#this is eruption number...... eight? or so? since 2021

[perlukafarinn]

so happy i volunteered to drive my sister to the airport this morning

[mariacallous]

Ilhami Aktas, Governor of Canakkale province in northwestern Turkey, announced on Friday that at least 21 migrants including four children had lost their lives after their boat sank in the Aegean Sea.

“So far, four people have been rescued alive and there are 20 dead. According to preliminary findings, four of the deceased are children and babies,” Aktas told the media.

The death toll increased to 21 after the governor’s press statement.

Aktas added that the boat sank on Thursday night, and Coast Guards intervened at the site with boats and helicopters after they received information.

The death toll may increase, the governor warned. “We are trying to determine the number of casualties. Survivors are being interviewed. There is some conflicting information,” he added.

Ten coast guard boats, two helicopters and a search and rescue team are still searching the area for survivors. Ambulances are also awaiting on the coast for possible further survivors.

The boat sank eight miles away from Eceabat district in Canakkale province, which is one of the main departure spots for migrants who are trying to reach Greece.

Since the refugee crisis erupted in 2015, thousands of migrants including children have died or gone missing in the Agean and the Eastern Mediterranean on their way to Greece and other European countries.

Nearly 100 people have died or disappeared crossing the Central and Eastern Mediterranean so far this year – more than twice the number for the same period in 2023, the deadliest year for migrants at sea in Europe since 2016, the International Organization for Migration, IOM, said on January 29.

According to the IOM’s Missing Migrants Project, the annual number of migrant deaths and disappearances in the Mediterranean jumped from 2,048 in 2021 to 2,411 in 2022, and then to 3,041 in 2023.

[magnetictapedatastorage]

Americans have been saying for a year they want to get back to normal. Tragically, they're getting their wish.

With the gradual return to public places comes a specter the country was all too willing to set aside as it grappled with a pandemic capable of killing thousands of Americans a day. Mass shootings are starting to make headlines again, and though their return is most unwelcome, they've proved to be an inextricable part of life in the United States.

The latest mass killing left 10 dead at a grocery store. For the past 12 months, Americans have been vigilant in grocery stores to avoid contagion. Monday's slayings in Boulder, Colorado, reminded them that even with pandemic hope on the horizon, they should remain vigilant for a different reason.

This is a hard thing to read, but important. Full text under the cut.

CNN | 3/24/2021 | Listen Analysis: Mass shootings signal a dubious 'back to normal' in America Analysis By Eliott C. McLaughlin, CNN

Updated: Wed, 24 Mar 2021 00:21:23 GMT

Source: CNN

Americans have been saying for a year they want to get back to normal. Tragically, they're getting their wish.

With the gradual return to public places comes a specter the country was all too willing to set aside as it grappled with a pandemic capable of killing thousands of Americans a day. Mass shootings are starting to make headlines again, and though their return is most unwelcome, they've proved to be an inextricable part of life in the United States.

The latest mass killing left 10 dead at a grocery store. For the past 12 months, Americans have been vigilant in grocery stores to avoid contagion. Monday's slayings in Boulder, Colorado, reminded them that even with pandemic hope on the horizon, they should remain vigilant for a different reason.

Americans shouldn't have to fret about dying in a supermarket, or at a spa, or anywhere for that matter. Catching a bullet should be far from their minds, but with a return to American normalcy comes the reality that anyone could die for nothing, just about everywhere.

Seven mass shootings in seven days

Just as the country is conquering a new pandemic, an old, familiar epidemic makes its return. The last week has been a harbinger of what "back to normal" means for the US.

The most recent string of senseless gun violence began March 16 when a shooter killed eight people at three Atlanta spas. The next day, a drive-by in Stockton, California, injured five people who'd gathered for a vigil.

Four people were hospitalized Thursday after a shooting in Gresham, Oregon. On Saturday, a pair of shootings at clubs in Dallas and Houston left a young woman dead and 12 people injured. Shortly thereafter, a shooter opened fire at what Philadelphia police termed an illegal party, killing one man and injuring five more.

Now, Boulder makes seven in seven days. When the gunfire at King Soopers stopped, 10 lay dead, including hero officer Eric Talley, the first policeman on the scene. His wife and seven children will pay an astronomical debt for their dad's bravery.

"Flags that have barely been raised back to full mast after the tragic shooting in Atlanta that claimed eight lives and now the tragedy here, close to home, at a grocery store that could be any of our neighborhood grocery stores," Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said Tuesday.

The King Soopers location where the melee unfolded is one of about 1,000 providers in Colorado working to repel the killer Covid-19.

Steven McHugh's son-in-law had queued for a dose of vaccine, like more than a million other Coloradoans. He was third in line, and his daughters chatted with their grandmother on the phone as he waited, McHugh said.

When the gunfire erupted, a bullet found its way to the woman at the front of the line. Her fate is unclear, as is much about Monday's shooting. Authorities haven't divulged a motive, but history tells us it won't make sense.

McHugh's son-in-law fled with the girls -- one in seventh grade, the other in eighth -- to an upstairs staffing area above the pharmacy and hid in a closet. Dozens more shots rang out, McHugh said, citing his son-in-law.

It was "extraordinarily terrifying," the grandfather told CNN, "and of course the little one's saying, 'The coats weren't long enough to hide our feet,' as they were standing behind the coats in the closet."

'A normal we can no longer afford'

The US government doesn't have a centralized database to track mass shootings, but anecdotal accounts indicate they were down during the pandemic as Americans were encouraged to stay home and many of their favorite gathering places were shut down.

Former President Barack Obama called for action Tuesday, expressing disbelief that only Covid-19 could quell the gun violence the country has long endured.

"A once-in-a-century pandemic cannot be the only thing that slows mass shootings in this country," he said. "We shouldn't have to choose between one type of tragedy and another. It's time for leaders everywhere to listen to the American people when they say enough is enough -- because this is a normal we can no longer afford."

For the mass shootings that did unfold amid the pandemic, their locations were frighteningly familiar: a Buffalo, Minnesota, health clinic; a bowling alley in Rockford, Illinois; a Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, mall; parties in Rochester, New York, and Washington, DC; and a brewery in Milwaukee where, authorities would learn later, the gunman had been employed.

Gun violence is not a uniquely American phenomenon, but part of the rich American tapestry are threads of evil and violence: people (almost always men) who use weapons (often firearms) to snuff out innocents. Sometimes they're mentally ill, but more often they're just angry or vicious.

Their reasoning -- when it's attainable -- fails to provide closure. Outrage invariably erupts after each massacre. One side demands stronger gun laws. They're labeled un-American. Their opponents tout the Second Amendment. They're labeled callous. A stalemate ensues until the next killing, then repeat.

Within an hour of the Boulder killings, the National Rifle Association tweeted the Second Amendment. It later retweeted it. Nothing more.

It should surprise no one that a special interest group champions the Second Amendment. The amendment is a promise to every American, but 15 years prior to its ratification, the Declaration of Independence brought other promises of rights deemed "unalienable."

The full guarantees of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" will never be achieved by Officer Talley, Tralona Bartkowiak, Suzanne Fountain, Teri Leiker, Kevin Mahoney, Lynn Murray, Rikki Olds, Neven Stanisic, Denny Strong, Jody Waters -- or any of the thousands of victims who fell before Monday in Boulder.

'Part of the American experience'

In all likelihood, another person died by a gun while you were reading this. Despite the media's breathless focus on mass shootings, gun violence takes myriad and frequent forms.

According to numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the country saw 14,414 homicides in 2019 -- about one every 36 minutes -- while another 23,941 souls fatally turned guns on themselves -- roughly once every 22 minutes.

In his statement, Obama called out other scapegoats: disaffection, misogyny, hate. The United States has monopolies on none of these, though it has special brands that can be pernicious.

Sandy Phillips, who co-founded the organization Survivors Empowered to console and guide survivors of gun violence, pointed to the victims who suffer in silence, because the killings of their loved ones are seemingly not important enough for the newspapers or the nightly news.

Doubt her? Google the details about last week's shooting in Stockton, California, one of the most racially diverse cities in the nation.

"We have mass shootings in slow motion every day in this country, in other neighborhoods that never get the press, that never get the opportunity to speak out about what's happening in their communities -- and we need to change that," Phillips, who lost her 24-year-old daughter Jessica Ghawi in 2012 to gun violence in Aurora, Colorado, told CNN.

Those neighborhoods often belong to minorities, who have had a particularly rough time of the pandemic as well. It's another crushing American axiom that society's ills tend to home in on people of color, and those victims must yell so much louder to be heard.

There will be much yelling in coming days, perhaps weeks. Obama is right when he said Americans possess the ability to "make it harder for those with hate in their hearts to buy weapons of war. We can overcome opposition by cowardly politicians and the pressure of a gun lobby that opposes any limit on the ability of anyone to assemble an arsenal."

The margins are thin, though, and the complexity of that American tapestry will be on display. A Gallup poll from late last year showed 42% of Americans had guns in their homes, a number that's risen since 2019. Another Gallup query indicated 57% of Americans want stricter gun laws, a percentage that's on the decline.

Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe said "absolutely nothing" will stop the country's return to pre-pandemic mass violence if lawmakers refuse to curb access to the weaponry.

"This has become part of the American experience, and let's not forget: It's completely unique to us," he told CNN. "There's not another similar country on Earth that experiences the same number, the frequency of mass shootings as we do, and it is directly attributable to the profusion and the availability of guns, particularly high-powered assault-style weapons and how easily pretty much anyone can acquire them here in this country."

[newstfionline]

Tuesday, March 16, 2021

Colorado Snowstorm Knocks Out Power to Thousands and Snarls Travel (NYT) A snowstorm sweeping through Colorado and Wyoming on Sunday was expected to bring as much as four feet of snow to some parts of the region, and has left nearly 30,000 people without power in Colorado. The storm brought heavy, wet snow and downed trees and power lines. More than 20,000 customers near Greeley, Colo., about 50 miles north of Denver, were without power on Sunday, according to Xcel Energy. More than 2,500 people around Fort Collins, about 1,500 near Loveland and about 3,000 people in the Denver suburbs were also without power. A blizzard warning was in effect on Sunday for Colorado’s Front Range, an area that includes the Interstate 25 corridor from south of Denver up through Cheyenne, Wyo. The National Weather Service warned that an additional two to six inches of snow and wind gusts as high as 45 miles per hour could create “nearly impossible travel conditions.”

Florida’s pandemic response gets a second look from the national media (Axios) After a solid year of living with a pandemic, the national press is beginning to ask the question that even Democrats have been quietly pondering in the Sunshine State: Was Gov. Ron DeSantis’ pandemic response right for Florida? More than 32,000 Floridians have died, but our death rate is no worse than the national average—and better than some states with tighter restrictions. On Sunday’s front page, the New York Times explored the positives—from the booming real-estate market to Florida’s low unemployment rate—of an early reopening: “Much of the state has a boomtown feel,” writes Patricia Mazzei, “a sense of making up for months of lost time.” The Times notes that Florida’s unemployment rate is 5.1%, compared to 9.3% in California, 8.7% in New York and 6.9% in Texas. “That debate about reopening schools? It came and went months ago. Children have been in classrooms since the fall.” The closer you are to either loss or to the fullness of life will likely determine how you feel about the state’s response.

Quaking in their beds, sleepless Icelanders await volcanic eruption (Reuters) Icelanders are yearning for some undisturbed shut-eye after tremors from tens of thousands of earthquakes have rattled their sleep for weeks in what scientists call an unprecedented seismic event, which might well end in a spectacular volcanic eruption. “At the moment we’re feeling it constantly. It’s like you’re walking over a fragile suspension bridge,” Rannveig Gudmundsdottir, a lifelong resident in the town of Grindavik, told Reuters. Grindavik lies in the southern part of the Reykjanes Peninsula, a volcanic and seismic hot spot, where more than 40,000 earthquakes have occurred since Feb. 24. Located between the Eurasian and the North American tectonic plates, Iceland frequently experiences earthquakes as the plates slowly drift in opposite directions at a pace of around 2 centimetres each year. “Everyone here is so tired,” Gudmundsdottir, a 5th grade school teacher, said. “When I go to bed at night, all I think about is: Am I going to get any sleep tonight?” Authorities in Iceland warned of an imminent volcanic eruption on the peninsula in early March, but said they did not expect it to disturb international air traffic or damage critical infrastructure nearby.

Vigil To Reclaim The Streets From Vigilance (CNN) Sarah Everard, a 33-year-old marketing executive, disappeared on March 3 while walking home from a friend’s home in London’s southern neighborhood of Clapham. Her body was found inside a builder’s bag in a wooded area. A 48-year-old police officer has been charged with kidnapping and killing her. On Saturday, thousands of people gathered in Clapham Common to pay tribute to Everard despite planned nationwide vigils having been canceled due to pandemic restrictions. As darkness fell, police officers began grabbing women in the crowd and making arrests. Videos posted on social media showed officers violently dragging some female protesters away and throwing others to the ground and handcuffing them. Women’s rights activists in the UK are reeling from the Metropolitan Police’s heavy-handed approach. There’s also been political fallout, with a member of Parliament reading out the names of 118 women murdered last year. In a new poll, over 70% of UK women said they had been sexually harassed in public spaces. The figure rose to 97% among women aged 18-24. 45% said they didn’t believe reporting the incidents to officials would change anything.

Dutch police break up thousands of anti-lockdown protesters (The Hill) Police in the Netherlands dispersed thousands of anti-lockdown protesters outside the Hague on Sunday, one day before national elections begin in the country. Reuters reports that police used batons and water cannons to disperse the crowd who authorities said were ignoring social distancing rules as well as warnings from authorities. Many of those gathered in the crowd held up yellow umbrellas and signs in opposition that read “Love, freedom, stop dictatorship,” according to Reuters. The country has been under an intense lockdown since January, Reuters notes, with gatherings of more than two people banned and the first night-time curfew issued since World War II. When the lockdown was extended, it sparked several days of rioting across the country. According to data from the World Health Organization (WHO), the Netherlands has confirmed over 1.1 million coronavirus cases and more than 16,000 related deaths.

Spain to launch trial of four-day working week (The Guardian) Spain could become one of the first countries in the world to trial the four-day working week after the government agreed to launch a modest pilot project for companies interested in the idea. Earlier this year, the small leftwing Spanish party Más País announced that the government had accepted its proposal to test out the idea. From New Zealand to Germany, the idea has been steadily gaining ground globally. Hailed by its proponents as a means to increase productivity, improve the mental health of workers and fight climate change, the proposal has taken on new significance as the pandemic sharpens issues around wellbeing, burnout and work-life balance. Leftwing parties in Spain—where a 44-day strike in Barcelona in 1919 resulted in the country becoming one of the first in western Europe to adopt the eight-hour workday—have seized on the idea. “Spain is one of the countries where workers put in more hours than the European average. But we’re not among the most productive countries,” said Iñigo Errejón of Más País. “I maintain that working more hours does not mean working better.”

Major European nations suspend use of AstraZeneca vaccine (AP) A cascading number of European countries—including Germany, France, Italy and Spain—suspended use of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine Monday over reports of dangerous blood clots in some recipients, though the company and international regulators say there is no evidence the shot is to blame. AstraZeneca’s formula is one of three vaccines in use on the continent. But the escalating concern is another setback for the European Union’s vaccination drive, which has been plagued by shortages and other hurdles. The EU’s drug regulatory agency called a meeting for Thursday to review experts’ findings on the AstraZeneca shot and decide whether action needs to be taken.

Myanmar junta orders martial law in 6 Yangon townships (AP) Myanmar’s ruling junta has declared martial law in six townships in the country’s largest city, as security forces killed dozens of protesters over the weekend in an increasingly lethal crackdown on resistance to last month’s military coup. At least 38 people were killed Sunday and dozens were injured in one of the deadliest days of the crackdown on anti-coup protesters, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, or AAPP, an independent group tracking the toll of the violence. Several estimates from other sources gave higher figures.

Flights canceled during China’s worst sandstorm in a decade (AP) China’s capital and a wide swath of the country’s north were enveloped Monday in the worst sandstorm in a decade, forcing the cancelation of hundreds of flights. Skyscrapers in the center of Beijing appeared to drop from sight amid the dust and sand. Traffic was snarled and more than 400 flights out of the capital’s two main airports were canceled amid high winds and low visibility. The National Meteorological Center said Monday’s storm had developed in the Gobi Desert in the Inner Mongolia Region, where schools had been advised to close and bus service added to reduce residents’ exposure to the harsh conditions. The National Meteorological Center forecasted the sand and dust would affect 12 provinces and regions from Xinjiang in the far northwest to Heilongjiang in the northeast and the eastern coastal port city of Tianjin.

Taiwan’s boom (NYT) Taiwan, home to 24 million people, has seen fewer than 1,000 cases of Covid-19 and just 10 coronavirus-related deaths. Prior to 2020, lots of Taiwanese and dual nationals moved abroad and only came back for a visit. After the pandemic hit, Taiwan closed its borders to almost all foreign visitors. Protocols put in place include temperature checks, hand-sanitizing, mask-wearing (except in schools), rigorous contact tracing, and strict quarantines for incoming travelers. Taiwanese nationals returned, and about 270,000 more stayed than left. As a result, the island is experiencing a real economic boom. Exports have been rising for eight months, fueled by shipments of electronics and surging demand for semiconductor chips. Domestic tourism is exploding. The economy grew more than 5% in the fourth quarter compared with the same time period in 2019. And every day restaurants, bars, aFor Law Enforcementnd cafes are packed, office buildings hum, and schools are filled with laughing, unmasked children. “We just feel very lucky and definitely a little guilty,” said a product manager for a Bay Area tech company who returned to Taipei with his wife and young son last May. “We feel like we are the ones who benefited from the pandemic.”

