Crimea ex-prosecutor and manga star named Russian ambassador

Issued on: 13/10/2021 

Natalya Poklonskaya (C) is a fan of Russia's last tsar, Nicholas II 

Max VETROV AFP/File

Moscow (AFP)

Russia on Wednesday appointed a staunch supporter of Moscow's annexation of Crimea as its ambassador to the Cape Verde Islands, a move observers say shows her fall from the Kremlin's favour.

Natalya Poklonskaya became the top prosecutor for Crimea after breaking with authorities in Kiev following Moscow's takeover of the peninsula from Ukraine in 2014.

Although Poklonskaya was a lawmaker in the lower house for the ruling party between 2016 and 2021, Russian media said the Kremlin did not want her to pursue another term because of her voting record and "extravagant" statements.

Poklonskaya was the only United Russia member to oppose a highly unpopular pension age hike in 2018.

According to a decree from President Vladimir Putin, Poklonskaya, 41, will head Russia's embassy in Cape Verde, a Portuguese-speaking archipelago off the western coast of Africa with a population of around 550,000 people.

In a post on Instagram, Poklonskaya said the appointment was a "great honour and responsibility" for her.

During her tenure as prosecutor, Poklonskaya became Russia's youngest female general at 35 and stood out with her youthful looks and soft voice combined with sometimes uncompromising language.

She gained a huge internet following, especially in Japan, where she became a popular character in anime and manga art.

Her first news conference, where she appeared in a prosecutor's uniform and tie, hit over one million views on YouTube.

She is subject to EU and US sanctions imposed over her involvement in Crimea and the crackdown on Crimean Tatars, a predominantly Muslim ethnic minority that mostly opposed the annexation.

She is also a fan of Russia's last Tsar Nicholas II, who was executed in 1918, and once carried his portrait during a World War II victory parade.

© 2021 AFP

TURN?!! ALWAYS WAS

The sinister story of Kyrsten Sinema's turn to conservatism and political corruption

Thom Hartmann, Independent Media Institute
October 13, 2021

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) Screengrab.

When Bobby Kennedy went after organized crime in the early 1960s, one of the things he learned was that the Mafia had a series of rituals new members went through to declare their loyalty and promise they'd never turn away from their new benefactors. Once in, they'd be showered with money and protection, but they could never leave and even faced serious problems if they betrayed the syndicate.

Which brings us to the story of Kyrsten Sinema.

For a republican democracy to actually work, average citizens with a passion for making their country better must be able to run for public office without needing wealthy or powerful patrons; this is a concept that dates back to Aristotle's rants on the topic. And Sinema was, in the beginning, just that sort of person. But I'm getting ahead of myself…

After the Nixon and Agnew bribery scandals were fully revealed with a series of congressional investigations leading to Nixon's resignation in 1974, Congress passed and President Jerry Ford signed into law a series of "good government" laws that provided for public funding of elections and strictly limited the role of big money in campaigns.


Just like the 1/6 attack on the Capitol produced a "select" committee to investigate the anti-democracy crimes of Donald Trump and his cronies, Congress authorized the Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities to look into Nixon's abuses and make recommendations.


The committee's 100-page report documented how Nixon had taken bribes (most notably $400,000 from ITT to squash an antitrust lawsuit); used "dark" money from wealthy friends and corporations to set up astroturf "citizens committees" (an early version of the Tea Party) to make it appear he had widespread support among the American public; and used off-the-books money to both support loyal Republican politicians whose help he needed as well as to pay for his "opposition research" surveillance which included the Watergate break-in of the DNC's headquarters.

In response to the report, Congress passed an exhaustive set of new laws and regulations, most significantly creating from scratch the Federal Elections Commission (FEC), outlawing secret donations to politicians while providing for public funding of federal elections to diminish the power of big money. (Jimmy Carter was the only presidential candidate to win using such public funding.)

Over the years since, conservatives on the Supreme Court have repeatedly gutted provisions of the 1974 amendments to the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA), most famously in 2010 with their notorious Citizens United decision.

With that stroke, over the loud objections of the four "liberals" on the Court, corporations were absolutely deemed as "persons" with full constitutional rights, and billionaires or corporations pouring massive amounts of money into campaign coffers was changed from "bribery and political corruption" to an exercise of the constitutionally-protected "right of free speech."

Into this milieu stepped Kyrsten Sinema, running from a seat in the Arizona Senate for the US House of Representatives in 2012 as an "out" bisexual and political progressive. The campaign quickly turned ugly.

