisherfolk learning series to empower our fisherfolk by helping them gain a better understanding of their rights and responsibilities under our Constitution and fisheries laws, and the significance of their active participation in the sustainable management of our marine resources,” said Oceana Vice President Atty. Gloria Estenzo Ramos.

“The classroom learning series benefits not just our fisherfolk but even those in the government,” Ramos added.

There is so much that could be learned from the participants who spend more time out at sea than anyone else, she said.

“This is a wonderful opportunity for an exchange of insights into

Oceana’s virtual classroom gives voice to fisherfolk in fisheries management.

pressing challenges on overfishing and illegal, unregulated and unreported [IUU] fishing, and discussions on how we can address these issues together,” she pointed out.

One of the participants, Roberto “Ka Dodoy” Ballon, who heads the Coalition of Municipal Fisherfolk’s Association in Zamboanga Sibugay, recommends more fisherfolk leaders including the women and the youth in the succeeding classes.

“Majority of fisherfolk still do not understand what the FMA system is. I hope that in the next sessions we can expand the discussions to include how this can benefit our environment, our livelihood, and the growth of the fisheries sector. This is for the next generation, so that they may understand why there are FMAs,” Ballon said in the session.

Incidentally, it was recently announced that Ballon is among this year’s Ramon Magsaysay Awardees for leading the transformation of the coastal area in his hometown to preserve the fishermen’s livelihood and the ecosystem.

The participants of the virtual classroom were given an overview of the law and the science behind

the FMAs, the status and challenges in its implementation, and the ways in which the fisherfolk can evaluate the performance of the FMA using the scorecard that Oceana and nongovernment organizations developed.

Ramos emphasized the need for the fisherfolk classroom to be institutionalized to ensure participatory governance in the FMAs. “From the sessions we have held so far, our fisherfolk expressed deep concern about the state of the fisheries covered by the respective FMAs. They are keen to learn more in helping protect our country’s fishing grounds from abuse,” Ramos said.

She expressed hope that the Department of Agriculture (DA), the BFAR, and coastal local governments would consider institutionalizing this learning activity for our fisherfolk for a genuine inclusive governance.

Agriculture Secretary William Dar, in a video message, called to double the effort in uplifting the fisheries sector, emphasizing support of fisherfolk in ensuring sustainable practices in fisheries.

“We all must take more proactive actions, strengthen our

collaborations, and channel more resources in finding sciencebased solutions to sustainably increase fish stock as well as address long-standing issues that stifle the growth of our sardine industry. I believe issues such as IUU fishing, and climate change hazards are surmountable if we conquer them together. We must not tire in educating fishers of these sustainable conservation measures and ensure industrywide compliance with closed fishing seasons and other sustainable practices,” Dar said.

Oceana launched the virtual Classroom for Fisherfolk Learning series in June that was attended by about 15 fisherfolks from different parts of the country. It was followed by three more learning sessions in Fisheries Management Areas 7, 8 and 12 with more than 60 fisherfolks in attendance.

Oceana is an international advocacy organization dedicated to protecting the world’s oceans.

Since 2014, it has been working closely with national and local government agencies, civil society, fisherfolk and other stakeholders to restore abundance of Philippine fisheries and marine resources.

Sports BusinessMirror

Reed wins fight against pneumonia

A8 | S

unday, September 5, 2021 mirror_sports@yahoo.com.ph Editor: Jun Lomibao

A

TLANTA—Patrick Reed says doctors told him the pneumonia in the lower lobes of both lungs could have been fatal and that he was “battling for my life” during the early days of his hospitalization.

A week after Reed got out of the hospital in Houston, he was in a van driving to Atlanta—doctors didn’t think he was ready for cabin pressure of a plane—to play in the Tour Championship in a last-minute bid to be considered for the Ryder Cup. Still unclear was whether he had the coronavirus. A Golf Channel report Wednesday evening said Reed told the network that he did. Reed put out a vague statement on Twitter that said, “I was vaccinated for Covid-19 so I’m not sure if I had the delta variant.”

Reed said Thursday he was vaccinated about a month ago. He was asked specifically if he had been diagnosed with Covid-19.

