As US Prepares to Leave Iraq, Ex-Advisor to Iraqi President Says Kurds Need Reliable Partners

© AP Photo / Jim MacMillan, File
Elizabeth Blade

Washington has a proven track record failing its allies, says a former Kurdish official, whereas such countries as Iran and Russia are known for standing by their partners and fighting for them until the end.

With the pullout from Afghanistan officially over, the US is now looking to meet another deadline and withdraw its forces from Iraq, where they have been stationed since 2003.
Today, there are some 2,500 US troops in Iraq. They help local forces combat remnants of Daesh* and other terrorist groups. After the withdrawal, only few troops will be left, and they are expected to train and advise the Iraqi military.

Kurds Worried

The promise to leave the region has already stirred worries among many Kurds within Iraq, and Hiwa Osman, an Erbil-based political analyst and former advisor to Jalal Talabani, a Kurdish politician who served as the president of Iraq from 2006 to 2014, says that the pullout of American forces from the country will not turn it into another Afghanistan, but Iraq will be "fragmented and divided".


"The south will fall into the hands of Iran. In the north, where the Kurds are, there will be a Turkish takeover, whereas in the centre, where most Sunnies reside, there will be a civil war," Osman believes.

Up until recently, the Kurds of Iraq had high expectations of US President Joe Biden, who took office in January.

Unlike his predecessor Donald Trump, who was perceived as someone who used the Kurds in his fight against Daesh and who dumped them years later, Biden has been viewed as a reliable partner, and as a leader who could solve their multiple problems.
And those were in abundance. They included the attempts of Iran and Turkey to bite off some territories from the Kurds, the lack of agreement with Iraq's central government over oil revenues and disputed land and the involvement of the Kurdish Peshmerga forces in the Iraqi military.

Unreliable Partners

Now, as the policy of the Biden administration is clear, many Kurds feel exposed but Osman says he has not been surprised by the move, given Washington's "poor history" mistreating its allies. "They have always said they would not leave the Kurds. But history taught us they always did".

Such was the case in 1975, when following the Iran-Iraq border treaty, the Kurds were attacked by the then-leader of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, while the Americans, who initially seemed to have supported the Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani, were sitting idly by.
In the 1980s, the Kurds experienced a similar setback when they joined the Iranian revolutionary guards in the Iran-Iraq war. Once the hostilities came to an end, Saddam Hussein became even more ruthless towards the ethnic minority that had cooperated with his enemy. Washington once again preferred not to interfere.

"They have also left the Kurds of Syria," says Osman, referring to the 2019 US withdrawal from the war-torn country and refusal to confront Turkey over its decision to move troops and proxy forces into Kurdish-controlled areas. "They cannot be trusted, and this is the reason, why the Kurds should be looking for alternatives."

Looking for Allies

One such alternative could be Iran, thinks the former advisor. Steps in that direction have already been taken. In 2018, Kurds gave reassurances to the Iranians that they would not allow any Kurdish opposition groups to launch cross-border attacks from Iraqi Kurdistan, something that brought the two sides closer.

And, more recently, eastern Kurdistan made a series of appointments that indicated they were seeking closer ties with the Islamic Republic.

There have also been attempts at rapprochement with Russia. In 2020, Moscow made sure to involve the Kurds in negotiations with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whereas Russian President Vladimir Putin has reiterated the importance of Iraq's Kurdish Pershmerga forces in their fight against Daesh.

"For the Kurds, it makes perfect sense to align themselves with such countries as Iran and Russia. Those stand by their allies to the last bullet. So if I were a decision maker and I needed to choose between Washington and Moscow, I would most certainly go for the latter", Osman concludes.

*Daesh, also known as ISIS/IS/Islamic State, is a terrorist group banned in Russia and many other countries.

Russia's Super 'Gun' Has Brought Destruction from Afghanistan to Ukraine
It fields gigantic 240-millimeter mortars.

by Sebastien Roblin

Here's What You Need to Remember: The M240 mortar can fire a variety of special-purpose rounds for these purposes.

Self-propelled heavy mortar carriers are ubiquitous in modern mechanized armies. Mounted on light armored carriers and placed at the disposal of battalion commanders, such vehicles can deliver heavy and fast-responding indirect bombardments with 120-millimeter shells. When compared to self-propelled howitzers of similar caliber, mortars are lighter and require a smaller logistical train, but have significantly shorter range.

The United States Army mounts 120-millimeter mortars on wheeled Strykers (the M1129) and M113 tracked vehicles (designated the M1064). Russia fields its own 120-millimeter self-propelled vehicles, the 2S9 NONA.

But it also uniquely fields gigantic 240-millimeter mortars on its 2S4 Tyulpan (Tulip) mortar carriers—by far the largest mortar system in use today. And by “use,” I mean in combat.

Why employ such a large mortar with such a relatively short range

A look at history provides a few answers.

First answer: to destroy fortresses and hardened defensive positions. Israeli fortifications on the Golan Heights and Suez Canal, fortified mujahideen caves in Afghanistan, and airports defended by the Ukrainian Army have all been hit by M240 mortars at one point or another.

Second answer: to destroy cities. Apartment buildings in Grozny, Beirut and Homs didn’t destroy themselves.

This article will look at both the vehicle and its main weapon.

The thirty-ton 2S4 mates its M240 heavy mortar to a tracked GMZ vehicle chassis used in numerous other self-propelled weapons systems. The crew of nine (four vehicle operators and five gunners) is protected by up to twenty millimeters of armor—adequate protection against small arms and shrapnel.

