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The Plot: What did Pelosi know and when did she know it - www.independentsentinel.com
The Plot: What did Pelosi know and when did she know it
By
M Dowling
-
February 10, 2021
3
6857
The riot at the Capitol appeared to be staged well in advance. There were many warning but they went unheeded. In fact, the opposite occurred. Now that we know about the cabal, Speaker Pelosi’s role takes the forefront.
Devin Nunes was on Laura Ingraham’s show last night as part of a panel to discuss the impeachment trial.
Rep. Nunes said what we are also not hearing is the FBI and the police knew of the groups that were going to be there. They had good intelligence.
There was the smallest fencing he had ever seen around the Capitol. There was a request for additional security and the Speaker is responsible for that. We need to know what the Speaker knew and when did she know it.
Watch:
Kyle Becker has an extensive report reviewing the resignation letter of the Capitol Hill Police Chief and it hits upon the question of Pelosi’s role [emboldened below]. He also discusses the six times the Capitol Police Chief asked for assistance before the riot. Later, when the riot did materialize his calles for National Guard assistance went unheeded.
INTELLIGENCE CAME IN THREE DAYS BEFORE
The former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund left a resignation letter to the Congress that states he warned the Congress six times about the high risk of impending attacks on the capitol building before the January 6th “insurrection.” He kept getting “blocked.”
“Perfect hindsight does not change the fact that nothing in our collective experience or our intelligence – including intelligence provided by FBI, Secret Service, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and D.C. Metropolitan Police (MPD) – indicated that a well-coordinated, armed assault on the Capitol might occur on Jan. 6,” Sund wrote.
This intelligence, given at least three days prior to the attack, indicates that the pre-planned riot could not have been “incited” by former President Trump’s speech. The reasoning is fallacious, it claims “after this, therefore because of this.”
THE ATTENDEES
Sund’s intelligence explicitly named violent left-wing extremist group Antifa as a “expected” to participate.
“Members of the Proud Boys, white supremacist groups, Antifa, and other extremist groups were expected to participate in the Jan. 6 event and that they may be inclined to become violent,” he wrote.
“This was very similar to the intelligence assessment of the Dec. 12, 2020, MAGA II event.” Sund says there was a “limited amount of violence and/or injuries to officers, and a limited number of arrests.”
“Having previously handled two major post-election demonstrations successfully utilizing an action plan that was based on intelligence assessments that had proven to be credible, reliable, and accurate, we reasonably assumed the intelligence assessment for Jan. 6, 2021, was also correct,” he added.
HE NOTIFIED THE ARMY FIVE TIMES
The former Capitol Police chief said that he notified the U.S. Army five times about the danger in a local interview:
“We need boots on the ground, immediate assistance,” he said. “Right then and there, helping to form police lines and secure the foundation of the United States capitol building.”
He knew they needed emergency assistance at 1:00 pm. But the first boots on the ground weren’t present until 5:40 pm.
The capitol police and national guard presence was light as protesters carried on throughout the Capitol.
WHAT DID PELOSI KNOW?
Speaker Pelosi demanded that Sund resign after the capitol riots, despite his repeated warnings to the Congress, the military, and the intelligence community about what was about to occur. Senator Ron Johnson is now asking questions about Pelosi’s possible knowledge of the impending attack.
“Is this another diversionary operation?” Johnson said in an interview with Maria Bartiromo. “Is this meant to deflect away from potentially what the Speaker knew and when she knew it? I don’t know, but I’m suspicious.”
THERE WAS A CABAL OF CONSPIRATORS
It has since come out in a Time piece that there was coordination between radical agitators and a powerful “shadow campaign” operating behind the scenes to “fortify” the election. As the Time piece relates, a coalition of big tech companies, corporate giants, labor unions and influential left-wing organizations engaged in a “conspiracy” to ensure that Donald Trump would not be re-elected.
Meanwhile, Washington D.C. had become the central focus for both die-hard Trump supporters and a mix of far-right groups, including the “Stop the Steal” organizers and the Proud Boys. There was a conspicuous absence of the usual left-wing suspects that are typically drawn to large right-wing gatherings, such as Antifa and Black Lives Matters leaders.
TRUMP’S GUILT
President Donald Trump, meanwhile, was guilty only of giving a boilerplate speech making his shopworn case that the election was illegitimate. The president had pleaded this same case countless times before. He said nothing remarkable deviating from that script. And nothing remarkable had happened after all of those times he had made a virtually identical case.
Trump told the gathered crowd of his actual most fervent supporters who had come from all across the country to listen to him speak explicitly to “peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
A timeline reveals that the Capitol riot began twenty minutes before the president’s speech ended. Yet there appears to have been a trap set to frame President Trump for inciting a riot.
THE STAGING AND WARNINGS
Numerous aspects of the entire capitol riot affair appears to have been staged. There were pipebombs placed at the RNC and DNC buildings the night before. And not near the capitol building, as some Democrats have falsely claimed. It was a classic diversion tactic to draw away police forces from the site of an actual incursion.
There was an obscenely insufficent lack of capitol building security. This was despite advance warnings that the odds of an attack on the capitol building were increasing by the day. There was also an intelligence report issued by the Capitol Police itself:
Three days before thousands of rioters converged on the U.S. Capitol, an internal Capitol Police intelligence report warned of a violent scenario in which “Congress itself” could be the target of angry supporters of President Trump on Jan. 6, laying out a stark alert that deepens questions about the security failures that day.
In a 12-page report on Jan. 3, the intelligence unit of the congressional police force described how thousands of enraged protesters, egged on by Trump and flanked by white supremacists and extreme militia groups, were likely to stream into Washington armed for battle.
This time, the focus of their ire would be members of Congress, the report said.
The now-resigned Capitol Police chief warned the Congress about an imminent pre-planned attack six times, according to his account, but was denied a stronger presence. It is important to read exactly what the Washington Post reported:
Two days before Congress was set to formalize President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund was growing increasingly worried about the size of the pro-Trump crowds expected to stream into Washington in protest.
To be on the safe side, Sund asked House and Senate security officials for permission to request that the D.C. National Guard be placed on standby in case he needed quick backup.
“We knew we would have large crowds, the potential for some violent altercations,” he added.
The responses from the House’s and the Senate’s respective Sergeant at Arms were reckless at best:
House Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving said he wasn’t comfortable with the “optics” of formally declaring an emergency ahead of the demonstration, Sund said. Meanwhile, Senate Sergeant at Arms Michael Stenger suggested that Sund should informally seek out his Guard contacts, asking them to “lean forward” and be on alert in case Capitol Police needed their help.
Thus, an emergency could have been declared before the riot broke out. Instead, the message to the Capitol Police and the National Guard: Keep the presence light and the security passive. The House and Senate Sergeant at Arms have since resigned.
OTHER SUSPICIOUS ASPECTS
The Capitol Police held the doors open for protesters to enter the building. “I disagree with it, but I respect it,” one officer said as protesters shuffled past him.
There were other suspicious aspects of the assembled mob. One high-profile actor was John Earle Sullivan, a radical self-described “revolutionary” who literally founded a group called “Insurgence USA.” After documenting his own account of what transpired, including the suspect shooting death of Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt, he was arrested and charged for his role in helping to incite the riot.
He would later be given an open and welcome platform on CNN to relate what he saw at the capitol building, along with a CNN correspondent who had been right next to him within the building.
One of the protesters that Sullivan filmed appears to have staged the event that led to Babbitt’s shooting. He used a helmet handed to him to smash a window that Babbitt crawled through before being shot. He escaped with police standing by idly nearby, and was recently arrested. The FBI launched a manhunt, and has finally apprehended and charged the suspect, named Zachary Alam. No charges were recommended for the officer who shot and killed Babbitt.
The Capitol riots chaos meant that the president’s claims the election was ‘ stolen ‘ would never be fully heard by the bulk of the American people. The censorship of the big tech thought police drove the narrative. The tale spread was that President Trump had incited a ‘riot.’ It was presented overwhelmingly through a mainstream media filter.
IT’S ALL ERRONEOUS
It turns out that basis for suspending Donald Trump from digital and social media platforms was entirely erroneous. Therefore, their rationale for continuing their bans and suspensions is purely political. It has nothing to do with public “safety.”
Furthermore, the entire basis of the Democrats’ impeachment vendetta against Donald Trump is fundamentally eroded. It is now nothing more than a cynical ploy.
The question that now arises: Was it a “trap”?
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Russia vetoes Africa-led Security Council resolution tying climate change to terrorism
CLIMATE AND SECURITY
Russia vetoes Africa-led Security Council resolution tying climate change to terrorism
By Julian Pecquet
Posted on Friday, 10 December 2021 15:48, updated on Monday, 13 December 2021 20:32
Chadian soldiers march during Flintlock 2014, a U.S.-led international training mission for African militaries, in Diffa, March 3, 2014. REUTERS/Joe Penney
Russia on Monday vetoed an African-led effort at the United Nations to link climate change with terrorism and other security challenges in the Sahel and beyond.
The UN Security Council voted 12-2 on the draft resolution on climate security spearheaded by Niger and Ireland, with India joining Russia in opposition and China abstaining. The measure would have required the security council to measure the impact of climate change when assessing peacekeeping operations and other actions.
The draft was supported by several African countries as well as Europe and the United States.
READ MORE Role of climate change in Central Sahel’s conflicts: not so clear
“We know very well that this resolution would have been a historic and important, not to mention necessary, move for the council at a critical point in time,” the missions of Niger and Ireland said in a joint statement after the vote. “This resolution is about looking at the Security Council’s role in our current world. Research and evidence on the ground show clearly that climate change is creating insecurity and instability.”
Nigerien President Mohamed Bazoum addressed the council on the matter on Thursday to drum up support from member states that aren’t on the council. The resolution was a top priority for Niger as it presides over the council in December to close out its two-year stint.
Climate change is “reducing access to resources is increasing poverty and all the scourges that go with that,” Bazoum said. As a result, intra-communal violence is on the rise as is the number of refugees and internally displaced people.
Research and evidence on the ground show clearly that climate change is creating insecurity and instability.
“That’s why we’ve chosen the subject of today’s debate,” Bazoum told the council. “It’s the expression of our willingness to see the council establish the clear link between international peace and security on the one hand, and the fight against terrorism and the effects of climate change on the other.”
“The plan for the next few days is to get as many co-sponsors as possible,” Ashish Pradhan, a senior UN analyst for the International Crisis Group, told The Africa Report last week. In the end 113 countries co-sponsored it, but Russia still blocked the measure.
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A systemic approach
By embedding climate experts in peacekeeping and other UN missions, the draft resolution sought to plug a “major gap” for on-the-ground reports that help inform Security Council decisions, says Pradhan. That would have helped ensure that the council doesn’t miss “obvious warning signs”, such as drought in South Sudan causing population displacements that could lead to pre-election violence.
The draft resolution also aimed to “systematise” security council discussions, he said.
“There have been a number of discussions on climate and security at the council, but it’s been very ad hoc,” Pradhan tells The Africa Report. “What this would do is create a systemic cycle so every X number of months, this issue would come up.”
READ MORE South Sudan: How to achieve a post-conflict constitution
In addition, within two years, the UN Secretary General would have had to issue a report on how climate is impacting all of the issues on the security council agenda, “which would then potentially open up different pathways for the council to continue not just considering this impact … but also doing something about it.”
Africa and the West versus Russia and China
Niger’s two African partners on the council supported the draft.
“In light of the current climate-change related challenges facing the world,” said Tunisian envoy Tarek Ladeb, “it is necessary to let go of the context-based approach in addressing such a situation and instead include climate dangers systematically in the security council’s approaches when it shoulders its primary responsibility to maintain international peace and security.”
Any action in the UN Security Council ignoring the basic principles and provisions relating to climate has the potential to disrupt the nature of our overall discussion on this important topic.
Kenya’s permanent representative Martin Kimani called it a “good starting point” to the security council living up its responsibility to help countries suffering the brunt of climate change in Africa and other regions that have done little, historically, to contribute to the problem.
READ MORE 'Climate change does not care where you are' says UK's COP26 Ambassador Rogan
US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said it’s time for the security council to address the issue “head on”.
“It is time for us to stop debating whether the climate crisis presents a threat to international peace and security. That debate is over,” she said. “The impact on the continent of Africa is clear.”
Even so, other countries were worried about moving the climate debate out of the consensus-driven United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and into the more rough-and-tumble security council.
The “automatic attribution of cause and consequence,” said Russian permanent representative Vasily Nebenzya, “will lead the security council down the wrong path.”
READ MORE Nigeria: Climate change is driving the cost of jollof rice
“We have to recognise that our approach differs from the opinion of many of our security council colleagues,” Nebenzya said. “First and foremost, we believe there is a need to look at each country or each region individually and in connection with other, often more significant factors that give rise to socio-economic or political instability, including foreign intervention in states or, on other hand, a lack of assistance from outside where the local authorities and the state institutions cannot cope with the task in front of them.”
Indian envoy T.S. Tirumurti shared similar misgivings.
“We do not think it is appropriate to draw a separate link between security and climate change,” he said, “especially when all aspects of climate change are being dealt with holistically under the mandate of the UNFCCC.”
“Any action in the UN Security Council ignoring the basic principles and provisions relating to climate has the potential to disrupt the nature of our overall discussion on this important topic,” he said. “To move the climate change discourse from a consensus-driven template to a potentially divisive process may not be advisable.”
If African forces like the G5 Sahel are not receiving the predictable and adequate financing they need to deliver international peace and security […] then what real actions on climate and security can we expect?
Chinese envoy Zhang Jun for his part urged “further consultations” and “unity in our actions”.
He also discussed Chinese support for African countries at length, including efforts to mitigate climate change impacts, highlighting Beijing’s unease at finding itself at odds with African nations as it seeks to deepen its presence on the continent.
Sahel funding fight
Western powers are on the same side as Africa on this issue, but they did not escape criticism at Thursday’s council debate.
Bazoum and Kimani pressed for more support from developed countries for the G5 Sahel, a group of countries made up of Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger.
“If African forces like the G5 Sahel are not receiving the predictable and adequate financing they need to deliver international peace and security,” Kimani said, “then what real actions on climate and security can we expect?”
READ MORE Somalia: How climate insecurity can trigger more conflict
The United States has provided almost $600m in bilateral security assistance and other counter-violent extremism support to the G5 countries since they established the Joint Force of the Group of Five for the Sahel (FC-G5S) in 2017. However, along with the United Kingdom, it opposes a proposal from Niger and France to use UN-assessed peacekeeping funds to provide logistical support for a non-UN mission, particularly in countries with a history of human rights abuses.
Congress shares those concerns and included a prohibition on US funding for UN contributions to the Group of Five for the Sahel in its version of the pending FY2022 defense bill. The prohibition did not survive a conference with the Senate, however.
READ MORE US - Morocco: Congress to condition military cooperation with Rabat over Western Sahara
“If this doesn’t find the support of all member states,” Bazoum said, “then we will be forced to find another initiative to substitute.”
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Ma'Khia Bryant case shines light on 'adultification' of Black girls - ABC News
Ma'Khia Bryant case shines light on 'adultification' of Black girls
Ma'Khia Bryant, 16, was shot and killed by police.
By Kiara Alfonseca
May 14, 2021, 10:20 AM
• 9 min read
1:57
Death of Ma’Khia Bryant sparks calls for examination of police using lethal force
The police union is standing by the officer involved in the shooting, saying the use of for...
Stephen Zenner/AFP via Getty Images
Ma'Khia Bryant was 16 when she was shot and killed by police outside of her foster home in Columbus, Ohio. Since her death, the Bryant family lawyer, Michelle Martin, said she has had to combat negative portrayals of the teenager, who has been described by her family as "sweet" and "loving."
"Everyone wants to see her as an aggressor before we can even see her as a child," Martin said in an interview with ABC News. She said she wished people would give Ma'Khia the benefit of the doubt about what she says were her attempts to defend herself in the moments leading up to her death. "They're looking at our [Black] youth as if they are three to four years older and that could go from 'being a child' to 'you're a dangerous adult' -- not a child who was in a situation asking and calling for help" as her family claimed she was doing.
In the wake of the shooting, Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther received backlash for calling the teenager a "young woman" in a tweet, instead of a child or teen. He later corrected himself in a press conference.
Advocates have argued that the "adultification" of Black girls -- being seen as less innocent and more aggressive than their peers -- has played a role in how Ma'Khia has been portrayed and perceived since the incident. Bodycam footage released by police appears to show that officers encountered Ma'Khia lunging at a woman with a kitchen knife when she was shot, 11 seconds after police arrived on the scene.
Law enforcement experts say the situation justified the use of deadly force. But her family and others wonder how much "adultification" has factored into her life prior to this incident, as well as her depiction afterward.
Her sister Ja'Niah, 15, has said that two former foster family members were threatening them during a confrontation about the house's cleanliness. Her family claimed Ma'Khia and Ja'Niah were the ones who had called 911 to the scene for help, as opposed to being the aggressor. The account has not been verified by police.
"She was being a bigger sister," Ja'Niah said. "She was trying to protect herself."
Martin said that she hopes Ma'Khia is remembered as the "bubbly" girl seen in the TikTok videos she made -- a smiling young girl dancing and singing along to music, and doing her hair.
Black girls "are instantly seen as aggressive early on and then that puts them in a position where they aren't even comfortable speaking about any injustices or unsafe positions in the home," Martin said about Ma'Khia's life in foster care. "They're not able to feel like they're safe and protected like they should be. Their vulnerabilities aren't really taken into consideration."
Scott Olson/Getty Images
Family and friends attend a visitation and funeral service for 16-year-old Ma'Khia Bryant...
"'Adultification' is a form of dehumanization -- it's stripping Black girls of what it means to be a child," said Jamilia Blake, the lead researcher in a Georgetown University study on bias against young Black girls. "The idea is that your youth protects you from some of the significant outcomes that you're not protected from as an adult because you don't know better."