“They never tested me. I don’t know,” he said. “I obviously got tested when I was leaving and I tested negative. So that’s always a positive. When I went into the ER and with the scans and everything they did on my lungs and everything, their main priority was to make sure that we fought this pneumonia in both lungs because of how fatal it can be.”

He said the bilateral pneumonia hit him suddenly and hit him hard on August 19.

“All of a sudden I went from feeling OK to literally feeling like I couldn’t breathe and was almost drowning in air,” he said. “It hit me so fast, and it was brutal.”

He said doctors were telling him during his first few days in the hospital to make sure he texted his family and talked to them, saying, “You just don’t know. I mean, this is not good.

We’re not in a good spot these days.”

“So I’m sitting there and those first two days the only thing that was going through my mind is, ‘I’m not going to be able to tell my kids goodbye. I’m not going to be able to tell them I love them. I’m not going to be able to tell my wife that I love her and give her a hug.’

“It definitely puts you in a dark space when you’re in there, especially those first two days,” he said. “But I’m so happy to have such an amazing team and such amazing doctors that were working with me to get me through it....

I mean, I was battling for my life. I was in the hospital. And the good thing is now I can hit the ground running, hopefully.”

Reed only started hitting balls on Monday, with a monitor to measure his oxygen levels. And then he spent all day Tuesday getting to East Lake. The 800-mile drive from Houston to Atlanta was made even longer because of Hurricane Ida, forcing his route north of New Orleans.

He said doctors told him he should be clear to fly on Monday.

“I go to the doctors and just kind of see where I’m at,” he said. “But the way everyone on my team kind of makes it sound is once this week’s over, I’m full go to be able to do exactly what I want.”

As far as the FedEx Cup, Reed was fortunate to stay among the top 30 who qualified for the Tour Championship having missed the last two postseason events. And he said he wouldn’t be at East Lake if this wasn’t a Ryder Cup year.

Steve Stricker makes his six captain’s picks after this week. Reed would have been out of competition for a month had he not made it to East Lake.

“My energy was OK. My speed is not there yet, obviously,” he said after opening with a 72, his first time walking 18 holes since August 8.

“I think that was the biggest thing today is being first time playing 18 holes, how am I going to feel, how are my lungs going to feel?.” he said. “I know there’s going to be some ups and downs on the golf course because I haven’t played in a while, but I feel like the health—my lungs and my health—hung in there today.

I look forward to just getting stronger every day.”

Reed has played in the last three Ryder Cups without having to be a captain’s pick. AP

PATRICK REED says the bilateral pneumonia hit him suddenly and hit him hard on August 19. AP

SENIOR Olympic officials from Kuwait, Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah and Husain al-Musallam, have been targeted by the US Department of Justice for suspected racketeering and bribery. AP

MESSY SIDE OF SPORTS G

By Graham Dunbar The Associated Press

ENEVA—Two senior Olympic officials from Kuwait, one reputed to be the “kingmaker” of International Olympic Committee (IOC) elections and another who is president of swimming’s international governing body, have been targeted by the US Department of Justice for suspected racketeering and bribery related to Fifa and international soccer politics, according to documents obtained

by The Associated Press.

The US embassy in Kuwait made a formal request to local authorities in 2017 for assistance to secure evidence including records of multiple bank accounts held in the Gulf state, according to one document.

The request included a document dated June 7, 2017, titled: “Request for assistance in the investigation of Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah, Husain al-Musallam, Reza Charim, Vahid Kardany and others.”

The documents confirm that Sheikh Ahmad is under investigation and provide insight into the US government’s probe of high-level foreign officials as part of the broad Fifa investigation that began more than a decade ago.

The sheikh is an influential powerbroker in Olympic circles who was a key ally behind Thomas Bach’s successful run to the IOC presidency in 2013. The long-time IOC member is president of the group of national Olympic bodies known as ANOC and a former member of the Fifa

executive committee.

“I asked Kuwait to give them everything,” Sheikh Ahmad told the AP this week about the American request. “I have nothing to hide.”

