Saturday, February 08, 2020

Exclusive: South Africa seeks to unlock stalled arms sales to Saudi, UAE

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa aims to free up over a billion dollars in stalled weapons sales, including to Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates, by amending a document at the heart of an export row, a senior arms control official told Reuters.

FILE PHOTO: A Denel company logo is seen at the entrance of their business divisions in Pretoria, South Africa, December 4, 2018. REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko/File Photo

Local defense firms have lobbied the government for months to change a clause in the export document requiring foreign customers to allow South African officials to inspect their facilities to verify that weapons aren’t being transferred to third parties.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE buy at least a third of South Africa’s arms exports and have been engaged in a war in Yemen. They refused to agree to the inspections because they considered them a violation of their sovereignty, industry officials told Reuters in November.

“I can confirm that the amendment of the end-user certificate was approved by the NCACC recently,” Ezra Jele, the head of the secretariat of South Africa’s National Conventional Arms Control Committee (NCACC), told Reuters.

A draft letter from Jele to a defense industry association obtained by Reuters and authenticated by two industry sources said the NCACC planned to replace a clause allowing for “on-site verification ... performed by an inspector designated by the (defense) minister.”

The new clause would state “on-site verification of the controlled items may be performed, through diplomatic process”.

Defense sources said the changes were aimed at assuaging the concerns of importing nations that objected to the original wording, in the hope that exports could resume.

Before it takes effect, the amendment must be published in the government gazette. But the letter stated that permission was being sought from the defense minister for companies to use the new language in the interim.

Jele declined to comment on the letter, as did the head of the industry association to whom it was addressed.

South Africa has sought to reform its defense industry – once a pillar of the racist apartheid regime – by making export approvals subject to human rights considerations.

It has long included a clause in its end-user certificates requiring on-site inspections, though it was rarely acted upon. But in 2017, arms control officials moved the clause to the front page of the certificates, and countries including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Oman and Algeria refused to sign them.

Exports to the Gulf and North Africa are a key source of revenue for local defense companies including state-owned Denel, Paramount Group and Rheinmetall Denel Munition, a joint venture between Denel and German industrial giant Rheinmetall (RHMG.DE).

Defense firms threatened hundreds of job cuts if the wording of the clause wasn’t changed to resolve the row.

SEE PERMANENT ARMS ECONOMY

South Africa seeks to unlock stalled arms sales to Saudi, UAE

February 8, 2020

South Africa's flag [File photo]

February 8, 2020 at 4:44 pm

South Africa aims to free up over a billion dollars in stalled weapons sales, including to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, by amending a document at the heart of an export row, a senior arms control official told Reuters.

Local defence firms have lobbied the government for months to change a clause in the export document requiring foreign customers to allow South African officials to inspect their facilities to verify that weapons aren’t being transferred to third parties.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE buy at least a third of South Africa’s arms exports and have been engaged in a war in Yemen. They refused to agree to the inspections because they considered them a violation of their sovereignty, industry officials told Reuters in November.

READ: South Africa to push UAE on failure to ratify extradition treaty

“I can confirm that the amendment of the end-user certificate was approved by the NCACC recently,” Ezra Jele, the head of the secretariat of South Africa’s National Conventional Arms Control Committee (NCACC), told Reuters.

A draft letter from Jele to a defence industry association obtained by Reuters and authenticated by two industry sources said the NCACC planned to replace a clause allowing for “on-site verification … performed by an inspector designated by the (defence) minister.”

The new clause would state “on-site verification of the controlled items may be performed, through diplomatic process”.

Defence sources said the changes were aimed at assuaging the concerns of importing nations that objected to the original wording, in the hope that exports could resume.

Before it takes effect, the amendment must be published in the government gazette. But the letter stated that permission was being sought from the defence minister for companies to use the new language in the interim.

Jele declined to comment on the letter, as did the head of the industry association to whom it was addressed.

South Africa has sought to reform its defence industry – once a pillar of the racist apartheid regime – by making export approvals subject to human rights considerations.

READ: Saudi state defence firm pens deal with South Africa’s Paramount

It has long included a clause in its end-user certificates requiring on-site inspections, though it was rarely acted upon. But in 2017, arms control officials moved the clause to the front page of the certificates, and countries including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Oman and Algeria refused to sign them.

Exports to the Gulf and North Africa are a key source of revenue for local defence companies including state-owned Denel, Paramount Group and Rheinmetall Denel Munition, a joint venture between Denel and German industrial giant Rheinmetall.

Defence firms threatened hundreds of job cuts if the wording of the clause wasn’t changed to resolve the row.

https://www.middleeasteye.net/discover/pictures-art-arms-trade-fair-dsei-kapoor-fairey

German coalition demands new elections in Thuringia after far-right row

The leaders of the Social Democratic Party SPD Saskia Esken and Norbert Walter-Borjans speak to journalists in front of the Chancellery after a meeting for crisis talks after Thuringia's State Premier was elected with support from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), at the Chancellery in Berlin, Germany, February 8, 2020. REUTERS/Annegret Hilse

BERLIN/FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Germany’s ruling coalition on Saturday called for fresh elections in the eastern state of Thuringia, whose pro-business premier stepped down only two days after being helped into the job with votes from the far right.

On Thursday, Thomas Kemmerich of the FDP became the first state premier to get into power with the support of the far right AfD, which sided with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) in the vote.

Kemmerich on Saturday declared his immediate resignation, FDP’s Thuringia branch said on Twitter, prompting the heads of Germany’s ruling parties - the CDU, the Christian Social Union (CSU) and the Social Democrats (SPD) - to call for new elections.

“The election of Thuringia’s state premier with a majority that was only reached with the votes of the AfD, is unforgivable,” they said in a joint statement, adding a new premier had to be elected right away.

The scandal has been particularly damaging for the CDU because the AfD branch in Thuringia is headed by Bjoern Hoecke, a militantly anti-immigrant figure who leads a radical wing within his party that is monitored by the domestic intelligence agency for possible unconstitutional activities.

A poll on Friday showed support for the CDU in Thuringia falling by some 10%.

The scandal has also weakened CDU national leader Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, a protege of Chancellor Angela Merkel. Seen by many as Merkel’s would-be successor, Kramp-Karrenbauer is struggling to assert her control over the conservative party after the Thuringia branch defied her and sided with the AfD.

