The 'agricultural mafia' taking over Brazil's Amazon rainforest • FRANCE 24 English

 

Encouraged by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and local authorities who want to see the development of agribusiness, an "agricultural mafia" is taking over the Amazon rainforest. In the Brazilian state of Rondonia, organised groups set up camps for small farmers – sometimes the size of a city – within national forest parks that are supposed to be protected by law or on land stolen from indigenous peoples. Our reporters investigated this "agricultural mafia", from the small farmer who is promised a patch of land and a future, to the politicians pulling the strings.

Tearing the web: Invasive trout disrupt Glacier park's lakes


Susan Guynn, The Frederick News-Post, Md.
Sat, December 4, 2021

Dec. 4—GLACIER NATIONAL PARK, Mont. — In civilization, invaders change the language, diet and customs of the places they conquer. Invasive fish don't ride on chariots or tanks, but their disruption leaves almost warlike marks on the ecology.

That contest plays out right now between Montana's native bull trout and invasive lake trout in the Flathead River Basin. New research indicates that while the lakers have run like Genghis Khan, the bulls might hang on if they get help.

A new study from the University of Montana's Flathead Lake Biological Station shows just how big and permanent an impact invasive species have had on regional waterways.

"Once we get to a tipping point, things go bad quickly for bull trout," said Shawn Devlin, an aquatic ecologist at the Flathead Biological Station and co-author of the study.

"This work has showed if you give bulls a chance before that tipping point — before they're in a spiral they'll never come back from — they can be managed for conservation," he added. "And the good news is, these lakes were invaded a lot longer than anyone realized but it took longer than expected for the effects to take hold. It was a neat finding. That gives hope to managers, that there's more time below that tipping point than we realized."

Bull trout in lakes play the same ecological role as grizzly bears on land — the No. 1 predator in their native habitat. They eat other fish, grow large and reproduce slowly.

Lake trout fill a similar niche in their home waters of the Great Lakes and Midwest rivers. But they have a crucial spawning advantage.

Bull trout live a salmon-like life cycle of hatching in small creeks before reaching maturity in big rivers and lakes and then returning to spawn in that same creek they were born in. That makes them vulnerable to lots of other predators when young, as well as human threats like river dams, irrigation systems, and sedimentation from logging or road-building.

Lake trout spawn on deep-water rock outcrops. While grizzlies and eagles can harry bull trout in their shallow spawning streams, few competitors reach the lake trout egg deposits. And when they grow up, the lakers eat the same fish bull trout target.

Since they were artificially introduced into Flathead Lake in the early 20th century, lake trout have become a popular game fish because of their capacity to reach lunker size. Then a separate effort to enhance Swan Lake's artificial Kokanee salmon population by adding mysis shrimp had an unintended consequence. The tiny shrimp flowed down the Swan River into Flathead Lake, where they became a new food source for the lake trout. The laker population quickly expanded, sending ripples through the ecology of every other fish species in the system.

Such transformations are called "trophic cascades." In Flathead Lake's case, young lake trout outcompeted the Kokanee for zooplankton and other tiny organisms, while mature lakers ate the schools of Kokanee out of existence. They also preyed on the native cutthroat and bull trout, depleting both their populations and their food supplies.

And then the lake trout started spreading through the Flathead River network, invading the bull trout strongholds of Glacier National Park's west and south sides. Hungry Horse Dam prevented them from getting far into the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex to the south. But McDonald, Logging, Quartz, Bowman and Kintla lakes all saw their bull trout populations crash.

Study lead author Charles Wainright of the U.S. Geological Survey spent 49 days prowling 10 remote Montana lakes. That included Glacier Park battlegrounds like Quartz and Logging and Arrow lakes, as well as sites in the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex that still have undamaged bull trout habitat, such as Big Salmon Lake.

The bodies of water in the park comprise almost a third of the entire bull trout habitat in the Lower 48 States. Bull trout have "threatened" status under the federal Endangered Species Act.

"If we lose bull trout out of these lakes, the system will never shift back to what it looked like," Devlin said. What the study found was that one species doesn't just over-eat the other. Everything around them gets affected.

"The whole lake is important, not just the traditional food path of small things to big things," Devlin said. "Bull trout are not good at finding other food. When they can't get the large fish they used to eat in the middle of the lake, they're forced into the shallows and littoral zones with sub-optimal food. Then their growth rate gets stifled. Meanwhile, lake trout are growing like gangbusters."