Though the terrifying barrel of the M240 is pointed forward when the vehicle is on the march, when deployed the mortar’s baseplate is flipped over the back of the vehicle on to the ground so that the tube points upward and away. Each shot makes the entire vehicle ring like a giant bell.

Unlike most mortars, the M240 is a breech-loaded weapon.

It can fire massive 221-pound F864 high explosive projectiles—each 1.5 meters long and comparable in weight to small aerial bombs—at targets over nine kilometers away. With rocket-assisted projectiles, the range can increase up to twenty kilometers. However, the M240’s rate of fire is just one round per minute.

Unlike a shot from a howitzer, mortar rounds plunge downward on a near-vertical trajectory, and are therefore effective for shooting over the walls of fortifications, down into cave mouths, on the far sides of mountains and piercing through the roofs of buildings.

The M240 mortar can fire a variety of special-purpose rounds for these purposes. Concrete-piercing shells are designed to shatter bunkers, while Sayda incendiary projectiles set buildings aflame. A nuclear 3B11 shell also exists. The 2S4 was deployed at high-level nuclear-artillery brigades during the Cold War.

Recently, Syrian towed M240 mortars were identified firing cluster munitions in action for the first time. A rocket-assisted 3O8 Nerpa “cargo shell” which deployed fourteen O10 parachute sub-munitions was identified as having struck a school in session in the suburbs of Damascus.

The 2S4 also can fire the 276-pound Smel’chak (Daredevil) shell, which is guided by a separate laser designator. Detailed accounts of combat in Afghanistan describe using the Smel’chak to drop shells precisely over fortress walls and into fortified cave entrances. Daredevil rounds offer a significant ability to hit point targets after just one or two ranging rounds, though the targeting system requires optimal atmospheric conditions.

The Syrian Army is currently using towed M240 mortars in its sieges of rebel-held cities. Reports on its use in the indiscriminate bombardment of Homs gained extensive media attention in 2012. (Claims that 2S4 vehicles were used appear to be inaccurate.) Previously, the mortars had also gained infamy for killing hundreds in bombardments of Beirut during the 1980s—the shells powerful enough to pierce the roofs of concrete shelters.

Egypt is also believed to retain towed M240s.

Russia maintains just one active battalion of eight 2S4s in service, with over four hundred in reserve. In 2000, Tyulpans played a prominent role in the siege of Grozny in the second Chechen war, systematically “leveling” the city from afar according to one analyst. 127 targets were reported destroyed by Daredevil laser-guided rounds. All together the Russian army claims to have killed 1,500 separatist fighters in Grozny in a siege believed to have killed over sixteen times as many civilians.

Unlike other Russian artillery systems, the 2S4 was not exported within the Warsaw Pact, with the exception of a small number of vehicles briefly serving in the Czech army.

Curiously enough, however, 2S4s were spotted in Ukraine in July 2014 by OSCE drones. It seems that in the Russian army you can take your siege mortars with you when you volunteer abroad! At least four mortars are reported being used in support of Russian separatists.

The Tulips established a reputation for themselves in the sieges of two strongpoints held by Ukrainian Army forces in 2014, the airports of Luhansk and Donetsk. In both cases, their bombardments collapsed airport terminals onto their foundations, forcing defenders to retreat from positions they had held for months. Ukrainian defense minister Valery Gelety even initially claimed in September that the 2S4 had struck Luhansk airport with a tactical nuke. He later maintained that he was referring to the vehicle’s capability of deploying nuclear shells.

My two-part article on the combat employment of the M240 mortar covers additional details on the weapon’s use, ranging from the 1973 Yom Kippur War to the present day.

The 2S4 has no equivalent in Western militaries. This is because its main task—destroying immobile, fortified strongpoints with its powerful shells—is typically performed by airstrikes using precision-guided munitions such as JDAMs. Of course, the advantages of a ground-based system are those of sustained fire over time and ability to operate when air power is unavailable.

Unfortunately, these practical characteristics have also enabled the M240 mortar’s use in prolonged and indiscriminate bombardments of civilian targets.

In the words of journalist Paul Conroy, present at the siege of Homs: “I lay there and listened as salvos of three of these mortars were launched at a time, 18 hours a day, for five days.”

Sébastien Roblin holds a Master’s Degree in Conflict Resolution from Georgetown University and served as a university instructor for the Peace Corps in China. He has also worked in education, editing, and refugee resettlement in France and the United States. He currently writes on security and military history for War Is Boring. This article is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters.

Taliban are after Bactrian gold treasure. It has an Indian connect

The Bactrian treasure was excavated more than four decades ago from the graves of six wealthy nomads in the Tela Tapa area of Sherberghan district in northern Afghanistan.

The Taliban have said they are tracking and will secure the 2000-year-old Bactrian gold treasure. (Thierry Ollivier/Musée Guimet)

By hindustantimes.com | Written by Meenakshi Ray
PUBLISHED ON SEP 19, 2021

The Taliban have said they have begun efforts to track and locate the 2000-year-old Bactrian treasure, also known as Bactrian Gold. “The issue is under investigation, and we will collect information to know what the reality is. If it has been transferred (out of Afghanistan), it is treason against Afghanistan,” Ahmadullah Wasiq, deputy head of the cultural commission of the Taliban interim cabinet, was quoted as saying by Tolo News. “The government of Afghanistan will take serious actions if this and other ancient items are moved out of the country,” Wasiq said.

