World News
06.28.14
Who Will Maduro Blame for Venezuela’s Blackout This Time?
Caracas
was plunged into darkness in the middle of a televised speech by
President Nicolas Maduro. Many residents are fed up with the government,
but officials are looking for a much shadier culprit.
Where his predecessor managed to consolidate presidential control to heights unknown in Venezuela since its early 20th-century dictatorships, Maduro has struggled to solidify his authority throughout the first year of his tenure. Unable to evict Chávez’s daughters from the presidential palace, he was relegated to less lofty vice presidential quarters from the outset. Meanwhile, policymaking has been largely defined by a group of political party plutocrats spearheaded by Rafael Ramirez, the Venezuelan energy minister and head of the nationalized oil company PDVSA, and the National Assembly chief Diosdado Cabello.
Allegedly bowing to intra-party pressures from these circles, last week Maduro dismissed Jorge Giordani, the Marxist mastermind of Venezuela’s “revolutionary” economy, from the supervisory boards of both the Central Bank and PDVSA. Giordani was a high-profile ally of Chávez, and the intellectual architect of many of his signature policies—including Venezuela’s multi-tier exchange rates, price controls, hyper-regulation, and even oil diplomacy. Giordani’s removal represents a clear departure from the philosophical underpinnings of Chavismo. The move has garnered Maduro some uncharacteristically vicious backlash from the left-wing purists of the government’s support base, first among them Giordani himself.
Even before then, rampant scarcities of food and basic goods, sky-high inflation, and staggering crime rates have chipped away at Maduro’s popularity, reducing them to record lows. In early February, a rash of street protests and barricades paralyzed the nation, and were violently suppressed by state authorities in a series of crackdowns that saw several notable opposition leaders incarcerated. The resulting negative publicity led even previously supportive international media outlets, such as the The Guardian to become more critical, and when Hollywood stars began chiming in against his government, the 2014 Academy Awards were pulled from the Venezuelan television lineup for the first time in 39 years.
And now this: in the middle of a triumphalist speech for “national journalists day,” broadcast by law on every Venezuelan television and radio station, the lightssuddenly went out on Maduro—and on much of the country. Much of Caracas, and areas in nearly all of Venezuela’s other 22 states was affected the country’s aging and poorly maintained power grid struggled to get back online.
Julio Cesar Rosas (a pseudonym) owns a medium-sized business in Los Cortijos, a district in east-central Caracas. “The lights went out gradually,” he told me. “First it was the DirecTV and cable that shorted, then electricity was faded in and out around five times before finally blinking out.”
Although it was a busy workday preparing for the weekend, he let his employees go at noon since the Caracas metro had stopped working and they might have trouble making it home. “Once on my scooter, traffic was horrible. Hoards of folks that would normally be on the metro were overflowing the sidewalks and taking up much of the roadways, and all the stoplights were out.” The result was a perfect storm of commuter congestion where “normal Caracas chaos became absolute mayhem.”
After three major blackouts in the space of a year, Julio Cesar is fed up. “This almost never happened with Electricidad de Caracas,” he said, referring to the private company presiding over most of Venezuela’s power needs prior to the grid’s 2007 nationalization under Chávez. “These new dark ages stem from a corrupt and decaying power system—a reflection of the state of affairs in the country itself.”
Fernando Toledo, an associate at a data analysis outfit in downtown Caracas affected by the blackout likewise holds the regime responsible. “This government’s incompetence really doesn’t have any limits.”
But is the government really to blame? Well, they certainly don’t seem to think so.
On some previous occasions blackouts have been blamed on shadowy saboteurs from either the U.S. imperialists (“la CÍA”) or else sinister Venezuelan groups from the traditional elite (“los fascistas”). At other times, nature itself has taken the blame, such as in 2012 when a wire-hungry opossum was held responsible for a day-long blackout in Guayana City, or the iguana two years earlier whose “getting loose in the grid” sufficed to darken Anzoátegui State for an extended period. (The regime has, to date, never definitively weighed in on whether these troublesome critters had imperialist or fascist ties.)
