NY Democrat's ties to Maduro may help Biden unlock stalemate

MIAMI — It was the aftermath of a failed coup against Hugo Chávez and Rep. Gregory Meeks was lounging at the Kennedy compound on Cape Cod with a young lawmaker from Venezuela with a bushy moustache named Nicolás Maduro.

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Photographs of the 2002 encounter show the men standing shoulder to shoulder, having bonded over their shared love of baseball and tales of their respective odds-defying upbringings — Maduro on the streets of Caracas, where leftist radicals like himself were gunned down, and Meeks in a public housing project in Harlem the son of a struggling boxer and teacher.

The exchange would be little more than an anecdote but for Maduro’s ascent to Venezuela’s presidency in 2013 and Meeks’ own improbable climb through the ruthless politics of Washington to become this month the first-ever Black chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Now, two decades on, the New York Democrat says he’s ready — if asked — to confront Maduro, who he remembers from that era as a good listener and committed to social justice.

“There will be no softballs or reminiscing about the good old days,” Meeks said in an interview with The Associated Press this week. “We’d have some real hard talks about what has taken place and what must take place to undo some of the authoritarian things that have happened since he’s become president.”

To talk to Maduro or not: That’s the vexing question facing the incoming Biden administration as it re-evaluates a U.S. policy that has rallied exile hardliners in Miami but done little to cleave Maduro’s grip on power or ease the suffering of regular Venezuelans.

Aides to Biden say the president-elect has limited options for pressuring Maduro and there are no plans to lift crippling oil sanctions or an indictment against Maduro for drug trafficking.

But analysts expect Biden to dial down the almost-daily vitriol aimed at Maduro and threats of a “military option” that characterized Trump’s foreign policy, where Venezuela occupied a privileged space. Instead, he has vowed to emphasize a multilateral approach with the goal of holding free and fair elections as soon as possible.

Enter Meeks, who attended Chávez’s 2013 funeral on behalf of the Obama administration and whose long engagement with Latin America make him ideally positioned to open room for diplomacy. Even though he doesn’t speak Spanish, his reputation as a straight shooter has earned him respect across the region’s ideological divide.

Among those with whom he has struck an unlikely alliance is former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, a law-and-order conservative who worked to improve the lot of Afro-Colombians as part of free trade talks more than a decade ago that Meeks backed in defiance of his party. The relationship with Uribe —lionized by Venezuela’s opposition and demonized by Latin America’s left — may come in handy as he seeks to build momentum for politically fraught engagement with Maduro.

“Maduro doesn’t trust his own shadow. But he might trust Gregory Meeks,” said former Rep. Bill Delahunt, who travelled with Meeks to Chávez’s funeral and then twice more to Caracas in a previously unreported mission to improve bilateral relations. “If anyone can move things forward it’ll be Meeks. I have no doubt that he will be an invaluable asset to the Biden administration.”

Meeks said he is not holding himself out as a peacemaker. But he said he is willing to speak to Maduro’s government if allies in Latin America, the European Union and the Biden administration see value in such an approach.

He said his first trip as chairman since succeeding fellow New Yorker Eliot Engel will be to Haiti and Colombia, including a visit to the border with Venezuela where thousands of migrants cross every day looking for food and medical care.

“I want folks to know that Latin America won’t be an afterthought,” Meeks said.

More controversially, he’ is open to involving Maduro stalwarts Cuba and Russia in any negotiations that emerge -- assuming U.S. allies agree.

“That’s a possibility,” he said, adding that the Trump administration’s designation this week of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism will complicate any outreach. “That’s how you resolve an issue of significance. You get buy-in from a number of different people so that it gives the people of Venezuela confidence in the election process.”

A recent State Department cable defending the Trump administration’s hardline policy warns that Russia is working closely with Maduro’s military and finance officials to undermine hemispheric security. The cable, a copy of which was provided to AP by a congressional staffer on the condition of anonymity to share diplomatic communications, argues for more aggressive support for pro-democracy efforts inside Venezuela to complement U.S. sanctions.

“Russia has used its relationship with the regime to symbolically and very publicly defy the United States,” according to the Sept. 9 cable, which is labeled “sensitive but unclassified.” It was sent to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo by James Story, the ambassador at the helm of the Venezuela Affairs Unit in Colombia.

“If left to fester, Venezuela will prove itself to be a very worrisome burr in the side of American foreign policy in the region and prove to be very costly to U.S. national interests,” the cable concludes.

A spokesman for Biden’s transition team declined to comment.

Meeks’ nearly 20-year relationship with Maduro began when both founded what was known as the Boston Group. The informal network of U.S. and Venezuelan lawmakers from across the political spectrum — Democrats, Republicans, socialists and capitalists — came together in Washington and Cape Cod to repair bilateral relations after the brief coup against Chávez that the U.S. was quick to recognize.

The group has largely disbanded, with Meeks the only American member still in Congress. But the relationships built two decades ago have proven resilient. For example, a Republican staffer who participated in the same four-day legislative exchange in Cape Code with Meeks and Maduro led a backchannel effort that in 2018 secured the release of Joshua Holt, a Utah man held for two years in Caracas jail on what were widely seen as trumped-up weapons charges.

More recently, former lawmaker Pedro Díaz-Blum, the Boston Group’s co-ordinator in Venezuela, has brought together dozens of pro-Maduro and opposition economists to prepare a joint study on how to reactivate the country’s devastated oil industry. They have also discussed ways to direct humanitarian aid to the country through multilateral agencies.

After the U.S. presidential election, Díaz-Blum travelled to Washington and saw Meeks. Prior to the trip, which he said he organized on his own, he also met with Maduro, who reiterated his willingness for dialogue with the U.S.

“I was a member of the Boston Group as a lawmaker and I went multiple times to the U.S.,” Maduro said Tuesday in an address to Venezuela’s congress, which is controlled by the governing socialist party following elections boycotted by the opposition as unfair. “I respect and admire a lot the United States, its people and its culture."

After several failed negotiation attempts mediated by the Vatican and Norway, dialogue has become a buzzword for weakness and appeasement among many in the opposition. Not for nothing, the Trump administration has said the only thing to negotiate with Maduro are the terms of his exit.