More than 20,000 artefacts

The Bactrian treasure was excavated in 1978-79 from the graves of six wealthy nomads—dating from the first century BC to the first century AD— in the Tela Tapa or Hill of Gold area of Sherberghan district in northern Afghanistan. The graves of the Saka tribesmen from Central Asia, perhaps, or the Yuezhi from northwest China, had more than 20,000 artefacts including gold cupids, dolphins, gods and dragons encrusted with semiprecious stones such as turquoise, carnelian, and lapis lazuli. They also contained golden rings, coins, weapons, earrings, bracelets, necklaces, weapons, and crowns.

Also read | Taliban to track, secure 2000-year-old Bactrian gold treasure: Report

Viktor Sarianidi, the Moscow archaeologist who led the joint Soviet-Afghan team that uncovered the graves, compared the impact of the find to the 1922 discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb. "The gold of Bactria shook the world of archaeology. Nowhere in antiquity have so many different objects from so many different cultures—Chinese-inspired boot buckles, Roman coins, daggers in a Siberian style—been found together in situ,” Sarianidi has written, according to the Smithsonian Magazine.

“The 2,000-year-old artifacts found with them exhibit a rare blend of aesthetic influences (from Persian to classical Greek) and the great number of precious objects found surprised the archaeologists, in particular the intricate golden crown found in the sixth tomb,” it added. Smithsonian Magazine said in 2009 that for example the diadem, “a five-inch-tall crown of hammered gold leaf, conveniently folds for travel, and a thumb-size gold figure of a mountain sheep is delicately incised with curving horns and flaring nostrils”.

Kushan Empire, Buddha

Sarianidi believed that the treasure had been assembled by Yuezhi nobles from China, who arrived in the Bactria region around the second century BC and later established the Kushan Empire in India. Other scholars say the hoard was interred by Scythians from modern-day Iran. “The contesting theories reveal the variety of influences that make up this huge collection of objects. Other items include a Roman coin with the head of the emperor Tiberius, a silver mirror with Chinese engravings, rings with Greek text, and a coin with Buddhist imagery,” National Geographic magazine said in 2016.

Sarianidi and his workers found a skull and skeleton surrounded by gold jewellery and ornaments during the course of the excavation. They were the remains of a woman, 25 to 30 years old, whom Sarianidi called a nomadic princess. “He subsequently found and excavated five additional graves, all simple trenches containing lidless wooden coffins holding the remains of once ornately attired bodies,” according to Smithsonian Magazine.

Sarianidi's team uncovered in the grave of a chieftain—the only man found at the site—turquoise-studded daggers and sheaths and a braided gold belt with raised medallions that bear the image riding on a panther. Some say the image is that Dionysus, the Greek god of wine, and others speculate it's the Bactrian goddess Nana seated on a lion. An Indian medallion was also found near the chieftain's rib cage by the excavators. Véronique Schiltz, a French archaeologist with the National Center for Scientific Research in Paris, has said it bears one of the earliest representations of Buddha.

The remains of a woman in her 30s were found in a nearby grave and she was wearing signet rings with images of Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom, and a pair of matching jewelled pendants with gold figures grasping S-shaped dragons. Another grave, that of a teenage girl, contained thin gold shoe soles along with a Roman coin minted in the early first century AD in Gallic Lugdunum—present-day Lyon, France.

Dead in the water: Northwest Passage will replace Suez as world’s transport route

This satellite imagery released by Maxar Technologies shows a close up overview of the MV Ever Given container ship and tugboats in the Suez Canal on March 29, 2021. (AFP)

Rami Rayess

AL-ARABYA
Published: 14 September ,2021

Since the mega-sized container ship Ever Given blocked the Suez Canal earlier this year - creating a global logistical nightmare in the process - debate covering future solutions to tackle similar crises is ongoing.

As globalization’s pace quickens unabated trade deals that contain strict transportation times and costs are par the course.
The Suez Canal has monopolized international trade routing since 1869. The Panama Canal also conquered an important chunk of global shipping and trade when it was inaugurated in 1914.

Alternative routes are essential.

The Northwest Passage is one clear solution, and navigating successfully this body of gradually melting water found around northern Canada is getting closer. It will eventually replace the Suez Canal as the world’s favored shipping route to link the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

Environmental cynics may claim that the opening up of the Northwest Passage as the sea ice melts is one benefit of global warming. Regardless of the moral rights and wrongs of this view, they are correct.

There’s a great deal of romance for seafarers looking at the Northwest Passage. Always seeking quick routes, and facing the challenge of finding them, over the centuries sailing through the Northwest Passage, following the Northeast channel and tacking around the Horn of Africa were the toughest routes for the earliest modern maritimers.

The mission of 1845 when HMS Erebus and HMS Terror set out from England under the command of Sir John Franklin to find the Northwest Passage is the stuff of legend. Much of Europe had tried attempting this, but had always failed.

Both vessels were last seen to the east of the entrance of the Passage, but from there the crew and ships disappeared never to be seen again.

The shipping route no longer offers the challenge of navigating it, and in the process, some might say has lost the mystery and intrigue from centuries ago.

With expectations that the ice will melt totally in the Arctic by 2050, the route will become fully navigable for mega container ships.

Right now the impediments facing all countries considering using the Northwest Passage include: the need for advanced ships and technology; high insurance costs, and the fees involved with using icebreaker escort vessels.

With expectations that Arctic sea ice will melt totally by 2050, the Northwest Passage will become fully navigable for mega container ships. (Reuters)

A positive for Egypt are the benefits it can capitalize on from geopolitical differences between the major international players that will clash over the Northwest Passage.

There are many issues facing the countries attempting to lay claim to it.