That change also affects everything around the two trout species: the phytoplankton, insects, frogs, spiders and everything else that feeds from the lake or falls into it. As bull trout shift from eating other fish to eating bugs, that affects bug populations as well as other trout like cutthroat and rainbow that hunt bugs. The entire food web gets frazzled, and can fray apart.

Which brings up the other important finding of the study: the time factor.

By looking at both the ratios of invader fish to native fish, and what everything was eating, the study gave ways to gauge how far along — how close to permanent — an invasion had become. And it turned out, the process takes longer than most researchers expected.

That gives wildlife managers more options. Late-stage interventions might have to be as complicated as Glacier Park's effort to create bull trout sanctuaries while gillnetting infested lakes. An early invasion might fall to simple fishing regulations, like no-limit takes on lake trout in protected waters. Flathead Lake has passed that point.

'Rock snot' reaches Michigan's Lower Peninsula. Why it could be bad news for trout

Keith Matheny, Detroit Free Press
Mon, December 6, 2021, 

It's not as slimy as it sounds, but it could mean trouble for Michigan's prized trout fishery.

The Michigan departments of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy and Natural Resources on Monday announced the detection of "rock snot" — didymo, a freshwater alga — in the Lower Peninsula for the first time.

A person holds hands full of didymo alga, or rock snot, during a major bloom on the Duval River in Quebec, Canada in this 2013 photo.

The course, woolly textured alga was found in a portion of the Upper Manistee River in Kalkaska County. It has plagued streams in the western and eastern U.S., forming thick mats that cover river and stream bottoms, reducing the habitat for macroinvertebrates, the tiny organisms at the bottom of the food chain upon which small fish feed. Those small fish in turn provide food for Michigan's prized sports fish, such as trout.

Extensive mats of didymo were found on the Michigan side of the St. Marys River near Sault Ste. Marie in the Upper Peninsula in 2015.

"Didymo has potential to be a nasty nuisance species in Michigan’s cold-water fisheries," said Samuel Day, a water quality biologist with the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians. "Unlike the harmful algal blooms that plague areas of the Great Lakes due to warm temperatures and excess nutrients, didymo blooms form in cold, low-nutrient streams that most folks would generally consider pristine and great habitat for trout."

Fishermen play a role in the alga's spread — and can play a role in keeping it contained, said Bill Keiper, an aquatic biologist with EGLE’s Water Resources Division.

"Didymo can attach to fishing equipment, wading gear and other hard surfaces and be moved to new waterways," he said. "With each new detection, it becomes more important for people who fish, wade or boat to clean boats and equipment, including waders, after each use."

According to Michigan State University Extension, didymo is thought to be native to Lake Superior, parts of Canada and Northern Europe. Its invasive character was only recorded beginning in the late 1990s. It’s not known what conditions cause didymo to alter its native, non-invasive character and form dense invasive mats, but some speculate that climate change could be playing a role.

Didymo was found east of the Mississippi in 2005 in Tennessee, and west of the Mississippi in Montana, Utah, Colorado and South Dakota in 2004. It was even documented in New Zealand the same year.

QUIT FLUSHING GOLDFISH 

Photos show ridiculously large goldfish taking over Canadian harbour after being released into the wild

National Post 

Have you ever wondered what happens when an unwanted pet goldfish gets released into the wild?

© Provided by National Post

 “In large numbers, goldfish can destroy aquatic habitats by tearing up aquatic plants for food and clouding the waters.”

It turns out it grows and grows until it becomes a comically large version of its former self.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada posted photos to Facebook that show some of the humongous, large-bellied goldfish that were found in Ontario’s Hamilton Harbour.

“The ones my dad flushed 40 years ago must be as big as whales by now!” one person commented on the Facebook post. Others said they had seen bigger, adding that goldfish grow to adapt to their environment.

Don't want your goldfish anymore? Rehome it on Kijiji

Monster-sized goldfish are taking over Alberta city (2017)

But the giant goldfish are taking away key spawning sites from other native fish species, the ministry said.

Spawning is a mass method of fertilization. Female fish release their eggs into the water, and the males release sperm to fertilize them. Spawning sites are key to the reproduction of native species, including the Northern Pike.

