CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
Analysis-World Bank, IMF face long-term damage after data rigging scandal
By Andrea Shalal and David Lawder 

© Reuters/Yuri Gripas FILE PHOTO: 

The IMF logo is seen outside the headquarters building in Washington

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Regardless of whether IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva was to blame for changes to World Bank data in 2017 that benefited China, the scandal has dented the research reputations of both institutions, former staff, government officials and outside experts say.


The damage from the data-rigging scandal that forced the World Bank to discontinue https://www.reuters.com/business/sustainable-business/world-bank-kills-business-climate-report-after-ethics-probe-cites-undue-pressure-2021-09-16 

its "Doing Business" investment climate rankings may be difficult to repair and has raised questions over whether the institutions' influential research is subject to shareholder influence.

Georgieva has strongly denied

 https://www.reuters.com/business/imfs-georgieva-accuses-former-world-bank-president-kims-office-manipulation-2021-09-24

 accusations in a World Bank external investigation report https://thedocs.worldbank.org/en/doc/84a922cc9273b7b120d49ad3b9e9d3f9-0090012021/original/DB-Investigation-Findings-and-Report-to-the-Board-of-Executive-Directors-September-15-2021.pdf that she applied "undue pressure" on staff for changes that boosted China's business climate ranking to 78th from 85th in the 2018 report on business climate rankings at a time when the bank was seeking Beijing's support for a major capital increase.

A higher ranking in the influential World Bank publication can mean increased inflows of foreign investment funds, boosting countries' economies and financial markets, as fund managers have built the Doing Business rankings

 https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/bad-business-world-bank-china-rigging-scandal-rattles-investors-2021-09-17 

into their analytical models. Current and former bank officials say countries are always pressing their case for a higher ranking.

Georgieva has blamed the office 

https://www.reuters.com/business/imfs-georgieva-accuses-former-world-bank-president-kims-office-manipulation-2021-09-24 

of former World Bank President Jim Yong Kim for ordering changes that were outside of the report's established methodology. The changes, first identified in a December 2020 review https://thedocs.worldbank.org/en/doc/791761608145561083-0050022020/original/DBDataIrregularitiesReviewDec2020.pdf, included removal of metrics for the amount of time it took to open a bank account and obtain invoices, which reduced the amount of time estimated to start a business in Beijing and Shanghai.

"Given how critical it is that this data be... seen as unimpeachable, these allegations are deeply disturbing," wrote Senators Robert Menendez and James Risch in a letter https://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/09-22-21%20Menendez%20Risch%20letter%20to%20POTUS%20re%20Georgieva%20World%20Bank%20investigation.pdf to President Joe Biden asking for "full accountability" in the matter.

"The impact these allegations could have on the strength and reputation of our international financial institutions and the Bretton Woods system are still unknown — but surely they will not be good."

Prominent economists and women leaders are rallying to Georgieva's defense https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Lord_Stern_to_Aleksei_Mozhin_26Sept2021.pdf with published opinion pieces and tweets https://twitter.com/G_stordalen/status/1441371371192209415, including former World Bank chief economist Joseph Stiglitz, who has labeled the allegations a "coup attempt" at the IMF https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/coup-attempt-against-imf-managing-director-georgieva-by-joseph-e-stiglitz-2021-09.

Shanta Devarajan, the former World Bank official in charge of the Doing Business report in 2017 says he was never pressured https://twitter.com/Shanta_WB/status/1441093124638449675 by Georgieva to alter the report. He later told Reuters that changes were made without his consultation, but he does not know by whom.

Georgieva and lawyers from WilmerHale, the law firm hired by the World Bank that produced the investigation report, are due to be interviewed early this week by the IMF's executive board as the probe into the allegations intensifies, Reuters reported on Sunday.

WITHHOLDING JUDGMENT

Finance ministers of major economies, including U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, have so far refrained from public judgment on the matter, and the topic did not come up during a G7 finance leaders meeting last week.

A statement from Britain's finance ministry emphasized only the need for "good governance" at the World Bank.

"We support transparency and are considering the publication of the independent investigation findings on irregularities in data reporting regarding the World Bank Doing Business Report," a UK finance ministry spokesperson said in an emailed statement to Reuters.

A U.S. Treasury spokeswoman said the WilmerHale "findings are serious and have warranted a full review by the IMF of the managing director's role in the Doing Business Report."

With an investigation by law firm WilmerHale continuing, the controversy may overshadow the IMF and World Bank annual meetings Oct 11-17.

The scandal has fueled longstanding criticisms about the inherently political nature of both Bretton Woods institutions, set up in July 1944 to rebuild the war-torn global economy.