TRUMPS NIGHT OF THE LONG KNIVES

TRUMP PLAYS LADY MACBETH
'OUT': Trump says he was right to remove 'insubordinate' NSC aide
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday defended the ouster of impeachment witness Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman from the White House National Security Council, calling him “insubordinate” and saying he had incorrectly reported the contents of Trump’s “perfect” telephone calls.

Vindman was one of two witnesses who provided some of the most damaging testimony during Trump’s impeachment investigation who were ousted by the administration on Friday.

Trump tweeted that “Fake News” media kept “talking about ‘Lt. Col.’ Vindman as though I should think only how wonderful he was.

“Actually, I don’t know him, never spoke to him, or met him (I don’t believe!) but, he was very insubordinate, reported contents of my ‘perfect’ calls incorrectly,” Trump said.

Trump added that Vindman was “given a horrendous report by his superior, the man he reported to, who publicly stated that Vindman had problems with judgment, adhering to the chain of command and leaking information. In other words, ‘OUT’.”

Hours after Vindman was escorted from the White House on Friday, Gordon Sondland, another key impeachment witness, said he had been ousted from his post as U.S ambassador to the European Union.

Vindman was among officials who listened to a July 25 call between Trump and Ukraine’s president, Volodimir Zelenskiy. That conversation was at the center of the impeachment probe. Vindman testified that he went immediately to the NSC’s chief lawyer to express concern about it.

Vindman’s attorney, David Pressman, rejected the president’s statements about his client as “obviously false.”

“They conflict with the clear personnel record and the entirety of the impeachment record of which the President is well aware,” he said in a statement.

“While the most powerful man in the world continues his campaign of intimidation, while too many entrusted with political office continue to remain silent, Lieutenant Colonel Vindman continues his service to our country as a decorated, active duty member of our military.”The Pentagon referred a request for comment on Trump’s tweets to the Army, which repeated a statement from Friday that both Vindman and his brother had been reassigned to the Department of the Army.

“Out of respect for their privacy, we will not be providing any further information at this time,” an Army spokesman said

Vindman’s twin brother Yevgeny, who worked as a lawyer at the NSC and is also a lieutenant colonel, was also escorted out of the White House on Friday.

The Democratic-led House of Representatives impeached Trump, a Republican, on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress over his dealings with Ukraine, but he was acquitted by the Republican-dominated Senate on Wednesday.

Two days after his acquittal, Trump ousts two star impeachment witnesses

(Reuters) - President Donald Trump’s administration on Friday ousted the two witnesses who provided the most damaging testimony during his impeachment investigation: Army Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman and Ambassador Gordon Sondland.

Two days after Trump was acquitted by the Republican-controlled Senate on charges of trying to pressure Ukraine to investigate a political rival, Vindman — the top Ukraine expert at the White House’s National Security Council — was escorted out of the building, according to his lawyer.

“Vindman was asked to leave for telling the truth,” said his lawyer, David Pressman.

Hours later, Sondland said he had been fired from his post as U.S ambassador to the European Union.

The two men served as star witnesses during the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives’ impeachment investigation last year.

Vindman’s twin brother Yevgeny, who worked as a lawyer at the NSC, also was escorted out of the White House, according to Michael Volkov, who represented Vindman when he testified in the impeachment inquiry.

Trump has said he is still upset with Democrats and government officials involved in the impeachment investigation, even after he was acquitted on Wednesday.

“I’m not happy with him. You think I’m supposed to be happy with him?” he said of Vindman on Friday.

An NSC spokesman declined to comment.

Vindman, a decorated combat veteran, testified in November that he “couldn’t believe what I was hearing” when he listened in on a July 25 phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelenskiy that became the focus of the inquiry.

Trump asked Zelenskiy to launch investigations into both Democratic rival Joe Biden and a discredited theory that Ukraine, not Russia, colluded with Democrats to harm Trump in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Sondland, a wealthy Republican donor and Oregon hotelier who served as U.S. Ambassador to the European Union, testified that he was following Trump’s orders when he pushed Ukrainian officials to carry out investigations sought by the president.

“I am grateful to President Trump for having given me the opportunity to serve,” he said.

The White House and State Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Sondland’s removal.

VIDEO https://www.reuters.com/video/?videoId=OVBZRCFKV

“This is as clear a case of retribution as I’ve seen during my 27 years in the Senate,” said Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein.

Biden’s campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination suffered a serious setback when he came in fourth place at the Democrats’ first state contest in Iowa this week.

Vindman’s two-year stint at the White House had been due to end in July. An Army spokesperson said both brothers had been reassigned to the Army, but declined to give further information “out of respect for their privacy.”

Another senior White House aide who testified over impeachment, Jennifer Williams, left this week for a post at the U.S. military’s Central Command, according to Bloomberg News.

Vindman downplayed concerns that he would suffer payback for speaking out when he testified to Congress. “I will be fine for telling the truth,” he said.

Trump doesn't really respect members of the military. He uses them as props.

Anthony L. Fisher

Trump uses the military to polish his political credentials, but only when it suits him. Alex Wong/Getty Images

President Donald Trump loves military parades and quoting from the film "Patton," but when it comes to actually treating military personnel and their families with respect, he's got a mixed record.
He's insulted war heroes and their parents, lambasted generals as "dopes and babies," and blithely dismissed the symptoms of soldiers with traumatic brain injuries.
Trump also pardoned a convicted war criminal against the objections of the men and women he served with, who described him as "freaking evil."
Throughout his decades in public life, Trump has epitomized the idea of hollow, performative patriotism.
This is an opinion column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author

President Donald Trump isn't the first president to use the military as a prop, but it's become clear that he's the most brazenly cynical in doing so.

Ther latest examples of Trump's exploiting the military for his political benefit came at the State of the Union address this week.

Trump addressed Army Staff Sgt. Christopher Hake's widow, Kelli, relaying heartbreaking words from a letter Hake wrote to his then 1-year-old son, Gage, while on deployment to Iraq in 2008.

Hake never made it home. He was killed by a roadside bomb.

Trump told Kelli and Gage: "Chris will live in our hearts forever. He is looking down on you now. Thank you." That received thunderous applause from the chamber of a joint session of Congress.

The president then described giving the order to kill Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who Trump said was responsible for the bomb that took Hake's life.