Invasive goldfish are a “big problem,” Fisheries and Oceans Canada wrote in a Facebook post last week. “In large numbers, goldfish can destroy aquatic habitats by tearing up aquatic plants for food and clouding the waters, which means less sunlight and less food for our native species. They can also thrive on toxic blue-green algae and may even aid in toxic algal growth.”

Hamilton is tracking invasive goldfish using acoustic tags — small sound emitting devices that allow for remote tracking in aquatic environments, like the Hamilton Harbour. Officials have found that the goldfish in the harbour are rapidly reproducing, quickly becoming classified as an invasive species.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada has a few recommendations to prevent introducing invasive species to waterways: “Learning about them, including how to recognize them, cleaning, draining and drying any equipment used in the water before storing it or moving it to a different body of water, never moving species, organisms or water from one body of water to another and keeping any aquatic plant or animal, such as live bait or pets from aquariums, out of the natural environment or sewers.”

Norwegian archaeologists find late Iron Age longhouses

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Norwegian archaeologists said Monday they have found a cluster of longhouses, including one of the largest in Scandinavia, using ground-penetrating radar in the southeastern part of the country — in an area that researchers believe was a central place in the late Nordic Iron Age.


The longhouses — long and narrow, single-room buildings — were found in Gjellestad, 86 kilometers (53 miles) southeast of Oslo near where a Viking-era ship was found in 2018 close to the Swedish border.

“We have found several buildings, all typical Iron Age longhouses, north of the Gjellestad ship. The most striking discovery is a 60-meter (197-foot) long and 15-meter (49-foot) wide longhouse, a size that makes it one of the largest we know of in Scandinavia,” archaeologist Lars Gustavsen at Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research said in a statement.

The importance of Gjellestad during that time period wasn't immediately known. But the body, known by its Norwegian acronym NIKU, said it was working on finding that out.

This autumn, archaeologists covered 40 hectares (about 100 acres) south, east and north of were the Gjellestad ship was found with the radar system, and one of the next steps are archaeological excavations, NIKU said.

The surveys are the first part of a research project called “Viking Nativity: Gjellestad Across Borders” where archaeologists, historians and Viking age specialists have examined the development of the area during the Nordic Iron Age that began at around 500 B.C. and lasted until approximately A.D. 800 and the beginning of the Viking Age.

“We do not know how old the houses are or what function they had. Archaeological excavations and dating will help us get an answer to this,” said Sigrid Mannsaaker Gundersen, another archaeologist.

They have also found several ploughed-out burial mounds in nearby fields.

“We are not surprised to have found these burial mounds, as we already know there are several others in the surrounding area,” Gustavsen said. “ Still, these are important to know about to get a more complete picture of Gjellestad and its surroundings.”

The Associated Press

California officials determine cause of city’s ‘stench of death’

Katharine Gammon in Los Angeles 

Since early October, residents of Carson, California, have been sickened by a noxious smell coming from the Dominguez Channel that has been likened to “a rotten egg” or “the stench of death”. Now, officials have pinpointed a cause: a fire at a warehouse that stored beauty and wellness products.

South Coast Air Quality Management District, the agency tasked with investigating the foul stench, said on Friday that the large warehouse fire, which began on 30 September and took several days to extinguish, caused vast amounts of chemicals to flow into the 15-mile canal. That spurred a die-off of plants living in the waterway, which in turn produced huge amounts of hydrogen sulfide, a flammable and colorless gas that can be harmful to human health.

The agency has issued notices of violation to four companies connected to the warehouse.

The rancid odor was first reported on 3 October, and by 6 October the air management agency was receiving more than 100 complaints per day. Residents of Carson, a city in Los Angeles county that is home to predominantly people of color, were complaining of severe headaches, fatigue and respiratory issues as levels of the gas increased. According to the air quality district, hydrogen sulfide levels at one point reached nearly 7,000 parts per billion, about 230 times higher than the state nuisance standard.

Related: ‘The stench of death’: California city plagued by extraordinary odor for weeks

More than 3,000 people moved into hotels – paid for by the county – to escape their symptoms, and 27,000 air purifiers were delivered to homes to mitigate the scent. Even now, residents say the smell is not gone. On a Facebook group set up by residents, people are still reporting issues.