Al-Musallam, a close ally of the sheikh, took over as president of swimming governing body FINA in June and for the last 16 years has been the Olympic Council of Asia’s director general. Sheikh Ahmad has been president of the OCA since 1991.

At the Tokyo Olympics in July, alMusallam told the AP he had done nothing wrong and was never questioned about the case by American authorities.

FINA did not immediately comment on the case on Thursday while the IOC declined to do so.

Sheikh Ahmad is also currently standing trial in Geneva on an unconnected matter in a dispute between political factions in Kuwait’s royal family. He has denied wrongdoing and said that case is politically motivated.

The 58-year-old sheikh has been seen as a potential future Emir of the oil-rich kingdom, a status that fueled rivalry.

After the indictment in Geneva was revealed three years ago, Sheikh Ahmad agreed to step aside temporarily from the IOC and presidency of ANOC. He continues to lead the OCA and have influence in Asian soccer elections.

The DOJ document seen by the AP details payments totaling about $1 million from Kuwait—wired from personal accounts held by three of the men and Olympic organizations run by the sheikh—

to a Fifa official from Guam. That man, US citizen Richard Lai, admitted to financial conspiracy charges in federal court in April 2017 and agreed to pay $1.1 million in penalties. He has yet to be sentenced.

The sheikh and al-Musallam could be identified as co-conspirators in 2017 from federal court documents in that case. Lai admitted to taking bribes from a Kuwaiti faction that wanted to buy influence and votes in Asian and world soccer.

Since 2013, Sheikh Ahmad and his allies have run the Asian Football Confederation.

They control most of the soccer body’s 46 votes at Fifa’s annual meeting of 211 members, and can place people on Fifa committees.

Sheikh Ahmad and al-Musallam have denied wrongdoing in the Fifa case, were never indicted and continued their Olympic work despite being implicated in paying bribes. US authorities made no further comment and it has been unclear how active the investigation was.

“As a matter of policy, the Justice Department does not publicly comment on mutual legal assistance requests to and from our partner countries, including confirming or denying the very existence of such requests,” Justice Department spokesman Nicole Navas Oxman said in a statement to the AP. Last week, the DOJ restated its commitment to its wider Fifa investigation when it announced paying tens of millions of dollars in money forfeited and seized from corrupt soccer officials back into Fifa’s control as restitution.

“Our work isn’t finished,” Michael J. Driscoll of the FBI’s New York Field Office said in a statement last week, “and our promise to those who love the game—we won’t give up until everyone sees justice for what they’ve done.”

The documents seen by the AP show that within weeks of Lai’s guilty pleas, the DOJ drafted a formal approach to the “Central Authority of the State of Kuwait” to help get potential evidence.

It stated federal prosecutors in New York are investigating if the named men and others “have violated United States criminal laws by making, accepting, and/ or facilitating bribes, kickbacks and other types of illicit payments to [Fifa officials] and laundering such bribe payments and proceeds, conduct which also constitutes racketeering.”

It reveals that an ANOC account, at the Alahli Bank, was used to wire two payments of $50,000 each in 2015. Lai had said in court he received money from personal accounts and the OCA. The DOJ document was to be presented to Kuwaiti authorities by the US Embassy in the country.

The formal request for legal assistance from the embassy, dated September 27, 2017, and also seen by the AP, was to be sent to Kuwait’s ministry of foreign affairs for passing on to the attorney general.

American prosecutors told their Kuwaiti counterparts they wanted to establish if the suspects made other payments to Lai, or if their accounts were used to wire possible bribe payments to other soccer officials.

They requested documents dating from 2009, including details of accounts, safe deposit boxes, wire transfers, due diligence reports, currency transactions, e-mails and internal bank communications “concerning media reports discussing any of the above accountholders.”

American prosecutors said copies should be authenticated by “appropriate custodians” from the banks knowing that false statements “would subject the maker to criminal penalties under the laws of Kuwait.”

The two other men identified in the documents, Kardany and Charim, who are both Iranian, were assistants to alMusallam at the Kuwait-based Olympic Council of Asia.

Kardany later joined the governing body of Asian soccer, the Malaysia-based AFC, where he is now deputy general secretary.