These include legal questions about international access to the waterway. Is it a passage or a strait? This question appears innocuous and irrelevant, but in maritime law the answer will determine which nation can do what. If it’s a strait, then countries across the globe can access it without ramifications. At the moment Canada lays claim, but this has yet to be tested in court.

China, although in no way has direct access to the channel from its borders, is eyeing it as a future avenue to transport its billions of dollars-worth of goods it moves around the world each year.

In 2016 the country’s maritime authority published a guide tracking ice conditions through the channel. It also included nautical charts. An ice-free passage would be ideal for China and the other grand trade tycoons at the international level.

For journeys between Europe and Asia, travelling Northwest is two or three weeks faster than passing through the Suez.

A maritime trip from Shanghai to Rotterdam is a little under 20,000 km passing through the Suez Canal. Taking the Northwest Passage route cuts the distance to 16,000 km, and by decreasing the travel time and costs in this scale will increase profits substantially.

Egypt generates revenues of around 13 million euros ($15 million) daily from the Suez Canal totaling 4.8 billion euros ($5.7 billion) annually. According to an estimate by Lloyd’s more than eight billion euros worth of goods pass through the canal each day.

For the next couple of decades, the Suez Canal will remain an indispensable waterway that serves international trade and a passage that connects different parts of the world.

Of course, many benefits from using the Suez Canal will remain, particularly involving multiple drop-off port routes, but the mega containers will use the Northwest Passage soon enough.

So, for now the Suez Canal has a stay of execution, but it’s only a matter of time before the Northwest Passage makes the the water channel surplus to the requirements of global trade, and Egypt must ready itself for that day.

SPOON!
Israel recaptures last two Palestinians who escaped from high-security prison


35-year-old Ayham Kamamji and 26-year-old Munadel Infeiat. (Screengrab)

AFP, Jerusalem
Published: 19 September ,2021:

The Israeli army has recaptured the last two Palestinians involved in a spectacular jail break earlier this month, it announced Sunday.

At the beginning of September, six Palestinian inmates escaped Gilboa prison in Israel’s north, through a tunnel dug under a sink in a cell, reportedly using tools including a spoon.

Israel launched a massive manhunt, deploying drones, road checkpoints and pouring troops into the occupied West Bank.

Authorities had already arrested four of the six, and in a tweet on Sunday the Israel Defense Forces said the last two had surrendered “after being surrounded by security forces that acted precisely based on accurate intelligence.”

The men, 35-year-old Ayham Kamamji and 26-year-old Munadel Infeiat, are both members of the extremist group Islamic Jihad.

Israeli police look at a tunnel which Palestinian prisoners used to escape a high-security jail. (Twitter)

They were arrested in a joint operation with counterterrorism forces in Jenin, in the West Bank, the army said in a short statement to the press, adding that they were “currently being interrogated.”

Originally from Kafr Dan, near Jenin, Kamamji was arrested in 2006 and jailed for life for the kidnap and murder of a young Israeli settler, Eliahu Asheri.

Islamic Jihad said Kamamji suffered abdominal and intestinal illness in jail and was subject to “medical negligence” by prison authorities.

Infeiat, arrested last year, had been jailed multiple times previously for his role in the armed group, and was awaiting sentencing at the time of the escape.

The other four men recaptured last week included Mahmoud Abdullah Ardah, the alleged mastermind of the escape, and Zakaria Zubeidi, a former militant leader of the Fatah movement.

  

Palestinians have a new symbol of resistance — the spoon

Artists from around the region honour Palestinian prisoners who used spoons to dig their way to freedom from an Israeli maximum security prison.

Kuwaiti artist Maitham Abdal works on a sculpture named "Spoon of Freedom" in his workshop in his home in Kuwait City on September 13, 2021. (AFP)

The humble spoon has taken its place alongside traditional flags and banners as a Palestinian resistance symbol, after prisoners were said to have carried out one of Israel's most spectacular jail breaks with the utensil.

When six Palestinians escaped through a tunnel on September 6 from the high security Gilboa prison, social networks shared images of a tunnel at the foot of a sink, and a hole dug outside.

A hashtag, "the miraculous spoon", suggested how the Hollywood-style feat might have occurred.

But whether or not the utensil had really been involved or its role was cooked up was at first unclear.

Then on Wednesday a lawyer for one of the fugitives who has since been recaptured told AFP that his client, Mahmud Abdullah Ardah, said he had used spoons, plates and even the handle of a kettle to dig the tunnel from his cell.

He began scraping his way out from the northern Israeli institution in December, the lawyer, Roslan Mahajana, said.

Ardah was one of four fugitives later arrested after the army poured troops into the occupied West Bank as part of a massive manhunt.

All six were accused of plotting or carrying out attacks against Israelis.

Two men remain on the loose following the extremely rare escape. Israel has begun an inquiry into lapses that led to the embarrassing incident, which Palestinians see as a "victory".

"With determination, vigilance... and cunning, and with a spoon, it was possible to dig a tunnel through which the Palestinians escaped and the enemy was imprisoned," writer Sari Orabi said on the Arabi 21 website.

READ MORE: What the Galboa prison break symbolises for Palestinians

Palestinian cartoonist Mohammed Sabaaneh says the escape has served up "black humour" and exposed Israel's security system to ridicule.

He has made several drawings featuring the utensil, including one titled "The Tunnel of Freedom".


A history made

The issue has also stirred admiration outside the Palestinian territories, where spoons have been carried in demonstrations supporting prisoners detained by Israel.

In Kuwait, the artist Maitham Abdal sculpted a giant hand firmly clasping a spoon — the "spoon of freedom", as he calls it.