United States and Iran warily circle each other over reactivating nuclear deal (Washington Post) The United States is willing to sit down with Iran “tomorrow” and jointly agree to full compliance with the nuclear accord they and five other world powers signed in 2015, according to a senior Biden administration official. Iran has made equally clear it shares the goal of going back to the terms of the original agreement, before President Donald Trump pulled out of it. But nearly two months into Biden’s presidency, with Iran’s own contentious presidential election approaching in June, the two sides have been unable even to talk to each other about what both say they want. Iran wants all Trump sanctions lifted and an immediate influx of cash from the release of blocked international loans and frozen funds, along with foreign investment and removal of bans on oil sales. It seeks assurances that the next U.S. administration won’t jettison the deal again. For its part, the Biden administration wants a reactivated deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, to serve as a “platform” to renegotiate its sunset provisions—the future dates when certain provisions are set to expire. It wants to move quickly to discussions about its other problems with Iran, including Tehran’s ballistic missile program and its use of proxy forces in Iraq, Syria and beyond, and human rights abuses. Both sides continue to wait for the other to prove its good faith with “you, first” rhetoric.

‘Republic of Queues’: 10 years on, Syria is a hungry nation (AP) The lines stretch for miles outside gas stations in Syrian cities, with an average wait of five hours to fill up a tank. At bakeries, people push and shove during long, chaotic waits for their turn to collect the quota of two bread packs a day per family. On the streets in the capital of Damascus, beggars accost motorists and passers-by, pleading for food or money. Medicines, baby milk and diapers can hardly be found. As Syria marks the 10th anniversary Monday of the start of its uprising-turned-civil war, President Bashar Assad may still be in power, propped up by Russia and Iran. But millions of people are being pushed deeper into poverty, and a majority of households can hardly scrape together enough to secure their next meal. “Life here is a portrait of everyday humiliation and suffering,” said one woman in Damascus. Her husband lost his job at an electronics store last month, and now the family is drawing on meager savings that are evaporating fast. With two kids and an elderly father to care for, she said life had become unbearably difficult and she is gripped by anxiety for the future. Until recently, she could smuggle in her father’s medicines from Lebanon, but now Lebanon has its own meltdown and shortages.

[giftofshewbread]

It’s Over!  ( Biblical Update )

By Daymond Duck     Published  on: August 15, 2021

“This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come” (II Tim. 3:1).

Be aware that “evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived” (II Tim. 3:13).

The right of U.S. citizens to freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom to buy and sell, etc., is being challenged by the shadow government’s desire to restrict and/or control American’s freedom of religion, speech, right to buy and sell, etc.

Covid is a global medical crisis that the godless shadow government created to justify the establishment of a world government, world religion, and worldwide tracking system to enslave everyone on earth.

The public is being told that proof of vaccination (passports, I.D. cards, or whatever) is needed to bring Covid-19 under control when the truth of the matter is that Covid-19 and the variants are a tool that the rich and powerful are using to bring all people under their control.

It is possible and perhaps likely that this proof of vaccination will eventually be followed by the lockdown and persecution of Christian groups and institutions based on their support for Bible teaching and lack of support for the globalist agenda (the godless world government, godless world religion, abortion, gay rights, etc.).

Before the persecution reaches its peak, Christians will be removed (Raptured) from this earth, and the door will be thrown wide open for the godless shadow government to select a leader to take dictatorial power on earth.

Following his appearance, their so-called proof of vaccination will probably evolve into a data system that will be used to determine who can buy and sell, who can live or die, etc. (Don’t overlook the fact that some of the leaders that want to force everyone to be vaccinated are the same people that want to reduce the population of the earth from almost 8 billion to about half a billion; many support abortion, gay marriage, euthanasia, etc.).

God will allow these godless globalists to select a leader to rule for seven years, but God will ultimately cause them to regret what they have done for all eternity.

A reader recently sent an e-mail to this writer containing part of a message that Dr. Franklin Graham delivered at a Baptist Church in Florida.

Dr. Graham said, “The American Dream has ended.”

Readers need to understand that the one who said “The American Dream has ended” is one of the most highly respected preachers in the world, not a fanatic and not a prophecy teacher, but America must decline if the globalists are going to meet their goal of a world government and a world religion by 2030 or before.

Here is a repeat from the article I wrote last week: On July 27, 2021, former Sec. of State Mike Pompeo said, “Collapse from within is possible… Immigration without assimilation, illicit drugs, human trafficking, disputed elections, inflationary risks have become the tools to disassemble our republic in what must surely be an attempt at national suicide.”

I want to close my opening remarks this way: We are not seeing the Mark of the Beast yet (people are not being jabbed in their right hand or forehead; people are not taking the name, number, or Mark of the Beast; unvaccinated people can still buy and sell in most places; etc.).

On the other hand, we are seeing the global development and advancement of technology and policies that many excellent Bible prophecy teachers believe will lead to the Mark of the Beast (forced compliance, loss of one’s job, development of passports or passes, a demand for government databases to track people, a demand to prevent the unvaccinated from entering stores to buy or sell, the spread of anti-Christian rhetoric, etc.).

Also, keep in mind the fact that the Church will be Raptured a minimum of 3 ½ years (and perhaps more) before the global development and advancement of the technology and policies goes into effect as the Mark of the Beast (the Gates of Hell will not prevail against the Church).

Here are other reasons to believe that history is approaching end of the age Bible predictions and the American Dream is over.

One, when Jesus was asked about the signs of His coming, He listed famines, pestilences, earthquakes, etc. (notice that the words are plural as in more than one famine, more than one pestilence, etc.; Matt. 24:7).

Today, the world is trying to deal with Covid-19, the Delta (India variant), Lambda (Peru variant), and Epsilon variant (pestilences plural).

Two, on Aug. 6, 2021, California announced that a low water level caused by drought has forced the shutdown of the state’s second largest hydroelectric plant for the first time since the dam was completed in 1977.

The state will be able to get electricity from other systems.

More: On Aug. 4, 2021, the Dixie wildfire destroyed Greenville, Cal., a gold rush town of about 1,200 people (5 days later, Fox News reported that about 600 buildings have burned and about 13,000 are in danger).

More: On Aug. 6, 2021, it was reported that Lake Powell on the Utah-Arizona border, the Great Salt Lake in Utah, and Lake Mead in Nevada have hit record lows this summer.

FYI: Drought is having a devastating impact on crops, cattle, hog, and sheep production in the U.S. (a very large part of America’s food supply).

FYI: Unprecedented wildfires are also taking place in Greece, Italy, Turkey, Lebanon, and Russia.

Three, during the Tribulation Period, the world will be divided into two groups: those that take the Mark of the Beast and those that refuse to take the Mark of the Beast.

Today, the world is being divided into two groups: those that have been vaccinated and those that have not been vaccinated.

Four, on Aug. 9, 2021, World Net Daily posted an article by Wayne Allen Root that said:

Republicans asked for “papers” from migrants who had broken into our country. Criminals. Democrats said, “No, that’s racism.”

Republicans asked for “papers” once every two years for federal elections to prove you have a right to vote. Democrats said, “No, that’s racism.”

Now Democrats want American citizens, not illegal aliens, not criminals, but patriots born in this country to produce papers 24/7. We’ll need papers to enter restaurants, bars, nightclubs, concerts, casinos, conventions, and hotels and to board a train, plane, or bus. We’ll need papers to enter a supermarket, or we’ll starve to death—all for the crime of being unvaccinated.

Note: U.S. Sen. Rand Paul said the U.S. is at a crossroads, and he is urging U.S. citizens to “resist the mandates, lockdowns, and the harmful policies of the petty tyrants and bureaucrats.”

Five, on Aug. 6, 2021, Natural News reported that the U.K. has admitted that it is building storage areas for bodies in the 32 boroughs of London and the city itself.

These storage areas are being built because the government expects an increase in deaths over the next five years due to their attempts to force people to be vaccinated (some people that are not allowed to buy and sell will go hungry, get sick, etc.).

Writer’s Comment: It is common for some people to ask how bad will God let it get before He Raptures His Church. No one knows the answer to this, but the situation is worsening, and Christians everywhere need to pray about it.

Six, on July 31, 2021, the Carnival Cruise Ship Vista left Galveston, TX with everyone or board vaccinated (every guest, every crew member, every staff member, everyone vaccinated; no unvaccinated people on board).

On Aug. 8, 2021, it was reported that a small number of people on the ship have tested positive for Covid.

Seven, God promised to bless those that bless Israel and to curse those that curse Israel (Gen. 12:3).

On Aug. 4, 2021, the Iranian-backed terrorist group that controls Lebanon, Hezbollah, fired three rockets into Israel.

On Aug. 5, 2021, Israeli jets struck terrorist targets in Lebanon for the first time in 15 years, and Pres. Biden announced that he will give the terrorist government $100 million dollars in economic aid (borrowed money that will add to inflation in the U.S.).

On Aug. 6, 2021, Hezbollah forces fired 19 rockets from Lebanon into Israel, and Israel responded with artillery fire.

On Aug. 8, 2021, new hardline Iranian Pres. Raisi met with leaders of the terrorist groups Hamas, Hezbollah, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and the Houthis, and promised to support their terrorist activities until Israel is defeated.

Writer’s Comment: This could easily get out of hand and lead to the fulfillment of several prophecies (Psa. 83 if that is a war; the Destruction of Damascus as prophesied in Isa. 17; the Battle of Gog and Magog as prophesied in Ezek. 38-39; time will tell.).

Eight, violence is on the increase, and some politicians want to defund the police and take the guns away from law-abiding citizens, but the globalist goal is only partly to prevent citizens from defending themselves against criminals.

The globalist goal is primarily to prevent citizens from defending the U.S. against the shadow government’s takeover of the U.S.

For whatever it is worth, thousands of people have marched in Paris and other French cities four weeks in a row to protest the loss of their freedoms.

On Aug. 6, protests erupted in Turin, Italy.

Nine, on Aug. 6, 2021, a guest on Fox & Friends said the strongest outbreak of the Covid Delta Variant is in Texas and Florida, and those two states are where the Biden administration has taken the largest number of Covid-infected migrants.

Ten, concerning global pandemics and the Mark of the Beast, on July 25, 2021, The Times of Israel reported on a study that found that people vaccinated before Feb. 2021 are twice as likely to get Covid as those vaccinated in June 2021 for two reasons: 1) Their vaccine effectiveness decreases over time and is becoming less effective every day; and 2) The Delta Variant is more contagious than the original Covid-19, and therefore more able to overcome the resistance of their declining vaccination.

The doctor that headed up the study said, “We definitely need to think about a third vaccine.”

It is the opinion of this writer that the globalists will want people to take a 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc. vaccination until they bring in the Mark of the Beast.

Update: On Aug. 5, 2021, Moderna said data shows a noticeable drop in antibody levels 6-8 months after a vaccinated person’s second jab, so vaccinated people will need to get a booster shot this fall.

Writer’s Comment: Just a reminder to U.S. citizens that Pres. Biden said, “You’re not going to get Covid if you have these vaccines.”

Eleven, concerning world government: it is widely known that the World Economic Forum (WEF) wants to establish a world government and eliminate private property ownership by 2030 or before.

The WEF even produced a video saying, “You will own nothing, and you will be happy.”

My article “Developing Now,” posted two weeks ago, quoted Tony Koretz who said, “A global medical dictatorship is rising.”

I added that “It is hard to deny that the shadow government is using unelected individuals to dictate policies to nations all over the world.”

On Aug. 3, 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) extended the U.S. government’s eviction moratorium, a document that allows renters in areas that have a high level of Covid to not pay their rent.

Put another way, property owners that have rented their house, apartment, etc., to someone else must make the mortgage payments (if the property owner has a mortgage payment), pay to keep the house, apartment, etc., repaired, and the property owner cannot evict the renter for not paying their rent (the renter can live in the house free, and the property owner must pay the bills).

The fact that the CDC (a medical group) can force private property owners to make the property payments and let renters live in the property free sure looks like a global medical dictatorship has taken over.

The real owners of the property are not happy with making the payments and receiving no rent.

Twelve, on Aug. 4, 2021, concerning a Mark on the forehead to buy and sell, it was reported that Amazon is now using palm scanners at 53 Amazon-owned stores, and it plans to expand the program to other stores in the U.S.

Customers can use a simple hand scan to pay, enter or I.D. themselves, and Amazon will give them a $10 promotional credit to sign up.

Before my final word, pastor Keith Watts asked me to include this paragraph in my article (something I can’t start doing for ministries all over the world): “I am asking all prayer warriors from around the world to join with us for a day of prayer, fasting, and repentance on August 16, 2021, for the sake of the Philippines and on behalf of over 110,950,213 precious souls. We will be fasting from the time we wake up until we go to bed, interceding on behalf of the lost souls in the Philippines.”

Finally, are you Rapture Ready?

If you want to be rapture ready and go to heaven, you must be born again (John 3:3). God loves you, and if you have not done so, sincerely admit that you are a sinner; believe that Jesus is the virgin-born, sinless Son of God who died for the sins of the world, was buried, and raised from the dead; ask Him to forgive your sins, cleanse you, come into your heart and be your Saviour; then tell someone that you have done this.

[newmusickarl]

2021 has been relentless with great new music so far this year, with each Friday drop bringing with it at least two or three incredible new releases worth checking out. However, that still didn’t quite prepare me for this last week which has probably been the best New Music Friday of the year so far. An avalanche of new releases, including (at least as I haven’t got round to everything yet!) five incredible albums, each offering different sounds to fit different moods. Because of this and because I can’t choose a favourite from these records yet, there is no Album of the Week – instead here are the five albums and two tracks from the last seven days that you should make the time to listen to and discover:

Album & EP Recommendations

Carnage by Nick Cave & Warren Ellis

“This morning is amazing and so are you…” – Balcony Man

Surprise! Out of nowhere, the legendary Nick Cave and his partner in crime from the Bad Seeds Warren Ellis have today dropped their lockdown collaboration album - Carnage. And although I have only managed one listen through at the time of writing, just like his last two records, this one is really something special.

If there was any artist who you would pick to really capture the mood of lockdown and turn it into something magical, it would be Nick Cave. On his last record Ghosteen, one of my Albums of the Year for 2019, Cave & Ellis continued through their journey of despair which originally begun on 2016’s Skeleton Tree, ultimately finding a glimmer of hope at the end of it all. Carnage by comparison arrives almost as a halfway house thematically of these two previous efforts, carrying the hopelessness of Skeleton Tree rooted in real life events, along with the fantastical stories and tinge of optimism displayed on Ghosteen.

Because of this, Carnage is arguably more accessible than those two records, with Cave & Ellis seemingly dancing in the melancholy of the apocalypse across the album’s eight tracks. Sonically however it is vastly different, with the understated piano-driven melodies replaced with grand, operatic instrumentation built predominantly on strings, that move effortlessly from the menacing to the stirring at the drop of a hat.

Although I still need to stew on this record a bit more, the ominous prance of Old Time, the gorgeous guitar and choral chants of the title track and the beautifully restrained closer Balcony Man are standing out as the early highlights.

Cave himself summed up Carnage perfectly in his release statement, calling it “a brutal but very beautiful record nested in a communal catastrophe.” This is Cave and Ellis waltzing majestically in amongst the chaos, taking the listener into the eye of the storm and presenting them with something quite glorious at the centre of it all.

Terra Firma by Tash Sultana

Elsewhere, Australian multi-instrumentalist Tash Sultana released her much-anticipated sophomore album this week, Terra Firma. Contrary to Cave & Ellis’ record, Sultana delivers a peaceful escape from the global situation, delivering a record that is very personal and reflective.

Soulful and richly textured, there are plenty of career-best moments here including the acoustic-driven cooing of Crop Circles, the gorgeous Josh Cashman collaboration Dream My Life Away and the record’s transcendent finale, I Am Free. However, it is the album’s centrepiece Coma that delivers arguably Sultana’s best song to date, a beautifully constructed track about letting go, that culminates in a wonderfully bluesy guitar solo.

At 60 minutes long, Terra Firma feels like a meditative experience – an album to sit and bask in to get some much needed relaxation and introspection away from the lockdown grind. This is another special album, one I’ve returned to numerous times this week and can see me continuing to do so over the course of the year too.

As Love Continues by Mogwai

At this point, ten albums and 26 years into their career, people just about know what to expect from Scottish post-rockers Mogwai, and that is soaring, grandiose instrumentals. However somehow with each new release, the band still manage to amaze, taking their instrumentals into unchartered territory and leaving listeners in wonder with their colourful, breath-taking soundscapes.

For me, As Love Continues is one of their best releases for years (with some of their best song names too). From cathartic opener To the Bin My Friend, Tonight We Vacate The Earth, the acid-drenched industrial sounds of Here We, Here We, Here We Go Forever, and the dreamy, looping guitar riff and euphoric crescendo of Pat Stains, Mogwai’s touch for forging fascinating sonic textures hasn’t missed a beat. That said, it is the one track that contains clean vocals that stands out amongst the pack, and that is the emotional gut punch of Ritchie Sacramento which sees frontman Stuart Braithwaite paying a beautiful tribute to all his musician friends that have passed over the years.

This is definitely one of my favourite recent Mogwai records, and one of my favourite releases by anybody this year so far – an essential listen.

Trauma Factory by nothing,nowhere

When you’re ready for a change of pace after indulging in the albums above, then the fantastic fourth record from American prodigy Joe Mulherin under his nothing,nowhere guise is the place to go. Mulherin has always been known for his edgy blend of hip-hop, R&B, pop punk and emo, with this crossover of genres helping him to forge a sound that feels very much his own, with many trying to replicate since and ultimately failing.

Now on Trauma Factory, Mulherin sets himself for world domination with arguably his most commercial collection of tracks to date, certainly from a melody standpoint at least if not lyrically. From ambient groove lights (4444), the laidback, slackerpop of upside down, the anthemic chorus of pretend, the infectiously catchy KennyHoopla collaboration blood, and the straight-up pop punk of nightmare, Trauma Factory feels stadium-ready, almost playing out like a nothing,nowhere greatest hits collection.

However as big and chart friendly as this one feels at times, there are still plenty of riskier moments too, such as the bold, heavy riffs and aggressive vocals of death, a track which is nicely contrasted by the vulnerability of one like real, an album highlight which sees Joe confess his own pressures and anxieties in a haunting spoken word number.