For Ana Meni, a resident who temporarily relocated to a hotel, the ordeal is not over. She has since returned home and says the smell is not as bad as before, but she is still suffering from headaches almost on a daily basis and problems with throat irritation. “Over-the-counter medicine doesn’t help,” she says. “The only relief I have is to get out of the city. The moment I do, the headaches go away.”

Meni says her sister has even worse symptoms, with non-stop nosebleeds that have forced her to visit the emergency room a few times since they returned home.

Mark Pestrella, the Los Angeles county public works director, reported to the county board of supervisors that his department had spent about $54m on cleaning the channel, as well as on hotel rooms and air purifiers for residents. That could increase to $143m if the cleanup lasted until March, he said.

As for the companies whose products caused the die-off, last month, the LA county counsel, Rodrigo A Castro-Silva, sent a letter to their attorneys, telling them that they must preserve anything that could be considered evidence if the county took legal action.

The LA Times reports that the letter says the September fire was ignited by illegally stored flammable materials, including hand sanitizer and antibacterial wipes. Eight residents have filed a class-action lawsuit against the companies, alleging that the fire caused the hazardous smell.

Meni says she’s trying to be optimistic, given the new actions by authorities. LA county and the city of Carson have considered the situation finished, but residents are left wondering about the lingering smell and its long-lasting impacts. “I have no idea what it is in the air that is still making us all sick,” she says. “It wasn’t like this at all before the Dominguez Channel incident.”

Hydrogen sulfide | H2S - PubChem

https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/hydrogen-sulfide

Hydrogen sulfide can also result from industrial activities, such as food processing, coke ovens, kraft paper mills, tanneries, and petroleum refineries.Hydrogen sulfide is a flammable, colorless gas with a characteristic odor of rotten eggs. It is commonly known as hydrosulfuric acid, sewer gas, and stink damp. People can smell it at low levels.

Hydrogen Sulfide - Overview | Occupational Safety and ...

1. https://www.osha.gov/hydrogen-sulfide

   Hydrogen sulfide (also known as H2S, sewer gas, swamp gas, stink damp, and sour damp) is a colorless gas known for its pungent "rotten egg" odor at low concentrations. It is extremely flammable and highly toxic. Hydrogen sulfide 

THOSE ARE ALBERTA GRIZZLIES
Montana seeks to end protections for Glacier-area grizzlies

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Montana is asking the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to lift threatened species protections for grizzly bears in the northern portion of the state, including areas in and around Glacier National Park, officials said Monday.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The request, if granted, would open the door to public hunting of grizzlies in Montana for the first time in three decades. It comes after bear populations have expanded, spurring more run-ins including grizzly attacks on livestock and periodic maulings of people.


Removing federal protections would give state wildlife officials more flexibility to deal with bears that get into conflicts, Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte said. But wildlife advocates warned of overhunting if protections are lifted.


GLACIER NATIONAL PARK IS SHARED WITH CANADA, BECAUSE ITS THE ROCKIES
Northwest Montana has the largest concentration of grizzlies in the Lower 48 states, with more than 1,000 bears across Glacier National Park and nearby expanses of forested wilderness, an area known as the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem.

In March, U.S. government scientists said the region's grizzlies are biologically recovered, but need continued protection under the Endangered Species Act because of human-caused bear deaths and other pressures.

Hunting of grizzlies is banned in the U.S. outside Alaska. Bears considered problematic are regularly killed by wildlife officials.

“We’ve shown the ability to manage bears, protect their habitat and population numbers," Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Director Hank Worsech said in a statement. "It’s time for us to have full authority for grizzly bears in Montana.”

But wildlife advocates cautioned against giving the state control over grizzlies, after Republicans including Gianforte have advanced policies that make it much easier to kill another controversial predator, the gray wolf.

“We don't believe that there should be hunting of these iconic, native carnivores,” said environmentalist John Horning with the group WildEarth Guardians. “I have no doubt the state would push it to the absolute limit so they could kill as many grizzlies as possible.”

The Fish and Wildlife Service had not received the state's request and had no immediate comment, spokesperson Joe Szuszwalak said.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, who oversees Fish and Wildlife Service, co-sponsored legislation while in Congress to increase protections for bears and reintroduce them on tribal lands. Haaland declined to say how she would approach the issue when questioned during her February confirmation hearings.

A legal petition to lift protections across northern Montana will be filed following a Dec. 14 meeting of state wildlife commissioners, said Fish, Wildlife and Parks spokesperson Greg Lemon. The commission would be in charge of any future hunting season for grizzlies.