Pending the outcome of Maduro’s investigation, preliminary culpability seems to have been attached to the wind, or, more specifically, the unusually heavy winds caused by El Niño, toppling a collection of electrical towers. Maria “Macarena” Paz, a Caracas engineer, is underwhelmed by this explanation. “So it’s no longer the cable-eating iguanas, the CIA, or the opposition, it’s the wind! Knocking down no less than eight towers specifically designed to withstand hurricane gales but swept away in unison by light breezes… they must really think we’re idiots.”
AP
World News
06.28.14
Why ISIS Won’t Take Baghdad
The
jihadist-led Sunni coalition that’s swept through parts of Syria and
northwest Iraq strikes where there’s local support and the least
resistance. That’s not the Iraqi capital.
While there’s no solid consensus among intelligence analysts in the region about ISIS’s precise strategy, several interviewed in recent days say the jihadists are likely to launch demoralizing commando raids and a suicide bombing blitz in Baghdad, probably timed to coincide with the arrival of the main contingent of US military advisers. (An advance guard arrived Tuesday.)
The Americans presumably will make the defense of the capital a priority, but that may be precisely what ISIS hopes they will do, because it has other interests. “The priority, I think, for ISIS is to build their Islamic State straddling the Syria-Iraq border – that is their ultimate objective—and trying to capture Baghdad would be too big for them to accomplish; it could also sidetrack them,” says a US intelligence official based in the Middle East who is closely monitoring ISIS.
ISIS has not picked difficult battles. It has calculated carefully where it could move with the biggest impact and the least resistance. Mosul was not Stalingrad, holding out against a powerful siege; it was more like Copenhagen in World War II, folding without a fight.
A concerted ISIS campaign to capture Baghdad would no doubt trigger greater military reaction from the Iranians -- key backers of the Shia-dominated government of beleaguered Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki – who already have sent members of their Revolutionary Guard and military supplies to bolster Iraqi security forces. The Iranians reportedly are flying surveillance drone flights on behalf of Maliki’s government as well.
Such attacks as do take place in and around Baghdad will likely aim to sow political discord and fan sectarian divisions, keeping Maliki’s government wrong-footed and on the defensive. Iraqi troops and allied Shia militiamen are holding a line north of Baghdad and trying to establish what army commanders call the Baghdad Belt around the capital. But they are making little headway mounting an offensive, relying on instead on the spotty use of airpower to take the fight into ISIS territory.ISIS lacks the manpower to hold Baghdad even if it could succeed in storming the capital.
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and other ISIS leaders have made clear their ambition to establish a caliphate stretching from Aleppo in Syria right across northern and western Iraq. “ISIS is not only talking the talk about establishing an Islamic state, it is walking the walk,” jihadist expert Aaron Zelin notes in a research paper on the group released Thursday by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a D.C.-based think tank.
“Further, the reality of a proto-state and ISIS’s willingness to try to govern—this khilafa project, as many within the group call it—is quite appealing to jihadists,” says Zelin. It is helping to attract recruits and undermine the standing of al-Qaeda, whose leadership disowned ISIS earlier this year, partly over its state-building aspirations.
On Baghdad, Zelin told The Daily Beast that ISIS has always had a presence in the capital. “I don’t think they can take it, though,” he said. “With 80 percent of the population being Shia, it would pretty much be impossible, though they may take Sunni neighborhoods.”
Mideast expert Jonathan Schanzer of the US-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies says ISIS lacks the manpower to hold Baghdad even if it could succeed in storming the capital.
“Strategically for ISIS, invading Baghdad would therefore seem like a mistake,” says Schanzer. But he adds the caveat, “We also don't know what kind of quiet support it enjoys from the disaffected Sunnis -- former Baathists are said to be among ISIS base of support -- who could help the group conquer and hold the seat of power in Iraq.”
The Mideast-based American intelligence official says al-Baghdadi and his inner core of advisers made up of experienced Iraqi jihadists and military veterans -- as well as some Chechens -- are unlikely to make the mistake of trying to mount a full-scale assault on the capital.