Her research, published under the title "Girlhood Interrupted: The Erasure of Black Girls' Childhood," concludes that Black girls are perceived as needing less nurturing, less protection and less support than white girls of the same age. As a result, they are subject to harsher responses by those exercising discretion, including use of force, the research found.
Harsher penalties for Black girls: research
This "adultification" may manifest itself in harmful, tangible consequences for Black girls. According to 2018 data from the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights, Black girls are six times more likely to be expelled from school, four times more likely to be arrested, and three times more likely to be suspended.
MORE: Younger sister remembers Ma'Khia Bryant: 'She wanted to grow up and be great'
Black girls also tend to be punished more severely by school authorities and are more likely to have police use force on them, Blake's research found. Two high-profile incidents in January underscored this trend -- in New York, a 9-year-old unarmed Black girl was pepper-sprayed in her eyes after being handcuffed and forced into a squad car by Rochester police. All three officers were suspended and are being investigated internally by the department.
In Florida, an Osceola County deputy was seen on video slamming a young female Black student onto concrete. The officer was placed on administrative leave while the Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigates the incident.
Incidents like these, according to psychiatrist and ABC News contributor Dr. Divya Chhabra, are the product of unconscious racial bias, which goes hand-in-hand with "adultification" bias. She said that unintentional prejudices or biases can affect the way people act and respond to certain situations and people of different races.
"On a conscious level you don't actually have that belief nor do you want to have that belief, yet something inside your brain has been programmed for a long time because of society, because of the environment," Chhabra said. "We maybe don't want to 'adultify' Black girls, we may not actually believe that Black girls are more dangerous, but something in our brain is making us behave that way."
Stephen Zenner/AFP via Getty Images
A program displays photos of Ma'Khia Bryant during her funeral in Columbus, Ohio on April 30, 2021.
Implicit racism can affect the way Black girls are treated in their day-to-day lives, Chhabra said, and individual and systemic work needs to be done on acknowledging and actively challenging these unconscious biases. The first step, she recommended, is to be aware of the bias, recognize when the bias might be affecting thoughts or actions, and challenge those ideas.
"No person is immune to implicit bias, even people of color or people of oppressed backgrounds are not immune to implicit bias," Chhabra said.
History rooted in slavery and racism
The perceptions of Black girls as more dangerous or more adult, Blake said, stem from slavery and the history of racism in the U.S. Black children were dehumanized, separated from their families and viewed as property. This, combined with the over-sexualization and rape of Black women, has affected the way people see Black girls still today, she said.
"Beginning in slavery, Black boys and girls were imagined as chattel and were often put to work as young as two and three years old," the Georgetown study reads. "Subjected to much of the same dehumanization suffered by Black adults, Black children were rarely perceived as being worthy of playtime and were severely punished for exhibiting normal child-like behaviors."
MORE: Ma'Khia Bryant's family demands answers, investigations into teenager's death
Nishaun T. Battle, an assistant professor of criminal justice at Virginia State University, said Black girls face a "double victimization" of racism and sexism, and that the children suffer from the responsibility of combatting these stereotypes and unconscious biases.
"Even if you do follow all of the directions, stay in line, follow all of the policies, you still can face certain consequences," Battle said. "It's just a very, very dangerous position that Black girls find themselves in wherever they go."
Battle said she hopes a collective movement can prevent future violence against Black girls. She said resources and policies need to be targeted against police use of force against young Black girls and that legislators can instead invest in bettering community systems, like the foster care system that Ma'Khia belonged to.
"It's not about what happened after the fact but what we can do to prevent the fatality," Battle said. "Justice would be better schools, better communities, and more resources."
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What is a heat dome?
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Explained
Explained: What is the 'heat dome' causing record temperatures in parts of North America?
Explained: What is the ‘heat dome’ causing record temperatures in parts of North America?
The temperatures reported from the Pacific northwest and some parts of Canada are part of a "historic" heat wave, a result of a phenomenon referred to as a "heat dome".
By: Explained Desk | New Delhi |
Updated: July 2, 2021 7:14:28 am
Strong change in ocean temperature from the west to the east is what a team of scientists believe is the reason for the heat dome, which is when the atmosphere traps heat at the surface, which encourages the formation of a heat wave. (AP Photo)
In Portland city in Oregon, US, temperatures as high as 46 degree Celsius were recently registered – just three degrees short of the internal core temperature of a cooked shrimp and a few degrees hotter than summer temperatures recorded in New Delhi – a record for the city. In Salem, barely 72 km away from Portland, the temperatures were highest at about 47 degree Celsius on June 28.
On June 29, temperatures in Portland advanced to 46.7 degree Celsius. Referring to a map with heat spots, the National Weather Service (NWS) Portland tweeted, “That is not a lot of red and yellow dots in our area. This just shows how uncommon these temperatures are in our neck of the woods.” For three consecutive days, the city saw record temperatures. Before this, the highest temperatures were in August 1981 and July 1965.
These temperatures being reported from the Pacific northwest and some parts of Canada are part of a “historic” heat wave that lasted over a week, a result of a phenomenon referred to as a “heat dome”. Several media reports note that people who are experiencing the heat wave are scrambling to buy air conditioners, some of them for the first time.
Canada too saw its highest temperature ever recorded in the country’s west. In Lytton in British Columbia, temperatures soared to over 46 degree Celsius last week.
Deadly Canadian heatwave still shattering records
Watch on
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What is a heat dome?
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) says that to understand what causes a heat dome, one should liken the Pacific ocean to a large swimming pool in which the heater is turned on. Once the heater is on, the portions of the pool close to the heating jets will warm up faster and therefore, the temperature in that area will be higher. In the same way, the western Pacific ocean’s temperatures have increased in the past few decades and are relatively more than the temperature in the eastern Pacific.
This strong change in ocean temperature from the west to the east is what a team of scientists believe is the reason for the heat dome, which is when the atmosphere traps heat at the surface, which encourages the formation of a heat wave. To compare, the reason that the planet Venus is the hottest in the Solar System is because its thick, dense cloud cover traps the heat at the surface, leading to temperatures as high as 471 degree Celsius.
A Salvation Army EMS vehicle is setup as a cooling station as people lineup to get into a splash park while trying to beat the heat in Calgary, Alberta. (AP Photo)
A heat wave is a period of unusually hot weather that lasts for more than two days. NWS notes that heat waves can occur with or without high humidity and have the potential to cover a large area, “exposing a high number of people to hazardous heat.”
Also in Explained |What to know about the US heat wave
Are heat waves dangerous for humans?
Randall Munroe notes in The New York Times that if a person is at rest, wearing minimal clothing in a very dry room with about 10 per cent relative humidity, and is drinking water constantly (so that sweat can be produced), they can avoid overheating at temperatures as high as 46 degree Celsius.
So as long as the body is producing sweat, which is then able to evaporate quickly, the body will be able to remain cool even under high temperatures. But, Munroe notes that there is a limit to this, a limit called the wet-bulb temperature–that considers heat and humidity–beyond which humans cannot tolerate high temperatures. Some heat-related illnesses include heat stroke, heat exhaustion, sunburn and heat rashes. Sometimes, heat-related illnesses can prove fatal.
Is this heat wave a result of climate change?
It cannot be said for sure if the heat wave is a direct result of global warming. Scientists are usually wary of linking climate change to any contemporary event mainly because of the difficulty in completely ruling out the possibility of the event having been caused by some other reason, or being a result of natural variability. This is also the case with the recent wildfires that ravaged California.
However, in an updated review of scientific articles that try to establish a link between climate change and fire risk published since January 2020, scientists noted in September last year that human-induced climate change promotes the conditions on which wildfires depend, enhancing their likelihood and challenging suppression efforts. The update focussed on the wildfires seen in the western US last year and the bushfires that ravaged southeastern Australia in 2019-2020.
Similarly, scientists who have been studying the climate tend to agree that the heat waves occurring today are more likely to be a result of climate change for which humans are responsible.
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The Pandora Papers financial leak shows us the secrets of the world's rich and powerful - ABC News
The Pandora Papers financial leak shows us the secrets of the world's rich and powerful
The Pandora Papers financial leak shows us the secrets of the world's rich and powerful
Four Corners
/
By Elise Worthington and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists
Posted Sun 3 Oct 2021 at 7:54pm, updated Tue 5 Oct 2021 at 8:14pm
The leak of nearly 12 million financial documents is one of the largest in history.(Graphic: Nick Wiggins. Photos: Ludovic Marin/Reuters, Alesia Kozik/Pexels.)
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A global leak of nearly 12 million documents, dubbed the Pandora Papers, unlocks the financial secrets of politicians, billionaires and criminals.
The investigation is one of the biggest ever conducted by journalists and lays bare the global entanglement of political power and secretive offshore finance.
Here's what you need to know.
What are the Pandora Papers?
That's the name that's been given to the more than 11.9 million financial records, containing 2.94 terabytes of confidential information from 14 offshore service providers.
They're enterprises that set up and manage shell companies and trusts in tax havens and secrecy jurisdictions around the globe.
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) shared the files with 150 media partners, including the ABC's Four Corners and Background Briefing, whose journalists were among more than 600 in 117 countries and territories who spent months combing through the files.
The little-known Australian accountant exposed in one of the world's biggest leaks
A leak of 11.9 million files reveals how the rich and powerful disguise and move their money offshore.
Read more
They uncovered the secret deals and hidden assets of more than 330 politicians and high-level public officials in more than 90 countries and territories, including 35 current and former country leaders
The documents span five decades, with most created between 1996 and 2020.
Are these offshore trusts and shell companies legal?
While owning an offshore company is legal, and there are some legitimate reasons to have one, the secrecy it provides can be a problem.
Experts say it can give cover to illicit money flows, enabling bribery, money laundering, tax evasion, terrorism financing and human trafficking and other human rights abuses.
Reporting by the ICIJ and its partners has challenged the offshore industry's claims that service providers judiciously vet clients and strive to act within the law.
The documents show how countries like Samoa are used as offshore tax havens.(Four Corners)
Who are the big names included?
International media partners working on the ICIJ's investigation found current and former world leaders who owned secret companies and trusts included: King Abdullah II of Jordan, the prime ministers of Côte d'Ivoire and the Czech Republic, the presidents of Ecuador, Kenya and Gabon and the former presidents of El Salvador, Panama, Paraguay and Honduras.
The ICIJ's analysis of the files found they contained details of the secret offshore holdings of more than 130 billionaires from 45 countries, including 46 Russian oligarchs.
King Abdullah II of Jordan is just one of the 35 current and former leaders who feature in the documents.(Getty Images: Max Mumby/Indigo)
Other clients include bankers, big political donors, arms dealers, international criminals, pop stars, spy chiefs and sporting giants.
Offshore investments were linked to Bollywood actors, soccer stars, corrupt sports officials, a king's lover, feuding princesses, movie directors and stars, supermodels, acclaimed designers and world-famous singers.
How does Australia come into it?
As with the Panama Papers, there are hundreds of Australians named in the leak. They include a prominent board member, bankrupts, a criminal and several small business owners.
But the leak also highlights the role of "gatekeepers", the lawyers and accountants who help Australians set up complex offshore structures.
Importantly, one of the 14 service providers in the leak, called Asiaciti, was founded and run by an Australian accountant named Graeme Briggs.
Asiaciti also had a number of Australian clients, including former Sydney accountant Vanda Gould, who was jailed for perverting the course of justice.
Asiaciti, an offshore accounting firm founded by Australian Graeme Briggs, is one of the providers featured in the leaks.(Four Corners)
Gould was arrested during Australia's largest tax fraud investigation, Project Wickenby. While his tax fraud charges were later dropped, his clients were ordered by the Australian Tax Office (ATO) to pay back more than $300 million.
The documents show Asiaciti helped Vanda Gould set up a network of offshore Samoan Superannuation accounts for his clients, which some used to reduce their tax.
Last year Asiaciti's Singapore office was fined $1.1million by the Monetary Authority of Singapore for failing to comply with anti-money laundering requirements.
In a statement, Asiaciti says it is committed to the highest business standards, including ensuring they "fully comply with all laws and regulations".
"We recognize there have been isolated instances where we have not kept pace, and in these situations we have worked closely with regulatory authorities to address any deficiencies and quickly updated our policies and procedures."
Haven't there been leaks like this before?
Not this big.
The documents include information on more than 29,000 'beneficial owners' — those are the ultimate owners of offshore assets.
That figure's more than twice the number found five years ago in the Panama Papers investigation, which was based on a leak from a single law firm.
This time there are 14 offshore service providers that operate from Anguilla, Belize, Singapore, Switzerland, Panama, Barbados, Cyprus, the United Arab Emirates, the Bahamas, the British Virgin Islands, the Seychelles and Vietnam.
Singapore is one of the countries that's home to an offshore service provider.(Four Corners)
The records include spreadsheets, tax declarations, invoices, PowerPoint presentations, emails and company records, as well as suspicious activity reports, due diligence reports, passports, utility bills and photos.
Why should we care?
By some estimates 10 per cent of the world's total economic output is parked in offshore financial centres, costing governments billions of dollars in lost revenue.
That's money that could be spent on roads, hospitals and schools.
Experts say poor nations are disproportionately harmed by the stashing of wealth in tax havens, which starves treasuries of funds.
ICIJ director Gerard Ryle says the investigation shows how little has changed since the Panama Papers.(Four Corners)
ICIJ director Gerard Ryle says the Pandora Papers reveal that some international leaders who could tackle offshore tax avoidance have themselves secretly moved money and assets beyond the reach of tax and law enforcement authorities as their citizens struggle.
"I think what we're seeing here is a lot of hypocrisy," he says.
"We're now seeing the very people who could end the system themselves benefiting from it.
"I think what it shows really is that there is a shadow economy, a shadow world out there that we are not aware of, and that this is a world that is enriching the people who are already rich."
Who leaked the documents?
The source of the documents hasn't been revealed to media partners but made it clear to the ICIJ he wanted the public to see where dirty money is really flowing.
Ryle says the source had two conditions for leaking the documents.
"First of all the source wanted anonymity. I presume for safety reasons," he says.
"The second thing is that I was told that he wanted to make these documents available to governments all over the world."
What does the ATO think?
The ATO released a statement on Monday morning saying it would be analysing the Pandora Papers data to identify any possible Australian links.
"We will certainly look at this data set and compare it with the data we already have to identify any potential connections."
In 2016 the Panama Papers leak led to the ATO investigating 800 Australians.
ATO Deputy Commissioner Will Day tells the ABC it's important to remember offshore structures aren't necessarily dodgy.
"We know most Australians do the right thing." Mr Day says.
But he warns that it's easy for people to be tempted to use offshore arrangements to hide assets or to avoid paying tax.
Mr Day warns people not to 'cheat' everyday Australians.(Four Corners)
"For those who consider these sorts of arrangements, they're not clever or sexy or harmless. They victimise the entire Australian society," Mr Day says.
"The victims, when people don't pay taxes, is everyday Australians, the millions of taxpayers who do the right thing, who declare their income, pay their employees and have fair competition against other business.
"Don't facilitate lying, cheating, and stealing from other Australians."
Watch the full investigation on Four Corners tonight at 8:30pm on ABC TV or livestream on the Four Corners Facebook page.
Listen to the Background Briefing podcast Untouchable Assets, live now.
Posted 3 Oct 2021, updated 5 Oct 2021
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Alec Baldwin fires prop gun on movie set, killing crew member
Entertainment
Alec Baldwin says 'my heart is broken' after prop gun he fired kills cinematographer on movie set
Sarah Whitten @sarahwhit10
Key Points
The actor Alec Baldwin fired a prop firearm on a movie set, killing the film's director of photography and injuring its director, police said.
Halyna Hutchins, 42, was killed and Joel Souza, 48, was injured on the set of "Rust," a Western being filmed at the Bonanza Creek Ranch in Sante Fe, New Mexico.
The circumstances of the shooting are under investigation. No charges have been filed in regard to the incident.
VIDEO 03:11
Cinematographer killed with prop gun on the set of a movie
Actor Alec Baldwin said his "heart is broken" after a prop gun he fired on a movie set Thursday killed the film's director of photography and injured its director.
Halyna Hutchins, 42, was killed and Joel Souza, 48, was injured on the set of "Rust," a Western being filmed at the Bonanza Creek Ranch in Sante Fe, New Mexico, according to the Santa Fe County Sheriff's office.
Court documents released Friday show Baldwin was handed a loaded weapon by an assistant director who indicated it was safe to use in the moments before the actor fatally shot Hutchins, the Associated Press reported. A search warrant filed in a Santa Fe court shows that the assistant director did not know the prop gun was loaded with live rounds.
The warrant notes that Baldwin's blood-stained costume as well as the weapon were taken as evidence. No immediate charges were filed, sheriff's spokesman Juan Rios said.
Alec Baldwin speaks on the phone in the parking lot outside the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office in Santa Fe, N.M., after he was questioned about a shooting on the set of the film "Rust" on the outskirts of Santa Fe, Thursday, Oct. 21, 2021. Baldwin fired a prop gun on the set, killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza, officials said.
Jim Weber |Santa Fe New Mexican via AP
Hutchins was transported via helicopter to the University of New Mexico Hospital where she was pronounced dead. Souza was brought to Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center to undergo treatment for his injuries. He has since been released.
"I am gutted by the loss of my friend and colleague, Halyna," Souza said in a statement on Saturday. "She was kind, vibrant, incredibly talented, fought for every inch and always pushed me to be better. My thoughts are with her family at this most difficult time. I am humbled and grateful by the outpouring of affection we have received from our filmmaking community, the people of Santa Fe, and the hundreds of strangers who have reached out….. It will surely aid in my recovery."
VIDEO 03:21
It says to me they didn't have a professional arms handler on set: Expert
Around half a dozen camera crew members walked off the "Rust" set just hours before the shooting in protest of working conditions, a person familiar with the matter told NBC News. Earlier, The Los Angeles Times reported that there were two previous prop gun misfires on set, one the previous week and one on Saturday.
Rust Movie Productions told the Los Angeles Times that it had not been made aware of any official complaints concerning weapon or prop safety on set.