As many as 50,000 grizzlies once ranged the western half of the U.S. Most were killed by hunting, trapping and habitat loss following the arrival of European settlers in the late 1800s. Populations had declined to fewer than 1,000 bears by the time they were given federal protections in 1975.

Montana held grizzly hunts until 1991 under an exemption to the federal protections that allowed 14 bears to be killed each fall.

Protections were removed for more than 700 bears in and around Yellowstone National Park in 2017, but later restored by a federal judge.

Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon said in September he will ask the federal government to remove protections for Yellowstone region grizzlies and permit the region’s three states to manage and potentially allow hunting of the big bruins in certain areas.

___

Follow Matthew Brown on Twitter: @MatthewBrownAP

Matthew Brown, The Associated Press

Lakota group harvests bison, passing on spiritual and practical knowledge

Jordan Smith, The Free Press, Mankato, Minn.
Mon, December 6, 2021

Dec. 6—The 1,220-pound bison hung on the forklift by a chain tethered to its two front legs, its neck limp.

Two men grabbed either hind leg and walked alongside the machine as it drew closer to a grassy mound where those gathered would host a prayer ceremony over the animal's body before harvesting its hide, meat, bones and insides.

"There's an educational purpose for us to do this," said Marla Bull Bear, executive director of Lakota Youth Development, which was founded in 1992. "We're helping (youth) to reclaim their culture, their spiritual ways. And we consider the buffalo nation as a relative."

She and more than a dozen other Lakota people — including her daughter Megan Schnitker, who owns Lakota Made natural goods store on Riverfront Drive — had come from the Rosebud Indian Reservation of South Dakota to a farm at the halfway point between that state and Mankato. The bison farm is one of two owned and operated by Sleepy Bison Acres of Sleepy Eye.

The Sunday event furthered the youth organization's mission to restore the American buffalo's sacred role in Lakota history.

Tribes followed tens of millions of Tatanka across vast swaths of the high plains, directly relying on America's national mammal for shelter, tools and food. During the 1800s, Euro-American settlement and U.S. legislation decimated the bison population to hundreds.

Sunday's harvest was also a practical demonstration of how to honor the animal's sacrifice by making use of every body part. Several young people watched, and others will later see the process in educational videos.

"When we do this, it's with prayer and it's with ceremony and a respect and responsibility that weighs heavy on us because we take a life," she said. "It's not a sporting event."

Craig Fischer, owner of Sleepy Bison Acres, said it was the first time he sold a bison for a Native American harvesting ceremony. The 2 1/2 -year-old bull he shot Sunday for Lakota Youth Development was kept calm early that morning so stress wouldn't negatively alter the meat.

About an hour before the ceremony, Fischer rode an ATV to a fenced-in hillside where dozens of his 80 bison roam.

The Minnesota State University graduate said the animals have both a simple and complex appeal to him. They can run 35 mph and jump like deer and are plain "cool" to observe, yet they also embody a connection to the land that spans millennia.

The health benefits of the high-protein, low-fat meat hooked him because his grandfather died of a heart attack while Fischer was in high school.

Eight years ago he chose to enter the niche market. Now he feeds his kids and himself with heart-healthy bison meat, viewing it as akin to an insurance policy.

The Lakota reverence for buffalo and their resolve to eat or use the whole animal was crucial in his decision to provide the bull. Fischer's goal is for "one bad moment" to infringe as little as possible on the life of contentment he tries to provide bison.

"With how cool these animals are, the history behind them, how many thousands of years they've been here and adapted to our lands, it's hard not to respect them," he said. "I think there's something magnetizing about them.

"When we're performing a harvest I want to continue to respect them throughout their life, and the harvest is one of the most important times of their life."

Later Sunday morning, as Schmidt prepared to fire his gun in an area separate from the group, people talked quietly. They became silent when a shot rang through the air.

Charles Bull Bear, Marla's husband, has lived on the Rosebud Reservation his entire 64 years of life. He said the Lakota culture is gradually disappearing as elders grow old and fewer young people devote time to native rituals. The youth organization has resisted the trend for decades.

Leaning against his pickup truck Sunday, he said he felt an emotional tie to his ancestors whose rugged survival depended on bison. He doesn't take for granted that he can now easily get the meat and feed it to his grandchildren, who stood bundled up in coats and scarves nearby.