He argues the group’s leadership has shown a remarkable grasp of military strategy, astutely withdrawing from towns in rebel-controlled provinces in northern Syria when faced by a backlash from Syrian rebel groups and thus avoiding defeats, negotiating with local Sunni tribes in both Syria and Iraq and entering a pact with former Saddam Hussein-era military officers and Iraqi Baath party members to unleash an audacious Sunni insurgency in Iraq.
Most ISIS military operations have focused on isolating the capital by securing important land routes around it or consolidating their hold on Sunni towns already captured, and by overrunning pockets of resistance in the majority-Sunni zones of western, south-western and northern Iraq bordering Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
Another priority target has been refineries and oil wells. Already in eastern Syria ISIS has been smuggling and selling oil from wells captured in the uprising against Bashar al-Assad. It’s a lucrative trade that has helped swell the jihadist group’s coffers and transform it into the world’s wealthiest terrorist organization. Taking a chunk of Iraq’s oil production could make it much richer still.
The insurgents are continuing an intense fight at Iraq’s Baiji oil refinery, the country’s largest, despite Iraqi government claims that its forces have asserted full control over the facility.
Meanwhile, a jihadist bombing campaign in Baghdad appears to have started. Two car bombs hit Baghdad’s suburbs during the week, the latest killing 19 and wounding more than 40. Infuriated Shia vowed revenge.
Al-Baghdadi, who appears to be the master strategist, was trained by the late Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant who also defied al-Qaeda’s top leadership. Al-Baghdadi has been following his mentor’s vicious playbook, including beheadings and suicide bombings as well as targeting non-Sunnis or Sunnis opposed to his brand of jihad. Al-Zarqawi believed in the importance of purging apostates – something his follower clearly endorses. The brutality appears to have the terrifying spin-off: inspiring and attracting recruits eager to join in a “successful” jihad, and especially one that has them fighting Shia, whom they consider heretics.
ISIS says it killed at least 1,700 people after seizing the city of Mosul two weeks ago. Refugees from the city told The Daily Beast they had heard that 300 Shia Muslim and Christian inmates of Mosul prison had been executed. And on Friday Human Rights Watch said ISIS had appeared to have massacred Iraqi soldiers – possibly as many as 200 of them -- who had surrendered.
As ISIS no doubt had hoped, its jihadist violence is already triggering a Shia backlash in Baghdad, with reports of dozens of abductions and killings of Sunnis in the capital by vengeful Shia groups. The vendettas are likely to keep Sunnis loyal to the insurgency, if for no other reason than their need for protection.
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New Energy Economy
06.16.14
Will Food Waste Power Your Home?
Americans dump a lot of food and all the energy it takes to produce it. One company wants to turn that garbage into power.
Increasingly, however, food—specifically unwanted, or unused food—is proving to be a source of a different type of power: electricity and heat.
Despite all the admonitions to clean their plates, American consumers produce a huge amount of food waste. Households throwing out apple cores, cafeterias dumping unused macaroni and cheese, restaurants tossing out less-than-perfect radishes that won’t look great on the plate, espresso joints getting rid of wet coffee grounds—it’s all garbage. Some is recycled or used quickly, through programs like Share our Strength. Some goes into compost heaps. But most of it is simply carted away at considerable expense to landfills.
Harvest Power, a young start-up based in Waltham, Massachusetts, had a different vision for food waste. The firm, which was named one of America’s 50 Most Innovative Companies by Fast Company, operates three “energy gardens” (two in Canada and one in Florida) where it turns leftovers and discarded food into electricity and heat.
Founded in 2008, the company got its start by using organics—food scraps, plant waste—to make soil and fertilizer. Through 40 different sites around the U.S., the company processes about two million tons of organic waste each year. But Harvest Power believed it could use the same material to generate power. In the fall of 2010, it bought an anaerobic digestion project then under construction in London, Ontario. The system had the capacity to generate 2.8 megawatts of energy, an amount sufficient to power 1,400 homes.