Following the Citizens United script, the Republican she confronted in that race (Vernon Parker) used corporate and billionaire money to carpet-bomb their district airwaves with ads calling her "a radical left-wing activist promoting hatred toward our country, our allies, and our families" and warning people that she "engaged in pagan rituals."

The district was heavily Democratic (Obama handily won it that year) but the race was close enough that it took six full days for the AP to call it for Sinema. And that, apparently, was when she decided that if you can only barely beat them, you'd damn well better join them.

Sinema quickly joined other Democrats who'd followed the Citizens United path to the flashing neon lights of big money, joining the so-called "Problem Solvers" caucus that owes its existence in part to the Wall Street-funded front group "No Labels."

Quietly and without fanfare, she began voting with Republicans and the corporate- and billionaire-owned Democrats, supporting efforts to deregulate big banks, "reform" Social Security and Medicare, and make it harder to for government to protect regular investors or even buyers of used cars from being ripped off.

She voted with the Chamber 77 percent of the time in her first term; in return, political networks run by right-wing billionaires and the US Chamber of Commerce showered her with support. In her first re-election race, in 2014, she was one of only five democrats endorsed by the notoriously right-wing Chamber.

She'd proved herself as a "made woman," just like the old mafiosi documented by RFK in the 1960s, willing to do whatever it takes, compromise whatever principles she espoused, to get into and stay in the good graces of the large and well-funded right-wing syndicates unleashed by Citizens United.

So it should surprise precisely nobody that Sinema is parroting the Chamber's and the billionaire network's line that President Joe Biden's Build Back Better plan is too generous in helping and protecting average Americans and too punitive in taxing the morbidly rich. After all, once you're in, you leave at your own considerable peril, even when 70 percent of your state's voters want the bill to pass.

And this is a genuine crisis for America because if President Biden is frustrated in his attempt to pass his Build Back Better legislation (that is overwhelmingly supported by Americans across the political spectrum) — all because business groups, giant corporations and right-wing billionaires are asserting ownership over their two "made" senators — there's a very good chance that today's cynicism and political violence is just a preview of the rest of the decade.

But this isn't as much a story about Sinema as it is about today's larger political dysfunction for which she's become, along with Joe Manchin, a poster child.

Increasingly, because of the Supreme Court's betrayal of American values, it's become impossible for people like the younger Sinema to rise from social worker to the United States Senate without big money behind them. Our media is absolutely unwilling to call this what even Andrew Jackson would have labeled it: political corruption. But that's what it is and it's eating away at our republic like a metastasized cancer.

A guest on Brian Stelter's CNN program yesterday pointed out that there are today more autocracies in the world than democracies and, generally, democracies are on the decline. This corruption of everyday politics by the rich and powerful is how democracies begin the shift to autocracy or oligarchy, as I document in gruesome detail in The Hidden History of American Oligarchy: Reclaiming Our Democracy from the Ruling Class.

While the naked corruption of Sinema and Joe Manchin is a source of outrage for Democrats across America, what's far more important is that it reveals how deep the rot of money in American politics has gone, thanks entirely to a corrupted Supreme Court.

In Justice Stevens' dissent in Citizens United, he pointed out that corporations in their modern form didn't even exist when the Constitution was written in 1787 and got its first ten amendments in 1791, including the First which protects free speech.

"All general business corporation statues appear to date from well after 1800," Stevens pointed out to his conservative colleagues on the Court. "The Framers thus took it as a given that corporations could be comprehensively regulated in the service of the public welfare. Unlike our colleagues, they had little trouble distinguishing corporations from human beings, and when they constitutionalized the right to free speech in the First Amendment, it was the free speech of individual Americans they had in mind.

"The fact that corporations are different from human beings might seem to need no elaboration, except that the majority opinion almost completely elides it…. Unlike natural persons, corporations have 'limited liability' for their owners and managers, 'perpetual life,' separation of ownership and control, 'and favorable treatment of the accumulation of assets….' Unlike voters in U.S. elections, corporations may be foreign controlled."

Noting that corporations "inescapably structure the life of every citizen," Stevens continued: "It might be added that corporations have no consciences, no beliefs, no feelings, no thoughts, no desires. Corporations help structure and facilitate the activities of human beings, to be sure, and their 'personhood' often serves as a useful legal fiction. But they are not themselves members of 'We the People' by whom and for whom our Constitution was established."