The production company told NBC that it would be conducting an internal review of its procedures while production is shut down, and it is cooperating with the Santa Fe authorities in their investigation. No charges have been filed.
"This case is still in its preliminary states of investigation," said Mary Carmack-Altwies, First Judicial District Attorney, in a statement Friday. "We are assisting the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office and have offered our full support to them. At this time, we do not know if charges will be filed. We will look into all facts and evidence of the case with great discretion and have further information at a later time. Our thoughts are with all affected by this tragedy."
Cinematographer Halyna Hutchins (L), and Director Joel Souza (R). Halyna was accidentally shot and killed with a prop gun on set while Souza sustained injuries.
Getty Images
Hutchins graduated from the American Film Institute in 2015. She was involved in several short films before working on "Archenemy," a 2020 feature film starring Joe Manganiello.
Originally from Ukraine, she held a graduate degree in international journalism from Kyiv National University and previously worked as an investigative journalist with British documentary productions in Europe.
In 2019, she was selected as one of American Cinematographer's rising stars.
"All of us at Innovative Artists are heartbroken," Hutchins' agency said in a statement Friday. "We mourn for her family and we hope this tragedy will reveal new lessons for how to better ensure safety for every crew member on set."
Hutchins' death echoes that of actor Brandon Lee, the son of martial arts movie legend Bruce Lee. Brandon Lee died after he was shot by a round from a prop gun while filming for the movie "The Crow" in 1993.
"There was an accident today on the New Mexico set of Rust involving the misfire of a prop gun with blanks," a spokesperson for Baldwin said in a statement to NBC News. "Production has been halted for the time being. The safety of our cast and crew remains our top priority."
Baldwin, 63, is a co-producer on "Rust" and plays infamous outlaw Harland Rust, whose 13-year-old grandson is convicted of an accidental killing. Rust travels to Kansas to break his grandson out of prison and the two fugitives must outrun U.S. Marshal Wood Helm and bounty-hunter Fenton "Preacher" Lang.
"There are no words to convey my shock and sadness regarding the tragic accident that took the life of Halyna Hutchins, a wife, mother and deeply admired colleague of ours," Baldwin wrote on Twitter Friday. "I'm fully cooperating with the police investigation to address how this tragedy occurred and I am in touch with her husband, offering my support to him and his family."
"My heart is broken for her husband, their son, and all who knew and loved Halyna," he said.
Earlier on Thursday, Baldwin posted a photo of himself on Instagram in costume for the film, complete with what appeared to be fake blood on his shirt.
Recently known for portraying President Donald Trump on "Saturday Night Live" and starring in the NBC comedy "30 Rock," Baldwin has won multiple Emmy and Golden Globe awards and been nominated for an Academy Award and a Tony Award.
Baldwin has hosted "SNL" 17 times, more than any other person, and starred in films like "The Departed," "Glengarry Glen Ross" and the "Mission Impossible" franchise. He was also the producer on director Souza's film "Crown Vic."
Baldwin has a history of losing his temper, which has included incidents leading to his arrest. In 2019, he pleaded guilty to harassment of another person in connection to a dispute over a parking spot in Manhattan in Nov. 2018. He agreed to undergo anger management counseling in that case.
Before that, police arrested him for riding his bicycle the wrong way, and for disorderly conduct after he allegedly became belligerent with the cops who stopped him.
Baldwin was also acquitted of misdemeanor battery charges after being accused of punching a freelance photographer in California in 1995, breaking the lensman's nose.
The actor is married to Hilaria Baldwin, and they have six children together. He also has a daughter named Ireland from his previous marriage to actress Kim Basinger.
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC.
The Associated Press and CNBC's Dan Mangan contributed to this report.
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Denmark launches children's TV show about man with giant penis | Denmark | The Guardian
Denmark
This article is more than 1 year old
Denmark launches children's TV show about man with giant penis
Critics condemn idea of animated series about a man who cannot control his penis, but others have backed it
Still from the first episode of John Dillermand. Photograph: DRTV
Helen Russell in Jutland
Wed 6 Jan 2021 06.43 EST
Last modified on Tue 21 Dec 2021 10.24 EST
John Dillermand has an extraordinary penis. So extraordinary, in fact, that it can perform rescue operations, etch murals, hoist a flag and even steal ice-cream from children.
The Danish equivalent of the BBC, DR, has a new animated series aimed at four- to eight-year-olds about John Dillermand, the man with the world’s longest penis who overcomes hardships and challenges with his record-breaking genitals.
Unsurprisingly, the series has provoked debate about what good children’s television should – and should not – contain.
Sesame Street creates Rohingya Muppets to help refugee children
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Since premiering on Saturday, opponents have condemned the idea of a man who cannot control his penis. “Is this really the message we want to send to children while we are in the middle of a huge #MeToo wave?” wrote the Danish author Anne Lise Marstrand-Jørgensen.
The show comes just months after the TV presenter Sofie Linde kickstarted Denmark’s #MeToo movement.
Christian Groes, an associate professor and gender researcher at Roskilde University, said he believed the programme’s celebration of the power of male genitalia could only set equality back. “It’s perpetuating the standard idea of a patriarchal society and normalising ‘locker room culture’ … that’s been used to excuse a lot of bad behaviour from men. It’s meant to be funny – so it’s seen as harmless. But it’s not. And we’re teaching this to our kids.”
Erla Heinesen Højsted, a clinical psychologist who works with families and children, said she believed the show’s opponents may be overthinking things. “John Dillermand talks to children and shares their way of thinking – and kids do find genitals funny,” she said.
“The show depicts a man who is impulsive and not always in control, who makes mistakes – like kids do, but crucially, Dillermand always makes it right. He takes responsibility for his actions. When a woman in the show tells him that he should keep his penis in his pants, for instance, he listens. Which is nice. He is accountable.”
Højsted conceded the timing was poor and that a show about bodies might have considered depicting “difference and diversity” beyond an oversized diller (Danish slang for penis; dillermand literally means “penis-man”). “But this is categorically not a show about sex,” she said. “To pretend it is projects adult ideas on it.”
DR, the Danish public service broadcaster, has a reputation for pushing boundaries – especially for children. Another stalwart of children’s scheduling is Onkel Reje, a popular figure who curses, smokes a pipe and eschews baths – think Mr Tumble meets Father Jack. A character in Gepetto News made conservatives bristle in 2012 when he revealed a love of cross-dressing. And Ultra Smider Tøjet (Ultra Strips Down) caused outrage in 2020 for presenting children aged 11-13 with a panel of nude adults, but, argues Højsted, such criticism was unjustified.
“What kind of culture are we creating for our children if it’s OK for them to see ‘perfect’ bodies on Instagram – enhanced, digitally or cosmetically – but not ‘real bodies’?” she said.
DR responded to the latest criticism by saying it could just as easily have made a programme “about a woman with no control over her vagina” and that the most important thing was that children enjoyed John Dillermand.
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Suez Canal Blocked: Why Is Ever Given Ship Stuck in Suez Canal?
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After 6 Days Stuck in the Suez Canal, the Ever Given Is Finally Free
Salvage crews finally dislodged the massive cargo ship with some help from high tides.
By Jennifer Leman
Mar 29, 2021
HANDOUT Getty Images
For almost a week, a massive container ship called the Ever Given blocked the Suez Canal, preventing travel through one of the world's busiest shipping corridors.
The vessel, which belongs to the shipping company Evergreen Marine, became stranded in the waterway after facing high winds last Tuesday.
On Monday, crews finally excavated the humongous ship.
Update 03/29/21 10:30 a.m. ET: After 6 grueling days, crews have managed to wrench the Ever Given free from its perch in the Suez Canal. Now that the ship is under way—thanks to high tides and a fleet of tug boats and dredgers—hundreds of vessels that have been stranded on either side of the canal are gearing up to resume their journey along the vital shipping corridor.
It marks the end of an agonizing week for the maritime trade industry—one that saw losses as high as $10 billion per day, highlighted the frailty of an already strained global supply chain, and spurred a slew of incredible memes.
So long, Ever Given. We hardly knew 'ye.
A colossal container ship that ran aground in the Suez Canal on Tuesday has ensnarled one of the world's busiest shipping lanes in a marine traffic jam.
Two days later, more than 100 container ships are still waiting at each end of the canal as tug boats and dredgers struggle to free the Ever Given, which weighs 200,000 metric tons and stretches 1,300 feet long.
➡ You love badass ships. So do we. Let’s nerd out over them together.
“It’s just like having an accident on the interstate,” Donald Maier, the Dean for the School of Maritime Transportation, Logistics, and Management at the Cal Maritime, tells Pop Mech. “That accident shuts down all lanes of travel, and everything will then start to back up.”
If the Panamanian-flagged ship isn’t freed soon, it could spell disaster for a global shipping industry already hobbled by the effects of COVID-19.
How Did the Ship Get Stuck?
The Ever Given, which is owned by the Japanese company Shoei Kisen Kaisha, was on its way to the port of Rotterdam from China when it became stuck after a sandstorm blew through the region. Visibility plummeted and wind gusts reached speeds of up to 31 miles per hour.
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Suez Canal Authority
In addition to the eight local tugboats working to free the Ever Given, a small fleet of construction vehicles—dwarfed by the size of the 1,300-foot-long ship—has appeared at the shore to dig the giant vessel out. However, that effort to free the ship hasn’t worked as of Thursday morning, according to a statement provided to the New York Times, and authorities have since brought in a dredger to assist in the efforts.
How Will the Ship Get “Unstuck”?
So, now what? The key to “unstucking” the Ever Given will be lightening the ship’s load. One way to do that is to empty the ballast tanks. That solution, however, could destabilize the ship, Captain Morgan McManus, Master, Empire State VI, of SUNY Maritime College, tells Pop Mech. Another option would be to unload the ship’s cargo, but that could prove difficult without the necessary equipment readily available.
“In the middle of the Suez Canal, there’s no infrastructure for that, so that would mean getting a crane barge alongside and then taking those boxes off one at a time,” says McManus. With a ship as big as the Ever Given, the effort could take weeks.
How Does Something Like This Happen?
The gargantuan Ever Given, which the shipping company Evergreen Marine built in 2018, is a Golden-class container ship. It can carry as many as 20,000 20-foot-long shipping containers.
The push to build increasingly larger ships may partially be to blame for the Ever Given’s precarious situation. “The scale has gotten so big that a lot of the infrastructure has yet to catch up with the size of the ship,” McManus says.
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Whoops.
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Steering ships of the Ever Given’s size can be challenging, and any evasive maneuvers must be done far in advance to ensure the ship has enough horsepower to make the move in time. It takes a skilled crew to anticipate potential issues. In some cases, a captain may not recognize an issue before it’s too late.
What To Do If Your Ship Sinks
Adverse weather conditions only exacerbate these challenges.
“It’s basically a huge wall,” Steven Browne, the Department Chair of Marine Transportation and International Business and logistics at the Cal Maritime, tells Pop Mech. “If there’s wind from the beam, or the side of the vessel, and you have a lack of steering control, it’s very easy for the ship to be turned sideways.”
Why Is the Suez Canal So Important?
The Suez Canal snakes through Egypt and serves as the sole connection between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. The 120-mile-long waterway has become a vital shipping passage and can accommodate as many as 50 ships a day, quickly linking markets in Asia and Europe. Roughly 12 percent of all maritime trade makes its way through the Suez; it’s second only to the Panama Canal, the world’s busiest marine throughway.
The Egyptian pharaoh Senausert III, who reigned from 1887 to 1849 B.C., is credited with first digging the canal. According to the Suez Canal Authority, it has opened and closed numerous times since its official inauguration in 1869. In 2015, crews expanded parts of the passage to allow travel in both directions at certain points along the nearly 80-foot-deep waterway.
Suez Canal Authority
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This isn’t the first time a vessel has run aground in the Suez Canal. A Japanese container ship, OOCL Japan, rammed into the side of the waterway in 2017. Fortunately, crews refloated the ship hours later. The canal was also closed for three days in 2004 after the Liberian-flagged oil tanker, Tropic Brilliance, became stuck.
What Happens Next?
Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, the global shipping industry has faced several shortages of setbacks in the past year. The obstruction of the canal could set off a domino effect of delays. “Just like on the interstate, once that accident is cleared, you still have this bottleneck of everybody trying to rush through,” Maier says.
Suez Canal Authority
Ports strategically plan their labor needs and offloading capacity, so even minor delays can snowball into large delays that have the potential to derail entire supply chains. They could become overwhelmed by the influx of delayed ships on top of ships that arrive on time from other locations.
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And while there may be some wiggle room in a ship’s charter to account for, say, the adverse weather or the wait to get into port, “they usually don’t plan on having the Suez Canal closed for days on end,” Browne says. If the blockage lasts any longer, ships stranded on either side of the Suez may decide to turn around and take the scenic route down around the southern tip of Africa.
The impacts of the Ever Given’s precarious situation could be passed on to customers in the form of additional delays, higher prices, and bare shelves, impacting everything from fuel to sneakers to TVs. “There is everything on that ship,” McManus says. “If you buy it in a store, it is on that ship.”
Gear We Love: The Best Inflatable Boats
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Seahawk 3
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You can use this three-person boat for fishing, relaxing, or rowing. The Seahawk, which is heavy-duty thanks to puncture-resistant PVC, inflates and deflates easily and comes with two aluminum oars.
Large Capacity
Excursion 5
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This inflatable boat can hold up to five people, and it even comes with a motor mount fitting. The Excursion 5 features three air chambers for extra buoyancy, and an I-Beam floor construction adds rigidity.
Budget Buy
Explorer 300
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This budget-friendly boat has a three-person capacity, comes with two oars, and includes a manual pump. It's not the most heavy-duty on our list, but if you're just looking for casual cruising, you can't beat this.
Best For Fishing
Colorado XT
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This pontoon-style boat features removable gear bags for storage (including 20 pockets and two drink holders), an anchor system, a rod holder that can be mounted in six different positions, and a motor mount.
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Jennifer Leman Jennifer Leman is a science journalist and news editor at Popular Mechanics, where she writes and edits stories about science and space.
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“Fauci Gate” and what his emails tell us about Covid-19 and American politics - Vox
What the “Fauci Gate” emails tell us about Covid-19 and American politics
How social media has triggered conspiracy theories over Dr. Anthony Fauci’s emails.
By Maryam Gamar Jun 6, 2021, 4:25pm EDT
Dr. Anthony Fauci at a Senate Appropriations subcommittee meeting on May 26 on Capitol Hill.
Stefani Reynolds/Getty Images
In March 2020, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the United States’ top federal infectious disease expert, quickly became a character of contention whose audience was clearly split by political alignment. He was either known as a reliable source or a “ disaster .” Much of the criticism he received was directly in line with the Trump administration’s scorn for health protocols and skepticism of safety measures like closed infrastructure and mandatory masking.
And although a majority of Americans today have received at least one vaccine dose and are ready to let all Covid-19-related news go, Fauci is once again under fire.
Through a Freedom of Information Act request filed by various news outlets, thousands of Fauci’s personal and work emails from as early as March 2020 were released to BuzzFeed and the Washington Post. Within hours of this release, #FauciLeaks and #FauciGate were trending on Twitter, in an onslaught of social media conspiracy theories from Covid-19 deniers using the emails as proof that they were right all along. To be clear, no emails were leaked; they were obtained through access granted under federal law.
Apart from countless false claims about the virus and a habit of downplaying its public health risks, the Trump administration created a narrative in which everyday activities could and should continue. In October 2020, Vox’s Aaron Rupar wrote:
“Not only is Trump’s rhetoric irresponsible, but the fact is, he’s holding rallies that make a mockery of social distancing and mask-wearing guidelines recommended by his own government. And these rallies appear to be actively making the pandemic worse by spreading the virus.”
Even with Trump out of office, the country remains heavily polarized, and Trump’s influence on public discourse has proven long-lasting. According to the Washington Post, “to Trump supporters, [Fauci] was a contrarian who seemed to undermine the president at every turn, while others viewed him as a reassuring voice of reason.” This pent-up aggression is part of what made the email release such a big deal. The email release gave conservatives an opportunity to get an inside look at the person they have made a scapegoat, and to cherrypick the fodder they needed to spread false information.
Countless Trump-supporting Republican politicians have taken advantage of the moment to stoke resentment and fill their coffers. Among them, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has been a leading figure in helping to spread misinformation about the Fauci emails. On June 3 he tweeted “FAUCI has been lying” and included a link to his fundraising website.
It's time to fire Fauci! Emails that have been released now under Freedom of Information Act show two very important things:
1. FAUCI has been lying
2. I’ve been right all along
Stand with me today while we keep showing the way: https://t.co/B42p8TpuXz https://t.co/k5rWif6erb
— Rand Paul (@DrRandPaul) June 2, 2021
This isn’t the first time social media has blown something Covid-19-related out of proportion or helped to spread misinformation. So what did those emails actually say that conservatives have latched onto?
Anti-maskers have been looking for proof that masks don’t work
One of the biggest points of contention throughout the pandemic, especially among right-leaning Americans, has been the mandate to wear masks. One email that addresses this has been held up as evidence that Fauci knew that masks were ineffective and prescribed them anyway.
In early February of 2020, Fauci received an email from a woman asking if she should wear a mask while traveling. He responded on February 5, “masks are really for infected people to prevent them from spreading infection to people who are not infected rather than protecting uninfected people from acquiring infection. The typical mask you buy at a drugstore is not really effective in keeping out virus.”
In February and early March of 2020, anything Covid-19-related was unclear even to health professionals, and a leading line of discourse was that Americans should not wear masks because they weren’t thought to be effective in screening out viral particles shed by others. While that information continues to be believed accurate — except in the case of hospital-grade masks, the N95 and KN95 face mask respirators, which have a much higher efficacy — it was eventually found that encouraging everyone to wear masks helped to prevent the actively infected from spreading the shed viral particles as easily to others.
There was also an effort to keep the panic-driven public from buying all available masks and putting health care workers at risk of running out of supplies. In an interview on June 12 with The Street, Fauci said, “the public health community — and many people were saying this — were concerned that it was at a time when personal protective equipment, including the N95 masks and the surgical masks, were in very short supply.”