How? In anaerobic digesters, organic material is mixed on a huge pot with massive quantities of tiny bacteria. As the scraps break down, the process releases biogas or synthetic gas that can then be deployed to generate both electricity and heat. As the Environmental Protection Agency notes, “one of the natural products of anaerobic digestion is biogas, which typically contains between 60 to 70 percent methane, 30 to 40 percent carbon dioxide, and trace amounts of other gases.”
Having bought one energy garden, Harvest Power next decided to grow its own. It raised several rounds of venture capital, including an impressive $100 million in April 2012, and another $15 million in July 2012.
It has plowed those funds into building out its network and constructing new energy gardens. Last September, Harvest Power opened the largest such food-to-power plant in North America, in Richmond, British Columbia. It can take up to 40,000 of detritus each year. “This facility represents the innovation, passion and commitment required to usher in the future of organics management,’ said Paul Seelew, the founder and chief executive officer of Harvest Power. The company says the Richmond plant makes enough energy to power about 9,000 homes annually in addition to producing lots of soil.
In February, Harvest Power opened its third facility in Bay Lake, Florida, near Orlando. When it’s fully up and running, this plant can handle about 120,000 of organic junk each year and “while producing 5.4 megawatts of combined heat and power,” the company says.
The beauty of the business model is that peer pressure and a desire to save money pushes area companies to supply Harvest Power with the “fuel” it needs to make electricity. The company started a public relations campaign — “Orlando or Landfill? Responsible Food Recovery” — noting that every second in Central Florida alone, some 24 pounds of food waste are dumped uselessly into landfills. In March, FreshPoint Central Florida, a huge distributor of fresh produce, struck a deal with Harvest Power. The company will take all FreshPoint’s leftover food matter—things like “fruit and vegetable peels, strawberries tops, corn husks, and pineapple cores” and plant it in its “energy garden.”
Thus far these efforts are quite small scale. But they are quite promising. Many of the fuels we use to generate electricity —natural gas, oil, coal—are abundant yet finite. It takes an extremely, extremely, extremely long time to grow new supplies. But America’s massive food and restaurant industry produces a huge amount of food scraps and waste every day—and every day the country’s highly productive agricultural system grows a new supply. Every piece of garbage that is diverted from a landfill is a penny saved. When that garbage is diverted into a vat of energy-producing soup, it becomes a penny earned.
Paul Gilham/Getty
Entertainment
06.28.14
World Cup 2014 Nail-Biter: Host Country Brazil Defeats Chile on Penalty Kicks
The first knockout match saw the tourney favorites scrape past a plucky Chilean squad, and into the quarterfinals.
Brazil is, by custom, everyone’s sentimental favorite: but this side is overrated and overhyped. Only Neymar, their lustrous forward and playmaker, would find a place in any of the five Brazil squads that won the World Cup before this one. And without Neymar, this Brazil team is no better than… Bolivia. Their defense is lackadaisical, their forwards frequently inept. The midfield is mechanical, and their goalkeeper, Julio Cesar, a source of constant anxiety.
Today, however, that same, lumbering Julio Cesar kept Brazil in the World Cup. He parried two Chilean penalty kicks in the shootout, and should take confidence from his improbable role as savior into his next game, which will be against a team much sharper than Chile.Chile threw everything it had at the Brazilians; but even at the zenith of its abilities, it lacked that extra notch of class that could have buried the hosts
That today’s game went to the edge of the precipice was largely due to Webb. He disallowed a goal scored by Hulk that would have given Brazil a 2-1 lead. A long, diagonal cross from Marcelo saw the ball reach Hulk, who brought it down to his feet from the top of his monumental chest. His arms were raised to balance his body, and somehow—perhaps based on the assumption that Hulk couldn’t have controlled the ball without an arm—Webb concluded that the Brazilian had handled the sphere. He called an infraction after Hulk put the ball in the Chilean net, leading to an eruption of disagreement from the heaving stands. For a change, the vox pop had a point.