Minutes later, Trump used another military family as a prop, this time pulling an Oprah-style stunt where he surprised Sgt. 1st Class Townsend Williams' wife and children with the news that he was not only back from a deployment to Afghanistan — he was in the building and ready for an on-camera reunion.

Williams was one of the 14,000 US troops deployed to Afghanistan on Trump's orders as the administration has struggled to find a negotiated exit amid an upsurge of violence.

To recap: Trump used a Gold Star family as a prop to boast about an assassination that he ordered, then followed it up by using another family in a made-for-TV stunt to extol the sacrifices made by "extraordinary military families."

Nationally televised tributes to military families are lovely gestures, but by using what should have been a humble show of respect to a widow and her child to justify a military action he ordered, Trump explicitly politicized a soldier's death.
Trump's love for the military is fickle

Trump loves to bask in the reflected glory of veterans, but his tune changes as soon as military personnel don't conveniently fit with his narrative.

Throughout his decades in public life, Trump has epitomized the idea of hollow, performative patriotism.

He's had a lifelong love affair with military pageantry. Despite receiving five deferments to avoid serving in Vietnam, Trump said he felt as if he truly was in the military because he attended an upstate New York military prep school. He's repeatedly touted the idea of military parades. As an adult, he was known to swoon in the presence of high-ranking generals. He's fond of quoting lines from the film "Patton."

But then Trump ran for president and his view of the institution changed, especially when it clashed with his ideas.

On the campaign trail, then candidate Trump infamously refuted pollster Frank Luntz in 2015 for calling Sen. John McCain a "war hero."

"He's not a war hero," Trump said. "He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren't captured."

This was just the first time it became clear that Trump likes war heroes, unless they disagree with him.

In 2016 Trump lashed out at the parents of Army Capt. Humayun Khan — a Muslim immigrant from Pakistan who was killed in Iraq in 2004 — after Khan's father, speaking at the 2016 Democratic National Convention, gave a stirring denunciation of Trump's call to bar immigrants from majority-Muslim countries.

Khan's mother, who did not speak while standing onstage at the DNC, was "devoid of feeling the pain of a mother who has sacrificed her son," Trump said.

And as reported in Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig's new book, "A Very Stable Genius," Trump in 2017 threw a fit at a meeting of the Joint Chiefs and other senior advisers, including then-Secretary of Defense James Mattis (a retired four-star Marine general), calling them "a bunch of dopes and babies" and declaring he "wouldn't go to war with you people."

What had they done to so offend Trump, who would normally fawn over such decorated veterans?

They were explaining things like the importance of the post-World War II international order as a security benefit for the US, and that it wasn't the military's job to act as the president's collection agent to shake down NATO allies who the real-estate mogul Trump believed weren't paying their "rent."
Trump's disrespect of the military is more than just words

As commander-in-chief, Trump sent as many as 6,000 troops to the US-Mexico border, where he hoped he could use the military to detain illegal immigration. (It can't: That's forbidden by the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which prohibits the military from enforcing the law unless authorized by Congress or the Constitution.) But some of the troops who were deployed domestically were ordered to serve their country by painting portions of Trump's border wall.

More recently, he restored the rank of Eddie Gallagher, a convicted war criminal whose fellow Navy SEALs described as "freaking evil," "toxic," and "perfectly OK with killing anybody that was moving." Trump invited him to his Mar-a-Lago resort for a personal meeting, which Gallagher has used as a springboard for TV appearances and apparel sales.

Against the objections of top Pentagon officials, Trump issued full pardons to two Army officers convicted of murder.

After the killing of Soleimani last month and Iran's retaliatory strike on an Iraqi base housing US military personnel, Trump said there were no US casualties. Two weeks later, the Defense Department said 34 troops had been diagnosed with concussions or brain trauma. Trump, normally one to luxuriate in the gory details of battle, downplayed their symptoms as "headaches" and "not very serious."

So while Trump attempts to use the military to polish his political credentials, he does so only when it suits him. When it doesn't, the president insults the dead, brushes off the wounded, uses the living as political pawns, and venerates the war criminal. It's a perverse way of showing respect for the military.

The Trump administration went back on its promise to protect whistleblowers' safety

Ellen Cranley

Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman, director for European Affairs at the National Security Council, testifies before a House Intelligence Committee hearing as part of the impeachment inquiry into U.S. President Donald Trump REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman was escorted out of the White House on Friday, nearly three months after he testified against President Donald Trump in the impeachment inquiry.
Vindman was a key witness who voiced his concerns about Trump's contact with Ukraine while also addressing his worries about speaking out against the president.
In comments to reporters at the time, Defense Secretary Mark Esper vowed that Vindman was protected by guidelines meant to shield whistleblowers from retaliation.
Trump also fired Gordon Sondland, the US's ambassador to the EU, in what appeared to be a sweeping act of personal vengeance once the impeachment process wrapped up in the Senate.
Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

President Donald Trump's abrupt firing of Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman appears to cross guarantees that Defense Secretary Mark Esper previously voiced, that vowed protections for whistleblowers.

In a Friday night segment, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow pointed to a November 2019 tweet from Marcus Weisgerber, an editor at military and defense outlet Defense One, which contained a transcript of an exchange with Esper, where the secretary said there was "no retaliation" allowed under the law against whistleblowers.

"All I'm saying is that if you come forward with information that you feel is, that you feel you are a whistleblower, then you are protected," Esper said, according to the transcript.
—Marcus Weisgerber (@MarcusReports) November 11, 2019

Maddow said Friday night that the comments deserved to be "re-upped in the public record," hours after Vindman, the top Ukraine expert on the National Security Council, and his twin brother were fired from their posts in the White House.
Vindman openly voiced his concerns over retaliation

Vindman came into Trump's crosshairs last fall, when he testified in the House impeachment inquiry on November 19 about his firsthand knowledge of Trump's contact with Ukrainian authorities and his concerns over a July 25 call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, where Trump pressured Zelensky to investigate his political rival, former President Joe Biden and his son.

During the opening statement in his testimony, Vindman compared the treatment of whistleblowers in America to how they might be treated in Russia before addressing his father, who came to America from the Soviet Union, and reiterating his commitment to "telling the truth."

"Dad, my sitting here today, in the US Capitol talking to our elected officials is proof that you made the right decision forty years ago to leave the Soviet Union and come here to United States of America in search of a better life for our family," Vindman said. "Do not worry, I will be fine for telling the truth."