During a June 3 CNN interview addressing the emails, Fauci reiterated that if he had all the information he had today, his advice from early in the pandemic would be drastically different, and that masks do in fact work.
But it doesn’t look like Fauci’s explanation will ease the backlash. After a year and a half of anti-mask protests, it’s being treated as an “I told you so” moment for conservative Americans, and they are making the most of it.
There’s a bittersweet satisfaction in being right about this. #FauciGate #FauciEmails #COVID19 #WuhanLabLeak pic.twitter.com/M71nP7wmph
— Joel Agius (@Joel_Agius1) June 4, 2021
As more and more Americans get vaccinated, there will be a decline in mask-wearing, but interestingly, it will likely remain a political symbol. As Vox’s Anna North reported, “when people like Trump don’t wear masks and make wearing masks a political issue, their supporters are less likely to wear them.” It follows that when people like Fauci do wear a mask and are involved in suggesting rules about wearing them, these same people will be waiting for an opportunity to prove him wrong.
The Wuhan lab leak conspiracy theory
Trump infamously referred to Covid-19 as the “ Chinese virus ,” a statement which has led to more hate directed against Asian people. Sixty percent of all adults believe that discrimination against Asian Americans has increased compared to last year, according to an AP poll conducted between April 29 and May 3. Trump’s choice of wording has also led to false accusations, such as his claim that the coronavirus was created in China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology and intentionally spread to the rest of the world. Few reputable sources, Fauci included, believe this is likely.
But if anything, this heightened reaction to one of the released emails, titled “Thank you for your public comments re COVID-19’s origins”. The email, from Peter Daszak, the CEO of a nonprofit called EcoHealth Alliance, which had been studying the origins of the coronavirus and had worked with the Wuhan viral lab in the past, reads, “I just wanted to say a personal thank you on behalf of our staff and collaborators, for publicly standing up and stating that the scientific evidence supports a natural origin for COVID-19 from a bat-to-human spillover, not a lab release from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”
Fauci also received an email from Kristian Andersen, a professor of immunology and microbiology at Scripps Research, which suggested that the virus could potentially be engineered. Anderson wrote: “The unusual features of the virus make up a really small part of the genome, so one has to look really closely at all the sequences to see that some of the features (potentially) look engineered.”
Similar to the mask-related emails, these emails played into narratives that Republican politicians and their supporters had been perpetuating since the start of the pandemic. According to Politico, “Theories about a leak from the Wuhan virology lab became a consistent line of questioning for Republican lawmakers by last spring and soon turned into a mainstay of congressional hearings and increasingly contentious exchanges between Fauci and [Sen. Rand] Paul.”
In April 2020, Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, sent Fauci an email with the subject line “Conspiracy gains momentum.” Other than a link to an article about the possibilities of Covid-19 being created in a lab, the message is fully redacted. This specific email has become a lightning rod because of the redaction, and has spurred a belief among conspiracy theorists that Fauci may be under investigation. In fact, on June 4, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) sent a letter to President Joe Biden demanding an investigation into whether Fauci was involved in an alleged coverup of the virus’ potential origins.
In his CNN interview on June 3, Fauci restated that he still believes the most likely origin of Covid-19 is “a jumping of species,” but said he is committed to keeping an open mind, and recommended others do the same.
Conservative Americans want to discredit Fauci whether it makes sense or not
Amid all the confusion and frustration that the pandemic has prompted, many Americans are looking for someone to blame. Everyone has suffered, whether from losing a loved one to the virus, getting laid off, or simply a canceled trip.
While many liberals blame Trump’s erratic speeches and refusal to follow health guidelines for a failed response to the virus, these are the same people who are more likely to read the emails and feel bolstered in their support by the inside look at Fauci’s work.
On the other hand, for many conservatives, Fauci has been an obstruction, or worse, a villain set on upending the Trump agenda. His advice to stay at home, stay distanced, and wear a mask got in the way of Trump’s messaging about reopening the economy and getting back to normal.
Fauci’s emails, if anything, have affirmed how divided the country remains. On Sunday, CBS News released a poll in which 33 percent of Republicans, but just 10 percent of Democrats, say they won’t get the vaccine when it becomes available to them, a potential lingering influence of Trump’s rhetoric. Interestingly, according to the same poll, six in 10 of those who say they won’t get vaccinated also say that mask mandates and social distancing requirements aren’t effective in controlling the spread of the virus, which further aligns with this rhetoric. As Vox’s Zeeshan Aleem has reported,
Throughout his presidency, Trump ignored and downplayed the seriousness of the pandemic, and spread misinformation and disinformation about Covid-19. That in turn has contributed to distrust in the vaccine or beliefs that Covid-19 simply isn’t a serious issue among many of his supporters.
Fauci’s released emails have garnered a lot of attention and criticism, but as of June 5, 50 percent of Americans have had at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine. The emails, then, are merely a retrospective glance back to the beginning of the pandemic, and not so much the “gotcha” moment that some believe.
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https://www.vox.com/2021/6/6/22521289/fauci-gate-email-covid-19-trump
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Marc Lore's woke city will screen 'settlers' for diversity
Breaking News
Business
Billionaire Marc Lore’s woke city will screen ‘settlers’ for diversity
By
Will Feuer
October 19, 2021 11:12am
Updated
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The woke city that former Walmart executive and e-commerce billionaire Marc Lore is planning to build somewhere in the US will screen “settlers” to ensure diversity and inclusion, the entrepreneur said.
Lore, the former president of Walmart e-commerce and co-founder of Jet.com and Diapers.com, hopes to have 50,000 people move to the city, called Telosa, from the ancient Greek word Telos, meaning “highest purpose,” by 2030.
The selection of those first “settlers” will likely include an application process focused on diversity and inclusion, Lore, 50, told USA Today.
A team of 50 volunteers and staff that includes architects, economists, engineers, climate experts, historians and designers are helping to come up with the screening criteria, he added.
Despite the need to screen would-be settlers of the futuristic city, Lore — who reportedly has a net worth of up to $4 billion — has insisted that the community will be open and welcoming.
“I don’t want to be the ruler of the city; this is more of a public service,” Lore told USA Today. “I’m wanting to give it a place to grow and flourish. It’s not meant to be a private city; it’s meant to be a city for everyone – with an innovative way we live.”
Marc Lore hopes to have 50,000 people move to Telosa.
Angel Chevrestt
To lure some of the city’s earliest businesses, Lore will also build a venture capital fund for startups willing to relocate to Telosa, he said.
“We can’t create a city without some early nudging to move to the city,” Lore told the paper. “We’ll have to kickstart in an unconventional way, but the hope is we’ll position the people to grow a culture.”
There’s currently no location for the city, and its website says Lore and his team are scouting locations across the US, including Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Arizona, Texas and the Appalachian region.
The selection of Telosa’s first “settlers” will likely include an application process focused on diversity and inclusion.
City of Telosa
Telosa is derived from the ancient Greek word Telos, meaning “highest purpose.”
City of Telosa
Lore, co-owner of the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves, unveiled his plans for the city last month, touting the yet-to-be-constructed city as “the most open, the most fair and the most inclusive city in the world.”
Key to the city’s plans is Lore’s economic vision, called “Equitism,” in which the land upon which the city is built will be donated to a community endowment.
Residents, in turn, own their homes on the land and are enriched as home values increase, according to the project’s site, and after a period of “hyper-growth,” residents can buy the land from the community endowment.
Telosa’s website says Marc Lore and his team are scouting locations for the city across the US.
City of Telosa
“The sole purpose of creating a city in the desert would be so it’s owned by the community, basically take all the appreciation of the land and give it back to the citizens,” Lore told USA Today.
“Taxes paid will go back to the city for infrastructure – roads, tunnels and bridges – so everyone would know exactly where their money is going.
The city is meant to take on what Lore views as the United States’ biggest challenge — the rapidly growing wealth gap, which he previously said “is going to bring down America.”
“I’m not pursuing this to make money, I’m doing this because of what it can mean for others and the future,” Marc Lore explained.
Seth Wenig/AP
“While the current economic system is a growth engine, it has led to increasing inequality,” the project’s website explains. “Equitism is inclusive growth.”
The initial phase of the project, targeted for completion by 2030, would be built to accommodate 50,000 residents across roughly 1,500 acres at a cost of $25 billion.
Over 40 years, the city will eventually require $400 billion in funding and grow to house as many as 5 million people across 150,000 acres, the site says.
Telosa will be built on “equitism,” in which the land upon which the city is built will be donated to a community endowment.
City of Telosa
“I’m not pursuing this to make money,” Lore told USA Today. “I’m doing this because of what it can mean for others and the future. If this entire attempt doesn’t work, then hopefully there are things to learn from it and it will inspire others to take their shot.”
Sleek renderings of the city imagine plenty of space for pedestrians to stroll in the lush metropolis, and include images of planes and other aircrafts that appear to be from Archer Aviation, the electric “air taxi” startup in which Lore is an investor.
Another image on the site shows a skyscraper called Equitism tower that houses elevated water storage, aeroponic farms and an energy-producing roof.
The streets “prioritize bikes and pedestrians,” according to the website, and slow-moving self-driving cars share the street.
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https://nypost.com/2021/10/19/marc-lores-woke-city-will-screen-settlers-for-diversity/
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Biden Has Cancelled $11.5 Billion Of Student Loans, But Here’s What This Means For Student Loan Forgiveness
May 12, 2022,
May 12, 2022,
May 12, 2022,
Personal Finance
Biden Has Cancelled $11.5 Billion Of Student Loans, But Here’s What This Means For Student Loan Forgiveness
Zack Friedman
Senior Contributor
CEO, Mentor (mentormoney.com). Bestselling Author, The Lemonade Life.
Oct 12, 2021, 08:30am EDT
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President Joe Biden (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
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President Joe Biden has cancelled $11.5 billion of student loans, but here’s what this means for student loan forgiveness.
Here’s what you need to know.
Student Loans
Since becoming president, Biden has cancelled more than $11.5 billion of student loan debt, which is the most of any president. This includes:
$5.8 billion of student loan cancellation for student loan borrowers with a total and permanent disability;
$1.5 billion of student loan cancellation for student loan borrowers who were misled by their college or university and got student loan forgiveness through borrower defense to repayment;
$4.5 billion of student loan cancellation for student loan borrowers seeking public service loan forgiveness, including $1.7 billion automatic student loan cancellation and at least $2.8 billion of additional student loan cancellation.
What does this student loan cancellation mean for wide-scale student loan forgiveness? Will your student loans get cancelled? Let’s explore.
Latest student loan forgiveness: the details
To date, Biden has used existing student loan forgiveness programs to enact student loan forgiveness. This has included, for example, student loan forgiveness of federal student loans through borrower defense to repayment as well as total and permanent disability. Biden’s latest student loan forgiveness, however, major changes to student loan cancellation for public servants. These major changes to student loan forgiveness include:
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which student loan payments count toward student loan forgiveness;
which types of student loans should count for student loan forgiveness;
which employers qualify for student loan forgiveness;
when student loan payments start counting for student loan forgiveness;
With public service student loan forgiveness, Biden didn’t choose wide-scale student loan forgiveness. This means that Biden didn’t decide to cancel student loans for every public servant. Rather, Biden, in concert with the U.S. Department of Education, changed the rules of the public service loan forgiveness program to help more student loan borrowers to get student loan forgiveness.
Does Biden have legal authority to cancel student loans (or not)?
While there is debate over the amount of student loan forgiveness to enact, the major roadblock appears to be legal authority. (Biden is ready to sign student loan forgiveness, but Congress also hasn’t passed any legislation). Specifically, Biden supports wide-scale student loan forgiveness of up to $10,000, while Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) support up to $50,000 of student loan forgiveness for student loan borrowers. So, among the president and these leading senators, there is no disagreement over whether there should be wide-scale student loan forgiveness. The parties disagree, however, over the amount of student loan forgiveness and who can act to cancel student loans. Biden says only Congress has legal authority to pass legislation to cancel everyone’s student loan debt. Warren and Schumer say Biden has existing legal authority to cancel everyone’s student loan debt by signing an executive order. (Even if there is wide-scale student loan forgiveness, these student loan borrowers would be excluded ).
To break this apparent stalemate, in March, Biden asked the U.S. Department of Education to issue a non-binding legal opinion on the president’s legal authority to cancel student loan debt. The Trump administration determined in a non-binding legal opinion that only Congress, not the president, has the legal authority to cancel student loans on a wide-scale basis. (Here’s how to get approved for student loan forgiveness ). Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-NY) also said that only Congress, not the president, has the power to enact wide-scale student loan cancellation. To date, neither the White House nor the U.S. Department of Education has not released the memo or confirmed whether it’s been completed. This prompted several progressive members of Congress — including Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) — to urge the president to cancel student loan debt for every student loan borrower and release the memo on student loan forgiveness by October 22, 2022.
Targeted student loan cancellation suggests no wide-scale student loan forgiveness
While progressive Democrats continue to lobby the president to cancel everyone’s student loan debt, Biden has given no indication that he will use an executive order to cancel all student loan debt, or even up to $50,000 of student loans. (If Biden doesn’t cancel your student loans, do these 3 things ). Biden has consistently favored targeted student loan cancellation, which is student loan forgiveness for specific types of student loan borrowers, over wide-scale student loan cancellation. All $11.5 billion of Biden student loan forgiveness to date has been through targeted student loan cancellation. Certainly, Biden can change his mind and opt for wide-scale student loan forgiveness. (Here are 17 ways for Biden to fix student loan forgiveness ). However, his actions to date do not suggest that course of action. Every example of Biden student loan forgiveness has been through an existing student loan forgiveness program authorized by Congress and through the U.S. Department of Education. To switch to wide-scale student loan forgiveness could be challenged in court. Why? Even if Biden agrees with Warren and Schumer’s argument that the Higher Education Act of 1965 grants a president executive authority to cancel everyone’s student loan debt, the statutory language regarding the president’s legal ability to cancel all student loan debt in that law is, at minimum, ambiguous. If Biden proceeded to cancel student loan debt under the Higher Education Act, it likely could result in litigation, which could delay any potential student loan forgiveness for months, if not years.
The bottom line is that Biden will continue to cancel student loans. However, this student loan cancellation will be targeted to specific student loan borrowers rather than to every student loan borrower. Most student loan borrowers likely won’t qualify for student loan forgiveness through Biden student loan forgiveness. That said, there are still opportunities to pay off student loans. With student loan relief ending soon, it’s essential that you understand all your options for student loan repayment. Here are some popular ways to save money with your student loans:
Student loan refinancing (get a lower interest rate + lower monthly payment)
Income-driven repayment plans (get a lower monthly payment)
Public service loan forgiveness (get student loan forgiveness)
Student Loans: Related Reading
Student loan forgiveness won’t be available to these borrowers
Major changes to student loan forgiveness may come this week
How to get student loan forgiveness
Why Navient quit your student loans
Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn . Check out my website or some of my other work here .
Zack Friedman
Zack Friedman is the Founder & CEO of Mentor (mentormoney.com ), a leading online financial marketplace where you can shop for loans and
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2021/10/12/biden-has-cancelled-115-billion-of-student-loans-but-heres-what-this-means-for-student-loan-forgiveness/
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How Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's Oprah Claims Compare to Full Timeline
News
How Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's Oprah Claims Compare to Full Timeline
By Jack Royston On 3/30/21 at 11:18 AM EDT
01:57
Biggest Quotes From Meghan Markle And Prince Harry’s Revealing Oprah Interview
News Meghan Markle Prince Harry Royal Family Oprah Winfrey
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry told their story to a global audience of millions—here's how their allegations fit in a timeline with what we already knew.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex accused royal family members of racism and said the palace prevented Meghan from getting professional help with suicidal feelings.
However, before their interview was broadcast, their former palace staff brought to light their own allegations of bullying against Meghan sparking a review by the very institution the duchess sought to criticise.
Here is a timeline of the claims and counter claims.
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"He's happier than he's been for many years"—October, 2016
Meghan and Harry's whirlwind romance is made public for the first time on the front page of U.K. newspaper the Sunday Express.
The story describes Harry as "besotted" and quotes a source "close to the prince" saying: "He's happier than he's been for many years."
Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex attend the Cirque du Soleil Premiere Of "TOTEM" at Royal Albert Hall on January 16, 2019 in London, England. Meghan told Oprah that before the event she confided in Harry that she was experiencing suicidal feelings. Paul Grover - WPA Pool/Getty Images
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"The past week has seen a line crossed"—November 8, 2016
Prince Harry's communications secretary Jason Knauf releases a statement saying the prince has "has never been comfortable with" the "significant curiosity about his private life."
He added: "He has rarely taken formal action on the very regular publication of fictional stories that are written about him and he has worked hard to develop a professional relationship with the media, focused on his work and the issues he cares about.
"But the past week has seen a line crossed. His girlfriend, Meghan Markle, has been subject to a wave of abuse and harassment.
"Some of this has been very public—the smear on the front page of a national newspaper; the racial undertones of comment pieces; and the outright sexism and racism of social media trolls and web article comments."
"That conversation, I'm never going to share"—Right at the beginning
Prince Harry told Oprah the royals discussed how there was not going to be money to pay for Meghan, and suggested she carry on acting.
This is the same time Harry suggests the incendiary comment was made about the color of their unborn baby's skin, though Meghan discussed the remark as though it took place while she was pregnant.
The duke does not say exactly when the discussions took place, however, Meghan did not give up acting until their engagement announcement.
A selection of British newspaper publications in response to the Meghan, Duchess of Sussex and Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex's interview with Oprah Winfrey on March 08, 2021 in London, England. The interview first aired in the US at 1am that morning U.K. time. Chris Jackson/Getty Images
Describing the skin tone comment, Harry told Oprah: "That conversation, I'm never going to share. But at the time, it was awkward. I was a bit shocked.
"That was right at the beginning when she wasn't going to get security, when members of my family were suggesting that she carries on acting because there's not enough money to pay for her, and all this sort of stuff."