Meeks said he rejects that logic. Recently even a close Trump ally, Richard Grenell, the former acting U.S. director of national intelligence, met in Mexico City with Jorge Rodríguez, a top Maduro aide who is now president of the pro-government national assembly, which the U.S. doesn't recognize.

“The Trump policy was predicated on Florida politics — not getting something done,” Meeks said.

Still, he said, he has no illusions about Maduro. Following Chávez’s funeral, Meeks said he quietly returned twice to Caracas in a previously unreported effort to pave the way for an exchange of ambassadors, which has not happened since 2010. In one of those trips, he urged Maduro to release opposition activist Leopoldo Lopez, then in jail for leading anti-government protests.

The reconciliation effort failed and Meeks said he walked away from that experience frustrated. Any future overture would require pre-set conditions, he said.

“You can’t just take his word for it,” Meeks said of Maduro. “He’s proven to me that either he was not willing to follow through or something in their politics prevented him from doing so.”

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Joshua Goodman on Twitter: @APJoshGoodman

Joshua Goodman, The Associated Press

Comparison between Capitol siege, BLM protests is denounced
Black activists are coming out strongly against a growing narrative among conservatives that equates the deadly siege on the U.S. Capitol with last summer's Black Lives Matter protests of racial injustice.

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Republican lawmakers defending President Donald Trump made the comparison again Wednesday while building their case against impeachment and accused Democrats of being hypocrites with selective outrage. Their comments mark the latest effort by Trump and the GOP to misrepresent the Black Lives Matter movement as an extremist, violent faction tied to anarchists.

“You can moan and groan, but he was far more explicit about his calls for peace than some of the BLM and left-wing rioters were this summer when we saw violence sweep across this nation,” Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida said in defending Trump before the House voted 232-197 to impeach the president for inciting an insurrection.

But the two events were fundamentally different. One was an intentional, direct attack on a hallowed democratic institution, with the goal of overturning a fair and free election. The other was a coast-to-coast protest movement demanding an end to systemic racism that occasionally, but not frequently, turned violent.

“The GOP has become the party of false equivalences,” said James Jones, assistant professor of African American studies and sociology at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey.

Many BLM protesters were responding to the death of George Floyd, a handcuffed Black man who was seen on video gasping for breath as a Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck. Police repelled the demonstrators using rubber bullets, tear gas and military assets like helicopters.

The mob at the Capitol was fueled by baseless conspiracies propagated by Trump that the election was stolen from him through massive fraud. The rioters acted on the president’s direct urging to “fight like hell.” They attacked police with pipes and chemicals and planted bombs. They were met largely with restraint by law enforcement.

The unrest that followed Floyd's death included vandalism, arson and looting, but the vast majority of demonstrations were peaceful. Some of the worst violence was in Portland, where thousands of protesters turned out nightly for weeks. Some hurled fireworks, rocks, ball bearings and bottles at federal agents, and a member of a right-wing extremist group was gunned down by an antifa supporter.

But prominent BLM activists repeatedly distanced themselves from provocateurs and brawlers. Much of the violence came from provoked and unprovoked confrontations with police, during city-imposed curfews and after peaceful demonstrators had gone home. An analysis of more than 7,750 demonstrations in 2,400 locations across the country found that 93% happened with no violence, according to the US Crisis Monitor, a joint effort by Princeton University and the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project.

The mob at the Capitol smashed its way into the heart of the federal government, seeking to interrupt constitutionally mandated proceedings to affirm President-elect Joe Biden’s victory. Lawmakers fled into hiding, and five people were killed, including a Capitol police officer who was hit in the head with a fire extinguisher.

The “overwhelmingly nonviolent” demonstrations cannot be compared to the violence at the Capitol, "where white supremacists, mobilized by falsehoods peddled by President Trump and his GOP allies” laid siege to the Capitol “resulting in its desecration,” Jones said.

Trump has made no effort to apologize for remarks that egged on the insurrection. Instead he said Tuesday: "And if you look at what other people have said, politicians at a high level, about the riots during the summer, the horrible riots in Portland and Seattle and various other places, that was a real problem — what they said.”

Freshman Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia said Democrats should be removed for inciting violence by supporting the protests that followed Floyd's death in May.

Trump "has held over 600 rallies in the last four years. None of them included assaulting police, destroying businesses or burning down cities,” Greene said.

In fact, occasional violence has happened at Trump rallies, and the president has all but invited crowds to attack critics and journalists. At several events, Trump supporters and protesters have come to blows, including as recently as November, when clashes between people protesting the election results and counter-demonstrators ended with at least one stabbing and 20 arrests.

Freshman Democratic Rep. Sara Jacobs of California said she was disgusted that Republican lawmakers used the comparison to avoid condemning a clear attempt “to stop the processes of democracy."

“It’s telling that so many Republicans aren’t even attempting to defend the President — because his actions are indefensible," she said in a statement to The Associated Press after voting to impeach Trump.

The president in a tweet called the Capitol rioters “great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long.” Over the summer, he called the Black Lives Matters protesters “thugs” and “terrorists.”

In 2020, law enforcement agencies made more than 14,000 protest-related arrests, often detaining people who engaged in civil disobedience, as well as acts of violence.

Trump has portrayed people arrested in the protests as dangerous, left-wing radicals. A review by The Associated Press found many were young suburban adults with no previous run-ins with the law or ties to antifa. Short for “anti-fascists,” antifa is not a single organization but rather an umbrella term for far-left-leaning militant groups that confront or resist neo-Nazis and white supremacists at demonstrations.

An investigation into the response of the Capitol police is underway. One officer was seen taking a selfie with a insurrectionist, and several rioters were escorted from the premises without being handcuffed.

Equating the pro-Trump rioters to the Black Lives Matter movement could lead to even heavier law enforcement surveillance and actions against BLM, said Scott Roberts of Color of Change, the nation’s largest digital racial justice advocacy group.

“There is a real danger of this false equivocation leading to ramifications, whether intended or unintended,” he said.

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Associated Press Writer Aaron Morrison in New York contributed to this report.

Julie Watson, The Associated Press

Watchdog: DOJ bungled 'zero tolerance' immigration policy


WASHINGTON — Justice Department leaders under President Donald Trump knew their 2018 “zero tolerance” border policy would result in family separations but pressed on with prosecutions even as other agencies became overwhelmed with migrants, a government watchdog report released Thursday has found

.