Even worse than the short-term effect of a corporation's dominating an election or a ballot initiative, Stevens said (as if he had a time machine to look at us now), was the fact that corporations corrupting politics would, inevitably, cause average working Americans — the 95 percent who make less than $100,000 a year — to conclude that their "democracy" is now rigged.

The result, Stevens wrote, is that average people would simply stop participating in politics, stop being informed about politics, and stop voting…or become angry and cynical. Our democracy, he suggested, would be immeasurably damaged and ultimately vulnerable to corporate-supported demagogues and oligarchs. Our constitutional republic, if Citizens United stands, could wither and could die.

"In addition to this immediate drowning out of noncorporate voices," Stevens wrote in 2010, "there may be deleterious effects that follow soon thereafter. Corporate 'domination' of electioneering can generate the impression that corporations dominate our democracy.

"When citizens turn on their televisions and radios before an election and hear only corporate electioneering, they may lose faith in their capacity, as citizens, to influence public policy. A Government captured by corporate interests, they may come to believe, will be neither responsive to their needs nor willing to give their views a fair hearing.

"The predictable result is cynicism and disenchantment: an increased perception that large spenders 'call the tune' and a reduced 'willingness of voters to take part in democratic governance.' To the extent that corporations are allowed to exert undue influence in electoral races, the speech of the eventual winners of those races may also be chilled." (Emphasis mine)

As if he were looking at Kyrsten Sinema facing a tough choice about her own political survival leading up to the 2014 election, Stevens added:

"Politicians who fear that a certain corporation can make or break their reelection chances may be cowed into silence about that corporation."

And, again looking into his time machine to today, the now-deceased Stevens pointed to the frustration of average Americans with Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin.

"On a variety of levels, unregulated corporate electioneering might diminish the ability of citizens to 'hold officials accountable to the people,' and disserve the goal of a public debate that is 'uninhibited, robust, and wide-open.'"

Stevens and his fellow "liberals" on the Court were both prescient and right.

They warned in their dissent that foreign money would corrupt our elections and we saw that in a big way in 2016. There's apparently no way of knowing how much of today's political turmoil — from school board to election commission to hospital and airplane violence — is being orchestrated and amplified by foreign players on social media masquerading as Americans to weaken our country.

They warned that because of the Citizens United decision Americans would become cynical and reactionary; that's happening today. Armed militias are in our streets, people are regularly assaulted for their perceived politics, and right-wing media demagogues make millions (literally) promoting hate and fear.

And, they warned, it could doom our republic, something that's now within our sight.


Thom Hartmann is a talk-show host and the author of The Hidden History of American Healthcare and more than 30+ other books in print. He is a writing fellow at the Independent Media Institute and his writings are archived at hartmannreport.com.

This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

#NODEATHPENALTY

US Supreme Court considers Boston Marathon bomber death sentence as Biden halts executions

The DOJ wants the death penalty for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev despite the moratorium.

By Devin Dwyer
13 October 2021


The Justice Department on Wednesday will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to reinstate the death sentence for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, even as the agency has suspended all federal executions and President Biden has vowed to eliminate capital punishment.

A federal appeals court last year upheld Tsarnaev's conviction for the 2013 attack that killed three and injured more than 200, but it tossed out the jury-recommended execution on the grounds that procedural errors during the sentencing phase compromised his right to a fair and impartial hearing.

The Biden administration calls the case "one of the most important terrorism prosecutions in our nation's history" and plans to argue before the justices that any discrepancies during the process would not have led the jury to select a different sentence and that an execution must go forward.

"It's one thing to say that you're opposed to capital punishment, it's another for the United States Attorney's Office to tell the good people in Boston that you're no longer going to see the death penalty against the Boston Marathon bomber. And, so they didn't," said Jeffrey Wall, the former Trump administration acting solicitor general who first led the appeal to reinstate Tsarnaev's sentence, on why the new administration is continuing to seek death.

The White House would not directly answer when asked by ABC News whether President Joe Biden supports his Justice Department's case and a federal execution of Tsarnaev.
MORE: Biden is pressed to end federal death penalty

FBI via AP, FILE
This file photo released April 19, 2013, by the FBI shows Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

A Biden administration official pointed to a June statement by White House press secretary Jen Psaki that noted Biden's "deep concerns" about capital punishment and belief that "the Department should return to its prior practice, and not carry out executions."

Attorneys for Tsarnaev said their client deserves a new sentencing hearing after an appeals court concluded that the trial judge improperly denied admission of key mitigating evidence and inadequately screened prospective jurors for bias.