Similarly inspired, Amman-based graphic designer Raed al-Qatnani symbolically depicted six silhouettes taking a bridge to freedom, represented by a spoon.


For him, it also evokes the numerous hunger strikes undertaken by Palestinian prisoners to protest their incarceration.

In Tulkarem, a city in the West Bank occupied since 1967 by Israel, the escape brought back memories for Ghassan Mahdawi. He and another prisoner escaped from an Israeli prison in 1996 through a tunnel dug using not kitchen implements but nails.

He had been arrested for belonging to an armed group during the first Palestinian intifada, which lasted until the early 1990s.

"There's nothing prisoners can't do... and there is always a flaw" in the system, said Mahdawi, who was rearrested and then released after a total of 19 years in custody.

In his view, the most recent escapees may have used tools other than spoons, obtained inside the prison, to carry out what every prisoner dreams of but few accomplish.

"To escape from an Israeli prison is something each inmate thinks about," Mahdawi said.

To have done it with a spoon, he added, is something that "will go down in history".

UPDATE

California Wildfires Make A Run Toward A Giant Sequoia Grove

September 18, 2021
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Sequoia trees stand in Lost Grove along Generals Highway as the KNP Complex Fire burns about 15 miles away on Friday, in Sequoia National Park, Calif.

Noah Berger/AP

THREE RIVERS, Calif. — Two lightning-sparked wildfires in California merged and made a run to the edge of a grove of ancient sequoias, momentarily driving away firefighters as they try to protect the world's tallest tree by wrapping its base in protective foil.

A shift in the weather led to explosive growth on the fires in the Sequoia National Park in the Sierra Nevada on Friday, the National Park Service said, and the flames reached the westernmost tip of the Giant Forest, where it scorched a grouping of sequoias known as the "Four Guardsmen" that mark the entrance to the grove of 2,000 sequoias.

Firefighters wrapped the base of the General Sherman Tree, along with other trees in the Giant Forest, in a type of aluminum that can withstand high heat. It wasn't immediately known how the Four Guardsmen, which received the same treatment, fared, fire spokeswoman Katy Hooper said.

The General Sherman Tree is the largest in the world by volume, at 52,508 cubic feet (1,487 cubic meters), according to the National Park Service. It towers 275 feet (84 meters) high and has a circumference of 103 feet (31 meters) at ground level.
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A Single Fire Killed Thousands Of Sequoias. Scientists Are Racing To Save The Rest

The fires, known together as the KNP Complex, blackened 28 square miles (72 square kilometers) of forest land. Fire activity increased Friday afternoon when winds picked up and low-hanging smoke that had choked off air and limited the fire's growth in recent days lifted, Hooper said.

Firefighters who were wrapping the base of the sequoias in foil and sweeping leaves and needles from the forest floor around the trees had to flee from the danger, Hooper said. They went back Saturday when conditions improved to continue the work and start a strategic fire along Generals Highway to protect the Giant Forest grove, Hooper said.

The fires forced the evacuation of the park this week, and parts of Three Rivers, a foothill community of about 2,500 people outside the park's main entrance. Crews have been bulldozing a line between the fire and the community.

The National Weather Service issued a red flag warning through Sunday, saying gusts and lower humidity could create conditions for rapid wildfire spread.

However, fire officials weren't expecting the kinds of explosive wind-driven growth that in recent months turned Sierra Nevada blazes into monsters that devoured hundreds of homes.

Giant sequoias are adapted to fire, which can help them thrive by releasing seeds from their cones and creating clearings that allow young sequoias to grow. But the extraordinary intensity of fires — fueled by climate change — can overwhelm the trees.

"Once you get fire burning inside the tree, that will result in mortality," said Jon Wallace, the operations section chief for the KNP Complex.

The fires already have burned into several groves containing trees as tall as 200 feet (61 meters) feet tall and 2,000 years old.

To the south, the Windy Fire grew to 19 square miles (50 square kilometers) on the Tule River Indian Reservation and in Giant Sequoia National Monument, where it has burned into the Peyrone grove of sequoias and threatens others.

The fire also had reached Long Meadow Grove, where two decades ago then-President Clinton signed a proclamation establishing its Trail of 100 Giant Sequoias as a national monument.

Fire officials haven't yet been able to determine how much damage was done to the groves, which are in remote and hard-to-reach areas. They said crews were "doing everything they can" to protect the trail by removing needles, leaves and other fuels from around the base of the trees.

Last year, the Castle Fire killed an estimated 7,500 to 10,600 large sequoias, according to the National Park Service. That was an estimated 10% to 14% of all the sequoias in the world.

The current fires are eating through tinder-dry timber, grass and brush.

In far Northern California, an early season rain was a welcome sign for firefighters battling a cluster of wildfires ignited by lightning in the Klamath National Forest in late July. Fire officials say it won't extinguish the nearly 300-square-mile (772 square-kilometer) blaze, but will help crews reach their goal.

Light rain is expected in the coastal area north of San Francisco over the weekend. But forecasters say conditions are likely to dry out by early next week, prompting a fire weather watch that may lead to power shutoffs in Napa, Sonoma and Solano counties.

Historic drought tied to climate change is making wildfires harder to fight. It has killed millions of trees in California alone. Scientists say climate change has made the West much warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive.

More than 7,000 wildfires in California this year have damaged or destroyed more than 3,000 homes and other buildings and torched well over 3,000 square miles (7,770 square kilometers) of land, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Hong Kong elite selects powerful new 'patriots only' committee

CHINA IS NOT COMMUNIST 

IT IS A NATIONALIST

ONE PARTY STATE-CAPITALISM

Issued on: 18/09/2021 -

Hong Kong's elites are set to choose a power committee that will elect the city's next leader Peter PARKS AFP/File

Hong Kong (AFP)

Hong Kong's political elite will select a powerful committee on Sunday which will choose the city's next leader and nearly half the legislature under a new "patriots only" system imposed by Beijing.