All in all, this a wonderfully eclectic album that perfectly showcases Mulherin’s growing confidence as a songwriter and artist. This was by far my most highly anticipated album heading into this week, and although I am yet to decide if this is overall Mulherin’s finest release to date, there is no doubt that this a highly enjoyable 40 minute listen, packed in with plenty of career best tracks.

Non-Fiction by Spector

And finally this week on the album front, legendary indie rockers Spector have released a new 13 track collection called Non-Fiction, a culmination of all their independent EPs and singles released since their last full length album Moth Boys in 2015 (their last to be released on Fiction records, hence the title of this one, aha!). That album was actually my Album of the Year in 2015 and, despite not being an official studio album, Non-Fiction resonates with me the same way that album did six years ago.

One of the great differentiators Spector have always had over other British guitar bands for me is enigmatic frontman Fred Macpherson, with his witty humour and razor-sharp songwriting completely unmatched by any of his peers. On Non-Fiction, his unique brand of lyricism is out in full force with this collection featuring some of the very best songs Spector have ever written. From the brilliant “We broke down on the M1, they said to call the AA but I didn’t know which one” line in opener Untitled in D, through to the “More M&S than S&M, two can dine for news at ten, voucher for my requiem, now I’m one of them” verse in album highlight When Did We Get So Normal?, Macpherson doesn’t waste a single word.

Steered by Macpherson’s astute, observational lyricism, Spector serve up huge singalong indie anthems that have no reason to be this poetic and wonderfully crafted. Again, an album that features plenty of career highs including Fine Not Fine, Wild Guess, Tenner and Half Life to name but a few, Non-Fiction, despite being independently made, feels every bit as special as its predecessor Moth Boys did. Ultimately if you’re after rousing indie anthems this week, you’ll struggle to find anything better.

Tracks of the Week

The Last Man On Earth by Wolf Alice

Onto tracks then and Wolf Alice made their triumphant return this week, debuting the first taste of their forthcoming album Blue Weekend. An unexpected first single choice, The Last Man On Earth is a haunting piano ballad built around Ellie Rowsell’s powerfully haunting vocals, which eventually erupts into a glorious haze of soaring guitars. Welcome back!

Paranoid by Keir

And my final recommendation this week is the anthemic new single from singer-songwriter Keir. Ever since the release of his song Squeeze Me years ago, Keir has been an artist I always thought should be dominating radio stations across the country. Although he’s not achieved that feat just yet, Paranoid may be the track to change all that with its instantly catchy chorus, glorious choral backing and masterful production. One of the best pop songs of the year so far.

[atlanticcanada]

Conflict over new Indigenous lobster fishery continues to smoulder amid some progress

Federal conservation officers have seized more than 7,000 lobster traps in the two years since violence flared in Nova Scotia when a First Nation tried to assert a treaty right by fishing out of season.

Earlier this month, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans confirmed it had confiscated almost 2,000 traps this year alone, a figure that shows the dispute between Ottawa and some Indigenous fishers has not gone away -- despite DFO's best efforts to keep a lid on tensions.

"Gear is still being cut by non-natives and DFO is still seizing traps," said Hubert Nicholas, fisheries director with the Membertou First Nation in Cape Breton.

"The non-natives allowed us to fish for a few days (in 2020). But every time somebody put a trap in the water, they were cut.  We heard about someone pointing a gun at somebody here just a couple of months ago."

Tim Kerr, DFO's director of conservation and protection in the Maritimes, said the department has stepped up patrols in the region to ensure safety and compliance with the rules. "We're committed to the maintenance of an orderly fishery," he said in a recent interview, adding that officers are also educating non-Indigenous fishers about treaty rights.

One band's expression of those rights attracted national attention in September 2020, when the Sipekne'katik First Nation started a pioneering self-regulated lobster fishery. Non-Indigenous fishers in southwestern Nova Scotia complained the band had no right to do so because the season was closed on St. Marys Bay.

There were confrontations on the water, rowdy protests and riots at two lobster pounds, one of which was later razed by a deliberately set fire. Charges were laid. And the then-chief of Sipekne'katik First Nation, Mike Sack, filed a lawsuit against the RCMP and some fishers.

The ugly scenes were a replay of the violence that erupted in eastern New Brunswick in 1999 when some First Nations started fishing without licences immediately after the Supreme Court of Canada decided they had a treaty right to fish when and where they wanted.

The Marshall decision said the Mi'kmaq, Maliseet and Passamaquoddy bands in Eastern Canada could hunt, fish and gather to earn a "moderate livelihood," though the court followed up with a clarification two months later, saying the treaty right was subject to federal regulation.

That additional ruling remains at the crux of the argument being made by non-Indigenous fishers, who say First Nations must abide by Ottawa's conservation measures, which include limiting all fishing to regulated seasons.

"The resource is big enough to sustain us all if we focus on conservation first and not politics," said Colin Sproul, president of the 1,900-member Unified Fishery Conservation Alliance -- the largest fisheries advocacy group in the Maritimes.

"We believe in one resource, one fishery and one set of management plans."

In the wake of the Marshall decision -- named after Nova Scotia Mi'kmaq activist Donald Marshall Jr. -- the federal government has spent more than $630 million on helping Indigenous communities participate in various fisheries by purchasing boats and gear for them.

The Fisheries Department has also struck a number of long-term fishing agreements with some First Nations, said Mike Leonard, director of Indigenous fisheries management in the Maritimes.

And in March 2021, Ottawa introduced an "optional path" for First Nations hoping to pursue a moderate livelihood fishery. The department started approving interim plans drafted by each band, but DFO has made it clear that fishing will be limited to the federally regulated seasons.

"It's being done in a way that meets the communities' plans and aspirations," Leonard said in a recent interview. "We have reached out to all First Nations in the region and offered the opportunity to discuss moderate livelihood fishing plans and reaching understandings."

So far, the department has granted moderate-livelihood licences to eight First Nations -- seven in Nova Scotia and one in P.E.I., though the Sipekne'katik and Membertou bands are not among them.

Sack, who last month lost his bid for re-election as Sipekne'katik's chief, has long argued that the Marshall decision specifically exempts First Nations from seasonal restrictions.

All of the First Nations in Nova Scotia with interim agreements ignored interview requests. The Kwilmu'kw Maw-klusuaqn organization, which advocates on behalf of the Mi'kmaq in Nova Scotia, also remained mute.

Andrea Paul, chief of the Pictou Landing First Nation, confirmed in an email that her band had reached an interim agreement with Ottawa and that it "has been peaceful on the water."

Sproul, a boat builder and lifelong lobster fisherman, said the interim agreements represent a step forward.

"There's been broad-based support among non-Indigenous fishermen for these understandings," Sproul said in a recent interview. "There has been a general calm that has returned to the fishery, which I think is related to a reduction in illegal fishing in some places."

Despite the progress made this past year, some Indigenous critics have accused DFO of moving too slowly on implementing the Marshall decision. But the department says it isn't dragging its heels.

"DFO ... is interested in longer-term solutions," said Leonard. "An interim, year-to-year approach is progress towards meeting those needs. But I think everybody recognizes that having something more long term is preferable."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 19, 2022.

from CTV News - Atlantic https://ift.tt/y1n7YN0

[importanttigercreation]

Welcome to the news channel of the Angry Nature, Today we will tell you about La palma lava, Spain,, Dukono volcano 👇👇 https://youtu.be/jq6WsvrMOkg An eruption at the Cumbre Vieja volcanic ridge, comprising the southern half of the Spanish island of La Palma in the Canary Islands, lasted from 19 September to 13 December 2021. It was the first volcanic eruption on the island since the eruption of Teneguía in 1971. the Cumbre Vieja volcano destroyed more than 3,000 properties and hundreds of acres of farmland on the Canary Island. Since the Spanish have kept records, there have been eight eruptions – all of which have occurred on the Cumbre Vieja: 1470–1492 Montaña Quemada. 1585 Tajuya near El Paso. 1646 Volcán San Martin. 7,000 people evacuated So far, the eruption has destroyed 1,184 homes according to land registry figures. Those are the dreams of 2,120 people, the number of residents in the exclusion zone according to data from La Palma Cabildo, as the island authority is known. ATTENTION: All videos are taken from open sources. The selection is based on publication date, title, description, and venue. Sometimes, due to unfair posting of news on social networks, the video may contain frames that do not correspond to the date and place. It is not always possible to check all videos. We apologize for any errors! Thank you for watching, don't forget to subscribe our channel, We Wish you good Weather, #lapalma_lava #spain_volcano #angry_nature #canary_island_lava #lapalma_eruption #lapalma_volcano #volcano_2022 #lapalma_erupt #explosion #volcano #eruption

[xtruss]

The Other Afghan Women

In the countryside, the endless killing of civilians turned women against the occupiers who claimed to be helping them.

��� By Anand Gopal | September 6, 2021 | The New Yorker

More than seventy per cent of Afghans do not live in cities. In rural areas, life under the U.S.-led coalition and its Afghan allies became pure hazard; even drinking tea in a sunlit field, or driving to your sister’s wedding, was a potentially deadly gamble.Photograph by Stephen Dupont / Contact Press Images

Late one afternoon this past August, Shakira heard banging on her front gate. In the Sangin Valley, which is in Helmand Province, in southern Afghanistan, women must not be seen by men who aren’t related to them, and so her nineteen-year-old son, Ahmed, went to the gate. Outside were two men in bandoliers and black turbans, carrying rifles. They were members of the Taliban, who were waging an offensive to wrest the countryside back from the Afghan National Army. One of the men warned, “If you don’t leave immediately, everyone is going to die.”

Shakira, who is in her early forties, corralled her family: her husband, an opium merchant, who was fast asleep, having succumbed to the temptations of his product, and her eight children, including her oldest, twenty-year-old Nilofar—as old as the war itself—whom Shakira called her “deputy,” because she helped care for the younger ones. The family crossed an old footbridge spanning a canal, then snaked their way through reeds and irregular plots of beans and onions, past dark and vacant houses. Their neighbors had been warned, too, and, except for wandering chickens and orphaned cattle, the village was empty.

Shakira’s family walked for hours under a blazing sun. She started to feel the rattle of distant thuds, and saw people streaming from riverside villages: men bending low beneath bundles stuffed with all that they could not bear to leave behind, women walking as quickly as their burqas allowed.

The pounding of artillery filled the air, announcing the start of a Taliban assault on an Afghan Army outpost. Shakira balanced her youngest child, a two-year-old daughter, on her hip as the sky flashed and thundered. By nightfall, they had come upon the valley’s central market. The corrugated-iron storefronts had largely been destroyed during the war. Shakira found a one-room shop with an intact roof, and her family settled in for the night. For the children, she produced a set of cloth dolls—one of a number of distractions that she’d cultivated during the years of fleeing battle. As she held the figures in the light of a match, the earth shook.

Around dawn, Shakira stepped outside, and saw that a few dozen families had taken shelter in the abandoned market. It had once been the most thriving bazaar in northern Helmand, with shopkeepers weighing saffron and cumin on scales, carts loaded with women’s gowns, and storefronts dedicated to selling opium. Now stray pillars jutted upward, and the air smelled of decaying animal remains and burning plastic.

In the distance, the earth suddenly exploded in fountains of dirt. Helicopters from the Afghan Army buzzed overhead, and the families hid behind the shops, considering their next move. There was fighting along the stone ramparts to the north and the riverbank to the west. To the east was red-sand desert as far as Shakira could see. The only option was to head south, toward the leafy city of Lashkar Gah, which remained under the control of the Afghan government.

The journey would entail cutting through a barren plain exposed to abandoned U.S. and British bases, where snipers nested, and crossing culverts potentially stuffed with explosives. A few families started off. Even if they reached Lashkar Gah, they could not be sure what they’d find there. Since the start of the Taliban’s blitz, Afghan Army soldiers had surrendered in droves, begging for safe passage home. It was clear that the Taliban would soon reach Kabul, and that the twenty years, and the trillions of dollars, devoted to defeating them had come to nothing. Shakira’s family stood in the desert, discussing the situation. The gunfire sounded closer. Shakira spotted Taliban vehicles racing toward the bazaar—and she decided to stay put. She was weary to the bone, her nerves frayed. She would face whatever came next, accept it like a judgment. “We’ve been running all our lives,” she told me. “I’m not going anywhere.”

The longest war in American history ended on August 15th, when the Taliban captured Kabul without firing a shot. Bearded, scraggly men with black turbans took control of the Presidential palace, and around the capital the austere white flags of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan went up. Panic ensued. Some women burned their school records and went into hiding, fearing a return to the nineteen-nineties, when the Taliban forbade them to venture out alone and banned girls’ education. For Americans, the very real possibility that the gains of the past two decades might be erased appeared to pose a dreadful choice: recommit to seemingly endless war, or abandon Afghan women.

This summer, I travelled to rural Afghanistan to meet women who were already living under the Taliban, to listen to what they thought about this looming dilemma. More than seventy per cent of Afghans do not live in cities, and in the past decade the insurgent group had swallowed large swaths of the countryside. Unlike in relatively liberal Kabul, visiting women in these hinterlands is not easy: even without Taliban rule, women traditionally do not speak to unrelated men. Public and private worlds are sharply divided, and when a woman leaves her home she maintains a cocoon of seclusion through the burqa, which predates the Taliban by centuries. Girls essentially disappear into their homes at puberty, emerging only as grandmothers, if ever. It was through grandmothers—finding each by referral, and speaking to many without seeing their faces—that I was able to meet dozens of women, of all ages. Many were living in desert tents or hollowed-out storefronts, like Shakira; when the Taliban came across her family hiding at the market, the fighters advised them and others not to return home until someone could sweep for mines. I first encountered her in a safe house in Helmand. “I’ve never met a foreigner before,” she said shyly. “Well, a foreigner without a gun.”

Shakira has a knack for finding humor in pathos, and in the sheer absurdity of the men in her life: in the nineties, the Taliban had offered to supply electricity to the village, and the local graybeards had initially refused, fearing black magic. “Of course, we women knew electricity was fine,” she said, chuckling. When she laughs, she pulls her shawl over her face, leaving only her eyes exposed. I told her that she shared a name with a world-renowned pop star, and her eyes widened. “Is it true?” she asked a friend who’d accompanied her to the safe house. “Could it be?”

Shakira, like the other women I met, grew up in the Sangin Valley, a gash of green between sharp mountain outcrops. The valley is watered by the Helmand River and by a canal that Americans built in the nineteen-fifties. You can walk the width of the dale in an hour, passing dozens of tiny hamlets, creaking footbridges, and mud-brick walls. As a girl, Shakira heard stories from her mother of the old days in her village, Pan Killay, which was home to about eighty families: the children swimming in the canal under the warm sun, the women pounding grain in stone mortars. In winter, smoke wafted from clay hearths; in spring, rolling fields were blanketed with poppies.

In 1979, when Shakira was an infant, Communists seized power in Kabul and tried to launch a female-literacy program in Helmand—a province the size of West Virginia, with few girls’ schools. Tribal elders and landlords refused. In the villagers’ retelling, the traditional way of life in Sangin was smashed overnight, because outsiders insisted on bringing women’s rights to the valley. “Our culture could not accept sending their girls outside to school,” Shakira recalled. “It was this way before my father’s time, before my grandfather’s time.” When the authorities began forcing girls to attend classes at gunpoint, a rebellion erupted, led by armed men calling themselves the mujahideen. In their first operation, they kidnapped all the schoolteachers in the valley, many of whom supported girls’ education, and slit their throats. The next day, the government arrested tribal elders and landlords on the suspicion that they were bankrolling the mujahideen. These community leaders were never seen again.

Tanks from the Soviet Union crossed the border to shore up the Communist government—and to liberate women. Soon, Afghanistan was basically split in two. In the countryside, where young men were willing to die fighting the imposition of new ways of life—including girls’ schools and land reform—young women remained unseen. In the cities, the Soviet-backed government banned child marriage and granted women the right to choose their partners. Girls enrolled in schools and universities in record numbers, and by the early eighties women held parliamentary seats and even the office of Vice-President.

The violence in the countryside continued to spread. Early one morning when Shakira was five, her aunt awakened her in a great hurry. The children were led by the adults of the village to a mountain cave, where they huddled for hours. At night, Shakira watched artillery streak the sky. When the family returned to Pan Killay, the wheat fields were charred, and crisscrossed with the tread marks of Soviet tanks. The cows had been mowed down with machine guns. Everywhere she looked, she saw neighbors—men she used to call “uncle”—lying bloodied. Her grandfather hadn’t hidden with her, and she couldn’t find him in the village. When she was older, she learned that he’d gone to a different cave, and had been caught and executed by the Soviets.

Nighttime evacuations became a frequent occurrence and, for Shakira, a source of excitement: the dark corners of the caves, the clamorous groups of children. “We would look for Russian helicopters,” she said. “It was like spotting strange birds.” Sometimes, those birds swooped low, the earth exploded, and the children rushed to the site to forage for iron, which could be sold for a good price. Occasionally she gathered metal shards so that she could build a doll house. Once, she showed her mother a magazine photograph of a plastic doll that exhibited the female form; her mother snatched it away, calling it inappropriate. So Shakira learned to make dolls out of cloth and sticks.

When she was eleven, she stopped going outside. Her world shrank to the three rooms of her house and the courtyard, where she learned to sew, bake bread in a tandoor, and milk cows. One day, passing jets rattled the house, and she took sanctuary in a closet. Underneath a pile of clothes, she discovered a child’s alphabet book that had belonged to her grandfather—the last person in the family to attend school. During the afternoons, while her parents napped, she began matching the Pashto words to pictures. She recalled, “I had a plan to teach myself a little every day.”

In 1989, the Soviets withdrew in defeat, but Shakira continued to hear the pounding of mortars outside the house’s mud walls. Competing mujahideen factions were now trying to carve up the country for themselves. Villages like Pan Killay were lucrative targets: there were farmers to tax, rusted Soviet tanks to salvage, opium to export. Pazaro, a woman from a nearby village, recalled, “We didn’t have a single night of peace. Our terror had a name, and it was Amir Dado.”