The DOJ document details that an account in Kardany’s name at Alahli Bank wired $50,000 to Lai in October 2013 and $95,000 in May 2014. An account in Kardany’s name at Gulf Bank wired €43,679 ($51,500) in May 2015.

Argentine soccer fans finally return to stadiums after 20-month absence

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UENOS AIRES, Argentina—There’s a game going on at the Diego Maradona Stadium and two fans outside are desperate to see their team, Argentinos Juniors.

Victoriano Villamil and Agustín Beldo, wearing jerseys of the national team and the club side, race around the stadium looking for a gap in the wall, some glimpse. A door swings open, giving a glimpse of the green field. But a menacing guard appears before they can dash through.

Few places in the world have soccer fans more passionate than those in Argentina, and few have been so long denied a live view of their teams due to the pandemic. It’s been 20 months since the government banned spectators at stadiums.

“I miss everything. Screaming after a goal, insulting visiting players,” Villamil said. His friend Beldo said the two thought they might find a way into the stadium on a weekday, perhaps with less security.

Such fans will finally get their chance next week when Argentina plays a World Cup qualifying match against Bolivia.

President Alberto Fernández has authorized spectators for the September 9 match, though fans will be allowed to fill only 30 percent of the usual 70,000-spectator capacity of the Monumental Stadium, home to the River Plate team.

It will be a test

BANNERS placed by fans fill the empty stands of Bombonera Stadium during a match between Boca Juniors and Racing Club in Buenos Aires. AP

of whether fans can safely return as the pandemic appears to wane in Argentina, which had counted more than 110,000 dead from the virus and 5.1 million cases.

“We are in a good epidemiologic situation, with a sustained fall in the number of cases for 13 weeks,” said Health Minister Carla Vizzotti, who argues in favor of a reopening. “This wouldn’t be only for soccer; it is for the rest of the sports. We hope that this test goes well and that the epidemiologic situation keeps allowing it.”

Argentina is one of the few countries

in the region where all professional soccer is still played wholly without fans. Brazil, Uruguay, Chile and Colombia have all hosted a limited number of supporters and guests when local authorities agreed.

The pandemic’s impact is heavy in a country where soccer is far more than a pastime and supporters groups are famed—when not notorious—for their passion and many hold tailgate-style parties, grilling meat before games. Many chant so hard during games they lose their voices.

“Argentinian fans do crazy things to

watch a match,” said Lautaro Mazza, who supports middle of the table team Lanus.

“There are people who mortgaged their house to see Lanus in Japan. I missed my daughters’ birthdays, my mother’s. I tell them I see them everyday, but that match I will never be able to see again.”

With the stadium closed, Mazza and other Lanus fans frequently gathered to watch games in front of a small shop near the stadium with a television set to the match. Many Argentines can’t afford the roughly $9 pay-per-view fee charged for each game by cable broadcasters. AP

BusinessMirror

September 5, 2021

Boomers vs. millennials?

Free yourself from phoney generation wars

2

BusinessMirror SEPTEMBER 5, 2021 | soundstrip.businessmirror@gmail.com

YOUR MUSI

LIZZO ‘BITES BACK’

The hip-hop and R&B sensation collaborates with Cardi B on latest single

A

By Stephanie Joy Ching

FTER almost a year of not dropping any new music, Lizzo becomes “the bad bitch” she was meant to be with the release of “Rumors”, a “biteback” project that shows that “rumors don’t mean nothing to us.”

The 33-year old, three-time Grammy winner and platinumselling artist said she made sure she “put together the perfect album” as this was her first released since her sensational 2013 debut, Lizzobangers.

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: T. Anthony C. Cabangon

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: Lourdes M. Fernandez

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: Aldwin M. Tolosa

Y2Z Editor

: Jt Nisay

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: Edwin P. Sallan

Group Creative Director : Eduardo A. Davad Graphic Designers Contributing Writers

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: Niggel Figueroa Anabelle O. Flores : Tony M. Maghirang, Rick Olivares, Darwin Fernandez, Leony Garcia, Stephanie Joy Ching Pauline Joy M. Gutierrez : Kaye VillagomezLosorata Annie S. Alejo

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: Bernard P. Testa Nonie Reyes

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LIZZO

“I have so many songs that I want the world to hear,” she admitted “But I wanted to make sure that I put out the perfect album. It’s been way too long since I dropped any music so I don’t want to drop the wrong thing,”

Lizzo also shared that she and her team have written over “130 plus songs” for the project, but they have carefully filtered out the catalogue to make sure only the “best” go in the record.