The defense said the alleged involvement of Tsarnaev's older brother, Tamerlan, in a 2011 triple homicide in Waltham, Massachusetts, is critical evidence to suggest he -- not Dzhokhar -- was the mastermind of the marathon attack and had previously exerted influence over younger accomplices.

"In 2011, on the tenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, Tamerlan robbed and murdered a close friend and two others as an act of jihad," Tsarnaev's attorneys write in their brief to the high court. "For Dzhokhar -- a teenager well-liked by teachers and peers, with no history of violence -- the bombings were the culmination of Tamerlan's months-long effort to draw him into extremist violence."

Tamerlan Tsarnaev died shortly after the attack when he was run over by his brother as the two fled from police following a gunfight.

"If you accept the Eighth Amendment principle that somebody pretty much has a right to bring in almost anything that's mitigating … if you don't allow the defendant to bring in this evidence, you've basically deprived him of the only defense against the death penalty he was offering," said Irving Gornstein, director of the Supreme Court Institute at Georgetown University Law Center. "I think that will give [the justices] some pause. Now, enough pause? Probably not. But some pause."

The defense also said the trial judge failed to expose evidence of bias among potential jurors by not asking specifics about pretrial media exposure, including what they had read, heard or seen about Tsarnaev or the Boston Marathon bombing.

Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar argues that neither error -- even if undisputed -- would have swayed a jury against death.


Elise Amendola/AP, FILE
Investigators examine the scene of the second bombing outside the Forum Restaurant 

"The record definitively demonstrates that respondent was eager to commit his crimes, was untroubled at having ended two lives and devastated many others, and remained proud of his actions even after he had run Tamerlan over and was hiding out alone," the government writes in its brief. "The jury that watched a video of respondent place and detonate a shrapnel bomb just behind a group of children would not have changed its sentencing recommendation based on Tamerlan's supposed involvement in unrelated crimes two years earlier."

MORE: Garland orders halt to any further federal executions

The administration's pursuit of death for Tsarnaev contrasts with President Biden's 2020 campaign promise that he would "work to pass legislation to eliminate the death penalty at the federal level, and incentivize states to follow the federal government's example."

No legislation has been put forward, but in July, Attorney General Merrick Garland ordered a temporary halt to further executions of federal inmates, noting a number of defendants who were later exonerated as well as statistics showing possible discriminatory impact on minorities.

The Supreme Court could reinstate Tsarnaev's death sentence, or it could hand Tsarnaev a chance at a new sentencing hearing, clarifying rules for jury selection and mitigating evidence in death-penalty cases.

ABC News' Sarah Kolinovsky contributed to this report.

QANON GOP REP Lauren Boebert faces protesters as she speaks in the shadow of 'embarrassing' Columbus monument

Sara Wilson, Colorado Newsline
October 12, 2021

Lauren Boebert speaking at a Columbus Day event. (Screenshot)

Rep. Lauren Boebert spoke on Monday morning in the shadow of Colorado's last remaining monument to Christopher Columbus, a sandstone bust that sits in the median of a busy commercial street in Pueblo. The bust has been a political flashpoint as Indigenous activists and the Italian Americans who support the monument are at a stalemate over its future.

While Colorado no longer recognizes Columbus Day, replacing it last year with Frances Xavier Cabrini Day, the Pueblo chapter of the Order Sons and Daughters of Italy in America still held its annual celebration in what they said was a ceremony to honor the cultural and economic contributions Italian immigrants made to the southern Colorado city.

Speakers, including Boebert, lauded Columbus' “discovery" of America that led to European colonization and Westernization of the land already occupied by Indigenous people.

“He was a pioneer, willing to risk the necessary to chase his dreams, which are now our dreams that we get to live out. We would not be here today without that voyage," Boebert said to the crowd of spectators. The Republican represents Pueblo in Colorado's 3rd Congressional District.

The event had a controlled entry, so the dozens of protestors who showed up were stationed a few hundred feet away from the stage, behind barricades and a line of both police officers and hired private security.

“Columbus' voyage was a major step towards establishing America and changing the course of the world," Boebert said. “American exceptionalism is real, and I am darn proud to stand for Old Glory."

Boebert wavered from Columbus within minutes to hit on her usual stump speech talking points: the immigration “crisis" at the border, anti-Biden rhetoric and COVID-19 restrictions. Boebert has not held an in-person town hall in Pueblo since taking office but has appeared at a few private events, such as a fundraising dinner for the local Republican Party.