Chile and Brazil were locked at 1-1 at this stage, and the disallowing of Hulk’s goal sucked the wind out of Luiz Felipe Scolari’s side, another sign—this time one of temperament—that this is a very ordinary vintage of Brazilians. Instead of sucking up their disappointment and returning to the task of putting Chile in its place, Brazil stewed in its own indignation, allowing the Chileans—man for man the shortest team at the Cup—to control play for the rest of the second half.
Chile threw everything it had at the Brazilians; but even at the zenith of its abilities, it lacked that extra notch of class that could have buried the hosts. One should be thankful, perhaps, for the final result. One shudders to think of how Brazilian society would have digested a defeat in the round of 16. Would all that pent-up opposition to the Cup, that mighty civic anger against corruption, waste and overspending on soccer stadia, have burst wide into the open? One will not know until the next round—the quarterfinals—when this mediocre Brazil team will once again flirt with defeat.
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Fashion
06.27.14
24 Is Not Too “Old” to Compete for Miss America
Miss
Delaware was stripped of her crown after officials realized she would
be 25 soon (gasp!). How did a pageant seeking a “role model to young and
old alike” allow in such an old hag?!
She had only been competing in the pageant circuit since November 2013—so her quickly won crown was a major feat for the University of Pennsylvania graduate student.
But less than two weeks into her tenure as Miss Delaware, Longacre was stripped of her crown—and the accompanying $11,000 scholarship—not for disorderly conduct or sexually explicit behavior. Instead, the 24-year-old was deemed too old.
Longacre, who was born on October 22, 1989, provided her birth certificate, driver’s license, and social security card upon registration for the pageant, and then received clearance to participate. According to the organization’s official website, “contestants in the Miss America system are between the ages of 17 and 24,” and no other age requirements are detailed. Longacre, who will turn 25 in October following the 2014 Miss America pageant, claims she was assured by state pageant directors that she “would be fine.”
Although board member and legal counsel for the Miss Delaware pageant, Elizabeth Soucek, was unable to reveal details of the situation due to pending litigation, she did explain to The News Journal that, according to “a Miss America rule,” contestants could not turn 25 before the end of the calendar year. Longacre’s replacement is also 24-years-old, but doesn’t turn 25 until next July.
Regardless of the technicalities, it’s interesting to consider that a contestant may be considered too old for a pageant at the young age of 24, almost as crazy as calling a woman who wears a size four “thick.” According to the company’s website, the Miss America pageant “exists to provide personal and professional opportunities for young women to promote their voices in culture, politics and the community.” The judging panel claims they’re looking for a “role model to young and old alike, and a spokesperson, using her title to educate millions of Americans on an issue of importance to herself and society at large.” But when age becomes this big of an issue, can the beauty pageant really claim that they’re looking for qualities beyond just looks?
It’s no secret that American society has an obsession with youth and beauty. Since the 1920s, beauty pageants have been centered on these superficial qualities. Competitions and TV shows like ‘Most Beautiful Child’ contests and competitions for kids between the ages 2-18 have become incredibly popular. According to a study conducted by Occupy Theory in 2013, over 5,000 child beauty pageants occur in the United States each year, with around 250,000 participants total. This fascination with youth and beauty is only growing given the success of television shows like Toddlers in Tiaras and the Shari Cookson’s Emmy-winning documentary, Living Dolls: The Making of a Child Beauty Queen. Sure, this is not a new issue; but with increased activism and awareness surrounding gender equality and women’s issues, it’s hard to stomach the hypocrisy of an organization that continues to say they’re promoting well-rounded individuals but consistently award youth and beauty.“But when age becomes this big of an issue, can the beauty pageant really claim that they’re looking for qualities beyond just looks?”
There may not be a good outcome for Longacre now that a replacement winner has been named, but that doesn’t mean she should settle for the ageist injustice inflicted by the Miss America organization. While a spokesperson for the pageant admitted that Longacre’s participation was an internal “mistake,” it doesn’t solve the emotional distress she was caused (she has said that she is currently speaking with an attorney and “discussing options”), nor excuse the explicitly discriminatory nature inherent in these competitions.
And really, how can anybody claim that a 25-year-old is unfit to become Miss America?
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