"He got on one knee"—November, 2017
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle announce their engagement with a BBC interview in which the prince said: "It happened a few weeks ago, earlier this month, here at our cottage; just a standard typical night for us."
Meghan said: "Just a cozy night, it was—what we were doing just roasting chicken."
She added: "Trying to roast a chicken and it just—just an amazing surprise, it was so sweet and natural and very romantic. He got on one knee."
The Royal Wedding—May, 2018
Prince Harry and Meghan got married at St George's Chapel on May 19, 2018, in a star-studded ceremony attended by Elton John, George Clooney and their future celebrity interviewer Oprah Winfrey.
In the CBS tell-all, Meghan describes how the couple got married in secret in their back garden three days earlier with just the Archbishop of Canterbury present.
This has since been confirmed to be an informal exchange of vows with the real legal wedding being the one watched around the world by millions.
Meghan also said Kate Middleton made her cry in the days before the big day during an argument over a bridesmaid's dress for Princess Charlotte.
She said the Duchess of Cambridge apologized with a bunch of flowers, though none of that was known at the time.
The big public drama in the days leading up to the ceremony came when her father Thomas Markle was caught by the Mail on Sunday staging paparazzi pictures with photographer Jeff Rayner.
He then announced he would not go to the wedding via TMZ before confirming he suffered a heart attack and went to hospital for treatment.
A private letter to her father—August, 2018
Meghan and Thomas Markle have not spoken since the wedding but, following a series of interviews by her father, Meghan consults two senior members of the royal family for advice on how to handle the fallout.
Court filings from a privacy case she brought against the Mail on Sunday described how it was decided she would write him a letter begging him to stop talking to the media.
She enlisted the advice on the letter of both her husband and Kensington Palace communications secretary Jason Knauf.
"I am very concerned that the duchess was able to bully two PAs"—October, 2018
Meghan and Prince Harry tour Australia, Fiji, Tonga and New Zealand over 16 days, announcing while away that Meghan is pregnant.
The tour would later be described to U.K. newspaper The Times as a point when tensions between the couple and their Kensington Palace aides reached fever pitch.
Times journalist on why he believes Meghan 'bullying' allegations were brought to him | ITV News
Watch on
Later that month, Knauf emailed Prince William 's private secretary, then Simon Case, to claim Meghan had bullied two PAs out of the royal household.
Knauf wrote: "I am very concerned that the duchess was able to bully two PAs out of the household in the past year.
"The treatment of X [name removed] was totally unacceptable."
Tears over a bridesmaids' dress fitting—November, 2018
The Daily Telegraph reported that Meghan had made Kate cry in the days before the royal wedding, in the first report to emerge of the notorious argument over Charlotte's dress.
The story was followed up on the front page of The Sun and described by Meghan to Oprah as a turning point.
Earlier that month, another story in The Sun described an argument about which tiara Queen Elizabeth II would lend Meghan on her wedding day.
Biography Finding Freedom, published last summer, would later suggest the dispute was not over which tiara but over whether Meghan's New York stylist could see her wearing it for a hair trial ahead of the ceremony.
"Duchess Difficult"—December, 2018
Meghan was described as "Duchess Difficult" in a headline for a Sunday Times story detailing how she was to lose two close aides, private secretary Samantha Cohen and PA Melissa Touabti.
The press would later report on further staff leaving Kensington Palace as speculation began to grow in the media that all was not well between Meghan, Harry and their staff.
"I just didn't want to be alive anymore"—January, 2019
Meghan told Oprah about suicidal feelings triggered by negative reports in the media, saying: "I just didn't want to be alive anymore."
She said she told Harry about her mental health crisis before an event at the Royal Albert Hall, a premiere of Cirque du Soleil's Totem, on January 16, 2019.
Meghan told Oprah how Prince Harry had considered going by himself but she was scared to be left alone.
The duchess said: "Every time those lights went down in that royal box, I was just weeping," she explained.
#EXCLUSIVE: Prince Harry reveals to @Oprah a “large part of” the reason he and Meghan left the UK was because of racism. #OprahMeghanHarry pic.twitter.com/ksAZWargg1
— CBS This Morning (@CBSThisMorning) March 8, 2021
"[Harry] was gripping my hand and it was 'Okay an intermission's coming, the lights are about to come on, everyone's looking at us again' and you had to just be 'on' again."
She added: "You have no idea what's going on for someone behind closed doors. You've no idea.
"Even the people that smile the biggest smiles and shine the brightest lights, it seems."
Meghan described how she asked the palace for permission to go to an institution to get help with her mental health problems and was told she could not because it would make the monarchy look bad.
"She's like, 'Dad, I'm so heartbroken'"—February, 2019
Five of Meghan's closest friends give anonymous interviews to People magazine praising the duchess and saying she has been unfairly criticized.
One describes the letter Meghan wrote her father Thomas Markle in the months after the wedding in which she told him he had broken her heart by dealing with the media.
Headlined "The Truth About Meghan Markle's Dad — and the Letter She Wrote Him After the Wedding," the story quotes the friend saying: "After the wedding she wrote him a letter.
"She's like, 'Dad, I'm so heartbroken. I love you. I have one father. Please stop victimizing me through the media so we can repair our relationship.'"
Markle Sr then gives the letter to the Mail on Sunday along with an interview in which he says he was expecting the handwritten note to be an olive branch but found it to be a dagger to the heart.
"In those months when I was pregnant"—before May, 2019
Meghan gives birth to baby Archie at a private hospital in London on May 6, 2019.
She told Oprah that at some point prior to the birth there were conversations about denying her son the title prince.
The duchess said: "In those months when I was pregnant, all around this same time, so we [had] the conversation of he won't be given security, he's not going to be given a title.
"And, also, concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he's born."
Prince Harry placed the conversation about skin color "right at the beginning."
"Not many people have asked if I'm OK"—October, 2019
Meghan and Harry tour South Africa with their son Archie who meets Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
While abroad, it is announced Meghan is suing the Mail on Sunday for publishing the letter she sent her father in the months after the breakdown of their relationship.
The couple also gave interviews to ITV journalist Tom Bradby in which Harry acknowledged a rift with his brother Prince William for the first time.
He said: "Part of this role and part of this job and this family being under the pressure that it's under inevitably, you know, stuff happens.
"But look, we're brothers. We'll always be brothers."
Bradby also famously asked Meghan how she was coping. The Duchess replied: "Look, any woman especially when they are pregnant, you're really vulnerable and so that was made really challenging.
"And then when you have a newborn—you know. And especially as a woman, it's a lot.
"So you add this on top of just trying to be a new mum or trying to be a newlywed.
"And, also thank you for asking, because not many people have asked if I'm OK."
Time away from Britain—November, 2019
The couple go to Canada to spend some time away from Britain over Christmas and New Year.
While there, the couple begin negotiations with the royal family about quitting royal duties.
The prince told Oprah: "That announcement that we put out on the 8th of January in 2020, that was the content of that was put in a letter to the institution, to my father, which was then shared at the end of December while we were in Canada."
"I would never blindside my grandmother"—January, 2020
Meghan and Harry's royal exit plans are published in The Sun after a leak and the couple follow up on January 8 by announcing their roadmap out of the royal family on their new Sussex Royal website.
British newspapers reported the move blindsided the queen while Finding Freedom later suggested Elizabeth was left "devastated."
However, Harry told Oprah: "No, I would never blindside my grandmother, I have too much respect for her."
In January 2020, Prince Harry and Meghan announced plans to step back as senior members of the Royal family. In this exclusive clip, they tell @Oprah they were then invited to spend time with his grandmother, the Queen, but the plans abruptly changed citing she's "busy all week." pic.twitter.com/dLhq0SAgfN
— CBS This Morning (@CBSThisMorning) March 8, 2021
"My family literally cut me off financially"—April 2020
Prince Harry and Meghan begin their new lives in America but from the start of April they receive no more money from the royals.
The prince told Oprah they cut him off and the couple were only able to pursue their new arrangement because of the money he inherited from his mother Princess Diana.
Harry said: "My family literally cut me off financially."
An insider told Newsweek the comment was intended to refer not only to the public money Harry had received but also to the private funds from his father, Prince Charles.
"Recollections may vary"—March 2021
Meghan and Harry talk to Oprah about their experiences of royal life after a whirlwind year in which they signed multi-year Netflix and Spotify deals.
Days before the interview airs, their former palace staff tell British newspaper The Times they were bullied by the couple.
Buckingham Palace announces a review of the allegations to establish any lessons for the future, with the result to be published in the Sovereign Grant report.
What Kate Middleton's Uncle Said About Claim She Made Meghan Markle Cry
Read more
The next day, Oprah goes on CBS This Morning to say Harry and Meghan confirmed the racism allegation did not relate to the queen or her husband Prince Philip, who was ill in hospital at the time.
Two days after the interview, Buckingham Palace makes its first statement in response, on behalf of Queen Elizabeth II.
It read: "The whole family is saddened to learn the full extent of how challenging the last few years have been for Harry and Meghan.
"The issues raised, particularly that of race, are concerning. While some recollections may vary, they are taken very seriously and will be addressed by the family privately.
"Harry, Meghan and Archie will always be much loved family members."
Prince William later said when asked by a journalist: "We are very much not a racist family."
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Netanyahu era ends in Israel as new government survives key parliament vote
Mideast
Netanyahu era ends in Israel as new government survives key parliament vote
"He’s been here for so many years, and won so many elections, that for so many Israelis it’s difficult to imagine any other reality," said one analyst.
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June 13, 2021, 10:57 AM PDT /UpdatedJune 13, 2021, 1:36 PM PDT
By Saphora Smith and Rachel Elbaum
The Benjamin Netanyahu era is over in Israel. After 12 consecutive years in power, and another three before that, the country’s longest serving prime minister will no longer be its leader.
An unlikely coalition that came together to oust Netanyahu survived a confidence vote in the Israeli parliament Sunday, passing 60-59, overcoming the final hurdle on its path to unseating him and taking a fragile hold on power.
After the new government was sworn in, Netanyahu and his right-wing Likud party moved to the opposition for the first time in more than a decade.
To rub salt into Netanyahu’s wound, Naftali Bennett, his former protege and a right-wing leader, will serve as the next prime minister, holding office for the first two years of the new government’s term. He will then hand the role to Yair Lapid, the leader of the centrist Yesh Atid party.
Israeli Knesset swears in Naftali Bennett as prime minister, ousting Netanyahu after 12 years
June 13, 2021 02:10
The government will be made up of a broad group of Netanyahu opponents that includes the United Arab List, known in Israel as Ra’am, which made history as the first Arab party to join an Israeli governing coalition.
The son of American immigrants, Bennett is a former settler leader whose nationalist politics contrasts with several of the dovish left-wing parties included in his unwieldy coalition. As head of such a disparate clan, he may find it difficult to achieve much beyond ending Netanyahu’s grip on the premiership.
“We will focus on what can be done, instead of arguing over what is impossible,” he said when announcing his deal with Lapid.
But Bennett promised on Sunday to continue Netanyahu’s confrontational policy in a speech prior to the vote, opposing any movement from the U.S. to revive the dismantled Iran nuclear deal.
“Israel will not allow Iran to arm itself with nuclear weapons,” Bennett said. “Israel will not be a party to the agreement and will continue to preserve full freedom of action.”
Until now Netanyahu had an unrivaled ability to cling to power, through conflict, corruption charges and countless elections. That has finally come to an end, but his legacy — and perhaps his political ambitions — will live on. Netanyahu did not take his defeat lightly, promising Israel's enemies that the Likud party would return to power in his final speech as prime minister.
“If it is destined for us to be in the opposition, we will do it with our backs straight until we topple this dangerous government and return to lead the country in our way,” he said.
U.S. President Joe Biden congratulated Bennett in a statement Sunday, saying he was looking forward to working with Bennett's new government "to advance security, stability, and peace for Israelis, Palestinians, and people throughout the broader region."
"Israel has no better friend than the United States," Biden said. "The bond that unites our people is evidence of our shared values and decades of close cooperation and as we continue to strengthen our partnership, the United States remains unwavering in its support for Israel’s security."
The leaders spoke on the phone Sunday, where Biden offered his congratulations and the two agreed to "consult closely on all matters related to regional security, including Iran," according to a White House summary of the call.
Power and paralysis
Netanyahu, or Bibi, as he is known in Israel, first became prime minister in 1996 and served for three years as head of the right-wing Likud party. After losing the next election, he left politics, only to return in 2002 as foreign minister and then as prime minister in 2009. He won elections in 2013 and 2015, and retained his grip on power through three more elections between 2019 and 2020.
“He’s been here for so many years, and won so many elections, that for so many Israelis it’s difficult to imagine any other reality other than Netanyahu winning an election and forming a government,” Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute, said.
More recently, however, Netanyahu's image has taken a battering. The veteran lawmaker has found himself increasingly isolated since he was indicted on charges of fraud, breach of trust and bribery in late 2019. He denies all wrongdoing and says he is the victim of a politically orchestrated “witch hunt.”
Netanyahu’s trial began earlier this year. During the case, he has publicly diminished law enforcement and independent judicial institutions that have been a source of pride for Israel since its establishment seven decades ago, according to David Makovsky, an author and fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
A man walks by an election campaign billboard showing Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, Israel, in April 2019. Oded Balilty / AP
The unlikely coalition of parties that will form Israel’s next government speaks to the desperation of many to end his yearslong grip on power. Since 2019, the country has held four elections that were all seen as a referendum on Netanyahu’s fitness to govern. All ended in deadlock.
He managed to survive the first three votes, but the fourth has brought his premiership to an end — at least for now.
Netanyahu has forged a reputation as a hard-liner, skeptical of the peace process with the Palestinians that was initiated by his predecessors in the early 1990s. He is no fan of the two-state solution, accepted by most of the world as the likeliest way of achieving peace and justice for both Palestinians and Israelis.
He has supported the continued building of Jewish settlements in east Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank — also home to some 2.7 million Palestinians who seek the territory, captured by Israel from Jordan in 1967, for a future independent state.
Most countries consider settlements in the territory to be illegal and an impediment to peace.
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According to Diana Buttu, a former adviser to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Netanyahu has worked throughout his time in office to entrench policies that would be hard to reverse.
“What he did was set into place a course of action where nobody is challenging Israel,” Buttu, who is an Israeli citizen, said. “He set about trying to marginalize Palestinians and Palestinian demands for freedom.”
Netanyahu’s close relationship with former President Donald Trump paid dividends for the Israeli leader. He was handed a number of political wins by the White House, including the move of the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and a widely rejected peace plan that Palestinians said favored Israel.
While Netanyahu did engage in talks with Palestinians that failed in 2014, he did not come up with a plan on how to partition the land and thereby secure Israel’s identity as both a democratic and a Jewish state, Makovsky said.
“For all his achievements, part of his legacy is that he didn’t put forward a wider strategy on an issue that cuts to the core of Israel’s identity, namely how to keep Israel a Jewish state,” he said. “I don’t think anyone expected him to solve the problem, but at least to identify a direction.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presided over a deadly military confrontation with Hamas in Gaza in 2014. Ashraf Amra / AFP via Getty Images file
After years in which he had advanced Israel’s cause while avoiding a Palestinian intifada, or uprising, like those that scarred previous eras, the recent 11-day war with Hamas thrust the issue back to the international fore. The war left more than 260 people dead — the vast majority Palestinians — and brought widespread devastation to the already impoverished Gaza Strip.
And its impact was felt within Israel’s cities, where the country’s 2 million-strong Arab minority makes up about 20 percent of its 9.2 million population. They have complained of being second-class citizens in Netanyahu’s Israel, pointing to the impact of both legislation and rhetoric.
Simmering tensions and decades-old divisions came to a head during the Gaza conflict as a wave of Jewish-Arab violence swept across the country’s mixed-ethnicity cities in scenes that left many fearful about the country’s future with or without Netanyahu at its head.
Tech, vaccines and the Abraham Accords
Despite the lack of progress toward a peace agreement with the Palestinians, Netanyahu is lauded by many Israelis for modernizing the country’s economy and presiding over a period of relative prosperity that saw the Israeli tech sector in particular attract international investment.
The rollout of Israel’s world-beating vaccination program against the coronavirus has also been a point of pride for Netanyahu, according to Makovsky. It has allowed Israel to loosen many of its restrictions and meant Israelis can enjoy relative freedom as much of the rest of the world struggles to emerge from the pandemic.
Benjamin Netanyahu, President Donald Trump, Bahrain Foreign Minister Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa and United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan Abraham at the Abraham Accords signing ceremony at the White House in September. Alex Brandon / AP file
The new government will also inherit normalization agreements with four Arab countries — the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco — that many in the Jewish state hope can stand as a lasting foundation for efforts to end its isolation in the Middle East.
The U.S.-brokered agreements were a huge diplomatic coup for Israel, pushing quietly warming relationships with some Arab states out into the open, and successfully chipping away at the decadeslong united front put up by Arab states in antipathy toward Israel over the plight of the Palestinians.
Under Netanyahu, Sunni Arab countries have increasingly seen Israel as a potential strategic partner against Shiite-led Iran and an economic model for the region. Many in Israel consider Iran an existential threat.
Relationship with the U.S.
Beyond his interventions on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal was a significant boon for Netanyahu.
The Israeli leader’s relationship with former President Barack Obama, who entered into the 2015 agreement with other world powers, was notoriously prickly.
Netanyahu was welcomed by Republicans in Congress for an unprecedented address, in which he said the deal “paves Iran’s path to the bomb."
Benjamin Netanyahu and President Barack Obama in the Oval Office of the White House in May 2009. Charles Dharapak / AP file
Since Biden was sworn into office, the relationship has been harder to pin down.
Biden’s administration has restored some aid to and contact with the Palestinians. It has also held indirect talks with Iran in a bid to revive the tattered nuclear deal.
But Biden resisted public criticism of Israeli actions and airstrikes in the latest Gaza conflict despite pressure from progressives for Washington to take a heavier hand with its close ally. Biden will now have to work with Bennett, who is opposed to a two-state solution to the conflict.