Vindman's lawyer said in a scathing statement released Friday that Vindman was fired for "telling the truth," which stood in direct contrast to reports around the February 7 firing claiming the move was a "broader effort to shrink" the Trump administration's foreign-policy bureaucracy. Comments from Trump and his closest allies quickly undercut that already-shaky defense.

Trump told reporters hours before Vindman's departure that he was "not happy" with the official, who testified in compliance with a lawful congressional subpoena. Trump's comment came days after White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said the president believes "people should pay for" the way Trump was treated.

Trump's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., offered up perhaps the most damning comment on the background of the decision, tweeting, "Allow me a moment to thank—and this may be a bit of a surprise—Adam Schiff," referring to the House Intelligence Committee chairman who managed witness testimony in the impeachment hearings.

"Were it not for his crack investigation skills, @realDonaldTrump might have had a tougher time unearthing who all needed to be fired. Thanks, Adam! #FullOfSchiff," Trump Jr. wrote.

SEE ALSO: Alexander Vindman believed he wouldn't be punished for telling the truth in America. Trump proved him wrong.

'He's trying to muzzle everyone': National security veterans were shaken by Trump's decision to 'purge' witnesses who testified against him

Sonam Sheth
Feb 7, 2020,

Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman, director for European Affairs at the National Security Council, testifies before a House Intelligence Committee hearing as part of the impeachment inquiry into U.S. President Donald Trump REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

President Donald Trump sent shockwaves through Washington on Friday when he abruptly fired two key impeachment witnesses and a third official who wasn't involved in the impeachment inquiry but is related to one of the witnesses.

National security and intelligence veterans were stunned. A current FBI special agent characterized Trump's move as "appalling," adding, "He's trying to muzzle everyone who speaks out against him, even if they use the appropriate legal channels."

"We have every reason to expect that — far from having learned his lesson, as some would have us believe — Trump is in the midst of attempting to do away with potential witnesses who would be in a position to call out his wrongdoing," NSC veteran Edward Price told Insider.

"A purge is a good way to put it," Frank Montoya, Jr., a former FBI special agent, told Insider.

The rumblings of payback began almost as soon as the Senate acquitted President Donald Trump on Wednesday of the two charges against him following a bitter impeachment trial.

The next morning, White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham gave the public a preview of the plan of action Trump would outline in a speech Thursday afternoon addressing his acquittal.

"He is going to be honest, going to speak with honesty and I think with a little bit of humility that he and the family went through a lot," Grisham told Fox News. "But I think he's also going to talk about just how horribly he was treated and, you know, that maybe people should pay for that."

The first person to pay the price was Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the top Ukraine expert on the National Security Council. Vindman, a decorated war veteran and Purple Heart recipient, was abruptly fired and escorted out of the White House on Friday along with his twin brother, Yevgeny, who also served on the NSC.

Vindman was given no explanation for his dismissal, but his attorney made it clear in a statement to Insider that the army colonel was forced out as retaliation for testifying against Trump in the impeachment hearings after receiving a congressional subpoena.

Shortly after, Gordon Sondland, the US's ambassador to the European Union and another pivotal impeachment witness against Trump, was recalled from his post.

It was something like a Friday Night Massacre, a peculiar reversal of the famous Saturday Night Massacre in the 1970s, when the attorney general and deputy attorney general resigned in protest during the Watergate scandal after refusing to carry out President Richard Nixon's order to fire the special prosecutor investigating him.

"This is an unconscionable act of retaliation," Jens David Ohlin, a vice dean at Cornell Law School and an expert in criminal and constitutional law, told Insider.
He went on to excoriate Republican Sens. Susan Collins and Lamar Alexander, who argued that Trump had learned his lesson from impeachment. But "the opposite is happening," Ohlin said. "Trump is emboldened, angry, unhinged, and vindictive."

U.S. President Donald Trump campaign rally in Wildwood Reuters

'He's trying to muzzle everyone who speaks out against him'

Bloomberg News reported on Thursday, hours before Alexander Vindman was dismissed, that the White House planned to package his removal as part of a broader effort to slim down bureaucracy in the foreign policy apparatus

But Trump "taking direct aim at his perceived critics is something that much more closely resembles a purge than an orderly streamlining," Edward Price, the former senior director of the National Security Council under President Barack Obama, told Insider.

He added: "We have every reason to expect that — far from having learned his lesson, as some would have us believe — Trump is in the midst of attempting to do away with potential witnesses who would be in a position to call out his wrongdoing."

One current FBI special agent, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to publicly comment on the matter, characterized Trump's actions as "appalling."

"He's trying to muzzle everyone who speaks out against him, even if they use the appropriate legal channels," the agent told Insider.

Asked whether there could be any motivation for ousting the Vindmans that wasn't rooted in political vengeance, Price deadpanned, "Two brothers from different Directorates with different responsibilities sacked on the same day, at the same time, in the same unusual way? No."

Frank Montoya, a former FBI special agent, echoed that point, telling Insider, "A purge is a good way to put it. The fact that [Vindman's] brother got the axe, too, seals it."

Vindman is fluent in English, Russian, and Ukrainian and brought a deep knowledge of the US-Ukraine and US-Russia relationship with him to the NSC when he joined in 2018.

"It's a loss to the nation when the White House gets rid of a subject matter expert as highly qualified as [Lt. Col.] Vindman simply because they don't like that he speaks truth to power," Montoya said. "That makes us weaker, not stronger."

National Security Council aide Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman is sworn in to testify before the House Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2019, during a public impeachment hearing of President Donald Trump's efforts to tie US aid for Ukraine to investigations of his political opponents. Andrew Harnik/AP

Trump 'is now getting rid of war heroes and not some D-list star' on 'The Apprentice'

The way the Vindmans were fired also set off alarms.

"It's incredibly unusual," Price said. The Obama administration downsized its NSC staff just like the Trump administration claims to be doing now. But in the former case, "zero staffers were escorted off the premises, and it happened through natural attrition, as was supposed to have been the case in this process."

Vindman catapulted into the national spotlight when he testified last year about his firsthand knowledge of Trump's July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and White House lawyers' subsequent efforts to cover up records of the conversation after Vindman reported his concerns.