“We’re being very careful in choosing the best songs,” she assures.

She also revealed that “Rumors” is actually a collaboration with label mate Cardi B, with whom she waited for a long time to collaborate with.

“I’ve been a fan of Cardi B and her social media presence for years. We met a few times at little parties and there was always so much love and I said “one of these days we gonna collab” and she’s like ‘yeah we gonna collab.’ And when we wrote ‘Rumors’, it was the obvious choice,” she recalled.

Always striving to be a positive influence, Lizzo states that her ultimate goal with her music is to “touch and help people.”

“I’ve been using music as therapy since I was twenty years old as a writer. My only hope and goal is that someone can hear something that I wrote and feel better. I like to make feel good music and also my dream has been to write a song that the whole world could sing together,” Having Cuz I Love You, her major label debut reach over 5 billion streams worldwide and her single “Truth Hurts” being the longest running number one hit by a female rap artist, it’s safe to say Lizzo’s already achieved that. However, that will not stop her from continuing to spread positivity and confidence to the world. Now armed with so much more confidence, “Rumors” marks Lizzo’s transition from “wanting to be a bad bitch” to “being the bad bitch.”

“I think the biggest difference is confidence. I think I am so much more confident on this project. I think in ‘Cuz I Love You’ I was seeking confidence, I was striving to be more confident, and you could hear it a lot in the music where it’s like I’m writing about the bad bitch that I wanna be.

But now I am that bad bitch and I am living as her,” she said.

Released by Atlantic Records, “Rumors” is available for streaming on all major streaming platforms.

IC

soundstrip.businessmirror@gmail.com | SEPTEMBER 5, 2021

BUSINESS

SoundSampler

by Tony M. Maghirang

COOL SINGLES And the stories behind them

SCYE - “Paru-Paro”

B

ULACAN-based rapper SCYE returns with a new song, driven by lush strings and soaring instrumentals. It centers on the importance of tackling mental health and depression with an open mind.

“The intention of ‘Paru-Paro’ is to connect with people who are struggling with the traumas they’ve been going through since childhood that cause them to drown in depression, panic attacks, anxiety and suicidal attempts,” SCYE said.

“My song also aims to remind their relatives and friends to give at least a little time to talk to them and listen to their struggles about their mental health issues.”

At the same time, the track seeks to give those who make fun of mentally challenged individuals, a sense of perspective in debunking the stigma, with the hope of normalizing conversations about mental health issues.

ITCHYWORMS – “The Life I Know”

T

HE track is a piano-backed ballad off the band’s fifth studio album, Waiting For The End To Start. Its music video follows the story of Awit, a toddler who’s beginning to understand her place.

Tension arises when an incoming new sibling threatens to take what was once Awit’s own comfort space.

Director of animation Cami Kwan takes pride in documenting how a child starts to lose the world she’s known to navigate a new realm that is both uncomfortable and terrifying. She said, “There is a beauty and awe in embracing a wider world, of seeing beyond yourself, but there is an inherent loss in that as well, and we wanted to explore that sense of melancholy as well as that sense of power and joy.”

and lose ourselves in the healing waters of music and love eternal.”

PNAU is the multi-platinumselling electronic act of Nick Littlemore (Empire of the Sun, Vlossom, Teenager), Peter Mayes and Sam Littlemore.

time of pandemic, where a woman in isolation found unexpected companionship in the unlikeliest of circumstances.

Advincula explained, “Over the past year, our lives have shifted by being stuck at home most of the time. There are a lot of things that we’re missing from our pre-pandemic life, one of which is the affection we get from a companion. But how do we cater to our need for affection in a socially distanced world? The music video shows a bizarre but refreshing take on coping.”