"They survived on what they found," he said of his ancestors, "and only took what they needed."

Schmidt estimates the bull harvested Sunday will provide about 500 pounds of meat. Three and a half ounces of it contains only 2.4 grams of fat and 140 calories, statistics that along with its nutrient density make it a salve to the diabetes-stricken Rosebud Reservation.

To increase the availability, the Rosebud Sioux tribe announced in May it will commit 28,000 acres of native grassland to support up to 1,500 bison, which would be the largest North American herd managed and owned by Native Americans.

The Department of Interior began sending bison from federally managed herds to Rosebud last fall and will continue to over a five year span.

The population of Native-owned bison will increase by 7% if the project succeeds.

Native elders such as Jerome Kills Small, a 76-year-old who stood on the mound and led the prayer ceremony, task themselves with conveying a message of interdependence to younger generations.

Having been raised on the Pine Ridge Reservation of central South Dakota, he said his Lakota upbringing was second nature that he didn't analyze before going to college.

When he noted others' interest in the cultural and spiritual norms, he majored in English as a way to share his part of the story. He went on to become a professor at the University of South Dakota, teaching courses in Lakota language and history along with American Indian thought.

Coming from a tradition of oral storytelling, part of his life's focus is how to sustain rituals through which the word is passed.

One story he tells: During a Sun Dance, the most important religious ceremony historically practiced by the Lakota, his ancestors cut effigies of a man and a buffalo.

They then tied them to opposite sides of a large cottonwood tree cut for the ceremony.

The moral is Mitakuye Oyasin, a Lakota phrase which translates to "we are all related."

"We're the buffalo nation," he said, "because we depended on the buffalo for our life."

US Treasury wants more oversight of all-cash real estate deals



AAMER MADHANI
Mon, December 6, 2021

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration is looking to expand reporting requirements on all-cash real estate deals to help crack down on bad actors' use of the U.S. market to launder money made through illicit activity.

The Treasury Department was posting notice Monday seeking public comment for a potential regulation that would address what it says is a vulnerability in the real estate market.

Currently, title insurance companies in just 12 metropolitan areas are required to file reports identifying people who make all-cash purchases of residential real estate through shell companies if the transaction exceeds $300,000.

“Increasing transparency in the real estate sector will curb the ability of corrupt officials and criminals to launder the proceeds of their ill-gotten gains through the U.S. real estate market,” said Himamauli Das, acting director of Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.

Das said the move could “strengthen U.S. national security and help protect the integrity of the U.S. financial system.”

The metropolitan areas currently facing reporting requirements are Boston; Chicago; Dallas-Fort Worth; Honolulu; Las Vegas; Los Angeles; Miami; New York City; San Antonio; San Diego; San Francisco; and Seattle.

The U.S. real estate market has long been viewed as a stable way station for corrupt government officials around the globe and other illicit actors looking to launder proceeds from criminal activity.

The use of shell companies by current and former world leaders, and those close to them, to purchase real estate and other assets in the U.S. and elsewhere was recently spotlighted by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists' publication of the “Pandora Papers.”

The leaked documents acquired by the consortium showed King Abdullah II of Jordan, former U.K. prime minister Tony Blair and other prominent figures used shell companies to purchase mansions, exclusive beachfront property, yachts and other assets for the past quarter-century.

The tax dodges can be legal but have spawned various proposals to enhance tax transparency and reinforce the fight against tax evasion.

The effort to push for new real estate market regulation comes as the Biden administration on Monday issued its “U.S. Strategy on Countering Corruption.”

The strategy was published as President Joe Biden prepares to host the first White House Democracy Summit, a virtual gathering of leaders and civil society experts from more than 100 countries that is set to take place Thursday and Friday.

The strategy offers broad brushstrokes for confronting corruption at home and abroad. It includes calls for the U.S. government to shore up regulatory gaps, elevating anti-corruption in U.S. diplomatic efforts and bolstering the protection of civil society and members of the media, including investigative journalists, who expose corruption.

Watchdog: Israel freezes plan for east Jerusalem settlement


FILE - A woman and her child walk on a pedestrian ramp to the Qalandia checkpoint to the West Bank from Jerusalem, next to the site where Israel planned to build a massive Jewish settlement on the site of a long-abandoned airport, Nov. 24, 2021. An Israeli monitoring group said Monday, Dec. 6, 2021, that Jerusalem municipal officials have frozen plans to build a large Jewish settlement at the abandoned airport in east Jerusalem in the wake of heavy U.S. opposition to the project.