President Joe Biden proclaimed Monday Indigenous Peoples' Day, the first time a president officially adopted the day to commemorate Indigenous histories and cultures. Some cities, such as Boulder, Aspen, Denver and Durango, also officially recognize Indigenous Peoples' Day. Columbus Day remains a federal holiday.

Patty Corsentino was audibly upset about the congresswoman's remarks and said the event felt more somber than in past years. Corsentino, whose family helped construct the monument and who wants it to remain in place, said that bringing Boebert in detracts from the reason to remember Columbus.

“I'm disappointed because this shouldn't be politicized," she said. “It's about the culture and the history." Corsentino said she comes from a family of Democrats and did not vote for Boebert.

History of opposition in the city

Italian immigrants built Pueblo's Columbus monument in 1905. Many of them moved to town to work for the city's then-bustling steel plant. It sits across from the main branch of the city's library, flanked by flags and a brick wall commemorating significant Italian Americans from Pueblo, including local officials.

Activists have called for the monument's removal for decades, but last year's nationwide protests for social justice reignited the local effort. Opponents of the monument protested at the site consistently all summer, calling the bust a reminder of the nation's violent dislocation and enslavement of Indigenous people.

But as other Columbus statues in the country came down either by force or city action, Pueblo's bust remained standing. Government entities lobbed responsibility in a game of political hot potato.

The city hired an outside mediator in August 2020 to find a resolution, but those talks reached an impasse.

“The other side is camped on believing a misrepresentation of historical events," Jerry Carleo from OSDIA said Monday. “There's not an issue for us. The issue is of poisoned minds on the other side."

Also last year, Pueblo's city council voted against putting a measure on the ballot that would have let voters decide the monument's fate. The issue wasn't even considered this year as ballots were finalized for the consolidated election.

And when the city finally proposed a plan last year to create a plaza with additional statues of Black and Indigenous leaders, the library district's board of trustees voted it down.

The result is a still-simmering conflict with no resolution in sight and no governmental body willing to take responsibility. It means that the first Columbus monument west of the Mississippi River is now one of the few left in the region.

Protests began again earlier this year, and activists from the groups Take it Down Pueblo and Los Brown Berets speak at nearly every city council meeting.

Emily Gradisar, a protester at Monday's ceremony and the niece of Mayor Nick Gradisar, said the inaction is frustrating.

“This statue is embarrassing. It's a shameful thing," she said. “Just because we paid a lot of time and money being stupid about this statue doesn't mean we need to continue." Pueblo's police department has spent over $190,000 in overtime for the officers present at the protests.

“That monument is a travesty," she said.

While opposition to the Columbus monument is percolating in Pueblo once again, there is no formal plan for further mediation talks or action. The November city council elections have the potential to replace five of the seven seats, which could produce the political will to force a decision on whether the bust should stay or go.

Colorado Newsline is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Colorado Newsline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Quentin Young for questions: info@coloradonewsline.com. Follow Colorado Newsline on Facebook and Twitter.

AN ACTUAL TRUMP LEAKER

Trump holdover sues to block Biden from giving her the boot for allegedly disclosing classified info: report

Matthew Chapman

RAW STORY
October 12, 2021

Katie Arrington (Photo: Screen capture/Twitter)

On Tuesday, The Daily Beast reported that a Trump Department of Defense appointee suspended by the Biden administration is suing to try to reinstate her job.

"Katie Arrington was chief information security officer for the acquisition and sustainment office of the Defense Department, but her superiors notified her on May 11 that 'her security clearance for access to classified information is being suspended.' The reason: 'A reported Unauthorized Disclosure of Classified Information and subsequent removal of access by the National Security Agency,'" reported Blake Montgomery. "Since then, Arrington says, she has had no chance to respond to the allegations and the Pentagon has not made any moves toward completing its investigation of the suspected intel leak."

Arrington was the Republican nominee for South Carolina's 1st Congressional District in 2018, unseating scandal-plagued Rep. Mark Sanford in a primary only to lose in an upset to Democrat Joe Cunningham. Republicans would retake this seat in 2020.

The Biden administration has removed a number of other Trump appointees from various advisory boards, including friends, campaign officials, and right-wing talk radio hosts.

IMF SLAPS OUT OZ GOVT

Australia can prosper from global net zero targets, the IMF says – but lawmakers must allow green technology to thrive

David Adams

Oct. 13, 2021

Australia is uniquely poised to benefit from the global shirt to green energy, the International Monetary Fund says.

Rising prices for lithium, nickel, and cobalt could lift the GDP of major exporters, including Australia.