After so many years in office, Netanyahu leaves a long and wide-ranging legacy.
“His self-image is someone that’s a leader on the world stage, a protector of Israel from Iranian nuclear capability, an advocate of Israeli high-tech industry and someone who is Israel’s campaigner par excellence,” Makovsky said.
However, he has also helped contribute to a contentious political environment, according to Plesner.
While the formation of a new “change government” has brought Netanyahu’s premiership to an end for now, it’s too early to rule him out for good. After all, it would not be the first time he has lost the premiership only to return to power.
Saphora Smith
Saphora Smith is a London-based reporter for NBC News Digital.
Rachel Elbaum
Rachel Elbaum is a London-based editor, producer and writer.
Doha Madani and The Associated Press contributed.
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Japan says it will dump radioactive water from crippled Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific, sparking protests - CBS News
World
Protests as Japan says it will dump radioactive water from crippled Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific
By Lucy Craft
April 13, 2021 / 7:07 AM / CBS News
Tokyo — Japan said Tuesday that it would start discharging treated radioactive water from the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean within two years. Officials in Tokyo said the water would be filtered and diluted to safe levels first, but many residents remain firmly opposed to the plan.
Protesters gathered outside Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga's residence in downtown Tokyo to denounce the government's decision.
More than a million tons of contaminated water is currently being stored at the Fukushima power plant in a massive tank farm big enough to fill 500 Olympic-sized swimming pools. The wastewater comes from water pumped in to cool the plant's damaged reactors and also rain and groundwater that seeps into the facility, which was seriously damaged by the 2011 earthquake and subsequent tsunami that ravaged Japan's northeast coast.
The unit three reactor building and storage tanks for contaminated water at the Tokyo Electric Power Company's (TEPCO) Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Okuma, Fukushima prefecture, Japan, February 3, 2020.KAZUHIRO NOGI/AFP/Getty
The government says it has simply run out of room to store all the water. The plan to dump the water into the ocean first came to light in the autumn of last year, when Japanese news outlets cited anonymous officials as saying the decision had been taken.
"We can't postpone a decision on the plan to deal with the... processed water, to prevent delays in the decommission work of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant," Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato said in October 2020, without commenting directly on the plan or its timing.
On Tuesday, Suga said that after years of study, his scientific advisors had concluded that ocean discharge was the most feasible way to cope with the surplus of contaminated water.
"The International Atomic Energy Agency also supports this plan as scientifically reasonable," he said.
But the decision to dump Fukushima wastewater into the ocean has drawn fire from neighboring Asian countries and local fishermen along Japan's coast.
China called the decision "extremely irresponsible," and South Korea summoned the Japanese ambassador in Seoul over the matter.
Japan plans to release wastewater into ocean
01:59
"They told us that they wouldn't release the water into the sea without the support of fishermen," Kanji Tachiya, who leads a local cooperative of fisheries in Fukushima, told national broadcaster NHK ahead of the announcement on Tuesday. "We can't back this move to break that promise and release the water into the sea unilaterally."
Critics, including Greenpeace nuclear specialist Shaun Burnie, argue that Japan should continue storing the wastewater near the stricken Fukushima plant.
"Deliberately discharging and contaminating the Pacific Ocean after decades of contamination already from the nuclear industry and nuclear weapons testing is just not acceptable," he said.
The actual release of water from the Fukushima plant will take decades to complete. Critics have called on Japan's government to at least ensure that independent monitoring is in place to verify the level of radiation in the discharged water is safe for the environment.
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First published on April 13, 2021 / 4:53 AM
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How to make a Russian invasion of Ukraine prohibitively expensive - Atlantic Council
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UkraineAlert
January 9, 2022
How to make a Russian invasion of Ukraine prohibitively expensive
By Andriy Zagorodnyuk
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Russian President Vladimir Putin has recently attempted to seize the initiative in his diplomatic duel with the West by presenting a comprehensive list of security demands while massing a formidable invasion force on the Ukrainian border. This thinly veiled threat has created the impression that Western leaders must either make sweeping concessions to the Kremlin or face the prospect of the largest European conflict since WWII.
However, there is a third option. The best way to prevent a full-scale invasion of Ukraine may be by increasing the military costs Putin would be likely to face if he chooses to roll the dice and launch a major new offensive.
Before exploring how to enhance Ukraine’s defensive capabilities, it is vital to underline the folly of continuing to appease Putin. Ever since Russia first attacked Ukraine in spring 2014, many within the democratic world have advocated policies of appeasement. Far from deescalating the situation, this has only made matters worse.
Eight years on, Russian aggression against Ukraine continues with no end in sight to the simmering conflict in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region. Meanwhile, an evidently emboldened Putin is now seeking to dismantle the entire post-Cold War European security architecture and reestablish a Russian sphere of influence over Eastern and Central Europe.
At this point, any further accommodations would be extremely dangerous. If NATO leaders bow to Russian demands and agree to withdraw from the region or limit future cooperation with Ukraine, this will not have a calming effect on the Kremlin. On the contrary, Moscow would become even more convinced that negotiations at gunpoint should continue. This would make a major war in Ukraine far more likely, while also paving the way for additional acts of Russian aggression from the Baltic to the Balkans.
Rather than appeasing the Kremlin, the West must seek to make any further escalations prohibitively expensive. The unprecedented sanctions measures that are currently on the table in the event of a new Russian offensive against Ukraine are certainly a step in the right direction, but it is far from clear whether economic measures alone will be sufficient to deter Putin.
Russia has built up its international reserves to record levels in recent years and is currently well positioned to weather a severe sanctions storm. Indeed, Putin may regard the economic pain of Western sanctions as a price worth paying for the decisive geopolitical gains he envisages from a successful Ukrainian campaign.
In order to be effective, economic measures must be deployed alongside a convincing military deterrent. At present, Western military planners are primarily focused on Russia’s overwhelming advantages in terms of missiles, aviation, and naval capabilities. This has helped to convince many that a full-scale invasion of Ukraine is a realistic military objective because of its apparently high chance of success.
With the threat of invasion imminent, there is not much that the US or Ukraine’s other international partners can do to rapidly reduce the existing capability gap between Russia and Ukraine. Complex air or naval defense systems would take years to become fully operational, and would cost billions to acquire and sustain.
Other sophisticated weapons systems have similar limitations and would require extensive training before they could be deployed. Instead, Ukraine and the country’s partners should seek asymmetric answers to the formidable military challenges posed by Putin’s Russia.
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If Putin launches a full-scale operation, Russian forces will face a combined Ukrainian military of around 500,000 personnel including a considerable reserve contingent. However, if Ukrainian troops operate in large formations, they will become easy targets for Russian airstrikes. Indeed, any Russian offensive would likely begin with a devastating air and missile campaign designed to wipe out Ukrainian armored units, fighter jets, and key elements of the country’s military infrastructure.
In such circumstances, it is likely that the Russian military will be able to advance deep into Ukrainian territory. However, holding this territory will be a different matter entirely.
Russian occupation forces will face highly motivated opponents fighting in familiar surroundings. By combining serving military units with combat veterans, reservists, territorial defense units, and large numbers of volunteers, Ukraine can create tens of thousands of small and highly mobile groups capable of attacking Russian forces. This will make it virtually impossible for the Kremlin to establish any kind of administration over occupied areas or secure its lines of supply.
The readiness of Ukrainians to defend their country should not be any doubt. Thousands joined impromptu volunteer battalions in spring 2014 when Ukraine was on the verge of being overrun by Kremlin forces. In recent weeks, a poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology indicated that as many as one in three Ukrainians would be ready to participate in armed resistance to a Russian occupation.
The same poll found that a further 20% of Ukrainians would be prepared to engage in civil resistance efforts. Indeed, everything from opinion surveys to election results points to the fact that a Russian invasion would be deeply unpopular and Kremlin forces would find themselves operating in a hostile environment ideal for asymmetric warfare.
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An asymmetric approach to countering a possible Russian invasion does not imply a loss of overall military coordination. Ukraine’s regular armed forces would remain at the heart of the resistance movement and would retain command and control structures even while operating in smaller units in a seemingly decentralized manner.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces (SOF) would play a crucial leadership role in guerrilla warfare efforts, and would be able to call upon the invaluable training and considerable investments made in recent years.
Ukraine already has the tools and the personnel in place for an asymmetric campaign against any potential invaders. However, the country’s partners can also make a significant contribution to further enhancing this deterrence factor by bolstering Ukraine’s ability to wage an effective insurgency.
While there is no time to supply Ukraine with complex weapons systems, there is a shopping list of items that could significantly raise the cost of a Russian invasion. The most expensive items on Ukraine’s short-term wish-list include portable air defense systems, anti-tank missiles, anti-ship missiles, and counter-battery radars. Drones of all kinds would be most welcome. Sniper rifles and anti-sniper equipment would also be extremely useful, as would large deliveries of night vision goggles, encrypted radio communication devices, and satellite communication devices.
The Ukrainian armed forces are battle-hardened and highly motivated. After eight years of undeclared war with Russia, the country as a whole is perhaps more psychologically prepared to defend itself than any other nation in today’s Europe.
Given the right equipment and tactics, Ukraine can dramatically reduce the chances of a successful invasion. A Russian offensive would be likely to make impressive initial progress, but could quickly unravel as occupation forces encountered relentless opposition from mobile units operating on home turf.
Ever the amateur historian, Putin is acutely aware of the damage caused to Soviet society by the invasion of Afghanistan. He no doubt recognizes the potential dangers of becoming bogged down in a brutal occupation of his own in Ukraine.
Recent polls indicate very little appetite among the Russian public for a major war against Ukraine. This absence of enthusiasm could soon turn to outright opposition if large numbers of coffins began returning to Russia from Ukraine.
Despite the risks involved, the Russian leader wishes to continue diplomatic negotiations while holding a gun to Ukraine’s head. He clearly expects the Western world to blink first. Putin needs to be reminded that Ukraine is not a helpless hostage and will fight back. The consequences of such a campaign for his own regime are entirely unpredictable and could end up being very costly indeed.
Andriy Zagorodnyuk is chairman of the Center for Defence Strategies. He is a former Minister of Defense of Ukraine (2019–2020) and was the head of the MOD Reforms Project Office (2015–2018).
Further reading
UkraineAlert Dec 17, 2021
Russian court accidentally delivers guilty verdict on Putin’s Ukraine war
By Peter Dickinson
A Russian court in Rostov has accidentally issued a guilty verdict on Putin’s Ukraine war by publishing official documents confirming the presence of Russian military units in Kremlin-occupied eastern Ukraine.
Conflict Disinformation
UkraineAlert Dec 3, 2021
Europe’s future will be decided in Ukraine
By Oleksii Reznikov
The international community must urgently demonstrate its resolve to punish Russia in order to deter a full-scale invasion of Ukraine that would plunge Europe into chaos, warns Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov.
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UkraineAlert
Memo to the international media: Putin has already invaded Ukraine
One depressing aspect of Russia’s latest military build-up on the Ukrainian border has been the flurry of headlines posing the same question: will Putin invade Ukraine? In reality, Russia has already invaded Ukraine and the war is now in its eighth year.
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The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.
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AUKUS seen as violating rules on arms control - World - Chinadaily.com.cn
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AUKUS seen as violating rules on arms control
By CHEN YINGQUN |
China Daily |
Updated: 2022-01-10 09:23
US President Joe Biden delivers remarks on a National Security Initiative virtually with Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, inside the East Room at the White House in Washington, US, Sept 15, 2021. [Photo/Agencies]
Trilateral security pact undercuts world peace and stability, say alliance's critics
The trilateral security pact between the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia, known as AUKUS, violates rules on global nonproliferation and undermines regional and world peace and stability, analysts say, even though the three countries have said they would comply with nonproliferation obligations and commitments.
The White House issued a statement recently saying the three countries held inaugural meetings of the AUKUS Trilateral Joint Steering Groups at the Pentagon in Washington on Dec 9 and 14.
The participants reaffirmed their commitment to bring Australia's capabilities into service at the earliest possible date and agreed on the next steps in an 18-month consultation period to define the best pathway for Australia to acquire nuclear-powered submarines.
The participants also discussed how they will work to ensure that "the submarine program upholds their long-standing leadership in global nonproliferation", including through continued close consultation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, the statement said.
The three countries remain steadfast in supporting the nuclear nonproliferation regime and its cornerstone, the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, and the participants will comply with their nonproliferation obligations, the statement said.
When the US, the UK and Australia announced the establishment of AUKUS in September, they said the US and UK will transfer technology to Australia to enable it to build nuclear-powered submarines.
Xu Liping, director of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the US has branded itself "a defender of rules-based international order", but it failed to explain on which rules AUKUS was established. So the legitimacy of the AUKUS is questionable, he said.
Proliferation risk
Collaboration on nuclear submarines under AUKUS poses a serious risk of nuclear proliferation, and clearly violates the aims of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, he said.
The three countries will try to make AUKUS look legitimate by saying they have consulted certain officials of the IAEA, he said.
"But because of US global hegemony, it is difficult for the IAEA to talk with the US in an equal way. If AUKUS truly respects the rules-based global order, the three countries should gain recognition of all members of the IAEA, rather than just consult with certain officials of the IAEA Secretariat."
Xu said AUKUS is a genuine military alliance system that is exclusive and will bring new challenges to regional and even global security. It may also cause a regional arms race and more tensions in the South China Sea, and have a negative impact on the nuclear-free weaponization of the ASEAN region.
The ultimate goal behind the political moves is to seek economic benefits, he said. The US and the UK want to beef up the military presence in the region so they can manipulate smaller countries and draw economic benefits from them. Containing China's influence in the region and disrupting its economic collaboration with other countries is another goal.
Tian Dewen, deputy director of the Institute of European Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said Australia's pursuit of nuclear submarines is dangerous and will seriously affect the international nuclear nonproliferation regime. There may also be countries that would like to follow suit and join AUKUS, causing greater concern for world security.
Moreover, once Australia obtains weapons-grade nuclear materials, the power balance of the Asia-Pacific region will be tipped and conflicts among countries may be deepened.
"Although AUKUS said it does not seek to change the security situation in the Asia-Pacific region, it will undermine regional and world peace and stability," Tian said.
The chaotic withdrawal of the US from Afghanistan in August without properly consulting its allies demonstrated US unilateralism and the country's unreliability as a partner, he said. Thus, US allies in the Asia-Pacific not in AUKUS may also make certain moves to ensure that the pact does not threaten their interests.
Collaboration urged
Tian urged countries in the region to strengthen collaboration and build a new type of international relations to promote the building of a community with a shared future for mankind to tackle the challenges that AUKUS poses.
Koh King Kee, president of the Centre for New Inclusive Asia in Malaysia, said AUKUS has triggered great concern among ASEAN countries because the pact will help Australia acquire technology to build nuclear submarines, which will break the security balance in the region.
"It is likely to cause instability in the regional peace and security of ASEAN and thus affect the investment climate in the region."
AUKUS is unlikely to harm ASEAN unity because ASEAN countries will abide by the spirit of zone of peace freedom and neutrality and maintain centrality in big power rivalry.
All ASEAN member states are signatories to the Southeast Asia Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone Treaty, or SEANWFZ, which is committed to keeping nuclear weapons out of the region. "The formation of AUKUS is an obvious challenge to the spirit of SEANWFZ," Koh said.
Objections voiced
Of the 10 ASEAN countries, Malaysia and Indonesia have voiced the strongest objections to AUKUS, Koh said. Even Singapore, Australia's most reliable ally in the region, has expressed concern. "AUKUS is unlikely to find other supporters among ASEAN nations as they fear AUKUS would exacerbate US-China rivalry in the region and provoke more aggressive acts by both countries in the South China Sea."
Russia has also expressed serious concerns about AUKUS. President Vladimir Putin warned it "undoubtedly" undermines regional stability.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin recently urged the three AUKUS countries not to go ahead with the pact.
He stressed safeguards issues regarding AUKUS, how it bears on the integrity and efficacy of the IAEA, that it concerns the interests of all member states, and that it should be discussed by all IAEA member states. China has suggested that the IAEA should establish a special committee open to all member states to properly seek a solution acceptable to all parties.
Last Monday leaders of the five declared nuclear-weapon states－China, France, Russia, Britain and the US－issued a joint statement on preventing nuclear war and avoiding arms races.
The increased risk of nuclear proliferation calls for nuclear-weapons states to enhance collaboration and adopt responsible policies, Tian said.
Xinhua contributed to this story.
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Aung San Suu Kyi Sentenced: Why Myanmar Will Fight on Anyway | Time
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Aung San Suu Kyi Is Going to Prison. But the Resistance Has Learned to Fight Without Her
An anti-coup protester holds up a placard featuring de-facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi on March 02, 2021 in Yangon, Myanmar.
Hkun Lat—Getty Images
By Amy Gunia
Updated: December 7, 2021 8:28 PM EST | Originally published: December 6, 2021 3:16 AM EST
T he four-year prison sentence given to Myanmar’s deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Monday will likely only be her first. The military junta that overthrew and detained her in February has lodged a raft of charges against the 76-year-old Nobel Peace laureate—from violating COVID-19 rules, to illegally importing walkie-talkies and corruption.
The sentence was halved to two years by the military later in the day, but the combined charges carry more than a century in combined prison terms, and Aung San Suu Kyi seems sure to be “sentenced into political oblivion” to ensure the popular pro-democracy leader “becomes a non-entity in Myanmar’s bloody politics,” says Lee Morgenbesser, an expert on authoritarian politics in Southeast Asia at Australia’s Griffith University.
However, locking up Aung San Suu Kyi is likely to do little to quell protests—or slow the increasingly violent resistance to the military junta. While she was at the center of the democratic reform movement that began in 2011, Aung San Suu Kyi is no longer the lone standard-bearer for it, experts say.
“Whether the movement has clear leadership or not, the Myanmar people have a clear set of ideals and expectations about democracy in their country,” Morgenbesser says. “The military was naïve to think it could expand political rights and civil liberties in 2011, but then simply rescind those newfound freedoms a decade later.”