 (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo, File)


Mon, December 6, 2021

JERUSALEM (AP) — Jerusalem municipal officials on Monday froze plans to build a large Jewish settlement at an abandoned airport in east Jerusalem, a monitoring group announced.

The decision to halt the Atarot settlement plan came in the wake of heavy U.S. opposition to the project.

Plans for the settlement called for building 9,000 housing units marketed to ultra-Orthodox Jews in an open area next to three densely populated Palestinian communities, one of which is behind Israel’s controversial separation barrier.

Hagit Ofran of the Israeli anti-settlement group Peace Now said Monday that the Jerusalem district planning committee that was to approve the plan instead decided to put it on hold, saying an environmental survey should first be conducted.

“Let's hope they will use the time to understand how illogical this plan is for the development of Jerusalem and how much it damages the chances for peace,” said Ofran, who attended the meeting.

There was no immediate comment from city officials. But earlier Monday, Israel's foreign minister, Yair Lapid, indicated the Israeli government is in no hurry to give final approval to the plan.

Speaking to reporters, Lapid said the plan requires approval by the national government and needs “full consensus” of the various parties in the coalition. “This will be dealt with at the national level and we know how to deal with it. It is a process and will make sure it doesn’t turn into a conflict with the administration,” he said.

Israel captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed it in a move not recognized internationally. The Palestinians want east Jerusalem to be the capital of a future state including the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which Israel also seized in that war.

Israel views all of Jerusalem as its unified capital and says it needs to build housing to address the needs of a growing population.

The Palestinians view the continual expansion of Israeli settlements as a violation of international law and an obstacle to peace, a position with wide international support. The Atarot project is considered especially damaging because it lies in the heart of a Palestinian population center.

The Biden administration has repeatedly criticized settlement construction, saying it hinders the eventual resumption of the peace process, but Israel has continued to advance settlement plans.

More than 200,000 Israeli settlers live in east Jerusalem and nearly 500,000 live in settlements scattered across the occupied West Bank. Israel’s current prime minister, Naftali Bennett, is a strong supporter of settlements and is opposed to Palestinian statehood.

There have been no substantive peace talks in more than a decade.

Lucid Stock Plunges After EV Maker Reveals SEC Investigation



Craig Trudell and Elisabeth Behrmann
Mon, December 6, 2021

(Bloomberg) -- Lucid Group Inc. disclosed it’s become the latest electric-vehicle maker to come under U.S. investigation following a merger with a blank-check company, sending its shares plummeting.

The maker of the $169,000 Air sedan said in a regulatory filing Monday that it received a subpoena from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Dec. 3. Lucid said the probe appears to relate to the carmaker’s combination with Churchill Capital Corp. IV, the special purpose acquisition company that took Lucid public in July.

Lucid shares plunged as much as 19% to $38.06 shortly after the start of regular trading Monday. The stock had roughly doubled since its debut on July 26 through last week’s close.

The investigation is a blow to one of the more promising upstarts trying to take on Tesla Inc. in the EV market. Before Lucid, the SEC opened investigations into Nikola Corp., Lordstown Motors Corp. and Canoo Inc., all of which have gone public since last year following mergers with SPACs.

Unlike in a traditional initial public offering, going public through a combination with a SPAC allows companies to make forward projections to investors before their listings. Founders of Nikola, Lordstown Motors and Canoo have left their respective companies since last year, with each struggling to execute since their stock market debuts.

Lucid has had a smoother run since since it went public. In September, the Air sedan supplanted Tesla’s highest-range vehicle, the Model S, with a 520-mile rating. Lucid started production of cars for its first customers later that month, and the company recently reiterated a forecast that it will make 20,000 vehicles next year.

The Churchill Capital SPAC that merged with Lucid was the largest run by Michael Klein, a former Citigroup Inc. investment banker. Klein has been a prominent financial adviser to Saudi Arabia, which first invested in Lucid in 2018.

The SEC has been subjecting SPACs to more scrutiny under Chairman Gary Gensler, filing 434 enforcement actions in its latest fiscal period, up 7% from the previous year. The agency singled out cryptocurrencies and SPACs as “emerging threats” it’s concerned with.