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The report from the inspector general for the Justice Department found that leadership failed to prepare to implement the policy or manage the fallout, which resulted in more than 3,000 family separations during “zero tolerance” and caused lasting emotional damage to children who were taken from their parents at the border. The policy was widely condemned by world leaders, religious groups and lawmakers in the U.S. as cruel.

Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, along with other top leaders in the Trump administration, were bent on curbing immigration. The “zero tolerance” policy was one of several increasingly restrictive policies aimed at discouraging migrants from coming to the Southern border. Trump’s administration also vastly reduced the number of refugees allowed into the U.S. and all but halted asylum at the border, through a combination of executive orders and regulation changes.

President-elect Joe Biden has said Trump’s restrictive immigration policies are harmful, but it’s not clear yet what he will do when he gets in office to alter the system. About 5,500 children have been separated from their parents since Trump took office, and many of those parents were deported without their children. Advocates for the families have called on Biden to allow those families to reunite in the United States.

The American Civil Liberties Union sued to stop the separations and a federal judge ordered the families to be reunited, but some are still not. Attorney Lee Gelernt, who has been working for years on the issue, said the practice was “immoral and illegal.”

“At a minimum, Justice Department lawyers should have known the latter," Gelernt said. "This new report shows just how far the Trump administration was willing to go to destroy these families. Just when you think the Trump administration can’t sink any lower, it does.”

The “zero tolerance” policy meant that any adult caught crossing the border illegally would be prosecuted for illegal entry. Because children cannot be jailed with their family members, families were separated and children were taken into custody by Health and Human Services, which manages unaccompanied children at the border. The policy was a colossal mess; there was no system created to reunite children with their families. The watchdog report found that it led to a $227 million funding shortfall.

According to the report, department leaders underestimated how difficult it would be to carry out the policy in the field and did not inform local prosecutors and others that children would be separated. They also failed to understand that children would be separated longer than a few hours, and when that was discovered, they pressed on.

The policy began April 6, 2018, under an executive order that was issued without warning to other federal agencies that would have to manage the policy, including the U.S. Marshals Service and Health and Human Services. It was halted June 20, 2018.

The watchdog report found that judges, advocacy groups and even federal prosecutors raised concerns over the policy. But Sessions and others wrongly believed that arrests at the border would not result in prolonged separation and ignored the difficulty in reuniting families.

Notes from a conference call Sessions had with U.S. attorneys from border districts record the former attorney general saying in part: “We need to take away children; if you care about kids, don't bring them in.”

Justice leadership looked at a smaller version of the policy enacted in 2017 in West Texas, but ignored some of the same concerns raised by judges and prosecutors at that time. Top leaders were focused solely on increased illegal activity and didn’t seek information that would have shown concerns over the family separations that would result.

The report follows other scathing investigations of the policy, adding to evidence that Trump administration officials knew a zero-tolerance policy would result in family separations and inflict trauma on immigrant parents and children.

A watchdog report from the Department of Health and Human Services found that children separated at the border, many already distressed by their life in their home countries or by their journey, showed more fear, feelings of abandonment and post-traumatic stress symptoms than children who were not separated. The chaotic reunification process only added to their ordeal.

In a November 2017 email, a top Health and Human Services official wrote that there was a shortage of "beds for babies” as an apparent result of separations in and around El Paso, Texas, that occurred months before the national policy began. Other emails suggest the Department of Homeland Security did not tell HHS officials about the pilot program, even as government facilities for minors run by HHS saw an uptick in children who had been taken from their parents. The emails were released by congressional Democrats in an October 2020 report.

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Associated Press writers Nomaan Merchant in Houston and Elliot Spagat in San Diego contributed to this report.

Colleen Long, The Associated Press

NY attorney general sues NYPD over Floyd protest response

New York’s attorney general sued the New York Police Department on Thursday, calling the rough treatment of protesters against racial injustice last spring part of a longstanding pattern of abuse that stemmed from inadequate training, supervision and discipline.

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Attorney General Letitia James' lawsuit includes dozens of examples of alleged misconduct during the spring demonstrations in the wake of George Floyd’s police killing, including the use of pepper spray and batons on protesters, trapping demonstrators with a technique called kettling and arresting medics and legal observers.

"We found a pattern of deeply concerning and unlawful practices that the NYPD utilized in response to these largely peaceful protests,” James said at a news conference announcing the lawsuit.

James, a Democrat, was tasked by Gov. Andrew Cuomo with investigating whether NYPD officers used excessive force to quell unrest and enforce Mayor Bill de Blasio’s nightly curfew. She issued a preliminary report in July that cited a “clear breakdown of trust between police and the public.”

James is seeking reforms including the appointment of a federal monitor to oversee the NYPD’s policing tactics at future protests and a court order declaring that the policies and practices the department used during the protests were unlawful.

The lawsuit in federal court named the city, de Blasio, police Commissioner Dermot Shea and Chief of Department Terence Monahan as defendants. James criticized de Blasio for saying the use of kettling was justified and Shea for saying that the NYPD “had a plan which was executed nearly flawlessly” when officers aggressive cracked down on protesters on June 4 in the Bronx.

In June, at the height of the protests, de Blasio was accused of misleading the city when he told reporters that he personally saw “no use of force around peaceful protests,” even after officers had been caught on video moving on demonstrators without provocation and bashing them with batons.

De Blasio said he met with James on Wednesday and that they share the goal of pushing for major police reforms, such as implementing recommendations in previous reports on the NYPD's protest response. De Blasio, also a Democrat, said however that he did not agree a lawsuit was the solution.

“A court process and the added bureaucracy of a federal monitor will not speed up this work,” de Blasio said. "There is no time to waste and we will continue to press forward.”

John Miller, the NYPD's deputy commissioner of intelligence and counterterrorism, said the department is committed to reform but that James' lawsuit “doesn’t seem to meet the standard for a federal monitor, and it doesn’t seem to illustrate a pattern and practice” as required.

The head of the city's largest police union blamed a “failure of New York City’s leadership" for sending officers “to police unprecedented protests and violent riots with no plan, no strategy and no support.”

“They should be forced to answer for the resulting chaos, instead of pointing fingers at cops on the streets and ignoring the criminals who attacked us with bricks and firebombs,” Police Benevolent Association President Pat Lynch said.

James’ lawsuit is the second major legal action to stem from the NYPD’s handling of the protests.