There were signs the democracy movement had been evolving even before the coup. Democracy activist Thinzar Shunlei Yi told TIME in a February 2021 interview that she and many other young people weren’t pinning their hopes for a democratic Myanmar on Aung San Suu Kyi. “We want equality, we want a real democracy led by real people, not by one person or one group,” she said. “We look beyond Aung Sang Suu Kyi.”
READ MORE: Can Myanmar’s Democracy Survive Without Aung San Suu Kyi?
Aung San Suu Kyi and other members of her party, the National League for Democracy, were swept up in pre-dawn raids in a military coup on Feb. 1. The military’s power grab came after Myanmar’s generals complained of fraud in the November 2020 election—although international observers did not report major voting irregularities.
At the time of the coup, military officials said they were assuming control for one year under emergency powers granted to them in the constitution, but experts warned that the coup seemed likely to undo the country’s hard-won democratic reforms. Mark Farmaner, the director of the London-based advocacy group Burma Campaign UK, tells TIME that Aung San Suu Kyi’s prison sentence means that “it’s absolutely clear the military are not willing to compromise in any way, and are making sure opponents are silenced before they impose their new form of dictatorship.”
The coup was met with nationwide non-violent demonstrations, which the military has cracked down on with shocking violence. More than 1,300 people have been killed by the military, according to the organization the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP). On Sunday, at least five people were reportedly killed in Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city, when a military vehicle plowed into a march of peaceful protesters, according to local media.
Opposition to military rule remains strong. Protesters are increasingly adopting violence to counter the military, and some civilians have begun training to use weapons in jungle camps and joining ethnic minority militias, which have long fought the military.
Human rights groups and world governments have criticized the sentencing. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken called Aung San Suu Kyi’s conviction another “affront to democracy and justice in Burma.” “The regime’s continued disregard for the rule of law and its widespread use of violence against the Burmese people underscore the urgency of restoring Burma’s path to democracy,” he said in the statement.
It’s not the first time Aung San Suu Kyi has been imprisoned by the military. She spent 15 years under house arrest, before her release in 2010. This time, it’s unlikely Aung San Suu Kyi, who was once called a “beacon of hope” by former president Barack Obama for her non-violent resistance against the military, will receive as much international support.
Aung San Suu Kyi’s defense of the military’s 2017 atrocities against the Rohingya —a mostly Muslim ethnic minority group that lives in western Myanmar—badly tarnished her international reputation. “She is no longer this moral person who has suffered or who is suffering at the hands of the Burmese military anymore,” says Maung Zarni, co-founder of FORSEA.co, a group of Southeast Asian scholars that focuses on democratic struggles in the region.
That means that whatever outside support Myanmar’s opposition manages to get will likely be geared toward the pro-democracy opposition as a whole, especially the National Unity Government—which has formed in exile to oppose the junta, says Dan Slater, the director of the Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies at the University of Michigan.
Aung San Suu Kyi’s sentencing may spark even more violence—at least some protests against the sentencing occurred in the country on Monday. “There has never been widespread popular acceptance of military rule in Myanmar, and there never will be,” says Slater, of the University of Michigan. “So the current conflict over Myanmar’s political future has no end in sight.”
—With reporting by Chad de Guzman/Hong Kong
Write to Amy Gunia at [email protected].
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Canada's hypocrisy: Recognizing genocide except its own against Indigenous peoples
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visits a memorial on Parliament Hill in recognition of the discovery of children’s remains at the site of a former residential school in Kamloops, B.C. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick
Canada’s hypocrisy: Recognizing genocide except its own against Indigenous peoples
Published: June 4, 2021 12.20pm EDT
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David MacDonald
Professor of Political Science, University of Guelph
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The Canadian Parliament is sometimes at the cutting edge of genocide recognition and human rights.
Earlier this year, the House of Commons passed a non-binding motion to recognize China’s treatment of Muslim Uyghurs as genocide. It was a principled and courageous stand and Canada was just the second country in the world to take this position.
A report by a prominent British legal team documented crimes of the genocide which included “evidence of Uyghur children being forcibly removed from their parents,” placed in orphanages and mandatory boarding schools.
It also said children “are deprived of the opportunity to practise their Uyghur culture…are sometimes given Han names, and are sometimes subject to adoption by Han ethnic families.” The report concludes there is enough evidence that their forced removal is carried out with the intention of “destroying the Uyghur population as an ethnic group.”
Shameful history of residential schools
Similar descriptions could be applied to what churches and governments in Canada did to Indigenous children who were sent to Indian Residential Schools.
Is it a double standard for Canada to recognize the Uyghurs and not Indigenous people? It’s a question that needs to be considered once again after the recent announcement by the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation that a ground penetrating radar specialist had discovered the buried remains of 215 children who attended the Kamloops Indian Residential School.
The former Kamloops Indian Residential School is seen in Kamloops, B.C. The remains of 215 children have been discovered buried near the former school. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
In addition to the February motion against China’s treatment of its Uyghur population, Canada recognizes seven other genocides: the Holocaust during the Second World War, the Armenian genocide, the Ukrainian famine genocide (Holodomor ), the Rwandan genocide, the Srebrenica massacres, the mass killing of the Yazidi people and the mass murder of the Muslim Rohingya in Myanmar.
Recognition of our country’s own genocide against Indigenous people is long overdue.
A violation of UN convention
There have been calls for Parliament to recognize the Indian Residential Schools as a violation of the United Nations Genocide Convention, in particular of Article 2e which prohibits “forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”
Almost two decades ago, the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) described the residential school system as “the forcible transfer of children from one racial group to another with the intent to destroy the group.” AFN National Chief Atleo made reference to genocide in 2011, as has current National Chief Perry Bellegarde, who reiterated his views on genocide after the announcement of the discovery of the graves in Kamloops.
There is ample evidence in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission final report of state intentions, legislation, actions and legacies of genocide.
Sen. Murray Sinclair regularly discussed the Indian Residential Schools system as violating Article 2e and stated that he would have put this in the TRC’s Final Report, had it been permitted.
As he explained in an interview with me for my book The Sleeping Giant Awakens: Genocide, Indian Residential Schools, and the Challenge of Conciliation:
“I had written a section for the report in which I very clearly called it genocide and then I submitted that to the legal team and I said, can I say this, or, can we say this? And the answer came back unanimously no, we can’t as per our mandate, because we can’t make a finding of culpability, and that’s very clear. So, we did the next best thing.”
The TRC ultimately concluded that cultural genocide had been committed in the Indian Residential School system, while also making hints throughout the report that the government was culpable of more.
Former senator Murray Sinclair, who spent six years hearing stories of the effects of Canada’s residential school system for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, has used the term ‘genocide’ to describe the IRS system. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld
Preventable deaths
The discovery of the graves of 215 Indigenous children makes it clear that preventable deaths were always a part of the Indian Residential School system. We are now at the beginning of compiling the evidence of mass deaths in the schools.
Ground radar scans will help us get to the truth, and Sinclair believes the death toll may reach 15,000 lives. But we need not wait for the results of these investigations to make a conclusion of genocide. We have ample evidence of violations of Article 2e.
Remember that Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term genocide, was clear that genocide need not mean killing. In 1944 he wrote:
“The objectives of such a plan would be disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of personal security, liberty, health, dignity and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups.”
Killing marks only the final stage of genocide. Lemkin was clear that “the machine gun” was often “a last resort” instead of the primary means of destruction.
In 2016, MP Robert-Falcon Ouellette, with help from Maeengan Linklater, a Winnipeg man whose parents went to residential schools, introduced C-318 “An Act to establish Indian Residential School Reconciliation and Memorial Day.” It called for Parliament to recognize that “the actions taken to remove children from families and communities to place them in residential schools meets this (UN) definition of genocide.”
Never debated
This private member’s bill didn’t make it to the committee stage and was never debated or discussed in the House. Bills have a long and complex route through Parliament to be enacted into law.
A motion, like the one about the Uyghur genocide, is a much shorter and simpler process and can be passed quickly. However, a motion in Parliament must pass unanimously; there can be no votes against. In the Uyghur case 266 voted for genocide recognition and the rest chose to abstain, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and most of the cabinet.
Within days of the news about the discovery in Kamloops, the Dakota Ojibway Tribal Council at Keeshkeemaquah, Man., recommended that “the Parliament of Canada should recognize the Indian Residential School system as an act of genocide.”
I wholeheartedly agree. A motion to recognize the Indian Residential School system as a violation of Article 2e of the UN Genocide Convention can go some way towards establishing a ground floor of truth on which we can build for the coming generations.
If you are an Indian Residential School survivor, or have been affected by the residential school system and need help, you can contact the 24-hour Indian Residential Schools Crisis Line: 1-866-925-4419
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After the fall of Kabul, mainstream media erases the real lessons | Salon.com
COMMENTARY
After the fall of Kabul, mainstream media erases the real lessons
America's major newspapers lament the Afghan debacle — without looking at why it happened and who suffered most
By Gregory Shupak
Published August 20, 2021 5:40AM (EDT)
A U.S. Chinook military helicopter flies above the US embassy in Kabul on August 15, 2021. Several hundred employees of the US embassy in Kabul have been evacuated from Afghanistan, a US defense official said on August 15, 2021, as the Taliban entered the capital. (WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP via Getty Images)
This article originally appeared at FAIR.org. Used by permission.
Corporate media coverage of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the collapse of the country's U.S.-backed government has offered audiences more mystification than illumination. I looked at editorials in five major U.S. dailies following the Taliban's retaking of Kabul: the Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post. The editorial boards of these papers consistently trivialized South Asian lives, erased U.S. responsibility for lethal violence, and made untenable assertions about Washington's supposedly righteous motives in the war.
Uncounted civilian cost
The New York Times ( 8/15/21) ran the next best thing to a photo of a helicopter taking off from the Kabul embassy roof: a photo of a helicopter flying over the embassy roof.
The editorials evince a callous indifference to the toll of the war on civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the war has also been fought. The New York Times ( 8/15/21) referred to "at least 2,448 American service members' lives lost in Afghanistan," and to "Afghan casualties so huge — 60,000 killed since 2001, by one estimate — that the government kept them a secret." The link makes clear that the authors are talking about deaths among Afghan police and soldiers. Yet, as of April, more than 71,000 civilians — over 47,000 Afghans and more than 24,000 Pakistanis — have been directly killed in the U.S.-initiated war.
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The Boston Globe's piece (8/16/21) described "two decades of the United States propping up Afghan forces to keep the Taliban at bay at the cost of more than $2 trillion and more than 2,400 lost military service members." Tens of thousands of dead Afghan and Pakistani civilians evidently aren't significant enough to factor into "the cost" of the war.
"The war in Afghanistan took the lives of more than 2,400 American troops," said the Los Angeles Times editorial (8/16/21 ), which went on to add, "For decades to come, America will be paying the medical bills of veterans suffering from the emotional and physical toll of their trauma and injuries." The authors ignored dead, wounded and psychologically scarred South Asian civilians, though the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) logged 3,524 civilian injuries in the first half of 2021 alone, and 5,785 in 2020.
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The Wall Street Journal ( 8/15/21 , 8/16/21 ), meanwhile, didn't mention any deaths that took place during the war.
"Some 66,000 Afghan fighters have given their lives in this war during the past 20 years, alongside 2,448 U.S. service members," the Washington Post ( 8/16/21) pointed out, declining to spare a word for noncombatants. U.S. troops, the article assured readers, "endured very modest casualties, since 2014," without noting that the U.S. inflicted a great many on Afghan civilians in that period: For instance, a 2019 Human Rights Watch report noted that, in the first six months of that year, the U.S. and its partners in what was then the Afghan government killed more civilians than the Taliban did.
Forever war > withdrawal
The "Afghan debacle" was "avoidable," the Washington Post ( 8/16/21) argued, if only Biden had been willing to commit to an indefinite military occupation.
Two of the editorials were clear that they would prefer continuous U.S. war against Afghanistan to withdrawal. The Washington Post ( 8/16/21) claimed that
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a small U.S. and allied military presence — capable of working with Afghan forces to deny power to the Taliban and its Al Qaeda terrorist allies, while diplomats and nongovernmental organizations nurtured a fledgling civil society — not only would have been affordable, but also could have paid for itself in U.S. security and global credibility.
Costs such as the harm the "U.S. and allied military presence" does to Afghans did not enter into the Post's accounting for "affordability." No explanation is offered as to why Afghans should endure the lack of "security" entailed in "U.S. and allied" bombs falling on their heads. Nor did the authors clarify why the U.S.'s "global credibility" is a higher priority than, say, stopping the U.S. from killing Afghan children, as it did last October.
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The Wall Street Journal ( 8/15/21) professed concern for the "thousands of translators, their families, and other officials who are in peril from Taliban rule and didn't get out in time," and said that what it sees as the impending "murder of these innocents" will be a "stain on the Biden presidency." Yet the authors argued that the U.S. should continue bombing Afghanistan indefinitely, asserting that
Afghans were willing to fight and take casualties with the support of the U.S. and its NATO allies, especially airpower. A few thousand troops and contractors could have done the job and prevented this rout.
Over the course of the war, that airpower tended to mean the mass death of Afghan civilians: In 2019, for example, U.S. airstrikes killed 546 of them (Washington Post, 9/4/21 ). In advocating the continued American bombing of Afghanistan to stop the "murder of these innocents," the authors are calling for the "murder of … innocents," just by the U.S. rather than the Taliban.
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The "American dream"
The Los Angeles Times ( 8/16/21) praised the U.S.'s "noble hopes to build a multiparty democracy," insisting that "the people of Afghanistan were failed by their leaders."
The New York Times' editorial board (8/15/21) gushed about the purity of U.S. values, saying that the Taliban's return to power is
unutterably tragic. Tragic because the American dream of being the "indispensable nation" in shaping a world where the values of civil rights, women's empowerment and religious tolerance rule proved to be just that: a dream.
The editors did nothing to explain how they square their view that the U.S. "dream" entails worldwide "civil rights" and "women's empowerment" with the U.S. carrying out torture in Afghanistan or its propensity for killing Afghan women (Guardian, 7/11/08 ).
The board went on:
How [the war] evolved into a two-decade nation-building project in which as many as 140,000 troops under American command were deployed at one time is a story of mission creep and hubris, but also of the enduring American faith in the values of freedom and democracy.
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That faith in "freedom" was manifest by such practices as training warlords who killed and abused civilians, and propping up an Afghan state that included officials who sexually assaulted children — actions that U.S. troops were told to ignore, as the New York Times ( 9/21/15) itself reported.
Similarly, the Los Angeles Times ( 8/16/21) claimed that
the U.S. and its Western allies had noble hopes to build a multiparty democracy — with respect for the rights of women and minorities, an independent judiciary and a new constitution — but nation-building was not an appropriate goal.
It's anyone's guess how the paper reconciles the U.S. and its partners' "noble hopes" for such things as "respect for the rights of women" with the U.S. working with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to finance and arm extremely conservative forces in Afghanistan, so as to undermine progressives in the country while strengthening reactionary elements, a history (described in Robert Dreyfuss' book "Devil's Game ") that all the editorials obscure.
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Swallowing official justifications
The Wall Street Journal ( 8/15/21) argued that "Mr. Trump's withdrawal deadline was a mistake, but Mr. Biden could have maneuvered around it" — meaning he could have ignored it.
Indeed, the editorials suffered from a basic failure to question the official justifications offered for the war and occupation. The New York Times editorial board (8/15/21) wrote that
the war in Afghanistan began in response by the United States and its NATO allies to the attacks of September 11, 2001, as an operation to deny Al Qaeda sanctuary in a country run by the Taliban.
There's no place in that narrative for the fact that eight days into the war, in October 2001, the Taliban offered to discuss turning over Osama bin Laden (Guardian, 10/14/01 ). The Journal characterized the Taliban as "the jihadists the U.S. toppled 20 years ago for sheltering Osama bin Laden." But it was in mid-November 2001 (Guardian, 11/17/01) that the U.S. toppled the Taliban, a month after they had said they were willing to talk about extraditing bin Laden.
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In the same vein, the Los Angeles Times editorial (8/16/21) said that
after the U.S. ousted the Taliban — which had hosted the Al Qaeda terrorist network and refused to turn over terrorists such as Osama bin Laden — the George W. Bush administration expanded the goals of the mission in ways that in hindsight were never realistic.
This phrasing implies that the U.S. overthrew the Taliban because they "refused to turn over terrorists such as Osama bin Laden." However, in addition to the Taliban signaling that it could be open to extraditing the al-Qaida leader in October 2001, according to a former head of Saudi intelligence (Los Angeles Times, 11/4/01 ), the Taliban said in 1998 that it would hand over bin Laden to Saudi Arabia, the U.S.'s close ally; the Saudi intelligence official says the Taliban backed off after the U.S. fired cruise missiles at an apparent bin Laden camp in Afghanistan and a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan, following attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania attributed to al-Qaida.
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The outlets thus failed to inform their readers that, had the U.S. pursued negotiations for bin Laden's extradition, Afghans may have been spared 20 years of devastating war. That U.S. planners might have drawn up their Afghanistan policies with a view to the country's vast resource wealth and strategic position — and there's evidence that they did (In These Times, 8/1/18) — is not a perspective that the editorials opted to share with their readers. Neither is the idea that the U.S. doesn't have the right to decide who governs other countries.
Engineering forgetfulness about America's Afghan war, if left unchallenged, will make it easier to wage the next one.
Gregory Shupak
Gregory Shupak teaches media studies at the University of Guelph-Humber in Toronto. He is the author of "The Wrong Story: Palestine, Israel and the Media," published by OR Books.
MORE FROM Gregory Shupak
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El Salvador & Bitcoin: President Bukele Usurping Power | National Review
International
Bukele’s Bitcoin Blunder, Totalitarian Troubles in El Salvador
El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele delivers a speech to the country to mark his second year in office in San Salvador, El Salvador, June 1, 2021. (Jose Cabezas/Reuters)
By Steve H. Hanke
About Steve H. Hanke
September 10, 2021 6:30 AM
Listen to article
How the president of El Salvador is using cryptocurrency to usurp power.