The first time Shakira saw Dado, through the judas of her parents’ front gate, he was in a pickup truck, trailed by a dozen armed men, parading through the village “as if he were the President.” Dado, a wealthy fruit vender turned mujahideen commander, with a jet-black beard and a prodigious belly, had begun attacking rival strongmen even before the Soviets’ defeat. He hailed from the upper Sangin Valley, where his tribe, the Alikozais, had held vast feudal plantations for centuries. The lower valley was the home of the Ishaqzais, the poor tribe to which Shakira belonged. Shakira watched as Dado’s men went from door to door, demanding a “tax” and searching homes. A few weeks later, the gunmen returned, ransacking her family’s living room while she cowered in a corner. Never before had strangers violated the sanctity of her home, and she felt as if she’d been stripped naked and thrown into the street.

By the early nineties, the Communist government of Afghanistan, now bereft of Soviet support, was crumbling. In 1992, Lashkar Gah fell to a faction of mujahideen. Shakira had an uncle living there, a Communist with little time for the mosque and a weakness for Pashtun tunes. He’d recently married a young woman, Sana, who’d escaped a forced betrothal to a man four times her age. The pair had started a new life in Little Moscow, a Lashkar Gah neighborhood that Sana called “the land where women have freedom”—but, when the mujahideen took over, they were forced to flee to Pan Killay.

Shakira was tending the cows one evening when Dado’s men surrounded her with guns. “Where’s your uncle?” one of them shouted. The fighters stormed into the house—followed by Sana’s spurned fiancé. “She’s the one!” he said. The gunmen dragged Sana away. When Shakira’s other uncles tried to intervene, they were arrested. The next day, Sana’s husband turned himself in to Dado’s forces, begging to be taken in her place. Both were sent to the strongman’s religious court and sentenced to death.

Not long afterward, the mujahideen toppled the Communists in Kabul, and they brought their countryside mores with them. In the capital, their leaders—who had received generous amounts of U.S. funding—issued a decree declaring that “women are not to leave their homes at all, unless absolutely necessary, in which case they are to cover themselves completely.” Women were likewise banned from “walking gracefully or with pride.” Religious police began roaming the city’s streets, arresting women and burning audio- and videocassettes on pyres.

Yet the new mujahideen government quickly fell apart, and the country descended into civil war. At night in Pan Killay, Shakira heard gunfire and, sometimes, the shouts of men. In the morning, while tending the cows, she’d see neighbors carrying wrapped bodies. Her family gathered in the courtyard and discussed, in low voices, how they might escape. But the roads were studded with checkpoints belonging to different mujahideen groups. South of the village, in the town of Gereshk, a militia called the Ninety-third Division maintained a particularly notorious barricade on a bridge; there were stories of men getting robbed or killed, of women and young boys being raped. Shakira’s father sometimes crossed the bridge to sell produce at the Gereshk market, and her mother started pleading with him to stay home.

The family, penned between Amir Dado to the north and the Ninety-third Division to the south, was growing desperate. Then one afternoon, when Shakira was sixteen, she heard shouts from the street: “The Taliban are here!” She saw a convoy of white Toyota Hiluxes filled with black-turbanned fighters carrying white flags. Shakira hadn’t ever heard of the Taliban, but her father explained that its members were much like the poor religious students she’d seen all her life begging for alms. Many had fought under the mujahideen’s banner but quit after the Soviets’ withdrawal; now, they said, they were remobilizing to put an end to the tumult. In short order, they had stormed the Gereshk bridge, dismantling the Ninety-third Division, and volunteers had flocked to join them as they’d descended on Sangin. Her brother came home reporting that the Taliban had also overrun Dado’s positions. The warlord had abandoned his men and fled to Pakistan. “He’s gone,” Shakira’s brother kept saying. “He really is.” The Taliban soon dissolved Dado’s religious court—freeing Sana and her husband, who were awaiting execution—and eliminated the checkpoints. After fifteen years, the Sangin Valley was finally at peace.

When I asked Shakira and other women from the valley to reflect on Taliban rule, they were unwilling to judge the movement against some universal standard—only against what had come before. “They were softer,” Pazaro, the woman who lived in a neighboring village, said. “They were dealing with us respectfully.” The women described their lives under the Taliban as identical to their lives under Dado and the mujahideen—minus the strangers barging through the doors at night, the deadly checkpoints.

Shakira recounted to me a newfound serenity: quiet mornings with steaming green tea and naan bread, summer evenings on the rooftop. Mothers and aunts and grandmothers began to discreetly inquire about her eligibility; in the village, marriage was a bond uniting two families. She was soon betrothed to a distant relative whose father had vanished, presumably at the hands of the Soviets. The first time she laid eyes on her fiancé was on their wedding day: he was sitting sheepishly, surrounded by women of the village, who were ribbing him about his plans for the wedding night. “Oh, he was a fool!” Shakira recalled, laughing. “He was so embarrassed, he tried to run away. People had to catch him and bring him back.”

Like many enterprising young men in the valley, he was employed in opium trafficking, and Shakira liked the glint of determination in his eyes. Yet she started to worry that grit alone might not be enough. As Taliban rule established itself, a conscription campaign was launched. Young men were taken to northern Afghanistan, to help fight against a gang of mujahideen warlords known as the Northern Alliance. One day, Shakira watched a helicopter alight in a field and unload the bodies of fallen conscripts. Men in the valley began hiding in friends’ houses, moving from village to village, terrified of being called up. Impoverished tenant farmers were the most at risk—the rich could buy their way out of service. “This was the true injustice of the Taliban,” Shakira told me. She grew to loathe the sight of roving Taliban patrols.

In 2000, Helmand Province experienced punishing drought. The watermelon fields lay ruined, and the bloated corpses of draft animals littered the roads. In a flash of cruelty, the Taliban’s supreme leader, Mullah Omar, chose that moment to ban opium cultivation. The valley’s economy collapsed. Pazaro recalled, “We had nothing to eat, the land gave us nothing, and our men couldn’t provide for our children. The children were crying, they were screaming, and we felt like we’d failed.” Shakira, who was pregnant, dipped squares of stale naan into green tea to feed her nieces and nephews. Her husband left for Pakistan, to try his luck in the fields there. Shakira was stricken by the thought that her baby would emerge lifeless, that her husband would never return, that she would be alone. Every morning, she prayed for rain, for deliverance.

One day, an announcer on the radio said that there had been an attack in America. Suddenly, there was talk that soldiers from the richest country on earth were coming to overthrow the Taliban. For the first time in years, Shakira’s heart stirred with hope.

One night in 2003, Shakira was jolted awake by the voices of strange men. She rushed to cover herself. When she ran to the living room, she saw, with panic, the muzzles of rifles being pointed at her. The men were larger than she’d ever seen, and they were in uniform. These are the Americans, she realized, in awe. Some Afghans were with them, scrawny men with Kalashnikovs and checkered scarves. A man with an enormous beard was barking orders: Amir Dado.

The U.S. had swiftly toppled the Taliban following its invasion, installing in Kabul the government of Hamid Karzai. Dado, who had befriended American Special Forces, became the chief of intelligence for Helmand Province. One of his brothers was the governor of the Sangin district, and another brother became Sangin’s chief of police. In Helmand, the first year of the American occupation had been peaceful, and the fields once again burst with poppies. Shakira now had two small children, Nilofar and Ahmed. Her husband had returned from Pakistan and found work ferrying bags of opium resin to the Sangin market. But now, with Dado back in charge—rescued from exile by the Americans—life regressed to the days of civil war.

Nearly every person Shakira knew had a story about Dado. Once, his fighters demanded that two young men either pay a tax or join his private militia, which he maintained despite holding his official post. When they refused, his fighters beat them to death, stringing their bodies up from a tree. A villager recalled, “We went to cut them down, and they had been sliced open, their stomachs coming out.” In another village, Dado’s forces went from house to house, executing people suspected of being Taliban; an elderly scholar who’d never belonged to the movement was shot dead.

Shakira was bewildered by the Americans’ choice of allies. “Was this their plan?” she asked me. “Did they come to bring peace, or did they have other aims?” She insisted that her husband stop taking resin to the Sangin market, so he shifted his trade south, to Gereshk. But he returned one afternoon with the news that this, too, had become impossible. Astonishingly, the United States had resuscitated the Ninety-third Division—and made it its closest partner in the province. The Division’s gunmen again began stopping travellers on the bridge and plundering what they could. Now, however, their most profitable endeavor was collecting bounties offered by the U.S.; according to Mike Martin, a former British officer who wrote a history of Helmand, they earned up to two thousand dollars per Taliban commander captured.

This posed a challenge, though, because there were hardly any active Taliban to catch. “We knew who were the Taliban in our village,” Shakira said, and they weren’t engaged in guerrilla warfare: “They were all sitting at home, doing nothing.” A lieutenant colonel with U.S. Special Forces, Stuart Farris, who was deployed to the area at that time, told a U.S. Army historian, “There was virtually no resistance on this rotation.” So militias like the Ninety-third Division began accusing innocent people. In February, 2003, they branded Hajji Bismillah—the Karzai government’s transportation director for Gereshk, responsible for collecting tolls in the city—a terrorist, prompting the Americans to ship him to Guantánamo. With Bismillah eliminated, the Ninety-third Division monopolized the toll revenue.

Dado went even further. In March, 2003, U.S. soldiers visited Sangin’s governor—Dado’s brother—to discuss refurbishing a school and a health clinic. Upon leaving, their convoy came under fire, and Staff Sergeant Jacob Frazier and Sergeant Orlando Morales became the first American combat fatalities in Helmand. U.S. personnel suspected that the culprit was not the Taliban but Dado—a suspicion confirmed to me by one of the warlord’s former commanders, who said that his boss had engineered the attack to keep the Americans reliant on him. Nonetheless, when Dado’s forces claimed to have nabbed the true assassin—an ex-Taliban conscript named Mullah Jalil—the Americans dispatched Jalil to Guantánamo. Unaccountably, this happened despite the fact that, according to Jalil’s classified Guantánamo file, U.S. officials knew that Jalil had been fingered merely to “cover for” the fact that Dado’s forces had been “involved with the ambush.”

The incident didn’t affect Dado’s relationship with U.S. Special Forces, who deemed him too valuable in serving up “terrorists.” They were now patrolling together, and soon after the attack the joint operation searched Shakira’s village for suspected terrorists. The soldiers did not stay at her home long, but she could not get the sight of the rifle muzzles out of her mind. The next morning, she removed the rugs and scrubbed the boot marks away.

Shakira’s friends and neighbors were too terrified to speak out, but the United Nations began agitating for Dado’s removal. The U.S. repeatedly blocked the effort, and a guide for the U.S. Marine Corps argued that although Dado was “far from being a Jeffersonian Democrat” his form of rough justice was “the time-tested solution for controlling rebellious Pashtuns.”

Shakira’s husband stopped leaving the house as Helmandis continued to be taken away on flimsy pretexts. A farmer in a nearby village, Mohammed Nasim, was arrested by U.S. forces and sent to Guantánamo because, according to a classified assessment, his name was similar to that of a Taliban commander. A Karzai government official named Ehsanullah visited an American base to inform on two Taliban members; no translator was present, and, in the confusion, he was arrested himself and shipped to Guantánamo. Nasrullah, a government tax collector, was sent to Guantánamo after being randomly pulled off a bus following a skirmish between U.S. Special Forces and local tribesmen. “We were so happy with the Americans,” he said later, at a military tribunal. “I didn’t know eventually I would come to Cuba.”

Nasrullah ultimately returned home, but some detainees never made it back. Abdul Wahid, of Gereshk, was arrested by the Ninety-third Division and beaten severely; he was delivered to U.S. custody and left in a cage, where he died. U.S. military personnel noted burns on his chest and stomach, and bruising to his hips and groin. According to a declassified investigation, Special Forces soldiers reported that Wahid’s wounds were consistent with “a normal interview/interrogation method” used by the Ninety-third Division. A sergeant stated that he “could provide photographs of prior detainees with similar injuries.” Nonetheless, the U.S. continued to support the Ninety-third Division—a violation of the Leahy Law, which bars American personnel from knowingly backing units that commit flagrant human-rights abuses.

In 2004, the U.N. launched a program to disarm pro-government militias. A Ninety-third commander learned of the plan and rebranded a segment of the militia as a “private-security company” under contract with the Americans, enabling roughly a third of the Division’s fighters to remain armed. Another third kept their weapons by signing a contract with a Texas-based firm to protect road-paving crews. (When the Karzai government replaced these private guards with police, the Ninety-third’s leader engineered a hit that killed fifteen policemen, and then recovered the contract.) The remaining third of the Division, finding themselves subjected to extortion threats from their former colleagues, absconded with their weapons and joined the Taliban.

Messaging by the U.S.-led coalition tended to portray the growing rebellion as a matter of extremists battling freedom, but nato documents I obtained conceded that Ishaqzais had “no good reason” to trust the coalition forces, having suffered “oppression at the hands of Dad Mohammad Khan,” or Amir Dado. In Pan Killay, elders encouraged their sons to take up arms to protect the village, and some reached out to former Taliban members. Shakira wished that her husband would do something—help guard the village, or move them to Pakistan—but he demurred. In a nearby village, when U.S. forces raided the home of a beloved tribal elder, killing him and leaving his son with paraplegia, women shouted at their menfolk, “You people have big turbans on your heads, but what have you done? You can’t even protect us. You call yourselves men?”

It was now 2005, four years after the American invasion, and Shakira had a third child on the way. Her domestic duties consumed her—“morning to night, I was working and sweating”—but when she paused from stoking the tandoor or pruning the peach trees she realized that she’d lost the sense of promise she’d once felt. Nearly every week, she heard of another young man being spirited away by the Americans or the militias. Her husband was unemployed, and recently he’d begun smoking opium. Their marriage soured. An air of mistrust settled onto the house, matching the village’s grim mood.

So when a Taliban convoy rolled into Pan Killay, with black-turbanned men hoisting tall white flags, she considered the visitors with interest, even forgiveness. This time, she thought, things might be different.

In 2006, the U.K. joined a growing contingent of U.S. Special Operations Forces working to quell the rebellion in Sangin. Soon, Shakira recalled, “hell began.” The Taliban attacked patrols, launched raids on combat outposts, and set up roadblocks. On a hilltop in Pan Killay, the Americans commandeered a drug lord’s house, transforming it into a compound of sandbags and watchtowers and concertina wire. Before most battles, young Talibs visited houses, warning residents to leave immediately. Then the Taliban would launch their assault, the coalition would respond, and the earth would shudder.

Sometimes, even fleeing did not guarantee safety. During one battle, Abdul Salam, an uncle of Shakira’s husband, took refuge in a friend’s home. After the fighting ended, he visited a mosque to offer prayers. A few Taliban were there, too. A coalition air strike killed almost everyone inside. The next day, mourners gathered for funerals; a second strike killed a dozen more people. Among the bodies returned to Pan Killay were those of Abdul Salam, his cousin, and his three nephews, aged six to fifteen.

Not since childhood had Shakira known anyone who’d died by air strike. She was now twenty-seven, and she slept fitfully, as if at any moment she’d need to run for cover. One night, she awoke to a screeching noise so loud that she wondered if the house was being torn apart. Her husband was still snoring away, and she cursed him under her breath. She tiptoed to the front yard. Coalition military vehicles were passing by, trundling over scrap metal strewn out front. She roused the family. It was too late to evacuate, and Shakira prayed that the Taliban would not attack. She thrust the children into recessed windows—a desperate attempt to protect them in case a strike caused the roof to collapse—and covered them with heavy blankets.

Returning to the front yard, Shakira spotted one of the foreigners’ vehicles sitting motionless. A pair of antennas projected skyward. They’re going to kill us, she thought. She climbed onto the roof, and saw that the vehicle was empty: the soldiers had parked it and left on foot. She watched them march over the footbridge and disappear into the reeds.

A few fields away, the Taliban and the foreigners began firing. For hours, the family huddled indoors. The walls shook, and the children cried. Shakira brought out her cloth dolls, rocked Ahmed against her chest, and whispered stories. When the guns fell silent, around dawn, Shakira went out for another look. The vehicle remained there, unattended. She was shaking in anger. All year, roughly once a month, she had been subjected to this terror. The Taliban had launched the attack, but most of her rage was directed at the interlopers. Why did she, and her children, have to suffer?

A wild thought flashed through her head. She rushed into the house and spoke with her mother-in-law. The soldiers were still on the far side of the canal. Shakira found some matches and her mother-in-law grabbed a jerrican of diesel fuel. On the street, a neighbor glanced at the jerrican and understood, hurrying back with a second jug. Shakira’s mother-in-law doused a tire, then popped the hood and soaked the engine. Shakira struck a match, and dropped it onto the tire.

From the house, they watched the sky turn ashen from the blaze. Before long, they heard the whirring of a helicopter, approaching from the south. “It’s coming for us!” her mother-in-law shouted. Shakira’s brother-in-law, who was staying with them, frantically gathered the children, but Shakira knew that it was too late. If we’re going to die, let’s die at home, she thought.

They threw themselves into a shallow trench in the back yard, the adults on top of the children. The earth shook violently, then the helicopter flew off. When they emerged, Shakira saw that the foreigners had targeted the burning vehicle, so that none of its parts would fall into enemy hands.

The women of Pan Killay came to congratulate Shakira; she was, as one woman put it, “a hero.” But she had difficulty mustering any pride, only relief. “I was thinking that they would not come here anymore,” she said. “And we would have peace.”

In 2008, the U.S. Marines deployed to Sangin, reinforcing American Special Forces and U.K. soldiers. Britain’s forces were beleaguered—a third of its casualties in Afghanistan would occur in Sangin, leading some soldiers to dub the mission “Sangingrad.” Nilofar, now eight, could intuit the rhythms of wartime. She would ask Shakira, “When are we going to Auntie Farzana’s house?” Farzana lived in the desert.

But the chaos wasn’t always predictable: one afternoon, the foreigners again appeared before anyone could flee, and the family rushed into the back-yard trench. A few doors down, the wife and children of the late Abdul Salam did the same, but a mortar killed his fifteen-year-old daughter, Bor Jana.