In October, the New York Civil Liberties Union and the Legal Aid Society sued the city on behalf of protesters who say they were assaulted and abused by police.

A civil rights organization and a city watchdog agency have also criticized the department’s actions.

Human Rights Watch issued a report in November on the Bronx crackdown and the city’s inspector general issued a report in December that found that the NYPD was caught off guard by the size of the protests and resorted to aggressive tactics that stoked tensions and stifled free speech.

Mark Winston Griffith, a spokesperson for the advocacy group Communities United for Police Reform applauded the lawsuit, saying: “NYPD violence against protesters is a long-standing problem and it’s a credit to Attorney General James that she’s using the power of her office to challenge the systemic lack of accountability for this violence."

In a joint statement, the NYCLU and Legal Aid Society said: "We hope this will be the beginning of a serious reckoning over police violence and militarized use of force against protesters, especially people of colour, and a check on the impunity many officers have come to see as their right.”

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On Twitter, follow Sisak at twitter.com/mikesisak.

Michael R. Sisak, The Associated Press

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M P3

Derelict, dangerous and debarred: Millions in PPP funds given to banned companies


Scattered among the industrial brick buildings in St. Joseph, Missouri — once the starting point for the pony express — lies the story of government pandemic spending gone awry. Among nearly a half-dozen crumbling structures, some with signs posted that warn of conditions that “may present an imminent and substantial endangerment to human health or the environment" are lingering reminders about HPI Products Inc. That’s the local pesticide company that still has not cleaned up a mess it made over a decade ago.

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St. Joseph endured 25 years of HPI workers discharging industrial wastewater into the city’s sewer system. In 2007, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ordered HPI to stop illegally storing hazardous waste in corroded drums and leaking in its warehouse. In 2009, the Department of Justice secured a guilty plea from HPI owner William Garvey in federal court for violating the Clean Water Act and hazardous waste storage laws. Garvey was sent to prison. The following year, the EPA obtained a consent decree against the company to pay cleanup costs. After the EPA violations, HPI Products Inc. was debarred — meaning it cannot seek federal contracts or financial assistance from the federal government — on Jan. 1, 2010.

Despite its long history of mismanagement and eventual debarment, HPI was approved this spring for a $441,580 loan through the U.S. Small Business Administration Paycheck Protection Program, part of the federal government’s massive pandemic economic relief package, according to a review by NBC News.

Companies debarred by the federal government are not supposed to receive these low-interest federally backed loans, according to the requirements for the PPP program. But the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis reported in September that it found more than 600 loans totaling over $96 million went to companies that were excluded from doing business with the government. Then on Jan. 11, the SBA’s inspector general reported the number of loans to debarred firms appears to be more than 950. But neither report named those companies.

NBC News, which obtained the loan data under the Freedom of Information Act after a federal court ruling, was able to identify at least 60 debarred businesses worth $32.4 million that were approved for PPP loans. NBC News was among a dozen news organizations that together sued the SBA for release of the information under FOIA. House staffers were able to find more companies because they were given additional identifying information not provided by the SBA to news organizations.

The SBA’s inspector general’s latest report said it found “serious concerns about improper payments” in the PPP program, including money going to debarred companies. It said enough still has not been done by the SBA to prevent these companies from getting loans and to prevent their loans from being forgiven.

U.S. Rep. James E. Clyburn, D-S.C., chair of the House Select Subcommittee, said in a statement to NBC News, “The troubling findings by the SBA Office of the Inspector General are unfortunately consistent with the Select Subcommittee’s report in September that SBA approved hundreds of PPP loans to ineligible borrowers who had been debarred or suspended from federal contracting.”

“Treasury and SBA must immediately improve oversight and accountability to ensure that taxpayer dollars are not squandered,” he added. “I’m hopeful that the incoming Administration will implement timely measures to improve oversight.”
Dodging requirements

Since the PPP program began, it has required companies seeking loans to confirmthey have not been debarred. An SBA spokesman said the burden is on companies to provide accurate information, not on banks or on the agency to verify that information.

The agency can consider federal criminal or civil prosecution for misrepresentations on government loan application forms like not disclosing being debarred. But Justice Department records show no such cases yet, and the SBA was unable to point to any actions that have cited debarment as a reason for legal action.

But the SBA said it is examining loan forgiveness applications and would reject requests from any debarred company it finds. “Debarment is one of those items that makes a borrower ineligible” for forgiveness, and they would need to repay the loan, an SBA spokesman said.

With the latest round of PPP loans, approved Dec. 27 as part of a $900 billion economic package, SBA officials say they are trying harder to root out fraud. This time, the SBA is running a computerized check of each company seeking a loan. Applications will be screened by the agency through Treasury Department data systems to confirm the identity of the businesses. These computerized checks that should take less than a day would include confirming tax identification numbers and other information, according to an agency representative.

Following the release of the inspector general’s report this week, the SBA said its efforts to better track fraud include working with the Treasury Department’s Do Not Pay team to flag debarred firms. While the inspector general reported those steps are not yet fully in place, an SBA representative disagreed and said, “The guardrails are in place.”
Debarment triggers

Many of the companies NBC News identified were debarred by the EPA for violations of the Clean Air or Clean Water acts. Others were debarred by the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Labor and the General Services Administration.

In Missouri, HPI has continued to prompt a variety of violations for the small city of St. Joseph. According to a lawsuit filed by the city on Nov. 30, 2020, separate from the EPA actions, HPI has not come into compliance with city code and continues to mix and store pesticides in its “increasingly derelict facilities.”

“He has been so successful not complying,” said Janet Storts, a local activist. Told about HPI’s PPP loan, she noted that the company “just got another $400,000 for not doing it right.”

EPA confirmed HPI is debarred following the criminal conviction under the Clean Water Act. In the case of HPI, the debarment is specific to the St. Joseph location where the offense occurred, the same location listed for the approved PPP loan.

HPI did not respond to requests for comment.

Pollutant problems

Among other companies NBC News identified as receiving PPP loans and being debarred for EPA violations are Nupro Industries Corporation, an oil and lubricant manufacturer in Philadelphia whose Neatsfoot Oil products are used for caring for items like baseball mitts and horse riding saddles. It was approved for a $300,000 PPP loan even though it has been debarred since 2012.