During the call, Trump repeatedly asked Zelensky to launch politically motivated investigations targeting former Vice President Joe Biden — a 2020 Democratic presidential frontrunner — and the Democratic Party as a whole. Trump made those demands while withholding vital military aid and a White House meeting that Zelensky desperately wanted and still hasn't gotten

Vindman listened in on the phone call and testified that he immediately reported what had taken place to the NSC's top lawyer, John Eisenberg, because he was "concerned" and found Trump's "demand" both "inappropriate" and "improper."

Sondland, meanwhile, was one of Trump's handpicked agents in charge of running what witnesses characterized as the administration's "irregular" foreign policy channel that sought to carry out a "domestic political errand." Specifically: investigations in exchange for military aid and a White House meeting.

The now-former EU ambassador testified that there was a "quid pro quo" in which Trump leveraged a White House meeting in exchange for investigations. Sondland also told Congress that "everyone was in the loop," including top brass at the White House and State Department.

Price told Insider that Friday's developments indicate that there is "every reason to expect that — far from having learned his lesson, as some would have us believe — Trump is in the midst of attempting to do away with potential witnesses who would be in a position to call out his wrongdoing.

Jeffrey Cramer, a longtime former federal prosecutor who spent 12 years at the Justice Department, skewered the president for his actions, telling Insider, "He has the right and power to be a vindictive accused who was let off the hook by a gaggle of politicians afraid of his tweets."

What Trump is doing is "a far cry from when he was on his game show," "The Apprentice," Cramer added. "He is now getting rid of war heroes and not some D-list star."

Vindman's ouster, in particular, could have other far-reaching consequences.

Price said he believed Vindman should have been afforded whistleblower protections, as Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer requested of the Department of Defense last year.

But rather than protecting Vindman, the NSC terminated him, "sending a clear signal not only to Vindman but to all would-be whistleblowers throughout the administration that protections won't apply to them," Price said. "The implication from that is clear."

Iran says it is ready to mediate between Turkey and Syria

BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS

FILE PHOTO: Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei delivers Friday prayers sermon, in Tehran, Iran January 17, 2020. Official Khamenei website/Handout via REUTERS

DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran is ready to help Turkey and Syria resolve their differences over the nearly nine-year-old war in Syria, the Foreign Ministry said on Saturday, adding that Tehran backs the sovereignty of its key regional ally Damascus.

Turkey has backed rebels looking to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, while Iran and Russia have supported Assad’s forces in the war. The three countries have also collaborated on a political solution to the conflict.

In a meeting between the visiting United Nations’ special envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, and Iranian officials, Tehran underlined the importance of resolving issues in Syria through diplomacy, it said on its website.

“During the meeting, Iran reiterated that civilians in Syria should not be used as human shields ... and that Iran is ready to mediate between Turkey and Syria to solve the issue,” the website reported.

Iranian state TV reported that Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, in a separate meeting with Pedersen in Tehran, said Iran was prepared to help in the de-escalation of the crisis in Syria with respect to Syria’s independence and sovereignty.

Russian-backed Syrian forces have tried to capture Syria’s Idlib province, the last rebel stronghold in the country, displacing more than half a million people since early December.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has threatened to drive back the Syrian troops in Idlib unless they withdrew by the end of the month, after eight Turkish soldiers were killed on Monday by Syrian government shelling near the town of Saraqeb.

Turkey reinforces troops in Syria's Idlib, talks with Russia

AZAZ, Syria (Reuters) - Turkey reinforced its military presence in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province on Saturday as Turkish and Russian officials held talks about the Syrian government offensive there, which has displaced more than half a million people in two months.

FILE PHOTO: Trucks carry belongings of people fleeing from Maarat al-Numan, in northern Idlib, Syria December 24, 2019. REUTERS/Mahmoud Hassano/File Photo

Turkey says the advances by Russian-backed Syrian troops and their allies threaten a fresh humanitarian disaster, driving another wave of potential refugees to its southern border, and has threatened to act if they do not pull back.

Witnesses at the border said convoys of Turkish military vehicles had been crossing into Idlib since Friday, delivering supplies before turning back to return with more.

The beefing up of Turkish forces has failed to stem the advance by Syrian government forces, which took control of a strategic town close to the provincial capital and also made gains to the east of Idlib - the last major enclave of opposition to President Bashar al-Assad.

In Ankara, officials from Turkey and Russia held three hours of apparently inconclusive talks, agreeing to meet again next week. The two countries support opposing sides in Syria’s nearly nine-year civil war, but have forged a series of agreements since 2017 aimed at containing the bloodshed.

“The situation in Idlib was discussed,” Turkey’s foreign ministry said after the talks. “Steps that could be taken to establish peace on the ground as soon as possible and advance the political process were evaluated.”

The escalation in Idlib has displaced around 600,000 people since the beginning of December, according to the United Nations, and disrupted the fragile cooperation between Russia and Turkey, which already hosts 3.6 million Syrian refugees.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, who backs some of the rebels who once aimed to topple Assad, threatened this week to repel the Russian-backed Syrian forces unless they withdraw from the region by the end of the month.

Syrian government forces have pressed their advances, surrounding several Turkish observation posts. On Monday, eight Turkish military personnel were killed in shelling by Syrian government forces.

“Our checkpoints in Idlib continue their duties as usual and are capable of protecting themselves,” Turkey’s Defence Ministry said, adding they would respond to any new attack “in the harshest manner in accordance with legitimate defense”.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based war monitor, said on Saturday that 430 Turkish military vehicles had crossed into Idlib in the last 24 hours.

Turkish forces were setting up a new post at Al-Mastoumah, on the southern approach to Idlib city, the Observatory said.

Syrian state TV broadcast live on Saturday from the strategic town of Saraqeb, located at the junction of the two main highways in Idlib that Assad seeks full control of, and lies less than 10 miles (15 km) southeast of Idlib city.

It said the army had taken full control over the town.

The military media unit of the Lebanese Shi’ite group Hezbollah, which supports Assad, said it had also taken control of Syrian government force had also taken the town of Al-Eis east of Idlib, close to the main north-south highway leading to Aleppo.

Blue collar boom? College grads, baby boomers big winners in Trump's economy

Howard Schneider

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump rolled out an eye-catching statistic in his State of the Union address Tuesday: the wealth held by the poorest half of American households increased three times as fast as the wealth held by the “1%” since he became president.

That’s true, according to Federal Reserve data.

On average, Americans have seen a 17% jump in household wealth since Trump’s election, while wealth at the bottom half has increased 54%.