However lawmakers must first agree on climate strategies to avoid prices spiraling out of control, the lender notes.

Australia’s vast mineral wealth could reap dividends in the global transition to green technology, the International Monetary Fund says, so long as international and domestic lawmakers coordinate on climate policy.

In its latest World Economic Outlook, released Wednesday, the international lender highlighted the importance of Australia’s large lithium, cobalt, and nickel reserves to global green energy production.

Renewable energy systems and batteries require those metals to a greater extent than many traditional fossil fuel-generated power technologies.

Demand is expected to lift even higher as world leaders knuckle down on their emission reduction pledges, the IMF states.

Under a global net zero emissions by 2050 scenario, “total consumption of lithium and cobalt rises by a factor of more than six,” with nickel demand rising four times over.

Increased demand will lead to higher prices in the short-term, the IMF says, benefiting Australia’s export economy.

“A 15% persistent increase in the IMF metal price index adds an extra 1 percentage point of real GDP growth (fiscal balance) for metal exporters compared with metal importers,” the lender notes.

But as Australian miners gear up to supply the world’s renewable revolution, the IMF warns that sky-high resource prices and constrained production elasticity in the short term may actually stymie the global shift.

“If metal demand ramps up and supply is slow to react, a multiyear price rally may follow—possibly derailing or delaying the energy transition,” the report notes.

One salve would be to reduce “high policy uncertainty” which “may hinder mining investment,” the IMF says.

“A credible, globally coordinated climate policy; high environmental, social, labor, and governance standards; and reduced trade barriers and export restrictions would allow markets to operate efficiently, directing investment to sufficiently expand metal supply— thus avoiding unnecessarily increasing the cost of low-carbon technologies and supporting the clean energy transition.”

With billions of dollars on the line, the IMF report will renew focus on Australia’s climate commitments and its navigation of a rapidly-greening global economy.

The federal government is yet to announce any formal net zero by 2050 target, although The Australian reports Prime Minister Scott Morrison is preparing to present a heavily-vetted proposal to Cabinet on Wednesday.

International figureheads including Prince Charles have called upon Morrison to attend the impending COP26 conference in Glasgow, billed as one of the most significant international summits since the Paris Agreement of 2015, but the Prime Minister has not confirmed his involvement.

Iron ore magnate Andrew Forrest has also called on Australia to actively participate in the green transition, saying the nation could deter international investors if it does not keep up with global climate mores.

Beyond the financial implications of lagging policy, the IMF report reiterates the civilisation-defining impact of continued climate inaction.

“Moreover, doubling down efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions is critical—current actions and pledges are not enough to prevent a dangerous overheating of the planet,” the report states.

Countries adopt ‘Kunming Declaration’ to tackle biodiversity loss

The Kunming declaration calls for "urgent and integrated action" to transform all sectors of the global economy.

Danson Cheong
China Correspondent

BEIJING - Some 195 countries have pledged to come up with an “ambitious and transformative” plan to reverse biodiversity loss, saying “strong political momentum” was needed to meet the “defining challenge of this decade”.

The pledge was contained in the “Kunming Declaration” adopted on Wednesday (Oct 13) during the United Nations Biodiversity Conference, also known as COP15. The declaration was named after the Chinese city where COP15 is taking place.

The UN summit, the biggest global meeting on biodiversity, is taking place in two parts. The first is being held largely virtually this week because of Covid-19 pandemic-related restrictions in China. There will be a second in-person round next year when a global biodiversity agreement is expected to be finalised.

The first part of the summit is seen as essential for generating momentum toward reaching such an agreement, which has been compared to the Paris Climate Accords for biodiversity.

Announcing the adoption of the Kunming Declaration, China’s environment minister Huang Runqiu said its main purpose was to reflect “the political will of all parties and to send a strong message to the international community of our strong determination and the consensus in the field of biodiversity”.

He emphasised that it was not a binding international agreement. Tough negotiations lie ahead as countries work towards a framework to guide efforts to safeguard nature and ecosystems.

But WWF International’s director of global policy and advocacy Lin Li noted that it signalled that the aim of a future global biodiversity framework should be reversing biodiversity loss by 2030, and address unsustainable economic practices.

“It is essential for government negotiators to translate these key elements into a strong global biodiversity framework,” she said.

“With the funding gap to reverse the decline in biodiversity by 2030 estimated at more than US$700 billion (S$947 million) per year, the agreement must include adequate financing, as well as a robust implementation mechanism.”