The financial hub has never been a democracy -- the source of years of protests -- but a small and vocal opposition was tolerated after the city's 1997 handover to authoritarian China.

Huge and often violent democracy rallies exploded two years ago and Beijing has responded with a crackdown and a new political system where only those deemed loyal are allowed to stand for office.

The first poll under that new system, dubbed "patriots rule Hong Kong", will take place on Sunday as members of the city's ruling classes choose a 1,500-seat Election Committee.

In December, that committee will appoint 40 of the city's 90 seats in the legislature -- 30 will be chosen by special interest groups and just 20 will be directly elected.

The following year, it will pick Hong Kong's next China-approved leader.

Beijing insists the new political system is more representative and will ensure "anti-China" elements are not allowed into office.

Critics say it leaves no room for the pro-democracy opposition and turns Hong Kong into a mirror of the authoritarian Communist Party-ruled mainland.

The Chief Executive will be elected in a process critics say leaves no room for the pro-democracy opposition and turns Hong Kong into a mirror of the authoritarian Communist Party-ruled mainland 

Peter PARKS AFP/File

"Hong Kongers are completely cut off from electoral operations," Nathan Law, a prominent democracy leader who fled to Britain last year, told AFP.

"All election runners will become puppet showmen under Beijing's entire control... with no meaningful competition."

Ted Hui, a former lawmaker who moved to Australia, said Hong Kong's political system was now "a rubber-stamp game completely controlled by Beijing."

"It's more than a managed democracy. It's an autocracy trying to pretend to be civilised," Hui told AFP.

- 4,800 voters, 6,000 police -

Under the new system, all those standing for public office must be vetted for political loyalty and cleared of being a national security threat.

Back in 2016, some 233,000 Hong Kongers were allowed to select the Election Committee.

That figure has now been trimmed to around 4,800 -- the equivalent of 0.6 percent of Hong Kong's 7.5 million population. Police said 6,000 officers would be deployed to ensure there are no protests or disruptions.

The vast majority of seats in Sunday's vote are a one-horse race with just 364 contested. The rest will be installed ex-officio or chosen by special interest groups.

As a result, the committee will be even more stacked than previously with reliable pro-Beijing votes, including loyalist lawmakers and members of national bodies as well as representatives from business, professional and religious groups.

A crackdown by authorities has seen Hong Kong's civil service now required to swear an oath of loyalty Handout 

INFORMATION SERVICES DEPARTMENT/AFP

Local media have reported that people linked to the city's powerful business tycoon families will wield less power.

China promised Hong Kong would maintain key liberties and autonomy for 50 years after its handover.

But Beijing has begun tightening its grip on the city following the 2019 protests.

China's leaders were also stung by pro-democracy candidates winning a landslide the same year in district council elections -- the only public office positions in Hong Kong fully selected by universal suffrage.

On top of the new political system, China has also imposed a sweeping national security law that has criminalised much dissent.

Multiple opposition figures have been jailed, dozens of pro-democracy groups, including the city's most popular newspaper, have been shuttered and tens of thousands of Hong Kongers have left the city. Others have been disqualified for their political views.

© 2021 AFP

RIKERS

Ex-inmates decry worsening state of New York's 'hellhole' jail

Issued on: 19/09/2021 - 03:36Modified: 19/09/2021 - 03:34

Rikers is one of America's highest-profile prisons and has incarcerated celebrities from Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols, to rapper Tupac Shakur and former International Monetary Fund managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn

 JOHN MOORE GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File


New York (AFP)

It's held disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein, rapper Tupac Shakur and ex-IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn: New York's notorious Rikers Island prison is now under intense scrutiny over the deaths of at least nine inmates this year.

Officials who visited the high-profile jail this week, and former inmates spoken to by AFP, say conditions have worsened dramatically at the sprawling complex due to widespread staff shortages during the pandemic.

"It's the wild, wild West in there," said Johnny Perez, who was in and out of Rikers between 1996 and 2001 on robbery and gun possession charges.

Glenn Martin -- who spent three days in Rikers, where he was stabbed four times in an attack, after a shoplifting arrest as a 16-year-old in the late 1980s -- calls it a "hellhole."

"It's described as a gladiator school for a reason," the 49-year-old told AFP, listing another of Rikers' monikers: "torture island."

Marvin Mayfield, detained for a total of 22 months over two stretches in the 1980s and 2007 for burglary, said Rikers leaves "a stain on the soul of everyone" who goes there.

The jail, which opened in 1932 and also housed John Lennon killer Mark David Chapman and the Sex Pistols' Sid Vicious, has long had a reputation for being a hotbed of violence.

Incidents against inmates and guards have in part been blamed on its remote location in the East River between The Bronx and Queens boroughs.

But lawmakers and activists say the situation has spiraled out of control in recent months, with conditions becoming unsafe for both prisoners and officers.

A view of the entrance to Rikers Island penitentiary complex in 2011

 EMMANUEL DUNAND AFP

They say basic sanitary needs are not being met and rates of self-harm are rising.

"What I witnessed was a humanitarian crisis. A horror house of abuse and neglect," said New York State assemblywoman Emily Gallagher, who visited this week.

"There's garbage everywhere, rotting food with maggots, cockroaches, worms in the showers, human feces and piss," Gallagher tweeted, adding that broken limbs were not being treated.