Both sides of the war did make efforts to avoid civilian deaths. In addition to issuing warnings to evacuate, the Taliban kept villagers informed about which areas were seeded with improvised explosive devices, and closed roads to civilian traffic when targeting convoys. The coalition deployed laser-guided bombs, used loudspeakers to warn villagers of fighting, and dispatched helicopters ahead of battle. “They would drop leaflets saying, ‘Stay in your homes! Save yourselves!’ ” Shakira recalled. In a war waged in mud-walled warrens teeming with life, however, nowhere was truly safe, and an extraordinary number of civilians died. Sometimes, such casualties sparked widespread condemnation, as when a nato rocket struck a crowd of villagers in Sangin in 2010, killing fifty-two. But the vast majority of incidents involved one or two deaths—anonymous lives that were never reported on, never recorded by official organizations, and therefore never counted as part of the war’s civilian toll.

In this way, Shakira’s tragedies mounted. There was Muhammad, a fifteen-year-old cousin: he was killed by a buzzbuzzak, a drone, while riding his motorcycle through the village with a friend. “That sound was everywhere,” Shakira recalled. “When we heard it, the children would start to cry, and I could not console them.”

Muhammad Wali, an adult cousin: Villagers were instructed by coalition forces to stay indoors for three days as they conducted an operation, but after the second day drinking water had been depleted and Wali was forced to venture out. He was shot.

Khan Muhammad, a seven-year-old cousin: His family was fleeing a clash by car when it mistakenly neared a coalition position; the car was strafed, killing him.

Bor Agha, a twelve-year-old cousin: He was taking an evening walk when he was killed by fire from an Afghan National Police base. The next morning, his father visited the base, in shock and looking for answers, and was told that the boy had been warned before not to stray near the installation. “Their commander gave the order to target him,” his father recalled.

Amanullah, a sixteen-year-old cousin: He was working the land when he was targeted by an Afghan Army sniper. No one provided an explanation, and the family was too afraid to approach the Army base and ask.

Ahmed, an adult cousin: After a long day in the fields, he was headed home, carrying a hot plate, when he was struck down by coalition forces. The family believes that the foreigners mistook the hot plate for an I.E.D.

Niamatullah, Ahmed’s brother: He was harvesting opium when a firefight broke out nearby; as he tried to flee, he was gunned down by a buzzbuzzak.

Gul Ahmed, an uncle of Shakira’s husband: He wanted to get a head start on his day, so he asked his sons to bring his breakfast to the fields. When they arrived, they found his body. Witnesses said that he’d encountered a coalition patrol. The soldiers “left him here, like an animal,” Shakira said.

Entire branches of Shakira’s family tree, from the uncles who used to tell her stories to the cousins who played with her in the caves, vanished. In all, she lost sixteen family members. I wondered if it was the same for other families in Pan Killay. I sampled a dozen households at random in the village, and made similar inquiries in other villages, to insure that Pan Killay was no outlier. For each family, I documented the names of the dead, cross-checking cases with death certificates and eyewitness testimony. On average, I found, each family lost ten to twelve civilians in what locals call the American War.

This scale of suffering was unknown in a bustling metropolis like Kabul, where citizens enjoyed relative security. But in countryside enclaves like Sangin the ceaseless killings of civilians led many Afghans to gravitate toward the Taliban. By 2010, many households in Ishaqzai villages had sons in the Taliban, most of whom had joined simply to protect themselves or to take revenge; the movement was more thoroughly integrated into Sangin life than it had been in the nineties. Now, when Shakira and her friends discussed the Taliban, they were discussing their own friends, neighbors, and loved ones.

Some British officers on the ground grew concerned that the U.S. was killing too many civilians, and unsuccessfully lobbied to have American Special Forces removed from the area. Instead, troops from around the world poured into Helmand, including Australians, Canadians, and Danes. But villagers couldn’t tell the difference—to them, the occupiers were simply “Americans.” Pazaro, the woman from a nearby village, recalled, “There were two types of people—one with black faces and one with pink faces. When we see them, we get terrified.” The coalition portrayed locals as hungering for liberation from the Taliban, but a classified intelligence report from 2011 described community perceptions of coalition forces as “unfavorable,” with villagers warning that, if the coalition “did not leave the area, the local nationals would be forced to evacuate.”

In response, the coalition shifted to the hearts-and-minds strategy of counter-insurgency. But the foreigners’ efforts to embed among the population could be crude: they often occupied houses, only further exposing villagers to crossfire. “They were coming by force, without getting permission from us,” Pashtana, a woman from another Sangin village, told me. “They sometimes broke into our house, broke all the windows, and stayed the whole night. We would have to flee, in case the Taliban fired on them.” Marzia, a woman from Pan Killay, recalled, “The Taliban would fire a few shots, but the Americans would respond with mortars.” One mortar slammed into her mother-in-law’s house. She survived, Marzia said, but had since “lost control of herself”—always “shouting at things we can’t see, at ghosts.”

With the hearts-and-minds approach floundering, some nato officials tried to persuade Taliban commanders to flip. In 2010, a group of Sangin Taliban commanders, liaising with the British, promised to switch sides in return for assistance to local communities. But, when the Taliban leaders met to hammer out their end of the deal, U.S. Special Operations Forces—acting independently—bombed the gathering, killing the top Taliban figure behind the peace overture.

The Marines finally quit Sangin in 2014; the Afghan Army held its ground for three years, until the Taliban had brought most of the valley under its control. The U.S. airlifted Afghan Army troops out and razed many government compounds—leaving, as a nato statement described approvingly, only “rubble and dirt.” The Sangin market had been obliterated in this way. When Shakira first saw the ruined shops, she told her husband, “They left nothing for us.”

Still, a sense of optimism took hold in Pan Killay. Shakira’s husband slaughtered a sheep to celebrate the end of the war, and the family discussed renovating the garden. Her mother-in-law spoke of the days before the Russians and the Americans, when families picnicked along the canal, men stretched out in the shade of peach trees, and women dozed on rooftops under the stars.

But in 2019, as the U.S. was holding talks with Taliban leaders in Doha, Qatar, the Afghan government and American forces moved jointly on Sangin one last time. That January, they launched perhaps the most devastating assault that the valley witnessed in the entire war. Shakira and other villagers fled for the desert, but not everyone could escape. Ahmed Noor Mohammad, who owned a pay-phone business, decided to wait to evacuate, because his twin sons were ill. His family went to bed to the sound of distant artillery. That night, an American bomb slammed into the room where the twin boys were sleeping, killing them. A second bomb hit an adjacent room, killing Mohammad’s father and many others, eight of them children.

The next day, at the funeral, another air strike killed six mourners. In a nearby village, a gunship struck down three children. The following day, four more children were shot dead. Elsewhere in Sangin, an air strike hit an Islamic school, killing a child. A week later, twelve guests at a wedding were killed in an air raid.

After the bombing, Mohammad’s brother travelled to Kandahar to report the massacres to the United Nations and to the Afghan government. When no justice was forthcoming, he joined the Taliban.

On the strength of a seemingly endless supply of recruits, the Taliban had no difficulty outlasting the coalition. But, though the insurgency has finally brought peace to the Afghan countryside, it is a peace of desolation: many villages are in ruins. Reconstruction will be a challenge, but a bigger trial will be to exorcise memories of the past two decades. “My daughter wakes up screaming that the Americans are coming,” Pazaro said. “We have to keep talking to her softly, and tell her, ‘No, no, they won’t come back.’ ”

The Taliban call their domain the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, and claim that, once the foreigners are gone, they will preside over an era of tranquil stability. As the Afghan government crumbled this summer, I travelled through Helmand Province—the Emirate’s de-facto capital—to see what a post-American Afghanistan might look like.

I departed from Lashkar Gah, which remained under government control. At the outskirts stood a squat cement building with an Afghan-government flag—beyond this checkpoint, Kabul’s authority vanished. A pickup idled nearby; piled into the cargo bed were half a dozen members of the sangorian, a feared militia in the pay of the Afghan intelligence agency, which was backed by the C.I.A. Two of the fighters appeared no older than twelve.

I was with two locals in a beat-up Corolla, and we slipped past the checkpoint without notice. Soon, we were in a treeless horizon of baked earth, with virtually no road beneath us. We passed abandoned outposts of the Afghan Army and Police that had been built by the Americans and the Brits. Beyond them loomed a series of circular mud fortifications, with a lone Taliban sniper splayed on his stomach. White flags fluttered behind him, announcing the gateway to the Islamic Emirate.

The most striking difference between Taliban country and the world we’d left behind was the dearth of gunmen. In Afghanistan, I’d grown accustomed to kohl-eyed policemen in baggy trousers, militiamen in balaclavas, intelligence agents inspecting cars. Yet we rarely crossed a Taliban checkpoint, and when we did the fighters desultorily examined the car. “Everyone is afraid of the Taliban,” my driver said, laughing. “The checkpoints are in our hearts.”

If people feared their new rulers, they also fraternized with them. Here and there, groups of villagers sat under roadside trellises, sipping tea with Talibs. The country opened up as we jounced along a dirt road in rural Sangin. In the canal, boys were having swimming races; village men and Taliban were dipping their feet into the turquoise water. We passed green cropland and canopies of fruit trees. Groups of women walked along a market road, and two girls skipped in rumpled frocks.

We approached Gereshk, then under government authority. Because the town was the most lucrative toll-collection point in the region, it was said that whoever held it controlled all of Helmand. The Taliban had launched an assault, and the thuds of artillery resounded across the plain. A stream of families, their donkeys laboring under the weight of giant bundles, were escaping what they said were air strikes. By the roadside, a woman in a powder-blue burqa stood with a wheelbarrow; inside was a wrapped body. Some Taliban were gathered on a hilltop, lowering a fallen comrade into a grave.

I met Wakil, a bespectacled Taliban commander. Like many fighters I’d encountered, he came from a line of farmers, had studied a few years in seminary, and had lost dozens of relatives to Amir Dado, the Ninety-third Division, and the Americans. He discussed the calamities visited on his family without rancor, as if the American War were the natural order of things. Thirty years old, he’d attained his rank after an older brother, a Taliban commander, died in battle. He’d hardly ever left Helmand, and his face lit up with wonder at the thought of capturing Gereshk, a town that he’d lived within miles of, but had not been able to visit for twenty years. “Forget your writing,” he laughed as I scribbled notes. “Come watch me take the city!” Tracking a helicopter gliding across the horizon, I declined. He raced off. An hour later, an image popped up on my phone of Wakil pulling down a poster of a government figure linked to the Ninety-third Division. Gereshk had fallen.

At the house of the Taliban district governor, a group of Talibs sat eating okra and naan, donated by the village. I asked them about their plans for when the war was over. Most said that they’d return to farming, or pursue religious education. I’d flown to Afghanistan from Iraq, a fact that impressed Hamid, a young commander. He said that he dreamed of seeing the Babylonian ruins, and asked, “Do you think, when this is over, they’ll give me a visa?”

It was clear that the Taliban are divided about what happens next. During my visit, dozens of members from different parts of Afghanistan offered strikingly contrasting visions for their Emirate. Politically minded Talibs who have lived abroad and maintain homes in Doha or Pakistan told me—perhaps with calculation—that they had a more cosmopolitan outlook than before. A scholar who’d spent much of the past two decades shuttling between Helmand and Pakistan said, “There were many mistakes we made in the nineties. Back then, we didn’t know about human rights, education, politics—we just took everything by power. But now we understand.” In the scholar’s rosy scenario, the Taliban will share ministries with former enemies, girls will attend school, and women will work “shoulder to shoulder” with men.

Yet in Helmand it was hard to find this kind of Talib. More typical was Hamdullah, a narrow-faced commander who lost a dozen family members in the American War, and has measured his life by weddings, funerals, and battles. He said that his community had suffered too grievously to ever share power, and that the maelstrom of the previous twenty years offered only one solution: the status quo ante. He told me, with pride, that he planned to join the Taliban’s march to Kabul, a city he’d never seen. He guessed that he’d arrive there in mid-August.

On the most sensitive question in village life—women’s rights—men like him have not budged. In many parts of rural Helmand, women are barred from visiting the market. When a Sangin woman recently bought cookies for her children at the bazaar, the Taliban beat her, her husband, and the shopkeeper. Taliban members told me that they planned to allow girls to attend madrassas, but only until puberty. As before, women would be prohibited from employment, except for midwifery. Pazaro said, ruefully, “They haven’t changed at all.”

Travelling through Helmand, I could hardly see any signs of the Taliban as a state. Unlike other rebel movements, the Taliban had provided practically no reconstruction, no social services beyond its harsh tribunals. It brooks no opposition: in Pan Killay, the Taliban executed a villager named Shaista Gul after learning that he’d offered bread to members of the Afghan Army. Nevertheless, many Helmandis seemed to prefer Taliban rule—including the women I interviewed. It was as if the movement had won only by default, through the abject failures of its opponents. To locals, life under the coalition forces and their Afghan allies was pure hazard; even drinking tea in a sunlit field, or driving to your sister’s wedding, was a potentially deadly gamble. What the Taliban offered over their rivals was a simple bargain: Obey us, and we will not kill you.

This grim calculus hovered over every conversation I had with villagers. In the hamlet of Yakh Chal, I came upon the ruins of an Afghan Army outpost that had recently been overrun by the Taliban. All that remained were mounds of scrap metal, cords, hot plates, gravel. The next morning, villagers descended on the outpost, scavenging for something to sell. Abdul Rahman, a farmer, was rooting through the refuse with his young son when an Afghan Army gunship appeared on the horizon. It was flying so low, he recalled, that “even Kalashnikovs could fire on it.” But there were no Taliban around, only civilians. The gunship fired, and villagers began falling right and left. It then looped back, continuing to attack. “There were many bodies on the ground, bleeding and moaning,” another witness said. “Many small children.” According to villagers, at least fifty civilians were killed.

Later, I spoke on the phone with an Afghan Army helicopter pilot who had just relieved the one who attacked the outpost. He told me, “I asked the crew why they did this, and they said, ‘We knew they were civilians, but Camp Bastion’ ”—a former British base that had been handed over to the Afghans—“ ‘gave orders to kill them all.’ ” As we spoke, Afghan Army helicopters were firing upon the crowded central market in Gereshk, killing scores of civilians. An official with an international organization based in Helmand said, “When the government forces lose an area, they are taking revenge on the civilians.” The helicopter pilot acknowledged this, adding, “We are doing it on the order of Sami Sadat.”

General Sami Sadat headed one of the seven corps of the Afghan Army. Unlike the Amir Dado generation of strongmen, who were provincial and illiterate, Sadat obtained a master’s degree in strategic management and leadership from a school in the U.K. and studied at the nato Military Academy, in Munich. He held his military position while also being the C.E.O. of Blue Sea Logistics, a Kabul-based corporation that supplied anti-Taliban forces with everything from helicopter parts to armored tactical vehicles. During my visit to Helmand, Blackhawks under his command were committing massacres almost daily: twelve Afghans were killed while scavenging scrap metal at a former base outside Sangin; forty were killed in an almost identical incident at the Army’s abandoned Camp Walid; twenty people, most of them women and children, were killed by air strikes on the Gereshk bazaar; Afghan soldiers who were being held prisoner by the Taliban at a power station were targeted and killed by their own comrades in an air strike. (Sadat declined repeated requests for comment.)

The day before the massacre at the Yakh Chal outpost, CNN aired an interview with General Sadat. “Helmand is beautiful—if it’s peaceful, tourism can come,” he said. His soldiers had high morale, he explained, and were confident of defeating the Taliban. The anchor appeared relieved. “You seem very optimistic,” she said. “That’s reassuring to hear.”

I showed the interview to Mohammed Wali, a pushcart vender in a village near Lashkar Gah. A few days after the Yakh Chal massacre, government militias in his area surrendered to the Taliban. General Sadat’s Blackhawks began attacking houses, seemingly at random. They fired on Wali’s house, and his daughter was struck in the head by shrapnel and died. His brother rushed into the yard, holding the girl’s limp body up at the helicopters, shouting, “We’re civilians!” The choppers killed him and Wali’s son. His wife lost her leg, and another daughter is in a coma. As Wali watched the CNN clip, he sobbed. “Why are they doing this?” he asked. “Are they mocking us?”

In the course of a few hours in 2006, the Taliban killed thirty-two friends and relatives of Amir Dado, including his son. Three years later, they killed the warlord himself—who by then had joined parliament—in a roadside blast. The orchestrator of the assassination hailed from Pan Killay. In one light, the attack is the mark of a fundamentalist insurgency battling an internationally recognized government; in another, a campaign of revenge by impoverished villagers against their former tormentor; or a salvo in a long-simmering tribal war; or a hit by a drug cartel against a rival enterprise. All these readings are probably true, simultaneously. What’s clear is that the U.S. did not attempt to settle such divides and build durable, inclusive institutions; instead, it intervened in a civil war, supporting one side against the other. As a result, like the Soviets, the Americans effectively created two Afghanistans: one mired in endless conflict, the other prosperous and hopeful.

It is the hopeful Afghanistan that’s now under threat, after Taliban fighters marched into Kabul in mid-August—just as Hamdullah predicted. Thousands of Afghans have spent the past few weeks desperately trying to reach the Kabul airport, sensing that the Americans’ frenzied evacuation may be their last chance at a better life. “Bro, you’ve got to help me,” the helicopter pilot I’d spoken with earlier pleaded over the phone. At the time, he was fighting crowds to get within sight of the airport gate; when the wheels of the last U.S. aircraft pulled off the runway, he was left behind. His boss, Sami Sadat, reportedly escaped to the U.K.

Until recently, the Kabul that Sadat fled often felt like a different country, even a different century, from Sangin. The capital had become a city of hillside lights, shimmering wedding halls, and neon billboards that was joyously crowded with women: mothers browsed markets, girls walked in pairs from school, police officers patrolled in hijabs, office workers carried designer handbags. The gains these women experienced during the American War—and have now lost—are staggering, and hard to fathom when considered against the austere hamlets of Helmand: the Afghan parliament had a proportion of women similar to that of the U.S. Congress, and about a quarter of university students were female. Thousands of women in Kabul are understandably terrified that the Taliban have not evolved. In late August, I spoke by phone to a dermatologist who was bunkered in her home. She has studied in multiple countries, and runs a large clinic employing a dozen women. “I’ve worked too hard to get here,” she told me. “I studied too long, I made my own business, I created my own clinic. This was my life’s dream.” She had not stepped outdoors in two weeks.