The company is required to monitor pollutants in its industrial wastewater by taking samples and testing for pollutants like pH and ethylbenzene, which can cause respiratory issues and dizziness with acute exposure. From 2006 to 2007, Nupro watered down its test samples to appear in compliance with the pollutant limits, according to EPA records. Nupro was criminally prosecuted and pleaded guilty and paid a $200,000 fine.

A.J. Berg, director of operations at Neatsfoot Oil Refineries Corporation, a subsidiary of Nupro, told NBC News the issue had been resolved. But he did not clarify which issue and did not respond to follow-up questions.
Continued headaches

In the meantime, the city of St. Joseph is still struggling to clean up the mess that HPI has left. Garvey still owns at least 11 buildings in St. Joseph. A third building the company previously owned was in disrepair, and the city spent two years trying to get the company to repair the roof to no avail. After a storm in 2017, the facade of the building collapsed.

HPI did not pay for the demolition of the building and instead the city dug into its own funds, spending $390,000. Money was pulled from three funds including the state’s casino gaming initiative, which goes toward Save Our Heritage grants. These grants help owners of historic buildings in the city to make structural and exterior repairs.

But the city keeps hoping for some justice. Aimee Davenport, the attorney representing St. Joseph in its current suit against HPI, said in the lawsuit the city is asking for past damages and fees associated with city compliance violations.

“It’s an economic harm, public safety issue, and environmental issue. All of it,” Davenport said. “We’re trying to get them back into compliance for the protection of all of it as soon as possible.”

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M PRIVATIZATION PUTSCH 

Flint water probe brings charges against ex-governor, others

FLINT, Mich. — A new investigation of the Flint water disaster led to charges against nine people, including former Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and key members of his administration, who are accused of various crimes in a calamitous plan that contaminated the community with lead and contributed to a fatal outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease, authorities said Thursday.

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Nearly seven years after the doomed decision to use the Flint River, pipes at more than 9,700 Flint homes have been replaced and water quality has greatly improved. But prosecutors said it's not too late to pursue people responsible for one of the worst human-made environmental disasters in U.S. history.


It’s the second time that six of the nine people have faced charges; their previous cases were dropped in 2019 when a new prosecution team took over. Snyder is the biggest new name in the bunch, though his alleged crimes are not as serious as others: two misdemeanour counts of wilful neglect of duty.

Snyder’s former health director, Nick Lyon, and ex-chief medical executive, Dr. Eden Wells, were charged with involuntary manslaughter in the 2015 deaths of nine people with Legionnaires’. Authorities said they failed to alert the public about a regional spike in Legionnaires’ when the water system might have lacked enough chlorine to combat bacteria in the river water.

“The Flint water crisis is not some relic of the past,” Fadwa Hammoud of the state attorney general’s office told reporters. “At this very moment, the people of Flint continue to suffer from the categorical failure of public officials at all levels of government who trampled upon their trust and evaded accountability for far too long.”

The charges stemmed from evidence presented to Judge David Newblatt, who served as a secret one-person grand jury. All nine defendants pleaded not guilty during a series of brief court appearances.

The indictment alleges that Snyder failed to check the “performance, condition and administration” of his appointees and protect Flint’s nearly 100,000 residents when he knew the threat. The Republican served as governor from 2011 through 2018.

Wearing a mask, Snyder, 62, said little during his hearing, which was conducted by video. He replied, “Yes, your honour,” when asked if he was living in Michigan. A conviction carries up to a year in jail.

Snyder has acknowledged that his administration failed in Flint. But his attorney, Brian Lennon, said a criminal case against him was a “travesty.”

“These unjustified allegations do nothing to resolve a painful chapter in the history of our state,” Lennon said. “Today’s actions merely perpetrate an outrageous political persecution.”

In 2014, a Snyder-appointed emergency manager, Darnell Earley, who was running the financially struggling, majority Black city, carried out a money-saving decision to use the Flint River for water while a pipeline from Lake Huron was under construction.

The corrosive water, however, wasn't treated properly, a misstep that freed lead from old plumbing and into homes. Despite desperate pleas from residents holding jugs of discolored, skunky water, the Snyder administration, especially drinking water regulators, took no significant action until a doctor publicly reported elevated lead levels in children about 18 months later.

Lead can damage the brain and nervous system and cause learning and behaviour problems. Flint’s woes were highlighted as an example of environmental injustice and racism. The city resumed getting water from a Detroit regional system in October 2015, though bottled water and filters were distributed for years.

Former Mayor Karen Weaver, who was elected in 2015 after the disaster was recognized, said Snyder deserved more than misdemeanours.

“Snyder got a slap on the wrist and Flint got a slap in the face. ... Not only did people lose their lives through Legionnaires', we know women who had stillbirths and miscarriages,” Weaver said.

Authorities counted at least 90 cases of Legionnaires’ disease in Genesee County during the 2014-15 water switch, including 12 deaths. Legionella bacteria can trigger a severe form of pneumonia when spread through misting and cooling systems.

Defence attorney Chip Chamberlain said Lyon, the former health director, relied on the advice of experts when following the Legionnaires’ spike and forming policy as head of a sprawling agency.

“This is a dangerous day for state employees,” Chamberlain said of the charges.

Steve Tramontin — a lawyer for Wells, the ex-medical executive — called the allegations false and “unimaginable to anyone familiar with the level of dedication she has brought to her life’s work.”

Prosecutors charged Earley and another former Flint manager, Gerald Ambrose, with misconduct. Rich Baird, a friend and close adviser to Snyder, was charged with extortion, perjury, obstruction of justice and misconduct. Jarrod Agen, who was Snyder’s chief of staff, was charged with perjury.

Attorney Charles Spies disputed the charge against Agen and said he co-operated “fully and truthfully” with investigators.

The indictment accuses Baird, a Flint native, of making threats during a university-led investigation of the Legionnaires’ outbreak. He’s also accused of lying during an interview with Flint water investigators in 2017.

“There are no velvet ropes in our criminal justice system,” Hammoud said. “Nobody — no matter how powerful or well-connected — is above accountability when they commit a crime.”

Separately, the state, Flint, a hospital and an engineering firm have agreed to a $641 million settlement with residents. A judge said she hopes to decide by Jan. 21 whether to grant preliminary approval.

Melodie Ingraham, 61, whose skin was irritated by the tainted water, said the criminal charges don't mean much to her.