New York City's department of corrections (DOC) says nine people have died at Rikers this year, up from seven last year and three in 2019. Local media has reported 10 deaths in 2021, at least five from suicide.

The DOC has been struggling with staffing for months; posts have been unattended with inmates left to fend for themselves.

- Closure plans -

Some 2,700 guards -- almost a third of the city's entire prison force -- are currently not working, some because of coronavirus which spread through US jails.

Prison officers unions say guards are overworked from triple shifts while others are recovering from the effects of Covid-19 and injuries inflicted by inmates.

They add that many are forced to stay away because conditions have become too dangerous, but officials say some are abusing an unlimited sick leave policy.

Mayor Bill de Blasio launched an emergency relief plan for Rikers this week, boosting staffing and implementing 30-day suspensions for officers who go AWOL.

Dominique Strauss Kahn, former Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) after being released on bail in New York City in 2011 before sexual assault charges against him were dropped MICHAEL NAGLE GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP

The proposal included emergency contracting to repair broken doors and clean facilities.

On Friday, Governor Kathy Hochul announced the immediate release of 191 inmates to help temper what she called a "volatile" situation.

The number of inmates at Rikers has fallen from around 20,000 in the 1990s to almost 6,000 today.

The vast majority are awaiting trial. They are also overwhelmingly from Black and Hispanic communities.

Perez has made return visits for advocacy work and says the jail has not improved since his release.

"It's ten times as worse," he told AFP.

In June, the DOC launched initiatives to increase staffing and safety and says it is making "every effort" to improve conditions.

Lawyers and criminologists have been calling for the prison's closure for years, citing its age and reputation for violence.

A view of buildings at the Rikers Island penitentiary complex taken in 2011 

EMMANUEL DUNAND AFP

It is due to close by 2026 under a $8.7-billion proposal by de Blasio to replace it with four smaller facilities.

But he leaves office at the end of this year. Neither Perez, Martin nor Mayfield, all now justice reform campaigners, are confident it will shut. But they say it must.

"It's a cancer. It can't be fixed. It needs to be removed and cut out," said Mayfield, 59.

© 2021 AFP

Rising rents spark Berlin housing seizure referendum

Issued on: 19/09/2021 -

"Yes! Expropriate." 

Berliners have become increasingly frustrated with rising housing costs 

PAUL ZINKEN AFP

Berlin (AFP)

In her apartment in suburban Berlin, Regina Lehmann despairs at the letter from her landlord, a big real estate group: the rent is going up.

Effective November 1, the increase of 12.34 euros ($14.54) on her monthly rent of 623.44 euros will be "difficult" to finance with her only income a disability pension, Lehmann tells AFP.

Almost 700 of her neighbours in the popular Berlin neighbourhood of Spandau will suffer the same fate, boosting their rent by up to eight percent.

Increases like these are at the root of a popular initiative to "expropriate" real estate companies such as Adler, which owns Lehmann's flat, that will culminate in a local referendum on September 26, the same day as national and municipal elections.

Residents in the capital have become increasingly frustrated with rising housing costs, as the city's attractiveness to outsiders has grown in recent years.

And beyond Berlin, the cost of housing has become a hot topic on the campaign trail in the contest to succeed Angela Merkel as chancellor.

Back in Lehmann's living room, surrounded by pictures of her family, Lehmann says she simply "won't pay" the rise.

"I think, if we pay, after a while they'll just increase the rent again," she says.

- 364,000 signatures -

Rent campaigners secured the referendum in Berlin after collecting 346,000 signatures in support of their proposition -- well above the number needed.

They are pushing to "expropriate" homes from real estate companies with more than 3,000 properties.

The result of the poll will not be binding, but advocates hope to force city government to respond to soaring rents, with the cost of housing going up by 85 percent between 2007 and 2019.

The rise has been painful for residents in the capital where 80 percent of people are renters, and 19.3 percent of people live under the country's poverty line, compared to 15.9 percent in the country as a whole.

Campaigners lay the blame at the door of major real estate groups, such as Adler, which owns 20,000 properties in Berlin.

In Lehmann's Spandau district, activists argue Adler's attempt to hike rents is illegal, exceeding a legal reference index linked to the average rent in each area.

The property group, in response, describes an "improved environment" around the lodgings that gives it grounds to charge more.

Supporters of expropriation have upped the tempo of their campaign in recent weeks to win over undecided voters, hanging posters and organising demonstrations across the city.

Many Berliners experienced rent increases after the German constitutional court struck down a rent cap which had been introduced by the city earlier this year, and a poll by the Tagesspiegel daily showed 47 percent of residents supported the radical proposal put forward in the referendum.

"We have to fight for our rights," says Catia Santos, 41, who recently attended a rent protest with her partner.

"Recently my rent has gone up by 100 euros, even though I am not earning any more than before."

- Political clash -

On Friday, just over a week before the vote, the city of Berlin announced the purchase of 14,750 residential properties for 2.4 billion euros from German real estate giants Deutsche Wohnen and Vonovia, a deal forged under pressure to find an answer to rising rents.

Forcibly taking ownership of privately owned accommodation has largely been rejected by national and local politicians in favour of plans to speed up the building of new homes.

"The best protection for renters is and always will be having enough places to live in," Armin Laschet, the conservative candidate to succeed Merkel as chancellor, told a real estate conference in Berlin in June.

The social-democrat favourite in the local Berlin elections, Franziska Giffey, also declared her opposition to the proposal, saying it could "damage" the city's reputation.