CLARA BENIN - “Suara Hati”

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ELTON JOHN and DUA LIPA – “Cold Heart” (Remix)

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JOYOUS and blissful dance cut, ‘Cold Heart’ is at once instantly recognizable and yet thoroughly contemporary - a modern dance floor filler based on four of Elton’s classic tracks expertly spliced together

by Australian electronic band and producers PNAU. Elton John said: “The last 18 months have been hard, but being off the road has meant that I’ve actually had time to collaborate with some wonderful artists. And having the opportunity to spend time with Dua, albeit remotely has been incredible. She’s a truly wonderful artist, and the energy she brought to ‘Cold Heart’ just blew my mind.”

PNAU added, “Setting a stage for the two greatest performers in the world today Sir Elton John and Dua Lipa, we knew we had to go in deep, take them into our world, the psychedelic laser black lit club. Where all of us can meet on the dance floor, forget the outside

RIGINALLY released in Pilipino as “Tila,” the folkpop tune has been re-recorded in Bahasa Indonesia as part of OFFMUTE record label’s efforts to empower emerging acts across and beyond the region. With “Suara Hati,” listeners can imagine love is everywhere; within us and all around us.

“It was really important for me to make this song sound authentic and true to its language,” Benin shared in a statement.

“My producer, The Ringmaster, made that easy for me because he actually grew up in Indonesia and speaks Bahasa fluently. Berto Pah, who is an Indonesian Sasando player, also helped in making the song sound authentic.”

WE GOT - “Panahon”

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IRECTED by Shai Advincula, the video counterpart of a pretty straightforward raggaefied love song situates its story in the

TOM MORELLO – Driving To Texas

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O-FOUNDER of Rage Against The Machine, Audioslave and Prophets of Rage, Tom Morello released a new single off his forthcoming album The Atlas Underground Fire. In partnership with electronic rock duo Phantogram, his latest song’s slow macabre ambience twists his blazing guitar work with the bands he’s been with before and the politics of his most famous collaboration with RATM’s Zack de la Rocha.

Morello described his new project thus: “I’d worked with Josh from Phantogram on my first Atlas Underground album and I was thrilled when he and Sarah reached out about collaborating on this record. This song is creepy as hell --a dark journey, a struggle for a tortured soul. The guitar solo needed to feel like a vengeful angel and on this record. Sarah has one of the most haunting and beautiful voices of anyone singing today, while Josh’s production is stylistically so fresh and eerie.”

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Boomers vs. millennials?

Free yourself from phoney generation wars

By Bobby Duffy

the future in a much more meaningful way.

King’s College London

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Reaching beyond the avocado

enerational thinking is a big idea that’s been horribly corrupted and devalued by endless myths and stereotypes.

These clichés have fueled fake battles between “snowflake” millennials and “selfish” baby boomers, with younger generations facing a “war on woke” and older generations accused of “stealing” the future from the young.

As I argue in my book, Generations, this is a real shame. A more careful understanding of what’s really different between generations is one of the best tools we have to understand change–and predict the future.

Understanding whether, and how, generations are different is vital to understanding society.

The balance between generations is constantly shifting, as older cohorts die out and are replaced by new entrants. If younger generations truly do have different attitudes or behaviors to older generations, this will reshape society, and we can, to some extent, predict how it will develop if we can identify those differences.

But in place of this big thinking, today we get clickbait headlines and bad research on millennials “killing the napkin industry” or on how baby boomers have “ruined everything.” We’ve fallen a long way.

Myth busting To see the true value of generational thinking, we need to identify and discard the many myths. For example, as I outline in the book, Gen Z and Millennials are not

lazy at work or disloyal to their employers.

They’re also no more materialistic than previous generations of young: a focus on being rich is something we tend to grow out of.

Old people are not uncaring or unwilling to act on climate change: in fact, they

“

Meanwhile, there are real, and vitally important, generational differences hidden in this mess. To see them, we need to separate the three effects that explain all change in societies.

Some patterns are simple “lifecycle effects,” where attitudes and behaviors are to

Understanding whether, and how, generations are

different is vital to understanding society. are more likely than young people to boycott products for social purpose reasons.