“It’s awful late in the day. They’re worried about the wrong thing," Ingraham said. "The issue is getting Flint back up and running, being safe again.”

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White reported from Detroit and Eggert reported from Lansing, Mich.

David Eggert, Ed White And Corey Williams, The Associated

NEWEST SWEATSHOP ECONOMY

Cambodian labour leader's trial for border remarks begins

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — The trial of a Cambodian labour union leader charged with inciting social unrest opened in Phnom Penh on Friday, part of a large-scale legal offensive by the government against its critics

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© Provided by The Canadian Press

Rong Chhun, president of the Cambodian Confederation of Unions, is standing trial for “incitement to commit felony” for comments concerning territory in border areas, a politically sensitive issue. If found guilty, he could face from six months to two years in prison.

Rong Chhun was arrested in July after the government claimed he spread false information about Cambodia’s border with Vietnam. He has been held in detention ever since. A week before his arrest, Rong Chhun gave an interview to U.S. government-supported Radio Free Asia in which he spoke about meeting farmers in eastern Cambodia who complained about their land being infringed upon by neighbouring Vietnam.

His trial is part of a crackdown on opposition politicians and supporters carried out in the courts by Prime Minister Hun Sen's government. According to the human rights group Amnesty International, about 150 individuals affiliated with the banned Cambodia National Rescue Party are facing treason charges in mass trials, the first of which was held Thursday.

Labour leaders such as Rong Chhun hold significant political influence in Cambodia because they represent the vast number of industrial workers in the textile industry, which is the country’s major export earner. The major unions have historically aligned themselves with the political opposition to Hun Sen.

The issue of Vietnam encroaching on Cambodian land is a highly sensitive one with domestic political significance in Cambodia because of widespread historical antagonism toward the country’s larger neighbour to the east. Hun Sen’s government maintains close relations with Vietnam, leading his political foes to accuse him of failing to protect Cambodian land. Several prominent opposition figures have been prosecuted on various charges in recent years for making such allegations.

Sam Sokong, a lawyer for Rong Chhun, said his client has done nothing illegal in his interview with Radio Free Asia, and that he only had relayed the complaints of villagers along the border to the public at large.

The Joint Boundary Commission of Cambodia and Vietnam rejected the allegations about any violation of Cambodian territory.

Rong Chhun served on the national election committee of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party before it was dissolved by court order in November 2017, ahead of the 2018 general election. The party dissolution was generally seen as intended to ensure victory for Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party. Hun Sen has been in power for 36 years, and has often been accused of heading an authoritarian regime.

Sopheng Cheang, The Associated Press

Activist slams 'sham trial' of Cambodia opposition members

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Ten opposition activists, including a Cambodian-American lawyer, faced treason and other charges Thursday in a trial in Cambodia's capital widely criticized by rights advocates

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© Provided by The Canadian Press

More than 60 defendants were summoned, mostly former members or supporters of the Cambodia National Rescue Party, which had been the sole credible political opposition until Cambodia’s highest court in late 2017 ordered its dissolution. But only 10 defendants attended, according to defence lawyer Sam Sokong.

The reasons for the absences were not immediately explained, though some defendants reside abroad. Under Cambodian law, defendants can be tried in absentia.

The court announced that because of the courtroom's limited capacity and coronavirus precautions, only the defendants, their lawyers, and representatives of some civil society organizations and several foreign embassies would be allowed inside.

Many of the defendants are accused of being involved with a failed effort by former opposition leader Sam Rainsy to return from exile in November 2019 to challenge the country's longtime ruler, Prime Minister Hun Sen.

Other exiled activists have announced they also will try to return this Sunday, although their plans are again opposed by Hun Sen's government, which has launched a sweeping crackdown on its opponents.

Theary Seng, a Cambodian-American lawyer who has long been one of the most outspoken critics of Hun Sen, told reporters at the court that she was not afraid of his regime and would not be intimidated.

Describing the charges as baseless, and the proceedings as “a sham trial,” she said “the decision will be made by politicians, not judges.”

“I’m being persecuted for my political opinion, for expressing my opinion,” she said.

Hun Sen has been in power for more than three decades and tolerates little opposition. An adroit political operator, he has employed both guile and force to maintain his position in an ostensibly democratic state.

Amnesty International said that along with related cases, approximately 150 opposition politicians and supporters are facing mass trials.

“These mass trials are an affront to international fair trial standards, Cambodia’s human rights commitments and the rule of law,” the group’s Asia-Pacific regional director, Yamini Mishra, said in a statement. “This onslaught of cases is the culmination of a relentless campaign of persecution against Cambodia’s political opposition and other dissenting voices.”

Misha said recent history suggests those accused have faint hope of a fair trial. "When it comes to cases against opposition activists and government critics, political motivations consistently outweigh facts and law,” Misha said.

Virtually all of the defendants have been charged with conspiracy to commit treason and incitement to commit a felony, which together carry a maximum penalty of 12 years in prison.

An initial hearing by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court in the cases of about 130 defendants was held in November, when the judge agreed to split the defendants into two groups to make the proceedings easier and allow those who did not yet have lawyers to find representation. The hearings for the second batch are slated to begin March 4.

Thursday's session was adjourned after the judge questioned two defendants and announced the hearing would continue on Jan. 28. There is no estimate of when the trial might conclude.

Several Western nations have imposed sanctions on Hun Sen's government, mainly after concluding that elections in 2008 without the opposition were neither free nor fair. The harshest measure came from the European Union, which last year withdrew some preferential trading privileges.

The U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh said on its Facebook page that it had observers at the court Thursday. “We have serious concerns about the lack of due process and urge Cambodian authorities to preserve the constitutional right to peaceful expression,” it said.

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This story corrects the number of defendants appearing in court to 10 based on new information from lawyer.

Sopheng Cheang, The Associated Pres

Apaches object to Forest Service review of huge copper mine

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — The U.S. Forest Service released an environmental review Friday that paves the way for the creation of one of the largest copper mines in the United States, against the wishes of a group of Apaches who have been trying for years to stop the project.  

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The Forest Service now has 60 days to turn over a tract of land in Tonto National Forest east of Phoenix to Resolution Copper Mining, a joint venture of the international mining companies Rio Tinto and BHP.