During their virtual discussions this week those attending the summit in Kunming said the key was to ensure that targets or goals reflected in the eventual biodiversity agreement could be implemented.

Moving forward, negotiations will centre on a draft text called the “Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework”.

The current draft text spells out 21 “targets for urgent action” over the next decade.

They include protecting at least 30 per cent of land and sea areas, eliminating plastic waste in oceans and adopting sustainable practices for agriculture, aquaculture and forestry.

It also includes boosting investment in biodiversity protection to US$200 billion a year and reducing subsidies to industries that harm the environment by at least US$500 billion a year.

Countries have already missed the 2020 biodiversity targets set a decade ago in Aichi, Japan.

JPMorgan CEO Doesn’t Like Bitcoin, But Won’t Stop Doing Crypto Business

Cryptocurrency Oct 13, 2021

JPMorgan CEO Doesn’t Like Bitcoin, But Won’t Stop Doing Crypto Business


There seems to be a contradiction between JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon’s stance on Bitcoin and the bank’s immediate and future plans.

However, the cryptocurrency business within JPMorgan continues from strength to strength, although Dimon doesn’t smell good about bitcoins.

He admits that cryptocurrencies will endure and BTC could increase up to 10 times in the next few years.

JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM) CEO, Jamie Dimon, reiterated his criticism of Bitcoin, saying it is a worthless currency that will eventually be regulated by governments. The CEO of the world’s largest investment bank has also called cryptocurrencies “fool’s gold” before.

Looking at what is happening in the United States, Dimon predicted that cryptocurrencies will end up being regulated by governments.

"Whatever you think about this, the Government is going to regulate it, be it for anti-laundering [of funds] or for taxes," said the banking executive during a conference at the Institute of International Finance.

Dimon, who has wasted no time criticizing Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, said: “Personally, I think that Bitcoin is worthless.” But his anti-crypto thinking hasn’t stopped his bank from increasing crypto-asset business plans.

While commenting on JPMorgan’s recent decision to create a fund for clients with more robust wealth as demand for Bitcoin and other crypto assets continues to grow, Dimon has admitted that the bank’s clients want Bitcoin.

If Customers Want Bitcoins, We Can’t Stop It

On several occasions, Dimon has compared cryptocurrencies to cigarettes. “I don’t think you should smoke cigarettes either,” he said. “Our clients are adults, they don’t agree [with me]. So, if they want to have access to buy or sell Bitcoin, we can’t custody it, but we can give them legitimate, as clean as possible access,” said the bank manager.

In contrast to Dimon’s sentiment, the price of Bitcoin on Tuesday at 9:00 AM EST stood at $57,179, which reaffirms the view that the cryptocurrency seems to have stabilized around $50,000.

While Bitcoin still remains below its April all-time high, when it hit $64,000, Bitcoin has posted its five-month high this week. It has also managed to slightly reduce the volatility seen in previous months.

Dimon Says Price of Bitcoin Could Multiply by 10

The JPMorgan CEO’s criticism of BTC has not stopped him from admitting that the price of the cryptocurrency could go up 10 times in the next five years.

Speaking to The Times of India last month, Dimon said that the rise in the price of Bitcoin would not be due to the intrinsic value of the currency but because of “speculation (which) occurs in all markets of the world, including communist countries.”

During that same interview he also said: “I am not a buyer of Bitcoins. I think if you borrow money to buy Bitcoins, you are a fool.”

He added, “I’ve always believed it’ll be made illegal someplace,” which happened recently in China. The Chinese government declared all commercial activities related to cryptocurrencies illegal.

At the same time, China is making efforts to consolidate its digital yuan project to compete with the dollar and dominate international trade. China’s regime, which sees private cryptocurrencies as a dangerous competitor to its own currency, has declared that they constitute a highly volatile and speculative form of investment.

On The Flipside


JPMorgan Chase announced in 2019 the launch of a digital currency called JPM Coin.
Then in October 2020, the bank created a new unit for blockchain projects.
In August of this year, the company decided to give its wealth management clients access to crypto-asset funds.

Why You Should Care?


China’s war on BTC and fears over its regulation affected the price of all cryptocurrencies. From May to June, the price of BTC plummeted from $59,000 to $29,000.

But, after the White House, the Federal Reserve, and the US SEC said they would not ban BTC, its price went up again.The Biden administration, however, is studying cryptocurrencies more closely and monitoring the flows of dirty money obtained through the network. The US federal government is offering up to $10,000 in reward money to those who provide information on ransomware attacks.