E l Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele gained notoriety when he announced in June that he would force the country’s population to use Bitcoin as legal tender. On September 7, El Salvador’s Bitcoin Law went into effect, making it the first country to adopt a cryptocurrency as legal tender. The law is unnecessary, fanciful, and highly unpopular. Indeed, over 95 percent of Salvadorans don’t want to be forced to use Bitcoin.
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El Salvador has been dollarized since 2001. It was then that the colón was mothballed, the U.S. dollar became legal tender, and all other currencies were legalized. The dollarized, competitive currency regime has worked like a charm. Since 2001, El Salvador’s average annual inflation rate of 2.03 percent has been the lowest in Latin America. Furthermore, 25-year mortgages are available at an interest rate of around 7 percent. GDP per capita growth and export growth have both outpaced those of most Latin American countries.
Why introduce an untested idea into a monetary system that is working well? It’s just one piece in Bukele’s broader scheme to obtain absolute power. The path Bukele is marking with his words and deeds passes through all the stages used by populist leaders on their way to the establishment of totalitarian regimes.
Just consider the Bitcoin Law itself. Contrary to the libertarian vision put forth by some cryptocurrency proponents, Article 7 of El Salvador’s new law renders Bitcoin not only legal tender, but “ forced tender .” If an El Salvadoran offers a merchant or financial institution Bitcoin, it must be accepted. Forced-tender laws like Article 175 of the Soviet Union’s civil code are a communist staple and are also common during military occupations.
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In little more than two and a half years since he was first elected, Bukele has crushed the two powerful political parties that could oppose him. He has used illegal and abusive tactics such as cutting off his competition’s financing prior to the February 2021 National Assembly elections. If that wasn’t enough, he invaded the National Assembly with heavily armed soldiers as a show of power. On May 1, with control of the National Assembly, Bukele fired the attorney general, who had initiated investigations of gross corruption in the Bukele government. At the same time, he fired all five judges from the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court who had been attempting to apply the rule of law to discipline Bukele. He replaced these thorns in his side with “yes men.” Furthermore, the president instructed the National Assembly to exempt his government from disclosing its expenditures related to the pandemic. If that wasn’t enough, Bukele also announced that he would totally overhaul El Salvador’s constitution and eliminate the clause that bans one-party rule.
This month, Bukele’s lackeys in the National Assembly passed two laws that will remove from office all judges and state attorneys over 60 years of age. This move was made because some of the old-timers were gunning for Bukele. The crowning blow in Bukele’s quest for absolute power came just last week when members of Bukele’s handpicked new Constitutional Chamber gave Bukele the green light to run for reelection in a consecutive term, something explicitly prohibited in El Salvador’s constitution.
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Just where is Bukele’s quest for absolute power going? It’s going to land El Salvador in a heap of trouble. Less than a month after the Bitcoin Law was passed, the U.S. State Department, on July 1, published the Engel List — a list of corrupt and undemocratic actors from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. Out of the 14 Salvadorans named, 11 are close to Bukele, including his cabinet chief, minister of labor, vice minister of security, and legal adviser. All 14 Salvadorans have been sanctioned.
In response, and to deflect the public’s attention, Bukele doubled down. In a dramatic television appearance, he initiated his own anti-corruption campaign. According to Bukele, it wasn’t his administration and friends who were corrupt, but his predecessors. So, he ordered the arrest of a former president and several former ministers. He also expelled Daniel Lizárraga, a respected journalist from El Faro, a digital news publication in El Salvador, who had been investigating corruption in Bukele’s ranks. Ironically, Bukele’s new anti-corruption initiatives began shortly after he did away with the International Commission against Impunity in El Salvador (CICIES), the country’s anti-corruption body.
The most recent slap on Bukele’s authoritarian hands was delivered on September 5 when the U.S. State Department released a stunning press release targeting Bukele. The title says it all: “Salvadoran Re-Election Ruling Undermines Democracy.” And, with the adoption of Bitcoin as forced tender, this won’t be the last slap. Now that the Bitcoin Law is implemented, El Salvador is positioned to violate 27 of the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) virtual-asset regulations. The FATF is the international money-laundering and terrorist-financing policeman. Once El Salvador is flagged, it will face sanctions by the FATF’s 39 member nations and over 200 affiliated nations.
Like most authoritarians, Bukele has a delusional side. He thinks El Salvador’s Bitcoin Law will provide a never-ending stream of financing for his grandiose plans.
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Steve H. Hanke is a professor of applied economics at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. He is a senior fellow and the director of the Troubled Currencies Project at the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C.
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New malaria vaccine proves highly effective – and COVID shows how quickly it could be deployed
Konstantin Nechaev / Alamy Stock Photo
New malaria vaccine proves highly effective – and COVID shows how quickly it could be deployed
Published: April 23, 2021 8.30am EDT
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Adrian Hill
Director of the Jenner Institute, University of Oxford
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Adrian Hill receives funding from government and charitable funders of malaria vaccine development. He may benefit for a share of any royalty stream to Oxford University from the R21/MM vaccine.
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Coronavirus vaccines have been developed and deployed in record time, but as global rollout has progressed, too few doses have been made available in low-income countries. It’s a stark reminder that when it comes to infectious diseases, the world’s poorest often get left behind.
This is a problem that extends far beyond COVID-19. In Africa, for example, malaria has probably caused four times as many deaths as COVID-19 over the past year. Thankfully, our new research shows that an effective vaccine against malaria could now be closer than ever before.
For the first time, a vaccine has shown high efficacy in trials – preventing the disease 77% of the time among those receiving it. This is a landmark achievement. The WHO’s target efficacy for malaria vaccines is over 75%. Until now, this level has never been reached.
The speed and success of developing COVID-19 vaccines shows what’s possible, and should be an inspiration to get this malaria vaccine finished, licensed and distributed. It’s important not just because of the threat malaria poses, but also because investing in vaccines can help prepare us for the next pandemic. Work on this vaccine helped speed the development of the Oxford vaccine for COVID-19 as well.
The World Health Organization estimates there were 229 million cases of malaria in 2019. Globally, malaria’s annual death toll stands at over 400,000, with no improvement in the last five years. Two-thirds of this terrible loss is among African children under five years of age.
Billions of dollars are being spent each year on bed nets, insecticide spraying and antimalarial drugs just to keep death rate as it is. New technologies are needed, especially as the WHO is targeting a 90% reduction in deaths by 2030.
The world spends billions on treated mosquito nets each year. Irene Abdou / Alamy Stock Photo
No malaria vaccine has yet been authorised for use, though the idea of controlling malaria by vaccination has been around for a long time. The first scientific report was from Algiers in 1910. Clinical trials began in the 1940s, got serious from the 1980s onwards and, today, over 140 malaria vaccine candidates have been tested in humans.
But none has progressed to approval and deployment. The science is tough. The malaria parasite is complex, with more than 5,000 genes, meaning it has many different characteristics for vaccine designers to choose to target. SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, has just 12 genes, and its spike protein was the obvious target for vaccine scientists.
Malaria parasites have evolved with humans and their ancestors over the last 30 million years, not only generating a multitude of strains but also impacting our own evolution, with gene variants that lessened the effects of malaria being passed on over time. Worse still, these parasites generate chronic infections in millions, suppressing the human immune response that a vaccine tries to generate.
New success with a new vaccine
But progress on malaria vaccine development is accelerating, as illustrated by a new report from a multi-national group of researchers, including myself, published in the Lancet. The team of Professor Halidou Tinto, based in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, studied the new R21 malaria vaccine in 450 children – the key population where a vaccine is most urgently needed. They found it to be safe and have unprecedented efficacy in those aged 5-17 months.
In this controlled trial, 105 of the 147 children who received a placebo contracted malaria. But of the 292 who received a dose of the vaccine, only 81 contracted the disease – surpassing the WHO’s 75% target for protection. A phase 3 trial – to test the safety and efficacy of the vaccine in a much larger number of people – will start in four African countries in late April 2021, aiming for accelerated approvals if successful.
Scientists in four continents contributed to the design and testing of this promising vaccine. Design and early development took place at the Jenner Institute at the University of Oxford, where malaria vaccine clinical trials have been pursued since 1999. “Challenge” studies in Oxford, Southampton and London, where volunteers are deliberately infected with malaria by mosquito bites to test vaccine efficacy, highlighted the potential of the R21 vaccine. An adjuvant component for the vaccine is required and provided by Novavax, a biotechnology company in the US and Sweden.
Manufacturing of the vaccine is ongoing at the world’s largest vaccine supplier, the Serum Institute of India. This malaria partnership with was already in place last year when COVID-19 struck, allowing us to pivot rapidly to manufacturing the Oxford coronavirus vaccine. (The method it uses for delivery, a chimpanzee adenovirus called ChAdOx1, is a technology previously tested for use against malaria.) Having this collaboration already in place, even prior to our partnership with AstraZeneca, helped the Indian company accelerate its COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing such that today it is producing more doses than anywhere else.
The Serum Institute of India’s partnership with Oxford allowed rapid development of COVID vaccines. Pacific Press Media Production Corp. / Alamy Stock Photo
Could the same rapid, large-scale production happen for malaria vaccines? Maybe, but there are risks. Another promising vaccine candidate – from GlaxoSmithKline, called RTS,S – hit safety issues in its major phase 3 trial five years ago, and this has delayed its approval while further large-scale assessments take place.
Financing will also be required for malaria vaccine deployment, but with the low-cost large-scale manufacturing capacity in India available, an inexpensive widely accessible vaccine should be achievable. However, as COVID-19 is increasing in several parts of Africa, this could potentially impact the R21 vaccine phase 3 trials that are starting soon in Mali, Burkina Faso, Tanzania and Kenya.
The UK has long been a force in global health research, and fighting malaria is a flagship activity. Funding has been hit hard by this year’s reduction in the overseas aid budget. But COVID-19 has highlighted the importance of maintaining capacity in vaccine research and development, as well as the feasibility of moving more quickly than ever before to vaccine approval and supply.
One lasting benefit of a terrible pandemic might be a quicker route to a malaria vaccine and a safer future for children in some of the world’s poorest countries.
Malaria
Vaccine development
Coronavirus
AstraZeneca vaccine
COVID-19
Coronavirus insights
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John Kerry: 'Great Reset' Will Happen – RedState
John Kerry: 'Great Reset' Will Happen
By The Heartland Institute | Nov 30, 2020 10:20 AM ET
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(AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
As many of you know who have been following closely my work on the “Great Reset” movement, this stunning proposal to usher in a completely new global economic system has not received nearly enough attention from the mainstream press. A small group of prominent writers, reporters, and commentators have been, for the most part, leading the charge against the Great Reset on its own–a group that includes myself, Glenn Beck, Chris Talgo and Donald Kendal at The Heartland Institute, Andrew Stuttaford at National Review, and a few others.
The Great Reset is, without question, the most important issue facing the United States today–and probably the most important issue facing the country since the fall of the Soviet Union. I used to think the rise of socialists like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders reached that level, but now, I think it’s clear that the globalist Great Reset movement, which also has very strong collectivist and socialist elements to it, is much more worrisome.
Unlike with AOC and Sanders, the Great Reset has far more powerful supporters. It’s not a populist movement. In fact, as the comments appearing below will show, it largely rejects populism, instead favoring increasing the authority and influence of international ruling elites and billionaire investors. Rather than deride massive, multi-national corporations, the Great Reset seeks to use them as tools to accomplish leftist goals. In return, corporations will receive billions in government funding and woke CEOs will be warmly welcomed into Davos’s most exclusive cocktail parties.
Yet, despite the gargantuan amounts of evidence revealing the truth about the Great Reset agenda, the media has largely ignored it. And when the media has spent time discussing it, it has usually been to deride people like me for pushing a “conspiracy theory” about globalism. The proof is crystal clear, however. You don’t need to take my word for it. You can read mountains of quotes from Great Reset supporters indicating what their plans for the future are. (Here’s a good place to start.)
Over the past several months, I’ve been collecting quotes, articles, books, speeches and other materials discussing the Great Reset, and part of that investigation has led me to believe that Joe Biden and his allies are closely aligned with the movement. It’s something I’ve written about numerous times, including for Fox News, Fox Business, and The Blaze. However, I fully admit that Biden and his campaign have never directly addressed the issue of the Great Reset, leaving many to think that the claims that I’ve been making, as well as others, about Biden’s potential involvement are nothing more than wild speculation. The quotes below should, once and for all, put that question to rest.
What you’re about to read is the strongest evidence yet that Joe Biden and members of his future presidential administration (assuming President Trump’s legal challenges fail) are fully committed to the Great Reset. I don’t believe that I’m exaggerating when I say that the quote below could be the most important material discovered about the Great Reset to date.
The quotes at the bottom of this article are by John Kerry, the former secretary of state under Barack Obama and failed Democratic presidential nominee. Kerry, who has openly stated his support for the Great Reset in the past, served as the co-chair of Joe Biden’s “Unity Task Force” on climate change during the 2020 campaign (alongside Ocasio-Cortez). Biden recently announced Kerry will be his administration’s special presidential envoy for climate–a position commonly referred to as “climate czar”–and will sit on the National Security Council, which means Kerry will officially join Biden’s cabinet when he begins his first term in January 2021.
The comments by Kerry come from a panel discussion hosted by the World Economic Forum earlier in November, following the 2020 election. The host of the panel is Borge Brende, the president of the World Economic Forum, an organization that has thus far devoted more time and money to promoting the Great Reset than any other group in the world.
These quotes are noteworthy for a number of reasons, but perhaps the most important is that Kerry makes it clear that Biden himself supports the Great Reset and that under a Biden administration, the reset “will happen with greater speed and with greater intensity than a lot of people might imagine.”
The following is a transcript of some of Kerry’s most important comments. I urge you to read through all of the quotes, as they provide a tremendous amount of insight into the thinking of Kerry, Biden, and the Biden administration’s plans for a Great Reset:
Host Borge Brende, president of the World Economic Forum: “Are we expecting too much too soon from the new president, or is he going to deliver first day on this [sic] topics?”
Kerry responds by thanking the host and says this:
John Kerry: “The answer to your question is, no, you’re not expecting too much. And yes, it [the Great Reset] will happen. And I think it will happen with greater speed and with greater intensity than a lot of people might imagine.
“In effect, the citizens of the United States have just done a Great Reset. We’ve done a Great Reset. And it was a record level of voting. What astounds me is that as many people still voted for the level of chaos and breach of law and order and breaking the standards. …
“And I think the underlying reason for that, Borge, is something that everyone has to examine. I think Europe has to look at that, with Brexit, and the rising nationalist populism, nationalistic populism—which is really one of the priorities we all have to address. You can’t dismiss it. It has to be listened to. It has to be understood. We have just had it manifested. And Europe has it too, in various countries, to a greater or lesser degree.
“It’s a reflection of the inability of democratic governments in many parts of the world to deliver. And I just have to put it bluntly. We’re certainly the primary exhibit. We’re exhibit number one. …
“Government just has to find a way to move faster, and to address more of the real concerns of its citizens. Or there will be an increasing backlash. What I think we’ve won is a reprieve. And I think, therefore, that the notion of a ‘reset’ is more important than ever before. I personally believe, Borge, that we’re at the dawn of an extremely exciting time.
“And if you can get away from the craziness of the politics of chaos that have consumed so many, and the politics of identity politics, I think that there’s a real opportunity here to look and see that even as all this craziness has been going on around us, there are really amazingly positive things happening. And one of them is in the private sector.
“I believe no government is fundamentally going to make the climate crisis go away. Government’s best effort is going to be to create a structure which will make it possible for certain things to happen. And the next opportunity for that structure to be fully defined is Glasgow.
“Now, I don’t believe—and I think Joe Biden, I know Joe Biden believes this—it’s not enough just to rejoin Paris [the Paris Climate Accords] for the United States. It’s not enough for us to just do the minimum of what Paris requires.”
Kerry then talks about the Paris Climate Agreement briefly and discussions he had with signatories after the agreement was made. He then says this:
“The best that we’ve [the signatories] done [by signing the Paris Agreement] is send a message to the marketplace that 190 countries plus are all going to move in the same direction to try to deal with the climate crisis. And that means that people who allocate capital have an opportunity to look at the largest market the world has ever had—196 countries all doing the same thing, all trying to move to change their energy policy and deal with the climate crisis. And that’s the biggest market the world has ever known, folks. …
“And the private sector now is beginning to really see this. Borge, yours was the stage where the letter from Larry Fink of Black Rock came out, and it put squarely in front of a lot of these CEOs the issue of stakeholder versus shareholder—which is really at the bottom of what I was talking about, about the dysfunctionality of government and the reaction of citizens. It’s shareholder versus stakeholder. And the issue is whether or not we’re going to move fast enough to provide for what people need at this moment. I think the greatest opportunity we have to do that is in dealing with the climate crisis. …
“Now, all the effects we’re seeing today of glaciers melting and fires raging and floods inundating and so forth … so any of you involved in risk analysis know exactly where we’re heading here. And, therefore, we have to move faster. That’s what has to happen. And the entities that can move the fastest, I believe, is the private sector.
“ESG [environment, social, and governance standards] is now in every discussion in every board room. Many, many more financial institutions are looking for what was fashionably called ‘impact investing,’ but everybody is now considering how do we have an impact that’s positive and meet ESGs. The global development standards, the SDGs [U.N. Sustainable Development Goals] are being talked about more.”
Kerry finishes by talking about Joe Biden’s commitment to rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement and Biden’s plans to impose carbon-dioxide restrictions.
SOURCE: John Kerry’s remarks at “The Great Reset: Building Future Resilience to Global Risks,” World Economic Forum, weforum.org, November 17, 2020, https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/11/the-great-reset-building-future-resilience-to-global-risks. (Remarks begin just before the 26-minute mark.)
This article originally appeared on StoppingSocialism.com.
Justin Haskins ([email protected]) is the editorial director and research fellow at The Heartland Institute and the editor-in-chief of StoppingSocialism.com.
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