Environmentalists contend the Forest Service was pressured to push the review over the finish line before President Donald Trump leaves office, complicating their efforts to reverse the land swap.

The Forest Service said that's not true, while the mining company contends the publication already was delayed by months.

The mountainous land near Superior, Arizona, is known as Oak Flat or Chi'chil Bildagoteel. It's where Apaches have harvested medicinal plants, held coming-of-age ceremonies and gathered acorns for generations. An area where dozens of warriors leapt to their deaths from a ridge adjacent to the proposed copper mine, rather than surrender to U.S. forces during westward expansion, is protected as a special management area.

A judge late Thursday denied a request from Apache Stronghold, a group led by former San Carlos Apache Chairman Wendsler Nosie Sr., to halt the publication until a larger question over who legally owns the land is settled.

U.S. District Court Judge Steven Logan in Phoenix said he recognized “the anxiety that having one’s sacred land taken from them and used for purposes that run counter to their spiritual beliefs, might cause.”

But Logan said the Forest Service and other defendants also have a right to respond to the allegations, and he saw no proof they had been served. He set a Jan. 27 hearing.

Nosie's group alleged violations of religious freedom and constitutional rights in the federal lawsuit filed this week. It also contends the Forest Service legally can't transfer the land because it belongs to Apaches under an 1852 treaty.

Nosie said he's hopeful the court or politicians will take action to preserve the area as it is.

“I think with a new Congress, new administration, they will be able to take a new look at it based on the Constitution, our religion and based on the consequences of having this mine that's looking to devastate and destroy this area forever,” Nosie told The Associated Press.

The land swap was approved in December 2014, quietly tucked into a must-pass defence bill. The late Republican U.S. Sen. John McCain, a major recipient of Rio Tinto campaign contributions, backed it. Before that, stand-alone bills never gained Congress' approval.

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey on Friday said the mine will ensure a reliable supply of up to 1 billion pounds of copper annually. “Arizona has a long history of responsible mining, showing that we can have a robust mining sector while protecting our environment and cultural history,” he said in a statement.

Resolution Copper is set to receive 3.75 square miles (9.71 square kilometres) of Forest Service land in exchange for eight parcels the company owns elsewhere in Arizona.

U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, both Democrats, tried unsuccessfully to reverse the land swap. Grijalva said this week that it remains one of his top priorities.

“I'm hoping to put the brakes on it and reexamine every step,” he told The Associated Press. “I think part of the oversight I want to do is what was this cozy relationship between the international mining company, their subsidiary Resolution and the Trump administration.”

Randy Serraglio with the Center for Biological Diversity called the move to transfer Oak Flat “an outrageous act of corruption and a callous betrayal of Native people who value that land as sacred.”

Resolution Copper said it has spent about $2 billion so far to gain access to the mine and conduct studies. More time and money will go into securing permits and constructing the mine, which wouldn't begin operating for at least 15 years.

The company said it has committed to spending $100 million for cultural heritage and recreation projects, among other things, to help ease the effects of mining. It has tweaked its plans after receiving input from other tribes, some of whom have members who were hired to help inform archaeological surveys.

Resolution Copper project director Andrew Lye said the company is committed to engaging with tribes and will seek consent from them before it makes any decisions on developing the project.

The Oak Flat Campground would remain open to the public until it's no longer safe for people to go there. Eventually, the mine would swallow it.

The project proposal calls for the use of block caving, a method Resolution Copper maintains is safe and environmentally sound, to extract the remaining ore from depths as much as 7,000 feet below ground. Through this method, ore is selectively mined in a controlled way as the ground underneath it collapses under its own weight.

Resolution Copper has said the mine could have a $61 billion economic impact over the project’s 60 years and create 1,500 jobs — points that supporters repeatedly have stressed.

“Not only will Resolution Copper be a major employer, but it will lead to construction activities and new commercial development, such as housing, hotels and retail,” Glenn Hamer, the president and chief executive of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry said in a statement.

Environmentalists and Native Americans are concerned about the toxic waste that would be dumped on nearby wildlands, the potential for groundwater contamination and the destruction of sacred sites.

Rio Tinto was criticized last year for blasting through 46,000-year-old aboriginal rock shelters in Australia’s Juukan Gorge. The company’s CEO and two other top executives were fired.

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Associated Press writer Anita Snow in Phoenix contributed to this story. Fonseca is a member of The Associated Press’ race and ethnicity team. Follow her on Twitter at https://twitter.com/FonsecaAP

Felicia Fonseca, The Associated Press

Trump EPA Erects New Barriers To Crucial Science

A new EPA rule will make it more difficult for the regulators to use some scientific studies about the connection between pollution and health.

DKAR Images/Getty Images

January 5, 2021
REBECCA HERSHER Twitter NPR

The Environmental Protection Agency adopted a new rule restricting the types of scientific studies its own regulators can use to rein in pollution, in the Trump administration's latest effort to undercut the use of science in establishing public health standards.

The rule goes into effect on Wednesday and applies to all future EPA regulations. It puts a premium on scientific studies that are based on underlying data that is available to other scientists or to the public. Studies that do not meet that standard, which could include major epidemiological studies, will be given less weight by regulators unless the head of the EPA personally intervenes. The rule also requires that the agency disclose which studies it uses to set future pollution limits.

"The American public deserves to know which studies we are using to craft our regulations, which of those studies are key or pivotal to our decisions and, to the extent possible, that data should be available for the public to see," EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said in an announcement about the rule. The event was hosted by the conservative think tank the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

The EPA contends that the rule will improve public trust in environmental regulations by letting people know more about the data that regulators use to make their decisions about air and water pollution, including greenhouse gas emissions. These cause climate change and particle pollution that can exacerbate chronic diseases that make people more susceptible to severe COVID-19.

But many scientists and public health groups warn that the new approach will instead put the health of Americans at risk by excluding rigorous studies.

"This rule will enable the exclusion of highly relevant scientific evidence from the policymaking process," Sudip Parikh, chief executive of the national science advocacy group American Association for the Advancement of Science, wrote in an email. Parikh argues that the rule "directly impedes [the EPA's] ability to use the best data and evidence in its mission to protect human health and the environment."