In the decades since then, the two have grown to encompass around 190 countries, with combined lending power of more than $1 trillion and research that guides government policy choices and hundreds of billions of dollars in annual private sector investment flows that exceed their annual lending.

Timothy Ash, senior sovereign strategist at Bluebay Asset Management, said the accusations suggest https://www.ft.com/content/0b01fd3b-7c31-4630-8463-e644b8de9a52 that some of these investment flows have been based on "compromised, even corrupted" Doing Business rankings.

"The report is deeply troubling in terms of what it suggests as to the damage inflicted on the credibility and ethical culture and standing of the World Bank and IMF," Ash wrote in a letter to the Financial Times.

'STRUCTURAL' CRISIS

Past leadership controversies at the institutions have often involved improprieties among individual leaders.

But the World Bank data-rigging crisis goes beyond the actions of a few individuals to "deeper structural issues" in the governance of both the Bank and the Fund, said Luiz Vieira, coordinator of the London-based Bretton Woods Project, a nonprofit watchdog group.

"It highlights the degree to which the World Bank and the IMF can really be trusted to provide advice based on solid research," he said. "It raises questions about whose interests are being served, how robust is their analysis, and how subject to geopolitical and shareholder pressure are they?"

Former bank officials say they are not surprised.

Harry Broadman, managing director at Berkeley Research Group, who worked at the World Bank from 1994-2008, said he had warned about the risks of manipulation when the bank set up a predecessor to the Doing Business report in the 1990s. But he said those problems did not necessarily spill over to other bank research.

"It would be naive to think that big, large shareholders who sit on the board, including the U.S., the UK, the Germans and so forth, don't carry a lot of influence," Broadman said. "What is more of a surprise is that management of the institution would consider changing certain things, based on someone voicing opposition to the way they came out."

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal and David Lawder; Editing by Heather Timmons, Dan Burns and Dan Grebler)

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
Exclusive-U.S. Justice Department probes suspected manipulation of Platts benchmarks -sources

© Reuters/Nick Oxford FILE PHOTO: 

A pump jack operates in front of a drilling rig at sunset in an oil field in Midland, Texas, U.S.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating suspected manipulation of energy pricing benchmarks published by S&P Global Platts, expanding the agency's crackdown on misconduct in the global commodities market, according to four people familiar with the matter.

London-based Platts is a data and news provider which focuses on energy, metal and agricultural commodities. The company collects data from traders on their deal prices to determine a daily market price for a number of physical commodities.

U.S. prosecutors are probing suspected manipulative behavior by individual traders when submitting those deal prices to Platts' price assessments for oil and other energy benchmarks, the four people said, without specifying which ones.

The people declined to be named as the probes are not public.

By pushing benchmark prices up or down, traders can boost their profits.

Over the past year, U.S. authorities have brought two cases of alleged manipulation of Platts' oil benchmarks by traders at two different companies, but prosecutors are now probing similar behavior across the market, the sources said.

The previously unreported, industry-wide probe opens up a new front in the Justice Department's crackdown on fraud, bribery and manipulation in the commodities market 

https://www.reuters.com/subjects/banks/article/us-usa-doj-trading-insight/traders-beware-u-s-taps-new-tools-to-find-fraud-in-volatile-commodities-market-idUSKBN22X14E

, raising the stakes for traders and companies globally which daily use Platts' benchmarks to price billions of dollars' worth of contracts.

The sources said prosecutors are focused on traders' behavior and gave no indication of suspected wrongdoing by Platts.

Platts publishes https://www.spglobal.com/platts/plattscontent/_assets/_files/en/our-methodology/methodology-specifications/platts-assessments-methodology-guide.pdf 

its assessment methodology which includes controls to ensure data integrity, such as appointing an independent external auditor "to review and report on its adherence to this stated methodology," according to its website.

In response to a request for comment by Reuters, Platts said it conducts reviews to ensure the integrity of its price assessments. Platts publishes data and correspondence used to determine a price assessment and provides this data to regulators when requested, said Dave Ernsberger, global head of pricing and market insight for S&P Global Platts.

"We've spoken with U.S. and global authorities across a whole range of markets for many years," Ernsberger said.

He declined to comment on any potential probes.

A spokesperson for the Justice Department declined to comment.

COMMODITIES SCRUTINY

Over the past decade, authorities globally have levied multibillion-dollar fines and pursued criminal charges against banks and traders for banding together to rig global benchmarks, most notoriously the London Interbank Offered Rate.