“This is a blue collar boom,” Trump also said Tuesday. That’s less apparent. The biggest winners on a dollar basis were a familiar group - whites, college graduates, and people born during the “baby boom” between 1946 and 1964.

Since December 2016, President Barack Obama’s last full month in office, aggregate household wealth has increased by $15.8 trillion, but the vast majority went to groups that have tended to accumulate wealth in the past.

Even with a 54% increase in their household wealth under Trump, the poorest half of American households, around 64 million families, still have just 1.6% of household “net worth.”

HALF OF AMERICA

Net worth combines the value of assets like real estate and stocks and subtracts liabilities like mortgage loans and credit card balances.

Because America’s bottom 50% are starting from such a small base, given the enormous disparities in wealth in the United States, even large moves in their fortunes do little to dent the overall distribution. In dollar terms as of the end of September 2019, that latest data available from the Fed, the combined net worth of the poorest half of families was $1.67 trillion out of total U.S. household wealth of $107 trillion.

Here is what the Fed’s Distributional Financial Accounts have to say:

Historically, 17% growth in household wealth over 11 three-month “quarters,” or nearly three years, is pretty standard. There have been 110 such periods since the Fed’s data series begins in mid-1989, and the most recent ranks 55th, squarely in the middle.

On a quarterly basis, compound growth in household wealth since 1989 has averaged 1.39%. Under Trump it is slightly less, at 1.34%.

The bottom half of households saw their net worth rise by 54% under Trump, from $1.08 trillion to $1.67 trillion. That’s compared to an 18% rise for the top 1%, who control roughly a third of the total household wealth in America, or around $34.5 trillion.

Even after those gains, that works out to average net worth of around $26,000 for the bottom half of households versus around $27 million for the ones at the top.

Much of that increase among the bottom half was due to increases in real estate, not stocks, after a resurgence in home ownership rates that began in 2016.

Wages for lower-skilled jobs have of late been rising faster than those for higher-skilled occupations. January non-farm payrolls data show a bigger-than-expected jump in overall employment, bolstered by an increase in construction jobs.

But it takes time for income to be saved and translate into wealth. Since Trump took office, households headed by a college graduate captured 75% of the net worth gains, or around $11.88 trillion.

They represent about a third of all households, according to the Fed survey on which the data series is based.

Overall, households headed by a high school graduate, a group on the front lines of Trump’s pledge to restore blue collar fortunes, lost $0.4 trillion in net worth during his time in office. Those households represent about a fourth of the total.

A BABY BOOMER BOOM

Generationally, households with a head born from 1946 to 1964 did not get fooled again, as the 1971 rock anthem pledged. The title of Trump’s speech was “The Great American Comeback.” It could just as easily have been “OK Boomer, What About the Rest of Us?”

Baby boomers under Trump, himself a member of that generation, captured around $10 trillion of recent wealth gains, or about two-thirds of the total.

The Fed survey’s demographic estimates are as of 2016, and the population would have changed slightly since then. In 2016 about 36% of household heads (in the case of mixed-sex couples the Fed considers the man to be the head, in same-sex couples it is the oldest of the two) were headed by a member of the baby boom.

Wealth accumulates with time, and older people would tend to have a larger base to start with. But for millennials, those born between 1981 and 1996, the last three years of booming markets have meant an extra half trillion dollars only, spread across about 20.6% of households. GenX’ers, born between 1965 and 1980, got about 21% of the gains, and made up roughly 26% of households. The pre-baby boom “Silent Generation” got 16% of the gains, roughly in line with that group’s share of households.

Analyzed by race, the data told a familiar story of inequality. About 84% of recent wealth gains accrued to the 64% of households that self-identified to the Fed as white.

About 4.6% of wealth gains went to the 14.5% of households that identified as black, and 3.8% to the 10.1% of households that identified as Hispanic.

Chinese 'love revolution' chronicled through study of Western cultural influences

by Camille Brown, Stanford University

Scholar chronicles the Chinese "love revolution" through a study of cultural changes influenced by Western ideals — This image was used in a Colgate soap ad in the Chinese variety magazine, The Young Companion Pictorial (Shanghai 1927). The east-west fusion-style clothes, and demeanor of the subjects exemplify the hybrid ideal of romantic love in modern China.

This is a love story: A young Chinese man, Bohe, and a young Chinese woman, Dihua, have just been betrothed. Both of them are amenable to the parentally arranged match. Unfortunately, before they have the chance to marry, the Boxer Rebellion of 1898 erupts and Bohe is separated from Dihua. By the time she is reunited with him in Shanghai, he has become an opium addict. Dihua, a virtuous Confucian woman, tries unsuccessfully to save him and, after he dies, commits the remainder of her life to monastic celibacy.

The relationship in "The Sea of Regret," written in 1906 by Chinese author Wu Jianren, might not fit modern definitions of romantic love. Yet in early 20th-century China, where passion was defined as devotion to Confucian standards shown through one's daily demeanor, Dihua's example of valiant self-sacrifice was the epitome of passionate fulfillment.

This is just one of the examples from 19th-century Chinese culture that help to paint a picture of a society on the cusp of change and grappling with the onslaught of Western ideas, particularly those that associated romantic love with modern freedom and individuality.

Haiyan Lee, an associate professor in Stanford's Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, has been studying Chinese literature and culture from the pivotal period between 1900 and 1950 with the aim of documenting what she calls the "sentimental revolution" of China.

Euro-American ideas about love

Lee characterizes the history of love in China as "a tortuous process of negotiation and hybridization, which is still very much ongoing," yet notes that one of the effects of globalization on modern life has been the localization of European Enlightenment ideas about love, freedom and individuality. Thanks to the enormous impact of Euro-American culture, particularly via Hollywood movies, "contemporary Chinese understandings of love and sexuality are increasingly converging with the dominant Western paradigm."

In other words, globalization has entailed the embracing of "basic Western-derived, sentiment-based assumptions about personhood and sociality," which she said has "paved the path for melodramatic love stories like Titanic to conquer China and much of the rest of the world."

Lee's "Revolution of the Heart: A Genealogy of Love in China, 1900-1950" (Stanford University Press, 2007) chronicles the structures of feeling throughout modern Chinese history. The book was awarded the Association for Asian Studies Joseph Levenson Book Prize in 2009 for the best English-language academic book on post-1900 China.