The Taliban takeover has restored order to the conservative countryside while plunging the comparatively liberal streets of Kabul into fear and hopelessness. This reversal of fates brings to light the unspoken premise of the past two decades: if U.S. troops kept battling the Taliban in the countryside, then life in the cities could blossom. This may have been a sustainable project—the Taliban were unable to capture cities in the face of U.S. airpower. But was it just? Can the rights of one community depend, in perpetuity, on the deprivation of rights in another? In Sangin, whenever I brought up the question of gender, village women reacted with derision. “They are giving rights to Kabul women, and they are killing women here,” Pazaro said. “Is this justice?” Marzia, from Pan Killay, told me, “This is not ‘women’s rights’ when you are killing us, killing our brothers, killing our fathers.” Khalida, from a nearby village, said, “The Americans did not bring us any rights. They just came, fought, killed, and left.”

The women in Helmand disagree among themselves about what rights they should have. Some yearn for the old village rules to crumble—they wish to visit the market or to picnic by the canal without sparking innuendo or worse. Others cling to more traditional interpretations. “Women and men aren’t equal,” Shakira told me. “They are each made by God, and they each have their own role, their own strengths that the other doesn’t have.” More than once, as her husband lay in an opium stupor, she fantasized about leaving him. Yet Nilofar is coming of age, and a divorce could cast shame on the family, harming her prospects. Through friends, Shakira hears stories of dissolute cities filled with broken marriages and prostitution. “Too much freedom is dangerous, because people won’t know the limits,” she said.

All the women I met in Sangin, though, seemed to agree that their rights, whatever they might entail, cannot flow from the barrel of a gun—and that Afghan communities themselves must improve the conditions of women. Some villagers believe that they possess a powerful cultural resource to wage that struggle: Islam itself. “The Taliban are saying women cannot go outside, but there is actually no Islamic rule like this,” Pazaro told me. “As long as we are covered, we should be allowed.” I asked a leading Helmandi Taliban scholar where in Islam was it stipulated that women cannot go to the market or attend school. He admitted, somewhat chagrined, that this was not an actual Islamic injunction. “It’s the culture in the village, not Islam,” he said. “The people there have these beliefs about women, and we follow them.” Just as Islam offers fairer templates for marriage, divorce, and inheritance than many tribal and village norms, these women hope to marshal their faith—the shared language across their country’s many divides—to carve out greater freedoms.

Though Shakira hardly talks about it, she harbors such dreams herself. Through the decades of war, she continued to teach herself to read, and she is now working her way through a Pashto translation of the Quran, one sura at a time. “It gives me great comfort,” she said. She is teaching her youngest daughter the alphabet, and has a bold ambition: to gather her friends and demand that the men erect a girls’ school.

Even as Shakira contemplates moving Pan Killay forward, she is determined to remember its past. The village, she told me, has a cemetery that spreads across a few hilltops. There are no plaques, no flags, just piles of stones that glow red and pink in the evening sun. A pair of blank flagstones project from each grave, one marking the head, one the feet.

Shakira’s family visits every week, and she points to the mounds where her grandfather lies, where her cousins lie, because she doesn’t want her children to forget. They tie scarves on tree branches to attract blessings, and pray to those departed. They spend hours amid a sacred geography of stones, shrubs, and streams, and Shakira feels renewed.

Shortly before the Americans left, they dynamited her house, apparently in response to the Taliban’s firing a grenade nearby. With two rooms still standing, the house is half inhabitable, half destroyed, much like Afghanistan itself. She told me that she won’t mind the missing kitchen, or the gaping hole where the pantry once stood. Instead, she chooses to see a village in rebirth. Shakira is sure that a freshly paved road will soon run past the house, the macadam sizzling hot on summer days. The only birds in the sky will be the kind with feathers. Nilofar will be married, and her children will walk along the canal to school. The girls will have plastic dolls, with hair that they can brush. Shakira will own a machine that can wash clothes. Her husband will get clean, he will acknowledge his failings, he will tell his family that he loves them more than anything. They will visit Kabul, and stand in the shadow of giant glass buildings. “I have to believe,” she said. “Otherwise, what was it all for?” ♦

— Published in the print edition of the September 13, 2021, issue.

— Anand Gopal, the author of “No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban, and the War through Afghan Eyes,” is writing a book on the Arab revolutions.

[orbemnews]

Another Unlikely Pandemic Shortage: Boba Tea A panic erupted on the West Coast this week. Over a drink. It happened when beverage aficionados learned that tapioca, the starch used to make the sweet, round, chewy black bubbles — or pearls — that are the featured topping in the popular boba tea drink, was in short supply. “I was shocked,” said Leanne Yuen, a longtime boba drinker and a student at the University of California, Irvine. “What am I going to do now?” The impending boba shortage is yet another sign of how the pandemic has snarled global supply chains, upended industries and created scarcities of goods from toilet paper and ketchup to electronics. In this case, a surge of pent-up demand for products assembled abroad, coupled with a shortage of workers due to coronavirus cases or quarantine protocols, has caused a monthslong maritime pileup at ports in Los Angeles and San Francisco and left ships delivering goods from Asia — including tapioca — waiting out at sea. Boba or bubble tea, a drink that can be made with milk or fruit-flavored green or black tea, originated in Taiwan and has grown in popularity and prominence in the United States throughout the 2000s. Boba suppliers in the San Francisco Bay Area who are running low on tapioca said their shipments of fully formed boba came from Taiwan, while supplies of cassava root, which is used to make tapioca, came from Thailand and islands in the Pacific Ocean. “It’s all being held up at the docks,” said Arianna Hansen, a sales representative for Fanale Drinks, which is based in Hayward, Calif., and supplies boba to thousands of stores around the country. Ms. Hansen said that shipments had been backed up for several months, and that the company’s existing stockpile of tapioca was running dangerously low. “It’s definitely been frustrating — some people have been upset with us, but at the same time it’s not really our fault,” Ms. Hansen said. There’s no sign that the ship delays will abate anytime soon. The number of container ships waiting at anchor to dock in Los Angeles or Long Beach peaked at 40 in February, according to data from the Marine Exchange of Southern California. That declined to 19 ships on Thursday, still a far cry from the usual zero or one ship that was the norm prepandemic, said Kip Louttit, the exchange’s executive director. Massive cargo ships can take a week or longer to unload, Mr. Louttit said. Five additional ships are drifting out at sea, because there is no room to fit them in the bay. He said it was a nearly unprecedented backup; vessels have not had to drift while waiting since 2004. The situation is similarly cramped in San Francisco, where 20 ships are waiting at anchor and 19 more are “cruising around” offshore, compared with the usual eight or nine at anchor, said Capt. Lynn Korwatch, the executive director of the area’s marine exchange. “The situation is extremely unusual,” she said. Leadway International, another large boba supplier in Hayward, also said its stock of tapioca was low because shipments were coming in slower than usual. The company’s business development director, Edward Shen, said he did not want to call it a “shortage” over fears that might spook boba shops into hoarding tapioca and make matters worse. “Store owners get panicked, so they probably order more than what they need,” Mr. Shen said. Ms. Hansen said she expected supply to return to close to normal by the summer. In the meantime, anxious boba store owners are scrounging for tapioca anywhere they can. “It’s very stressful — no boba means no sales,” said Aaron Qian, the owner of Tea Hut, a boba store with three locations in the Bay Area. “If you don’t have boba, they don’t want the tea. They just leave.” Mr. Qian, 32, said that two of his suppliers were already sold out, and that the other two had been rationing the tapioca he could buy each week. If he does not find more boba soon, Mr. Qian said, his stores will be out within two weeks. Updated  April 16, 2021, 3:55 p.m. ET Despite the pandemic, Mr. Qian said, business had been booming, because with other entertainment venues closed, drinking boba is one of the few avenues for “cheap fun.” Now, he might have to temporarily close and lay off employees. Brian Tran, a co-owner of Honeybear Boba in San Francisco, said he had also been searching desperately for more tapioca. He expects to run out by the end of next week if he cannot replenish his supply. “A boba shop without boba is like a car dealership without cars to sell,” Mr. Tran said. “It’s like a steakhouse without steak.” Boba Guys, one of the most successful boba chains in the country, said in an Instagram post this month that some boba shops had already run out of tapioca balls and that others would follow in the next few weeks. The owners of Boba Guys also operate the U.S. Boba Company, which produces and sells tapioca pearls to other stores around the country. The boba shortage, which was reported earlier by The San Francisco Chronicle, has boba fans in a panic. A post sharing the news in the Facebook group Subtle Asian Traits, a gathering place for Asian people around the world, attracted 10,000 comments and messages of dismay and sadness. Boba is “something that translates across a lot of Asian cultures,” said Zoe Imansjah, a student at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and an administrator of the Subtle Asian Traits group. “Something so simple can bring a lot of people together.” Ms. Yuen, 21, gets boba once or twice a week and sells boba stickers online. She said she had grown up visiting a boba shop near her house in South San Francisco with her parents, and now considers getting boba a great way to socialize with friends. “A lot of my Asian-American friends will bond over boba,” said Ms. Yuen, whose family is from Hong Kong. “Hong Kong has a lot of good milk tea. It brings us back to our roots, in a sense.” Boba isn’t just a California treat, however, and news of a shortage reverberated around the United States. Khoa Vu, a 28-year-old Ph.D. student at the University of Minnesota, said he drinks boba two or three times a week — peach oolong tea with boba is his go-to order. He was dreading having to break the news of the shortage to his 4-year-old daughter. “It’s a weekend thing after we’re done with dinner; I tell my kid, ‘If you eat well, I’ll take you to the boba shop,’” Mr. Vu said. “It’s going to be a shock to her.” All hope is not lost for boba fanatics. Smaller boba suppliers like iBEV, which sells to about 100 stores, might be able to weather the shortage. Carley Olund, an office manager at iBEV, said the company had prepared for shipping delays and had enough tapioca stockpiled to get through it. And Sharetea, a boba chain with dozens of stores across 20 states, said it was not experiencing a shortage. For those boba drinkers who are affected by shortages, this may be a chance to try different toppings in their tea, like cheese foam, fruit jellies or egg pudding. “Maybe I’ll try to take a break from the tapioca to relieve that pressure,” Ms. Yuen said. Source link Orbem News #Boba #Pandemic #shortage #Tea

[newstfionline]

Saturday, April 17, 2021

With layoffs down and spending up, US rebound gains momentum (AP) A much-awaited economic boom coming off the pandemic recession appeared to edge closer to reality Thursday with fresh data showing the pace of layoffs dwindling, consumers spending freely and manufacturing rebounding. The latest barometers point to a U.S. economy that’s steadily regaining its health as vaccinations accelerate, business curbs are lifted in many states and more people are willing to travel, shop, eat out and otherwise resume their spending habits. Though many Americans who have lost jobs or income are still suffering, hopes are rising that the benefits of the recovery will spread further in the coming months to groups of people who have yet to benefit. The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits tumbled last week to 576,000, the Labor Department said Thursday, a post-COVID low and a sign that layoffs are easing.

8 dead in shooting at FedEx facility in Indianapolis (AP) Eight people were shot and killed in a late-night shooting at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis, and the shooter killed himself, police said. Several other people were injured Thursday night when gunfire erupted at the facility near the Indianapolis International Airport, police spokesperson Genae Cook said. It was the latest in a recent string of mass shootings across the U.S. Last month, eight people were fatally shot at massage businesses across the Atlanta area, and 10 died in gunfire at a supermarket in Boulder, Colorado. It was at least the third mass shooting this year in Indianapolis alone.

Haiti’s ‘Descent Into Hell’ (Foreign Policy) Haitian Prime Minister Joseph Jouthe resigned Wednesday amid a political crisis that the Catholic archdiocese of Port-au-Prince described as a “descent into hell.” A string of kidnappings in the country now includes, as of Sunday, the abduction of seven clergy members and three other people on their way to church. “The public authorities who are doing nothing to resolve this crisis are not immune from suspicion,” the church wrote. It and several private sector employers’ federations closed their offices Thursday in protest. President Jovenel Moise tweeted that Jouthe’s resignation would make it possible to address insecurity, suggesting Jouthe had been ineffective in stopping the recent violence. His replacement is Claude Joseph, who had been serving as foreign minister. Moise himself has been under widespread social pressure to resign for months.

France Lawmakers Pass Contentious Bill Extending Police Powers (NYT) The French Parliament passed a contentious security bill on Thursday that extends police powers, despite criticism from political opponents and civil rights activists who have vowed to challenge the legislation before France’s Constitutional Council. Among other measures, the bill broadens the powers of municipal police forces, expands the police’s ability to use drones to monitor citizens in public and toughens sentences for people found guilty of assaulting officers. One of the most arduously debated measures criminalizes the act of helping identify officers with intent to harm them. Opposition to the bill sparked large protests last fall and was fueled by several widely publicized instances of police brutality, especially the beating of a Black music producer in Paris that was caught on security camera in November. The sharing of images is not explicitly mentioned in the final version of the bill that was passed on Thursday. But in its Article 24, the bill criminalizes the act of helping to identify on-duty police officers with the “obvious intent” to physically or psychologically harm them. Offenders would face up to five years in prison and a 75,000 euro fine, about $89,800.

Myanmar’s lost generation: nation’s youth sacrificing futures for freedom (The Guardian) For Myanmar’s young people, 2021 was supposed to be a year for optimism. After seeing through the Covid-19 pandemic, the rollout of the vaccine had begun and general elections in November had marked a step towards the country realising its potential. But in the wake of the 1 February coup, their dreams have turned into nightmares, as many of Myanmar’s young people have found themselves forced to sacrifice their futures to take a stand against the military. Aspiring engineer, Hlyan Phyo Aung, 22, is one of them. News portal Myanmar Now reported that he was hurt by an explosion during a crackdown on a protest in the central city of Magway on 27 March. A soldier reportedly shot off his injured hand at close range, another shot multiple rubber bullets into his other hand, and then troops kicked him in the face until onlookers flung themselves over him, saving his life. His right hand was amputated at the wrist; he may also permanently lose the use of his left hand. His left leg was shot eight times and may also be amputated, his right thigh has two bullet wounds, his face was battered and damage to his eyesight caused by the impact of the gunshots may also be irreparable. The military has stopped him from receiving treatment outside one of its own hospitals, and is also charging him with incitement, which carries up to three years in jail. The regime’s forces have killed at least 714 people since the coup, according to the Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), but hundreds more are likely to have been seriously wounded by live rounds, mortar fire, hand grenades and other weapons used by the military.

Thailand to close schools, bars after surge in COVID-19 cases (Reuters) Thailand will close schools, bars and massage parlours, as well as ban alcohol sales in restaurants, for at least two weeks starting from Sunday after a jump in COVID-19 cases, a senior official said. Activities involving more than 50 people will also be prohibited, Thailand’s coronavirus taskforce spokesman, Taweesin Wisanuyothin, said, adding that 18 provinces including Bangkok had been labelled as red zones with the rest of the country categorised as orange zones.

Tokyo Olympic Games may still be cancelled (Washington Post) The Olympic Games scheduled to be held in Tokyo this summer may have to be canceled depending on the coronavirus situation, a senior member of Japan’s ruling party said Thursday. The remarks were the first public admission by the ruling party that cancellation or postponement were under serious consideration, though the challenges of holding the Games have become increasingly evident because of a worsening virus outbreak in Japan.

China’s economy is roaring back, a year after coronavirus shutdown (Washington Post) China’s economy grew at a record pace in the first quarter, blowing past other major nations in its pandemic recovery. The world’s second-largest economy has more than regained its pre-pandemic activity, despite challenges such as lower efficacy rates of its coronavirus vaccines, pandemic travel limitations and U.S. sanctions on key Chinese industries. “The big picture is that China is catching up faster now to the level of advanced economies, faster than ever before,” said Nicholas Lardy, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE). Daily life in China returned to normal for most people last year because of exhaustive efforts to contain infection clusters and strict quarantine requirements for those entering the country. But Premier Li Keqiang warned this month that the recovery remains uneven, and that “new uncertainties” had emerged in the international environment—possibly a reference to fresh U.S. sanctions on Chinese high-tech companies and fashion-industry boycotts of Chinese cotton.

Hong Kong democracy leaders given jail terms amid crackdown (AP) Nine of Hong Kong’s leading pro-democracy advocates were sentenced to jail terms Friday for organizing a march during the 2019 anti-government protests that triggered an overwhelming crackdown from Beijing. Those sentenced include the city’s so-called “father of democracy” Martin Lee as well as pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai. They were found guilty earlier this month of organizing and participating in a massive protest in August 2019, where an estimated 1.7 million people marched in opposition to a bill that would have allowed suspects to be extradited to mainland China for trial. The protest was not authorized by the police. Their convictions and sentencing were the latest blow to the city’s flagging democracy movement, amid an ongoing crackdown by Beijing and Hong Kong authorities on dissent in the semi-autonomous Chinese city.

Up to 65,000 people on the run in northeast Nigeria after attack: U.N. (Reuters) Up to 65,000 people in northeastern Nigeria are on the run after an attack by armed groups on Wednesday in which 8 people were killed and at least a dozen injured, the U.N. refugee agency said on Friday. “Following the latest attack on Wednesday 14 April, the third in just seven days, up to 80 per cent of the town’s population —which includes the local community and internally displaced people— were forced to flee,” Babar Baloch of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told a Geneva briefing. Local officials and a resident said on Wednesday that suspected Islamists attacked the northeast Nigerian border town of Damasak, killing at least eight people and causing hundreds to flee to neighbouring Niger.

[phgq]

Tough year for tourism: Exploring ways to restart, recover

#PHnews: Tough year for tourism: Exploring ways to restart, recover

MANILA – The year 2020 is unlike any other for the country's travel industry, which by yearend, often produce record-breaking figures on revenues and arrivals.