But her party's candidate to be chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has called for a "rent moratorium" to stabilise prices.

Only the far-left Die Linke and some individual Green candidates have come out in favour of expropriation, with some even displaying the rent campaigners' logo on their election materials.

© 2021 AFP

The cancer of money in our politics gives a 'thumbs-up' for corporations to kill more of America

Thom Hartmann
September 18, 2021

Facebook.

Want to know who owns your member of Congress? Just look at how they vote.

For example, this week Representatives Kurt Schrader (D-OR), Scott Peters (D-CA), Kathleen Rice (D-NY) and, on another committee, Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.) all voted with 100% of their Republican colleagues to kill the ability of Medicare to negotiate drug prices.

To put this into context, the VA and every insurance company and hospital group in America negotiates prescription drug prices. Only Medicare is forced to pay around $60 billion a year more than they should. Which echoes as higher retail drug prices through our entire healthcare system.

And this time it isn't just about pharmaceuticals. As Rep. Schrader's hometown newspaper, The Oregonian, noted in their headline: "Rep. Kurt Schrader of Oregon Helps Kill Drug Pricing Bill, Endangering Biden Infrastructure Plan."

It's a safe bet that none of them did it because they were representing the interest of the people in their districts who helped put them in office. A national poll published just last week found:

An 87% majority of voters over age 65 favor allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices... Among Democratic seniors, 89% are in favor, as are 87% of Republican seniors and 81% of independent seniors.

Instead, these Democrats are enthusiastically and publicly representing the interest of the pharmaceutical industry, which, Senator Bernie Sanders notes, "[H]as spent over $4.5 billion on lobbying and campaign contributions over the past 20 years and has hired some 1,200 lobbyists to get Congress to do its bidding."

Americans pay an average of $1500 a year more for prescription drugs than citizens of any other nation. But the crisis isn't just the rip-off that's making Big Pharma executives rich: it's quite literally killing us.

Dr. Nicky J. Mehtani, a resident physician at Johns Hopkins Hospital, writes about the pain of having to tell a family that their mother and grandmother has died when the most likely reason was because her patient couldn't afford the heart medication she'd been prescribed.

"[I]n this patient's case, there was no truer underlying cause of death than the blatant unaffordability of her prescription medications," writes Dr. Mehtani.

This is an everyday story all across America. Last year 2.3 million seniors (and 15.5 million people under 65) couldn't afford to pay for doctor-prescribed medication. One in four Americans say they "have difficulty" paying for pharmaceuticals, and one-in-eight "ration" their own pills.

Dr. Mehtani notes that the patient who died in her hospital had a prescription for the heart medications she needed.

"But upon arrival to her pharmacy," Dr. Mehtani writes, "she learned that, despite being insured, one of her heart medications would cost over $200 per month. Though she had $200 in her bank account, she also had eight grandchildren to care for and feed. She figured she could skip a few days of medication and fill the prescription two days later, when she was due to receive her Social Security check.

"But two days without these expensive medications was enough to cause her to have a second heart attack — one that would ultimately take her life and drastically change those of her eight grandchildren, some of whom would later enter the foster care system."

Meanwhile, members of Congress rake in the Big Pharma cash, laughing all the way to the bank as people in their districts cut pills in half and die.

It's easy to dismiss Reps Schrader, Peters, Rice and Murphy as corrupt sellouts and, certainly in this case, the label fits. And it's frankly surprising that they were the only ones who publicly sold out their constituents' grandparents: Big Pharma is throwing money around Congress and on TV ads like a kid with a Super Soaker at the beach.

You've probably by now seen the dueling TV ads from AARP and the pharmaceutical lobby about negotiating Medicare drug prices; the industry is trying to provide cover for the members of Congress who said, "How high?" when the big drug companies said, "Jump!"

But the cancer of money in our politics is much deeper than these four corrupted Democrats (and 100% of the Republicans), and it goes back to a corrupted and sold-out US Supreme Court.

In their 5-4 split 2010 Citizens United decision, they concluded not only that corporations are persons and thus able to exercise their Constitutional right to "free speech" by owning pet politicians but that, because corporations don't have mouths, the form of speech they (and the morbidly rich) can use is money.

That's right: that stuff you have in your pocket is "free speech."

At the time there were five Republican appointees on the Court and four Democratic appointees. Justice John Paul Stevens, a Democratic appointee, wrote the main dissent, noting:

"The fact that corporations are different from human beings might seem to need no elaboration, except that the majority opinion almost completely elides it… corporations have no consciences, no beliefs, no feelings, no thoughts, no desires. … They are not themselves members of 'We the People' by whom and for whom our Constitution was established."


Writing as if he were seeing the "swamp" the Roberts Court's decision left us with today, he added:

"Politicians who fear that a certain corporation can make or break their reelection chances may be cowed into silence about that corporation. On a variety of levels, unregulated corporate electioneering might diminish the ability of citizens to 'hold officials accountable to the people,' and disserve the goal of a public debate that is 'uninhibited, robust, and wide-open.'"


Our problem isn't just a few corrupt, for-sale Democrats; it's pervasive across our political system and mostly because five conservatives on the US Supreme Court chose to corrupt the system to benefit that corporations and billionaires who helped put them on the Court in the first place.

It's why our politics are more polarized than ever before in living memory; corporations and rightwing billionaires are pouring money down the throats of increasingly radicalized Republicans and a few sellout Democrats across the country.
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As I document at length in my book The Hidden History of the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of America, until we overturn these corrupt Court decisions and get money out of politics, every effort to save lives and move this nation forward will face often-insurmountable resistance.