In her research, Lee develops a genealogy of Chinese notions about love (qing) through an examination of a wide range of texts, including literary, historical, philosophical, sociological and popular cultural genres.

"These ideas of love and emotion tell us a great deal about a culture and society, since when we talk about love, we are also talking about a host of other things," Lee said.

Unconventional study reveals origins of cultural change

The story of Bohe and Dihua, for example, is at one level a universal tragic love story about a star-crossed couple. But at another level, it is also about the virtue of constancy, exemplified by the female protagonist Dihua. Against the backdrop of rebellion, social upheaval and dislocation, Dihua remains constant to her ailing mother and her wayward fiancé. Even after both are dead and gone, she honors their memory by suspending her own life in pious contemplation. Such an extravagant gesture of devotion is likely quite alien to today's readers, Chinese as well as American.

Inspired by an English literature course on Victorian fiction that she took during her doctoral studies, Lee began to consider issues of love and sympathy in the Chinese context. The academic study of emotion in literature and history was relatively novel in the 1990s. Lee said it has since caught on and blossomed into a robust subfield in the last decade, making her ongoing bibliography longer by the month.

Spanning the evolving spectrum of affective expressions in China, Lee's research methodology is somewhat unconventional. Instead of constructing arguments around specific authors or genres in literature, she turns her lens to what is perceived as "common sense" in Chinese culture. It is through this genealogical excavation, done across literary and non-literary materials, that she can identify the process by which cultural norms today took shape over the course of China's modern century.

Lee said what she enjoys most about her approach is how it surprises people that "what they take for granted and have internalized as a cultural instinct has a much more recent origin than they might expect."

Lee takes a similar exploration approach in her upcoming publication, The Stranger and the Chinese Moral Imagination, a work that focuses on contemporary China and issues of morality as refracted through engagement with strangers. In particular, Lee notes how "socialist China marks certain classes of people as enemies of the state and regards them as strangers, outsiders and pariahs."

Study reveals evolutionary clues to honeybees' social complexity

by National Science Foundation

The complex social life of honeybees—with their queens and workers cooperating to produce honey—is deeply entrenched in the public's imagination. But the majority of the world's more than 20,000 bee species are solitary: One female mates, gathers provisions, lays eggs and walls them up with food in a secure spot.

Recent research at the University of New Hampshire advances our understanding of the evolutionary shift from honeybees' loner ancestors to the social beings they are now. "We know that the honeybees of today evolved from solitary ancestors, but we're still figuring out what biological factors may have contributed to that gradual process," says Wyatt Shell, lead author of the study, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

The subject of the NSF-funded research, the North American small carpenter bee (Ceratina calcarata), has a simple sociality. "For example, instead of departing the nest after laying her eggs, a mother may guard her brood while being supported by just a single working daughter," says Shell.

Comparing relative brain gene expression levels of this honeybee, Shell and co-author Sandra Rehan examined which genes might be associated with traits of foraging (visiting flowers to collect pollen and nectar) and guarding (sitting at the nest entrance to prevent predation or parasitism).

These traits are simultaneously demonstrated by a mother bee and one of her daughters during the early autumn, giving the researchers an opportunity to explore the effects of maturation—from pre-reproductive daughters to post-reproductive mothers—on gene expression.

"This research helps in understanding how the complex social behavior many species show could have developed," says Jodie Jawor, a program director in NSF's Division of Integrative Organismal Systems. "How genes influence behavior is an active area of research to understand how behavior evolves, and how behaviors such as group living and collective activities, as seen in the honeybees, are maintained."

Study reveals underlying genetic basis for halictid bee communication and social behavior

More information: Wyatt A. Shell et al. Social modularity: conserved genes and regulatory elements underlie caste-antecedent behavioural states in an incipiently social bee, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences (2019). DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2019.1815

Journal information: Proceedings of the Royal Society B

Sugar ants' preference for pee may reduce greenhouse gas emissions

PEE IS THE SCIENTIFIC TERM FOR URINE

IN AUSTRALIA

by University of South Australia

Sugar ants’ preference for pee may reduce greenhouse gas emissions — Credit: UniSA / Sophie Petit

An unlikely penchant for pee is putting a common sugar ant on the map, as new research from the University of South Australia shows their taste for urine could play a role in reducing greenhouse gases.

Led by wildlife ecologist Associate Professor Topa Petit, the Kangaroo Island-based research found that sugar ants prefer urine over sugar—the food source after which they're named—nocturnally foraging on it to extract nitrogen molecules, some of which could end up in the greenhouse gas, nitrous oxide.

The Australian-first study compared the behaviours of sugar ants (Camponotus terebrans) as they were exposed to different concentrations of urine (human and kangaroo ~ 2.5 percent urea), sugar water (20 percent and 40 percent), and urea in water (at 2.5 percent; 3.5 percent; 7 percent and 10 percent), finding that sugar ants were most attracted to higher concentrations of urea, mining them for long periods within a dry sand substrate.

While other ants are known to be attracted to urine, this is the first time that ants have been observed mining dry urine from sand, and for a long period of time.

Assoc Prof Petit says the curious discovery could play a role in nitrogen cycling.

"When I first noticed the ants swarming to scavenge urine, it was purely by accident. But under research conditions we found that the ants determinedly mined urea patches night after night with greater numbers of ants drawn to higher urea concentrations," Assoc Prof Petit says.

"Camponotus terebrans are undoubtedly looking for urea in urine because, similar to certain other ant species, a bacterium in their digestive tract allows them to process urea to get nitrogen for protein.

"This remarkable ability to extract urea from dry sand not only shows how sugar ants can survive in arid conditions, but also, how they might reduce the release of ammonia from urine, which leads to the production of nitrous oxide, a highly active greenhouse gas."

Nitrous oxide (NO2) is a greenhouse gas 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide. And while less abundant than carbon dioxide emissions, its presence in the atmosphere has increased substantially over the past decade, accelerated mostly by the widespread use of fertilisers.

Assoc Prof Petit says that while there is still a lot to learn about the foraging behaviours of sugar ants, the study shows a symbiotic relationship between ants and vertebrates such as kangaroos in dry environments, and evidence of the nitrogen cycle at work.

"The ability of sugar ants to thrive in dry, sandy environments and use sources of nitrogen that may not be available to other species is impressive. It may give them a competitive advantage by allowing them to feed more offspring and therefore increase their numbers," Assoc Prof Petit says.