In January, the year started with Taal's eruption, forcing thousands of people to evacuate. At that time, it was the industry's biggest challenge as it affected hundreds of flights and compelled numerous tourism establishments in Calabarzon to suspend operations.

But the worst came the following weeks as the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) reached the Philippines and locally-transmitted cases surfaced.

On March 16, air travel was brought to a screeching halt where people had no choice but to stay home as the government placed Luzon under lockdown.

Michelle Taylan, president of the Philippine Travel Agencies Association (PTAA), said the crisis forced all of its members to temporarily close or scale down operations.

"Our member travel agencies have been forced to pivot to other businesses to tide them over. Airlines have suffered heavy losses. Hotels were used as quarantine facilities. Tourism was at a standstill," she said in an email to the Philippine News Agency.

Amid the uncertainties this year, Taylan said the PTAA looks forward to 2021 with "a lot of optimism".

"We will still stage our annual Travel Tour Expo and International Travel Trade Expo. They will be springboards as we assist in the revival of Philippine tourism," she shared.

"We will also hold talks with other stakeholders in the tourism industry and will come out with a united front in our pursuit to further open tourism in the country," she added.

From January to November 2020, the country's tourism receipts fell by 81 percent to PHP81.05 billion, a significant drop from PHP437.9 billion in the same period in 2019.

International arrivals also dropped by 82.4 percent to 1.3 million compared to the 7.4 million recorded from January to November in 2019.

But while the coronavirus pandemic has grounded most tourism activities, the sector continues to explore ways to restart and offset the crisis's impact on tourism.

The Department of Tourism (DOT) continued to engage with relevant agencies to craft health and safety protocols that could be used when travel gradually starts.

Since April, it has successfully organized a handful of online learning courses that aim to help local tourism players become more competitive, with new knowledge, technological advances, and ways to innovate and be able to cater to a new breed of travelers.

To adapt to the travel trends due to the pandemic, the Tourism Promotions Board also developed a strategic marketing program for the medium and long-term.

"The toughest challenge was the fact that we could not promote tourism destinations the way we used to simply because they were closed to tourists. Or that we could not even promote at all. This compelled us to creatively explore ways to keep the connection with our tourists, while at the same time, gradually assist our local government units (LGUs) and our stakeholders prepare for the new normal in travel," TPB chief Anthonette Velasco said.

'Domestic tourism'

Uncertain when the foreign market will come back, the DOT banked on domestic tourism to slowly revive the sector and capitalized on the low-hanging fruit within its borders -- the local travelers.

The DOT believed that by tapping into these short-haul markets through targeted marketing, the country can "bypass some of the considerable challenges" it faced following the pandemic.

It looked at introducing travel corridors or the so-called "travel bubble" to allow the reopening of Philippine destinations with zero coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) cases to foreign tourists from infection-free nations. By the second half of 2020, the DOT initiated talks with Australia, which at that time has touted a low to zero case count.

While this vision did not push through, a similar concept was applied domestically and piloted in El Nido, Palawan connecting resorts in the island to tourists from Metro Manila.

In June, the Philippines gradually reopened the world-class Boracay Island, initially to visitors within Aklan province, and eventually to other regions provided the traveler has been tested negative for Covid-19.

By the latter part of the year, several domestic destinations followed suit and started accepting visitors but with strict health and border control protocols, some with a test-before-travel requirement. Among these are Bohol, Batangas, Ilocos Region, Baguio, Siargao, and Palawan.

Last October, Bohol also hosted the hybrid Philippine Travel Exchange 2020, the first physical MICE event since the pandemic started. MICE stands for meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions, an emerging niche market in the tourism industry before the health crisis.

Joel Pascual, president of the Philippine Association of Conventions, Exhibition Organizers & Suppliers Inc. (PACEOS), said 2020 was a "really terrible year" for all MICE stakeholders as all its planned events had to be postponed or canceled.

For most of the year, PACEOS lobbied for MICE to be separated from “mass gatherings” as the industry works in a controlled environment where there is clear accountability and where safety protocols are more effectively implemented.

"Towards the end of the year, some events have been approved on a national level but are still subject to the approval of the LGUs but there are still some confusions on implementation of such guidelines," he said.

Pascual said no events equates to zero revenue, which meant that MICE companies were merely trying to survive, trying to keep staff employed through the pandemic.

As the new year nears, Pascual hopes for more consultation between the government and the private sector while the pandemic is still a pervading issue.

"Our biggest hope is that we can build the confidence of government that the professional MICE sector is more than capable of adhering to safety protocols," he said. 

'Chinese retirees'

Aside from the pandemic, the DOT this year also focused on introducing reforms at the Philippine Retirement Authority (PRA) following a public backlash on its current policy that allows foreigners as young as 35 years old to retire in the Philippines.

Senators questioned if the PRA, an attached agency of the DOT, can ensure that young Chinese retirees are not working nor engaged in the operations of Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGO).

Based on PRA data, some 26,969 Chinese nationals have been allowed to retire in the Philippines, topping the list as of December 2019, followed by 13,912 Koreans; 5,951 Indians; 4,801 Taiwanese; and 3,950 Japanese.

There are a total of 14,987 active retirees or those who continue to keep the retirement visa as their status of stay in the Philippines with ages ranging from 34 to 49 years old. Of this number, more than 50 percent, or 8,130 of whom are Chinese nationals from mainland China, followed by the Koreans at 2,257 and Indians at 1,891.

Despite this calamitous year for the tourism industry, the Philippines carried on and has even bagged accolades that recognized the timeless beauty of its destinations.

The Philippines’ dive spots and the old walled city of Intramuros were hailed as this year's World's Leading Dive Destination and World's Leading Tourist Attraction, respectively, by the 2020 World Travel Awards (WTA).

This is the Philippines’ second time to win the world title for dive, besting eight different popular dive hubs, such as the Azores Islands, Bora Bora, French Polynesia, Cayman Islands, Fiji, Galapagos Islands, Great Barrier Reef in Australia, Maldives, and Mexico.

Meanwhile, it was Intramuros’s first time to win the World's Leading Tourist Attraction, beating 15 different attractions, such as the Acropolis of Greece, Burj Khalifa of Dubai, the Grand Canyon National Park of the US, Mount Kilimanjaro of Tanzania, and Taj Mahal of India. Albeit virtually, the Philippines remained on the world's radar.

'Recovery'

Earlier, Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat said international travel might not happen soon amid the existing travel restrictions of other countries, especially now that a new strain of SARS-CoV-2 is spreading fast in the United Kingdom.

"Our (focus) is still domestic tourism. Domestic tourism is 10.8 percent in the 12.7 percent contribution of the tourism industry to the country's GDP that's why we will strengthen this," she told reporters on Dec. 28.

Physical distancing and health protocols had been the most associated words to the "new normal". And in the years beyond, this is likely to stay as safety becomes the traveler's paramount concern.

Puyat is optimistic that DOT's partnerships with public hospitals, such as the Philippine General Hospital and the Philippine Children's Medical Center, would help transcend the prohibitive barrier of testing requirements for travelers.

"Working hand in hand not only with our tourism stakeholders and LGU, but also with government health facilities ensures that success of safety protocols will strengthen our collective efforts to gradually and safely reopen domestic tourism," she said.

Basing on previous major viral epidemics, experts earlier said the average recovery time for visitor numbers to a destination was 19 months.

The worldwide economic impact of H1N1 was estimated at up to USD55 billion, according to the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC).

A similar economic crisis affected China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Canada after the 2003 SARS outbreak impacted the global travel and tourism sector by around USD30 billion and USD50 billion.

But for a global health crisis that has lasted for almost a year now, how can the industry today regain its momentum and recover?

For the WTTC, governments must coordinate to provide certainty for travelers with regards to travel restrictions and policies.

In a December 21 statement, Gloria Guevara, WTTC President, and CEO, said: “If a comprehensive and quick turnaround testing regime were in place at airports across the country to test all travelers before they depart, it would ensure only those infected with Covid-19 are isolated and are prevented from traveling. There would be no need for countries to introduce damaging and counterproductive wholesale bans on UK travelers." (PNA)

***

References:

* Philippine News Agency. "Tough year for tourism: Exploring ways to restart, recover." Philippine News Agency. https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1125790 (accessed December 29, 2020 at 01:30AM UTC+14).

* Philippine News Agency. "Tough year for tourism: Exploring ways to restart, recover." Archive Today. https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1125790 (archived).

[bigyack-com]

SpaceX’s Explosive Test May Launch Year of Renewed Human Spaceflight

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. — The rocket launched. It exploded.SpaceX and NASA declared the blast a success.Usually the destruction of a rocket means a failed mission. But on Sunday, SpaceX was demonstrating a crucial safety system of its Crew Dragon spacecraft, a capsule that is to carry astronauts for NASA to the International Space Station.There was no one on board during Sunday’s flight. The passengers this time were two test dummies with sensors to measure the forces that real astronauts would experience if the capsule’s escape system were ever needed. The system proved itself, even during a phase of the flight when atmospheric forces on the spacecraft are most severe. About nine minutes after the test, the intact capsule landed in the Atlantic Ocean.“Overall, as far we can tell thus far, it was a picture-perfect mission,” said Elon Musk, the founder and chief executive of SpaceX, during a news conference after the test.This accomplishment may set the stage for opening a new era in spaceflight. For more than eight years since the last space shuttle flight, no person has launched to orbit from the United States. Instead, NASA has had to rely on Russia for the transportation of its astronauts.Now SpaceX and Boeing, the companies hired by NASA, are nearly ready for their first crewed flights, and probably not just of NASA astronauts.“We’re on the cusp of commercializing low-Earth orbit,” said Jim Bridenstine, the NASA administrator. “I want to see large amounts of capital flowing into activities that include humans in space. And those activities could be industrialized biomedicine. It could be advanced materials, and it could be people that want to go to space for tourism purposes.”Boeing and SpaceX may not be the only companies taking people to space from the United States. Two companies, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, seem to be on track to carry their first customers on expensive, short-hop space tourism flights soon. The number of people heading toward space could surge, even if most experience weightlessness for just a few minutes.The abort test was postponed one day because of rough seas and gusty winds on Saturday at the planned splashdown site. On Sunday, the waves were beginning to calm, but a storm was moving toward the launchpad.At 10:30 a.m., conditions on both land and sea were good enough to allow the Falcon 9 rocket to blast off into the sky.At 84 seconds after liftoff, powerful thrusters on the Crew Dragon pushed the spacecraft away from the rocket quickly, reaching a speed of more than twice that of sound. The rocket then exploded.Mr. Musk said the capsule, with its heat shield, should be able to survive fiery conditions that erupted before the capsule made its escape.“It could quite literally look like something out of Star Wars, fly right out of a fireball,” he said. “We want to avoid doing that.”Coasting to an altitude of more than 130,000 feet, the capsule then performed a carefully designed choreography — jettisoning the bottom of the spacecraft, firing small thrusters and deploying its parachutes — before it splashed into the ocean about 20 miles from where it started.The next Crew Dragon mission is to take two NASA astronauts, Douglas G. Hurley and Robert L. Behnken, to the space station.Mr. Musk said that flight would likely occur in the second quarter of the year, between April and June. The Falcon 9 rocket and a new Crew Dragon capsule for that flight will be ready in Florida by the end of February, he said, but safety reviews will take some time.The crew on the space station is to drop to three in April when three astronauts currently there return to Earth on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.The mission for Mr. Hurley and Mr. Behnken is currently scheduled to last two weeks, but could be extended, which would prevent a drop-off in scientific research at the station. For a longer stay, the astronauts would need additional training.“So far on space station, our responsibility is to take care of ourselves while we’re there, not make a mess,” Mr. Behnken said.Mr. Bridenstine said that a decision on whether Mr. Hurley and Mr. Behnken would stay longer would be made in a few weeks. He also said that NASA was still negotiating to buy an additional seat on a Soyuz.“I think it’s important we have options,” Mr. Bridenstine said.

A slow trek back to orbit

The last time NASA astronauts launched from the United States was July 8, 2011, when the space shuttle Atlantis blasted off on its last flight from Florida.Thirteen days later, it glided to a landing back at the Kennedy Space Center, where it is now a museum piece. Since then, astronauts from NASA and other nations flying to the space station have been hitching rides on Russian Soyuz rockets, at a current price of more than $80 million each.From Alan Shepard’s first flight in 1961 through the Apollo moon landings to the space shuttles, NASA was in charge of designing, building and operating its rockets and spacecraft.After the retirement of the shuttles, NASA planned to continue that approach with the Constellation program started under President George W. Bush. NASA aimed to develop the Ares 1 rocket to take astronauts to the space station.But costs for Ares 1 and the accompanying Orion capsule kept rising and the schedule slipped repeatedly. The Obama administration canceled the program.To replace Ares 1, NASA turned to commercial companies, the approach it uses for launches of satellites, cargo to the space station and robotic planetary probes. But relinquishing the transportation of astronauts was a bigger shift for the space agency.When NASA awarded the commercial crew contracts to Boeing and SpaceX in 2014, the hope was that the flights carrying astronauts would begin by the end of 2017. The contracts set fixed prices, unlike earlier big NASA contracts where contractors were reimbursed for costs with an additional fee.Watchdogs in government have questioned the management and costs of the program, and both Boeing and SpaceX have suffered technological setbacks along the way. SpaceX successfully sent an uncrewed Crew Dragon to the space station a year ago, and the company was gearing up to conduct the in-flight abort test.But in April, during a ground test, the capsule that was to be used for the abort test — the same one that had gone to orbit — exploded. No one was injured, but that pushed back SpaceX’s schedule as it figured out what happened and how to fix it.In December, Boeing launched one of its Starliner capsules without crew, but the mission ended early, without going to the space station, because of a problem with the spacecraft’s clock.

All aboard?

Many space enthusiasts hope that the commercial crew program will spur new business in space.Last June, NASA announced that it would allow space tourists to make trips to the space station, and one company, Axiom Space, says it has one passenger signed up already for a 10-day trip that will cost $55 million. An Axiom mission could launch as soon as summer 2021.However, another company, Bigelow Space Operations, which also said it planned to launch space tourists to the station, backed away a few months later.“NASA still has a substantial amount of work to do,” said Robert T. Bigelow, the founder and chief executive of the company. “We learned last year when we secured a SpaceX launch and options for three others that unfortunately it was premature. So, therefore, we had to cancel those agreements.”NASA is also expected to soon announce the winner of a competition to attach a commercial module to the International Space Station, providing more room for visitors.Still, putting people in orbit will most likely remain a small slice of the money invested on space ventures.“There’s certainly a business to made with human spaceflight,” said Chad Anderson, chief executive of Space Angels, an investment firm focused on start-up space companies. But, he added, his company saw human spaceflight more as a high-profile catalyst than a big business.The areas of major growth, he said, will be global positioning systems, earth observation and communications, none of which require astronauts.Closer to the ground, another pair of American companies could take passengers on brief trips to the edge of space.The spacecraft built by Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic basically just go up and down like a big roller coaster and never accelerate to the speeds needed to reach orbit. Virgin’s officials are optimistically saying that commercial flights will begin this year. Blue Origin has not yet carried any passengers.Neither company’s trip to space will be in financial reach of the average person. Virgin Galactic charges $250,000 for a seat. Blue Origin has not yet said what it will charge.But the companies could greatly increase the number of people who travel to space. In the 58 years since Yuri Gagarin became the first person in space, fewer than 600 people have followed him there. Read the full article

[biofunmy]

SpaceX’s Explosive Test May Launch Year of Renewed Human Spaceflight

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. — The rocket launched. It exploded.

SpaceX and NASA declared the blast a success.

Usually the destruction of a rocket means a failed mission. But on Sunday, SpaceX was demonstrating a crucial safety system of its Crew Dragon spacecraft, a capsule that is to carry astronauts for NASA to the International Space Station.

There was no one on board during Sunday’s flight. The passengers this time were two test dummies with sensors to measure the forces that real astronauts would experience if the capsule’s escape system were ever needed. The system proved itself, even during a phase of the flight when atmospheric forces on the spacecraft are most severe. About nine minutes after the test, the intact capsule landed in the Atlantic Ocean.

“Overall, as far we can tell thus far, it was a picture-perfect mission,” said Elon Musk, the founder and chief executive of SpaceX, during a news conference after the test.

This accomplishment may set the stage for opening a new era in spaceflight. For more than eight years since the last space shuttle flight, no person has launched to orbit from the United States. Instead, NASA has had to rely on Russia for the transportation of its astronauts.

Now SpaceX and Boeing, the companies hired by NASA, are nearly ready for their first crewed flights, and probably not just of NASA astronauts.

“We’re on the cusp of commercializing low-Earth orbit,” said Jim Bridenstine, the NASA administrator. “I want to see large amounts of capital flowing into activities that include humans in space. And those activities could be industrialized biomedicine. It could be advanced materials, and it could be people that want to go to space for tourism purposes.”

Boeing and SpaceX may not be the only companies taking people to space from the United States. Two companies, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, seem to be on track to carry their first customers on expensive, short-hop space tourism flights soon. The number of people heading toward space could surge, even if most experience weightlessness for just a few minutes.

[Sign up to get reminders for space and astronomy events on your calendar.]

The abort test was postponed one day because of rough seas and gusty winds on Saturday at the planned splashdown site. On Sunday, the waves were beginning to calm, but a storm was moving toward the launchpad.

At 10:30 a.m., conditions on both land and sea were good enough to allow the Falcon 9 rocket to blast off into the sky.

At 84 seconds after liftoff, powerful thrusters on the Crew Dragon pushed the spacecraft away from the rocket quickly, reaching a speed of more than twice that of sound. The rocket then exploded.

Mr. Musk said the capsule, with its heat shield, should be able to survive fiery conditions that erupted before the capsule made its escape.

“It could quite literally look like something out of Star Wars, fly right out of a fireball,” he said. “We want to avoid doing that.”

Coasting to an altitude of more than 130,000 feet, the capsule then performed a carefully designed choreography — jettisoning the bottom of the spacecraft, firing small thrusters and deploying its parachutes — before it splashed into the ocean about 20 miles from where it started.