SCIENCE
GOP Effort To Make Environmental Science 'Transparent' Worries Scientists

Epidemiological studies that examine the relationship between pollution and health sometimes rely on massive amounts of medical data that is anonymized or kept confidential in order to protect the privacy of study participants. However, rigorous scientific studies are reviewed by multiple experts in the field before publication and that peer-review process includes an examination of how the underlying data was analyzed.

Given the rigor of the modern scientific review process, the EPA's own internal board of scientific advisers raised questions about the new rule. When the board reviewed an earlier draft of the new rule last year, they noted that there is already a trend among scientists toward making data publicly available when it's possible to do so without compromising confidentiality. The EPA advisers said that the new rule could "decrease efficiency and reduce scientific integrity."


This is the latest in a string of controversial decisions the EPA has made in the final stretch of President Trump's administration. In December, the agency decided not to strengthen air quality standards for ozone and soot, and it enacted a new rule that requires future clean air regulations to weigh economic costs of curbing pollution while ignoring benefits, such as the deaths that could be avoided.

SCIENCE
Air Quality Disparities Persist Despite Overall Gains

American Lung Association chief executive Harold Wimmer calls the new science rule "a dangerous step in the wrong direction — one that threatens the integrity and use of the best science, and consequently threatens our health and lives."

Last year, the association co-signed a letter opposing the new rule, along with more than 50 medical, environmental and scientific groups including the American Medical Association, the American Heart Association and the American Public Health Association.

"It has no merits from the standpoint of science or transparency, and it will make it vastly harder for the agency to do its job of protecting public health and the environment," Andrew Rosenberg of the Union of Concerned Scientists, a national science advocacy group, wrote in an email after the final rule was announced. "The damage will fall hardest on Black, Latinx and Indigenous communities who already bear disproportionate harms from environmental hazards in the air, water and soil."

The Biden administration could remove or rewrite the rule, but it would take months, if not years. Because the rule gives the EPA administrator the power to override the limits on which scientific studies EPA regulators can use, the incoming administration could essentially sidestep the rule while it works to undo it.

Colby Cosh: Remembering the Beirut blast, and other entirely preventable disasters

Here’s an example of the time-bending from which we all suffer thanks to the reality distortion virus. Remember that huge accidental explosion that killed 204 people and levelled much of Beirut? When I was reminded of it by a headline the other day, I tried to think back to when this horrifying event — reminiscent, to Canadians, of the great Halifax explosion of 1917 — had happened.

© Provided by National Post Diggers remove earth at the blast site next to the silos at the port of Beirut on Aug. 16, 2020, in the aftermath of the massive explosion there that ravaged Lebanon's capital.

I was pretty sure it was in calendar 2020, but felt it had to be quite early in the year, perhaps January or February. This was after adjusting for my badly damaged brain calendar, because the explosion actually seems to have taken place two or three years ago. Actual date: Aug. 4, 2020.

The blast turned out to involve no great mystery once the various threads of causality were given a tug. Man-made accidents generally involve a long chain of routine occupational screw-ups; each will normally be the sort that happens often, especially in an environment of corruption and institutional somnolence, and which only become enormously dangerous when they form an unhappy statistical series, like a long roll of ones in a dice game.

But Beirut’s position near the world’s aorta of trade — the reason there is a beautiful, cosmopolitan city there that, for all its bullet holes and political turbulence, represents the essence of civilization — loaded all of the dice a little bit, in a way that would be comic if not so tragic.

Just count the number of countries that appear in the sequence leading to the accident. The arrow to the heart of Beirut turns out to have been the cargo ship MV Rhosus, in transit from Georgia (the Caucasian country, not the state) to a mine in Mozambique. The Rhosus was owned by a Panamanian shell company, flew the flag of Moldova and was reportedly owned by a Cypriot who had friends in Hezbollah.

The ship had mechanical troubles in the Mediterranean and pulled into Beirut for repairs. Facing high tolls at Suez (put a check mark next to Egypt), the captain tried to take on a load of machinery that damaged the cargo bay doors. An inspection showed the vessel to be unseaworthy. As fees ran up, the port seized the ship. Its main cargo, unfortunately, was 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate.

All of this happened in 2014; the nitrate was offloaded and stored in the port’s Warehouse 12, a sort of oubliette for dangerous and confiscated cargo. The ship was damaged beyond repair, and not long after the explosion, the New York Times executed a small digital news coup by going back over satellite photos and discovering that the Rhosus had been allowed to sink in its emergency berth in early 2018. The hull is still underwater there, in a location that happens not to obstruct port traffic.

Lebanese customs officials, to their credit, absolutely did not forget the frightening presence of a vast quantity of the stuff that Timothy McVeigh had used to blow up the Alfred W. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995. Between the summer of 2014 and 2017, border agents sent a long series of unanswered letters to the judges who had confiscated the cargo. They begged to be allowed to sell the ammonium nitrate or give it to the Lebanese army.

Instead, it sat there until some doomed welders inadvertently started a fire in Warehouse 12 on that fatal day, which is one of the many things in this chain of events that ought to be impossible in a well-managed port facility. Another is that 10 firefighters were sent speeding to the scene, not knowing the contents of the warehouse. On arrival, they reported that the fire was making a “crazy,” unfamiliar sound. All were obliterated.

The standing of the Beirut event amongst the world’s largest accidental explosions has turned out to be more or less exactly what guesswork suggested in the hours following the spread of the news. The explosion, considered to be the equivalent of about a kiloton of TNT going off, was at most about one-third the strength of the 1917 Halifax blast. Halifax remains the unchallenged titleholder.

But like most of the very greatest accidental explosions in history, the Halifax disaster was an incident of war essentially involving a premature detonation of ammunition. Among purely industrial accidents, the greatest ever in terms of pure energy release remains the BASF Oppau explosion of 1921 in Ludwigshafen, Germany, which killed 560 people.

Oppau happened because BASF was storing ammonium nitrate in loose form and using dynamite to break up the pile when an order came in. The crater remains as a reminder that German engineering has not always lived up to its reputation.

Beirut does not come to the level of Oppau, but is on par with the Texas City, Tex., disaster of 1947, when cargo closely matching the contents of Warehouse 12 caught fire aboard the ship SS Grandcamp and annihilated a dockside factory town.

We may never abolish war, and ammonium nitrate will always remain available (in tightly limited amounts) at every big feed store and garden centre in the universe, but we can hope the Beirut tragedy is the last of its kind.

National Post

Twitter.com/colbycosh