Despite viewing cryptocurrencies as useless assets, JPMorgan Chase CEO, Jamie Dimon, is of the opinion that cryptocurrencies will continue to exist.

 

Binance to halt Chinese yuan-crypto trading and restrict mainland China customers to withdrawals only

Shalini NagarajanOct. 13, 2021

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Changpeng Zhao, CEO of Binance. REUTERS/Darrin Zammit Lupi

• Binance will discontinue Chinese yuan trading on December 31, it said on Wednesday.
• The crypto exchange said it would run checks to ensure users in mainland China can only make withdrawals.
• Binance says it has been blocked in China since 2017, and doesn’t engage in local exchange business.
• Sign up here for our daily newsletter, 10 Things Before the Opening Bell.

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Binance will end the use of the Chinese yuan on its peer-to-peer platform, in the crypto exchange’s latest move to cooperate with regulators in China.

The company, which is one of the world’s largest exchanges, is set to discontinue support for the Chinese currency on December 31 this year, it said in a statement Wednesday.

Binance added that people in mainland China will be allowed to only make withdrawals, redeem, or close positions.

“At the same time, Binance will conduct an inventory of platform users,” the crypto exchange said. “If the platform finds users in mainland China, their corresponding accounts will be switched to the ‘withdrawal only’ mode.”

Relevant users will be notified of the restriction to withdrawals via email seven days before the transition.

In late September, Chinese authorities declared all crypto-related transactions illegal and banned foreign exchanges from providing services to the country’s residents. Almost immediately, Binance said it would no longer accept registrations linked to Chinese mobile phone numbers.

Chinese crypto exchange Huobi said too it would stop new user registrations by mainland customers, and retire existing accounts by the end of this year. Two other Asia-focused crypto exchanges, Matrixport and Mexc, are also following by cutting off existing users.

Beijing’s recent hostile stance against towards crypto didn’t come as a surprise, after authorities imposed their first related “ban” in 2013.

Since then, China has been attempting to choke off the digital asset sector via various restrictions that target a range of market segments. In 2017, local crypto exchanges were ordered to end operations.

A Binance spokesperson told Insider that the crypto exchange has been blocked in China since 2017 and local users haven’t been able to access its website.

“Binance does not currently hold exchange operations in China,” the spokesperson said, and added that the company takes its compliance obligations “very seriously.”

News of crypto-related bans from China has not impacted the adoption rate of cryptocurrencies, according to Freddie Williams, a sales trader at UK-based digital asset broker GlobalBlock.

“It has not prevented adoption of bitcoin and digital assets from continuing their upward trend,” Williams said.

PENTACOSTAL COLONIALISM
‘It’s not Satanism’: Zimbabwe church leaders preach vaccines
By FARAI MUTSAKAan hour ago


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Members of an Apostolic Christian Church group gather for a prayer meeting on the outskirts of the capital Harare, Friday, Sept. 10, 2021. The Apostolic church is one of Zimbabwe's most skeptical groups when it comes to COVID-19 vaccines. Many of these Christian churches, which combine traditional beliefs with a Pentecostal doctrine, preach against modern medicine and demand followers seek healing or protection against disease through spiritual means like prayer and the use of holy water. To combat that, authorities have formed teams of campaigners who are also churchgoers to dispel misconceptions about the vaccines in their own churches.

(AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi)

PHOTO ESSAY CLICK ABOVE

SEKE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Yvonne Binda stands in front of a church congregation, all in pristine white robes, and tells them not to believe what they’ve heard about COVID-19 vaccines.

“The vaccine is not linked to Satanism,” she says. The congregants, members of a Christian Apostolic church in the southern African nation of Zimbabwe, are unmoved. But when Binda, a vaccine campaigner and member of an Apostolic church herself, promises them soap, buckets and masks, there are enthusiastic shouts of “Amen!”

Apostolic groups that infuse traditional beliefs into a Pentecostal doctrine are among the most skeptical in Zimbabwe when it comes to COVID-19 vaccines, with an already strong mistrust of modern medicine. Many followers put faith in prayer, holy water and anointed stones to ward off disease or cure illnesses.

The congregants Binda addressed in the rural area of Seke sang about being protected by the holy spirit, but have at least acknowledged soap and masks as a defense against the coronavirus. Binda is trying to convince them to also get vaccinated — and that’s a tough sell.

Congregation leader Kudzanayi Mudzoki had to work hard to persuade his flock just to stay and listen to Binda speak about vaccines.