The next Crew Dragon mission is to take two NASA astronauts, Douglas G. Hurley and Robert L. Behnken, to the space station.

Mr. Musk said that flight would likely occur in the second quarter of the year, between April and June. The Falcon 9 rocket and a new Crew Dragon capsule for that flight will be ready in Florida by the end of February, he said, but safety reviews will take some time.

The crew on the space station is to drop to three in April when three astronauts currently there return to Earth on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

The mission for Mr. Hurley and Mr. Behnken is currently scheduled to last two weeks, but could be extended, which would prevent a drop-off in scientific research at the station. For a longer stay, the astronauts would need additional training.

“So far on space station, our responsibility is to take care of ourselves while we’re there, not make a mess,” Mr. Behnken said.

Mr. Bridenstine said that a decision on whether Mr. Hurley and Mr. Behnken would stay longer would be made in a few weeks. He also said that NASA was still negotiating to buy an additional seat on a Soyuz.

“I think it’s important we have options,” Mr. Bridenstine said.

A slow trek back to orbit

The last time NASA astronauts launched from the United States was July 8, 2011, when the space shuttle Atlantis blasted off on its last flight from Florida.

Thirteen days later, it glided to a landing back at the Kennedy Space Center, where it is now a museum piece. Since then, astronauts from NASA and other nations flying to the space station have been hitching rides on Russian Soyuz rockets, at a current price of more than $80 million each.

From Alan Shepard’s first flight in 1961 through the Apollo moon landings to the space shuttles, NASA was in charge of designing, building and operating its rockets and spacecraft.

After the retirement of the shuttles, NASA planned to continue that approach with the Constellation program started under President George W. Bush. NASA aimed to develop the Ares 1 rocket to take astronauts to the space station.

But costs for Ares 1 and the accompanying Orion capsule kept rising and the schedule slipped repeatedly. The Obama administration canceled the program.

To replace Ares 1, NASA turned to commercial companies, the approach it uses for launches of satellites, cargo to the space station and robotic planetary probes. But relinquishing the transportation of astronauts was a bigger shift for the space agency.

When NASA awarded the commercial crew contracts to Boeing and SpaceX in 2014, the hope was that the flights carrying astronauts would begin by the end of 2017. The contracts set fixed prices, unlike earlier big NASA contracts where contractors were reimbursed for costs with an additional fee.

Watchdogs in government have questioned the management and costs of the program, and both Boeing and SpaceX have suffered technological setbacks along the way. SpaceX successfully sent an uncrewed Crew Dragon to the space station a year ago, and the company was gearing up to conduct the in-flight abort test.

But in April, during a ground test, the capsule that was to be used for the abort test — the same one that had gone to orbit — exploded. No one was injured, but that pushed back SpaceX’s schedule as it figured out what happened and how to fix it.

In December, Boeing launched one of its Starliner capsules without crew, but the mission ended early, without going to the space station, because of a problem with the spacecraft’s clock.

All aboard?

Many space enthusiasts hope that the commercial crew program will spur new business in space.

Last June, NASA announced that it would allow space tourists to make trips to the space station, and one company, Axiom Space, says it has one passenger signed up already for a 10-day trip that will cost $55 million. An Axiom mission could launch as soon as summer 2021.

However, another company, Bigelow Space Operations, which also said it planned to launch space tourists to the station, backed away a few months later.

“NASA still has a substantial amount of work to do,” said Robert T. Bigelow, the founder and chief executive of the company. “We learned last year when we secured a SpaceX launch and options for three others that unfortunately it was premature. So, therefore, we had to cancel those agreements.”

NASA is also expected to soon announce the winner of a competition to attach a commercial module to the International Space Station, providing more room for visitors.

Still, putting people in orbit will most likely remain a small slice of the money invested on space ventures.

“There’s certainly a business to made with human spaceflight,” said Chad Anderson, chief executive of Space Angels, an investment firm focused on start-up space companies. But, he added, his company saw human spaceflight more as a high-profile catalyst than a big business.

The areas of major growth, he said, will be global positioning systems, earth observation and communications, none of which require astronauts.

Closer to the ground, another pair of American companies could take passengers on brief trips to the edge of space.

The spacecraft built by Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic basically just go up and down like a big roller coaster and never accelerate to the speeds needed to reach orbit. Virgin’s officials are optimistically saying that commercial flights will begin this year. Blue Origin has not yet carried any passengers.

Neither company’s trip to space will be in financial reach of the average person. Virgin Galactic charges $250,000 for a seat. Blue Origin has not yet said what it will charge.

But the companies could greatly increase the number of people who travel to space. In the nearly 59 years since Yuri Gagarin became the first person in space, fewer than 600 people have followed him there.

Sahred From Source link Travel

from WordPress http://bit.ly/2ugjU2y via IFTTT

[mastcomm]

SpaceX’s Explosive Test May Launch Year of Renewed Human Spaceflight

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. — The rocket launched. It exploded.

SpaceX and NASA declared the blast a success.

Usually the destruction of a rocket means a failed mission. But on Sunday, SpaceX was demonstrating a crucial safety system of its Crew Dragon spacecraft, a capsule that is to carry astronauts for NASA to the International Space Station.

There was no one on board during Sunday’s flight. The passengers this time were two test dummies with sensors to measure the forces that real astronauts would experience if the capsule’s escape system were ever needed. The system proved itself, even during a phase of the flight when atmospheric forces on the spacecraft are most severe. About nine minutes after the test, the intact capsule landed in the Atlantic Ocean.

“Overall, as far we can tell thus far, it was a picture-perfect mission,” said Elon Musk, the founder and chief executive of SpaceX, during a news conference after the test.

This accomplishment may set the stage for opening a new era in spaceflight. For more than eight years since the last space shuttle flight, no person has launched to orbit from the United States. Instead, NASA has had to rely on Russia for the transportation of its astronauts.

Now SpaceX and Boeing, the companies hired by NASA, are nearly ready for their first crewed flights, and probably not just of NASA astronauts.

“We’re on the cusp of commercializing low-Earth orbit,” said Jim Bridenstine, the NASA administrator. “I want to see large amounts of capital flowing into activities that include humans in space. And those activities could be industrialized biomedicine. It could be advanced materials, and it could be people that want to go to space for tourism purposes.”

Boeing and SpaceX may not be the only companies taking people to space from the United States. Two companies, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, seem to be on track to carry their first customers on expensive, short-hop space tourism flights soon. The number of people heading toward space could surge, even if most experience weightlessness for just a few minutes.

[Sign up to get reminders for space and astronomy events on your calendar.]

The abort test was postponed one day because of rough seas and gusty winds on Saturday at the planned splashdown site. On Sunday, the waves were beginning to calm, but a storm was moving toward the launchpad.

At 10:30 a.m., conditions on both land and sea were good enough to allow the Falcon 9 rocket to blast off into the sky.

At 84 seconds after liftoff, powerful thrusters on the Crew Dragon pushed the spacecraft away from the rocket quickly, reaching a speed of more than twice that of sound. The rocket then exploded.

Mr. Musk said the capsule, with its heat shield, should be able to survive fiery conditions that erupted before the capsule made its escape.

“It could quite literally look like something out of Star Wars, fly right out of a fireball,” he said. “We want to avoid doing that.”

Coasting to an altitude of more than 130,000 feet, the capsule then performed a carefully designed choreography — jettisoning the bottom of the spacecraft, firing small thrusters and deploying its parachutes — before it splashed into the ocean about 20 miles from where it started.

The next Crew Dragon mission is to take two NASA astronauts, Douglas G. Hurley and Robert L. Behnken, to the space station.

Mr. Musk said that flight would likely occur in the second quarter of the year, between April and June. The Falcon 9 rocket and a new Crew Dragon capsule for that flight will be ready in Florida by the end of February, he said, but safety reviews will take some time.

The crew on the space station is to drop to three in April when three astronauts currently there return to Earth on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

The mission for Mr. Hurley and Mr. Behnken is currently scheduled to last two weeks, but could be extended, which would prevent a drop-off in scientific research at the station. For a longer stay, the astronauts would need additional training.

“So far on space station, our responsibility is to take care of ourselves while we’re there, not make a mess,” Mr. Behnken said.

Mr. Bridenstine said that a decision on whether Mr. Hurley and Mr. Behnken would stay longer would be made in a few weeks. He also said that NASA was still negotiating to buy an additional seat on a Soyuz.

“I think it’s important we have options,” Mr. Bridenstine said.

A slow trek back to orbit

The last time NASA astronauts launched from the United States was July 8, 2011, when the space shuttle Atlantis blasted off on its last flight from Florida.

Thirteen days later, it glided to a landing back at the Kennedy Space Center, where it is now a museum piece. Since then, astronauts from NASA and other nations flying to the space station have been hitching rides on Russian Soyuz rockets, at a current price of more than $80 million each.

From Alan Shepard’s first flight in 1961 through the Apollo moon landings to the space shuttles, NASA was in charge of designing, building and operating its rockets and spacecraft.

After the retirement of the shuttles, NASA planned to continue that approach with the Constellation program started under President George W. Bush. NASA aimed to develop the Ares 1 rocket to take astronauts to the space station.

But costs for Ares 1 and the accompanying Orion capsule kept rising and the schedule slipped repeatedly. The Obama administration canceled the program.

To replace Ares 1, NASA turned to commercial companies, the approach it uses for launches of satellites, cargo to the space station and robotic planetary probes. But relinquishing the transportation of astronauts was a bigger shift for the space agency.

When NASA awarded the commercial crew contracts to Boeing and SpaceX in 2014, the hope was that the flights carrying astronauts would begin by the end of 2017. The contracts set fixed prices, unlike earlier big NASA contracts where contractors were reimbursed for costs with an additional fee.

Watchdogs in government have questioned the management and costs of the program, and both Boeing and SpaceX have suffered technological setbacks along the way. SpaceX successfully sent an uncrewed Crew Dragon to the space station a year ago, and the company was gearing up to conduct the in-flight abort test.

But in April, during a ground test, the capsule that was to be used for the abort test — the same one that had gone to orbit — exploded. No one was injured, but that pushed back SpaceX’s schedule as it figured out what happened and how to fix it.

In December, Boeing launched one of its Starliner capsules without crew, but the mission ended early, without going to the space station, because of a problem with the spacecraft’s clock.

All aboard?

Many space enthusiasts hope that the commercial crew program will spur new business in space.

Last June, NASA announced that it would allow space tourists to make trips to the space station, and one company, Axiom Space, says it has one passenger signed up already for a 10-day trip that will cost $55 million. An Axiom mission could launch as soon as summer 2021.

However, another company, Bigelow Space Operations, which also said it planned to launch space tourists to the station, backed away a few months later.

“NASA still has a substantial amount of work to do,” said Robert T. Bigelow, the founder and chief executive of the company. “We learned last year when we secured a SpaceX launch and options for three others that unfortunately it was premature. So, therefore, we had to cancel those agreements.”

NASA is also expected to soon announce the winner of a competition to attach a commercial module to the International Space Station, providing more room for visitors.

Still, putting people in orbit will most likely remain a small slice of the money invested on space ventures.

“There’s certainly a business to made with human spaceflight,” said Chad Anderson, chief executive of Space Angels, an investment firm focused on start-up space companies. But, he added, his company saw human spaceflight more as a high-profile catalyst than a big business.

The areas of major growth, he said, will be global positioning systems, earth observation and communications, none of which require astronauts.

Closer to the ground, another pair of American companies could take passengers on brief trips to the edge of space.

The spacecraft built by Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic basically just go up and down like a big roller coaster and never accelerate to the speeds needed to reach orbit. Virgin’s officials are optimistically saying that commercial flights will begin this year. Blue Origin has not yet carried any passengers.

Neither company’s trip to space will be in financial reach of the average person. Virgin Galactic charges $250,000 for a seat. Blue Origin has not yet said what it will charge.

But the companies could greatly increase the number of people who travel to space. In the 58 years since Yuri Gagarin became the first person in space, fewer than 600 people have followed him there.

from WordPress https://mastcomm.com/tech/spacexs-explosive-test-may-launch-year-of-renewed-human-spaceflight/

[orbemnews]

Another Unlikely Pandemic Shortage: Boba Tea A panic erupted on the West Coast this week. Over a drink. It happened when beverage aficionados learned that tapioca, the starch used to make the sweet, round, chewy black bubbles — or pearls — that are the featured topping in the popular boba tea drink, was in short supply. “I was shocked,” said Leanne Yuen, a longtime boba drinker and student at the University of California, Irvine. “What am I going to do now?” The impending boba shortage is yet another sign of how the pandemic has snarled global supply chains, upended industries and created scarcities of goods from toilet paper to electronics to ketchup. In this case, a surge of pent-up demand for products assembled abroad, coupled with a shortage of workers because of coronavirus cases or quarantine protocols, has caused a monthslong maritime pileup at ports in Los Angeles and San Francisco and left ships delivering goods from Asia — including tapioca — waiting out at sea. Boba or bubble tea, a drink that can be made with milk or fruit-flavored green or black tea, originated in Taiwan and has steadily grown in popularity and prominence in the United States throughout the 2000s. Boba suppliers based in the San Francisco Bay Area who are running low on tapioca said their shipments of fully formed boba come from Taiwan, while supplies of cassava root, which is used to make tapioca, come from Thailand and islands in the Pacific Ocean. “It’s all being held up at the docks,” said Arianna Hansen, a sales representative for the boba distributor Fanale Drinks, which is based in Hayward, Calif., and supplies thousands of stores around the country. Ms. Hansen said shipments had been backed up for several months, and the company’s existing stockpile of tapioca is running dangerously low. “It’s definitely been frustrating — some people have been upset with us, but at the same time it’s not really our fault,” Ms. Hansen said. There’s no sign that the ship delays will abate anytime soon. The number of container ships waiting at anchor to dock in Los Angeles or Long Beach peaked at 40 in February, according to data from the Marine Exchange of Southern California. That declined to 19 ships on Thursday, still a far cry from the usual zero to one ships that was the norm prepandemic, said Kip Louttit, the exchange’s executive director. Massive cargo ships can take up to a week or longer to unload, Mr. Louttit said. Five additional ships are drifting out at sea, because there is no room to fit them in the bay. He said it was a nearly unprecedented backup; vessels have not had to drift while waiting since 2004. The situation is similarly cramped in San Francisco, where 20 ships are waiting at anchor and 19 more are “cruising around” offshore, compared with the usual eight or nine at anchor, according to Capt. Lynn Korwatch, the executive director of the area’s marine exchange. “The situation is extremely unusual,” she said. Leadway International Inc., another large boba supplier in Hayward, also said that its stock of tapioca was low because shipments were coming in slower than usual. The company’s business development director, Edward Shen, said he did not want to call it a “shortage” over fears that might spook boba shops into hoarding tapioca and make matters worse. “Store owners get panicked, so they probably order more than what they need,” Mr. Shen said. Ms. Hansen said she expected supply to return to close to normal levels by the summer. In the meantime, anxious boba store owners are scrounging for tapioca anywhere they can. “It’s very stressful — no boba means no sales,” said Aaron Qian, the owner of Tea Hut, a boba store with three locations in the Bay Area. “If you don’t have boba, they don’t want the tea. They just leave.” Mr. Qian, 32, said two of his suppliers were already sold out, and the other two had been rationing the amount of tapioca he could buy each week. If he does not find more boba soon, Mr. Qian said, his stores will be out within two weeks. Updated  April 16, 2021, 12:43 p.m. ET Despite the pandemic, Mr. Qian said, business had been booming, because with other entertainment venues closed, drinking boba was one of the few avenues for “cheap fun.” Now, he might have to temporarily close and lay off employees. Brian Tran, the co-owner of Honeybear Boba in San Francisco, said he had also been searching desperately for more tapioca. He expects to run out by the end of next week if he cannot replenish his supply. “A boba shop without boba is like a car dealership without cars to sell,” Mr. Tran said. “It’s like a steakhouse without steak.” Boba Guys, one of the most successful boba chains in the country, said in an Instagram post this month that some boba shops had already run out of tapioca balls and others would follow in the next few weeks. The owners of Boba Guys also operate the U.S. Boba Company, which produces and sells tapioca pearls to other stores around the country. The boba shortage, which was first reported by The San Francisco Chronicle, has boba fans in a panic. A post sharing the news in the Facebook group Subtle Asian Traits, a gathering place for Asian people around the world, attracted 10,000 comments and messages of dismay and sadness. Boba is “something that translates across a lot of Asian cultures,” said Zoe Imansjah, a student at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and an administrator of the Subtle Asian Traits group. “Something so simple can bring a lot of people together.” Ms. Yuen, 21, gets boba once or twice a week and sells boba stickers online. She said she grew up visiting a boba shop near her house in South San Francisco with her parents, and now considers getting boba a great way to socialize with friends. “A lot of my Asian-American friends will bond over boba,” said Ms. Yuen, whose family is from Hong Kong. “Hong Kong has a lot of good milk tea. It brings us back to our roots, in a sense.” Boba isn’t just a California treat, however, and news of a shortage reverberated around the United States. Khoa Vu, a 28-year-old Ph.D. student at the University of Minnesota, said he drinks boba two or three times a week — peach oolong tea with boba is his go-to order. He was dreading having to break the news of the shortage to his 4-year-old daughter. “It’s a weekend thing after we’re done with dinner; I tell my kid, ‘If you eat well, I’ll take you to the boba shop,’” Mr. Vu said. “It’s going to be a shock to her.” All hope is not lost for boba fanatics. Smaller boba suppliers like iBEV LLC, which sells to about 100 stores, might be able to weather the shortage. Carley Olund, an office manager at iBEV, said the company had prepared for shipping delays and had enough tapioca stockpiled to get through it. And Sharetea, a boba chain with dozens of stores across 20 states, said it was not experiencing a shortage. For those boba drinkers who are affected by shortages, this may be a chance to try different toppings in their tea, like cheese foam, fruit jellies or egg pudding. “Maybe I’ll try to take a break from the tapioca to relieve that pressure,” Ms. Yuen said. Source link Orbem News #Boba #Pandemic #shortage #Tea