And our current generation of young are not a particularly unusual group of “culture warriors.” Young people are always at the leading edge of change in cultural norms, around race, immigration, sexuality and gender equality. The issues have changed, but the gap between young and old is not greater now than in the past.

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do with our age, not which generation we are born into. Some are “period effects”— where everyone is affected, such as in a war, economic crisis or a pandemic. And finally, there are “cohort effects,” which is where a new generation is different from others at the same age, and they stay different. It’s impossible to entirely separate these distinct forces, but we can often get some way towards it–and when we do, we can predict

When there is such richness in the realities, why are there so many myths? It’s partly down to bad marketing and workplace research—that is, people jumping on the generation bandwagon to get media coverage for their products or to sell consultancy to businesses on how to engage young employees. This has become its own mini-industry.

In 2015, US companies spent up to US$70 million on this sort of “advice” according to the Wall Street Journal, with some experts making as much as US$20,000 an hour. Over 400 LinkedIn users now describe themselves solely as a “millennial expert” or “millennial consultant.”

Campaigners and politicians also play to these imagined differences. Our increasing focus on “culture wars” often involves picking out particular incidents in universities, such as the banning of clapping at events or the removal of a portrait of the Queen to exaggerate how culturally different young people today are.

Maybe less obviously, politicians such as former US president Barack Obama repeatedly lionize coming generations as more focused on equality, when the evidence shows they’re often not that different. These assertions are not only wrong, but create false expectations and divides.

Some have had enough, calling on the Pew Research Center in the US, which has been a champion of generational groups, to stop conducting this type of analysis. I think that misses the point: it’s how it’s applied rather than the idea of generations that’s wrong.

We should defend the big idea and call out the myths, not abandon the field to the “millennial consultants.”

ON THE COVER: Photo by John Moeses Bauan

Stories from the front: New generation of doctors-in-training face unique challenges

By Pao Vergara First of three parts he current consensus among the medical and scientific communities is that Covid is here to stay. As we are advised to adapt ways to live with it like we do with seasonal diseases, some practices may persist from mask-wearing to retaining remote work and schooling.

It’s the latter that concerns my sister, a medical student and junior clerk. She worries about “a generation of doctors lacking clinical experience,” citing that in a field like medicine, only so much can be learned remotely. In this series, Y2Z checks in with three medical interns—one each from Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao to get a glimpse on the effects of halted face-toface and experiential learning amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

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Jabie Antonio, Metro Manila How would you compare your clinical experiences before and during the pandemic?

Clinical experience before the lockdown was all about getting dirty on the ground level and learning how to survive in the medical field, whether it’s the survival of you, your seniors, your health-care team, or your patient.

At that time, all you had to do was get by day-to-day and absorb as much as you could.

You just knew that this was the system. You wanted to change things, like make working conditions more humane but for the most part, there just aren’t enough doctors for all patients in the Philippines.

Come March 2020, hospitals were unsure whether sending their trainees to the frontlines would be a good idea or not. Thus, most of us were deployed to non-Covid wards. Of

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course, the reduced exposure was much appreciated but you could see the strain on the resident doctors.

There was an acute understanding that the workload that used to be passed on to trainees was being made up for by the seniors. Fortunately for us, the residents understood our situation. Even with the extra workload and the fatigue, they were not remiss in teaching us on a case-to-case basis.

A major shift in education has been a move to online learning. How do you think ‘clin-ex’ can be done given the realities of an evolving virus?

A growing branch nowadays is telemedicine. The facilities for such are still lacking here in the Philippines compared with institutions abroad but we make do with what we have. And in that sense, there’s still a large SEPTEMBER 5, 2021

avenue for students to be able to learn despite the changes.

Given the situation, how do you see the future of the medical establishment, from those in med school to those practicing in hospitals?

Honestly the future looks bleak. Whoever said that health was not political must have been f***ing high. If the current leadership does not understand the concept of the building blocks of health and invest in it, then we will continue to run into problems with each health crisis.

But the capacity to change the situation still exists. At the ground level, hospitals need to start considering their workforce as their primary resource and treat them as such because skilled workers are one of the most difficult resources to replace, especially considering the well-being of patients.