"Researchers working on ants as bio-indicators on grazed and ungrazed lands should take ants' ability to process urea into account, because large amounts of urine will probably affect the assortment of ant species in the area. It would also be interesting to investigate how much ants may modify the urine ammonia volatilises from paddocks.

"This is not the last we will hear about these sugar ants—they could open up a whole new field of research."

Profitable cooperation: Ants protect and fertilize plants

More information: Sophie Petit et al. Camponotus ants mine sand for vertebrate urine to extract nitrogen, Austral Ecology (2019). DOI: 10.1111/aec.12840

Not all in-home drinking water filters completely remove toxic PFAS

by Duke University

The water filter on your refrigerator door, the pitcher-style filter you keep inside the fridge and the whole-house filtration system you installed last year may function differently and have vastly different price tags, but they have one thing in common.

They may not remove all of the drinking water contaminants you're most concerned about.

A new study by scientists at Duke University and North Carolina State University finds that—while using any filter is better than using none—many household filters are only partially effective at removing toxic perfluoroalkyl substances, commonly known as PFAS, from drinking water. A few, if not properly maintained, can even make the situation worse.

"We tested 76 point-of-use filters and 13 point-of-entry or whole-house systems and found their effectiveness varied widely," said Heather Stapleton, the Dan and Bunny Gabel Associate Professor of Environmental Health at Duke's Nicholas School of the Environment.

"All of the under-sink reverse osmosis and two-stage filters achieved near-complete removal of the PFAS chemicals we were testing for," Stapleton said. "In contrast, the effectiveness of activated-carbon filters used in many pitcher, countertop, refrigerator and faucet-mounted styles was inconsistent and unpredictable. The whole-house systems were also widely variable and in some cases actually increased PFAS levels in the water."

"Home filters are really only a stopgap," said Detlef Knappe, the S. James Ellen Distinguished Professor of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering at NC State, whose lab teamed with Stapleton's to conduct the study. "The real goal should be control of PFAS contaminants at their source."

PFAS have come under scrutiny in recent years due to their potential health impacts and widespread presence in the environment, especially drinking water. Exposure to the chemicals, used widely in fire-fighting foams and stain- and water-repellants, is associated with various cancers, low birth weight in babies, thyroid disease, impaired immune function and other health disorders. Mothers and young children may be most vulnerable to the chemicals, which can affect reproductive and developmental health.

Some scientists call PFAS "forever chemicals" because they persist in the environment indefinitely and accumulate in the human body. They are now nearly ubiquitous in human blood serum samples, Stapleton noted.

The researchers published their peer-reviewed findings Feb. 5 in Environmental Science & Technology Letters. It's the first study to examine the PFAS-removal efficiencies of point-of-use filters in a residential setting.

They analyzed filtered water samples from homes in Chatham, Orange, Durham and Wake counties in central North Carolina and New Hanover and Brunswick counties in southeastern N.C. Samples were tested for a suite of PFAS contaminants, including three perfluoroalkal sulfonic acids (PFSAs), seven perfluoroalkyl carboxylic acids (PFCAs) and six per- and poly-fluoroalkyl ether acids (PFEAs). GenX, which has been found in high levels in water in the Wilmington area of southeastern N.C., was among the PFEAs for which they tested.

Key takeaways include:

Reverse osmosis filters and two-stage filters reduced PFAS levels, including GenX, by 94% or more in water, though the small number of two-stage filters tested necessitates further testing to determine why they performed so well.
Activated-carbon filters removed 73% of PFAS contaminants, on average, but results varied greatly. In some cases, the chemicals were completely removed; in other cases they were not reduced at all. Researchers saw no clear trends between removal efficiency and filter brand, age or source water chemical levels. Changing out filters regularly is probably a very good idea, nonetheless, researchers said.
The PFAS-removal efficiency of whole-house systems using activated carbon filters varied widely. In four of the six systems tested, PFSA and PFCA levels actually increased after filtration. Because the systems remove disinfectants used in city water treatment, they can also leave home pipes susceptible to bacterial growth.

"The under-sink reverse osmosis filter is the most efficient system for removing both the PFAS contaminants prevalent in central N.C. and the PFEAs, including GenX, found in Wilmington," Knappe said. "Unfortunately, they also cost much more than other point-of-use filters. This raises concerns about environmental justice, since PFAS pollution affects more households that struggle financially than those that do not struggle

Fecal excretion of PFAS by pets

More information: Nicholas J. Herkert et al, Assessing the Effectiveness of Point-of-Use Residential Drinking Water Filters for Perfluoroalkyl Substances (PFASs), Environmental Science & Technology Letters (2020). DOI: 10.1021/acs.estlett.0c00004

Journal information: Environmental Science & Technology Lette

UNT professor's virtual lab may hold key to preventing undersea oil pipeline leaks

by Jim Rogers, University of North Texas

Complex organic chemistry experiments often take days or weeks to conduct in a laboratory, but not anymore. Oliviero Andreussi has created a virtual organic chemistry laboratory inside a supercomputer to conduct these same experiments in a matter of minutes.

By using computational chemistry, the University of North Texas assistant professor will begin cycling through scientific databases listing thousands of organic molecules to determine the various effects of different compounds on the production or suppression of natural gas hydrates.

"Natural gas hydrates are crystalline structures made of gas molecules trapped in a cage of water molecules," Andreussi said. "The increase and decrease of the production of these natural gas hydrates could be used to do everything from preventing undersea oil pipeline breaks to storing greenhouse gases."

Natural gas hydrates form in deep-sea sediments in cold conditions and under pressure, the same environment found in undersea oil pipelines. In these pipelines, natural gas hydrates will slowly build up over time creating back pressure that will cause the pipe to crack or burst.

"A large and continuing release of oil into a body of water can be an environmental and economic disaster," Andreussi said. "If we can add an organic compound that will slow or stop the production of gas hydrates we can keep the pipelines intact and help protect the oceans."

Andreussi said there are other environmental applications as well. By increasing natural gas hydrates production, these crystalline structures could, one day, be used to store various gasses.

"Carbon dioxide and other greenhouse cases could be removed from the atmosphere and captured in gas hydrates," he said. "Once in a solid phase, the gasses could be stored or buried. The sooner we find the molecules we need, the sooner scientists can develop other new and exciting applications."

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