While U.S. criminal authorities pursued cases against energy traders in the 2000s related to benchmark-rigging, in the years that followed commodities market manipulation was largely the domain of civil agencies including the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Since 2019, however, the Justice Department, working with the CFTC, has ramped up scrutiny of the commodities market via a specialist unit within its Washington-based fraud division. That unit has developed sophisticated data analytics tools to more quickly detect misconduct, Reuters reported  last year.

https://cn.reuters.com/article/us-usa-doj-trading-insight-idUSKBN22X14E

The unit initially focused on commodities futures spoofing, whereby futures traders place buy or sell orders which they intend to cancel in order to falsely create the impression of strong demand or supply. They then capitalize upon the market reaction.

But the unit now has the tools and expertise to dig into other areas of the market, including industry benchmarks operated by price reporting agencies, said one of the sources.

The agency has also investigated some of the world's largest energy trading companies for bribery, including Dutch trading giant Vitol.

That and another recent case identified misconduct in relation to Platts' benchmarks.

When settling bribery charges with the Justice Department in December last year, Vitol also settled related charges brought by the CFTC. As part of that settlement, Vitol paid a civil penalty to the CFTC to resolve charges of attempted manipulation of two Platts physical oil benchmarks.

Vitol said at the time it was committed to upholding the law and had cooperated "extensively" throughout the investigation. The company neither admitted nor denied the CFTC's allegations.

In March, a former oil trader for Glencore Plc pleaded guilty to Justice Department charges that he conspired to manipulate the Platts benchmark for a type of oil.

The Justice Department alleged that from September 2012 to August 2016 Emilio Jose Heredia Collado directed colleagues to place buy or sell orders during a Platts trading settlement window key to assessing the fuel oil price, court documents show.

Heredia successfully swayed benchmark prices in order to benefit himself and his employers, the Justice Department alleged.

He is cooperating with an ongoing U.S. investigation, authorities have said in court filings as recently as August.

His attorney did not respond to requests for comment. Glencore declined to comment.

"In both these cases, the regulators did not accuse Platts of wrongdoing or provide any evidence that attempts to manipulate our assessments were successful or that our assessments did not reflect market value," Platts said in a statement.

Other commodities traders are under Justice Department scrutiny. Energy trader Gunvor Group has said it is being probed by U.S. authorities

 https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/energy-trader-gunvor-group-says-us-cftc-investigating-ecuador-dealings-2021-09-28 

for corruption in Ecuador after a former employee pleaded guilty to bribery charges in April.

 https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/man-pleads-guilty-ny-money-laundering-charge-linked-petroecuador-2021-04-06

(Reporting by Chris Prentice in Washington and Jody Godoy in New YorkAdditonal reporting by Clara Denina and Julia Payne in LondonEditing by Michelle Price and Matthew Lewis)

Tani Adewumi: How chess changed the fortunes of 11-year-old prodigy and his family

When Tanitoluwa "Tani" Adewumi mulls his next move on a chessboard, his instinct is to pile pressure on his opponent.

© Nathan Congleton/NBC/Getty Images 

Tani Adewumi started playing chess seriously three years ago after his family moved to the US.

By George Ramsay, CNN Video produced by Finn McSkimming 

"I'm aggressive, I like to attack," he tells CNN Sport of his playing style. "It's just the way I think in general: I want to checkmate my opponent as fast as I can."

Tani, who turned 11 in September, is taking the same approach with his chess career. Having become a national master earlier this year -- the 28th youngest person to achieve that title -- he now wants to become the game's youngest ever grandmaster.

That record currently belongs to 12-year-old Abhimanyu Mishra, but Tani is putting in the hours to try to get there faster. He attends school in New York, then practices for seven hours when he gets home; when he doesn't have school, he can practice for eight, nine, or sometimes even 10 hours a day.

His success in chess has so far yielded a growing collection of trophies, the most treasured of which is the title he won at the New York State chess championship in 2019 -- not necessarily because of the way he played, but because it changed his family's life forever.

"That's the one that really boosted us up to become where we are today, and also me and my chess," says Tani.

In June 2017, nearly two years before he won the state championship title, Tani and his family fled northern Nigeria, worried about attacks by extremist group Boko Haram.

They lived in a homeless shelter in Manhattan after moving to the United States, and shortly afterward Tani joined the chess club at his school, P.S. 116 in New York, on the agreement that the registration fee could be waived.

When word spread of Tani's state championship title, an outpouring of financial support for his family followed.

"One family, they paid for a year's rent in Manhattan, one family gave us in 2019 a brand-new Honda, and the Saint Louis Chess Club in Missouri invited the family and the coaches to come and pay a visit," Tani's father, Kayode Adewumi, who works as a real estate agent, tells CNN Sport.

"A lot of people really helped us, a lot of people gave us financial (support) and money ... they donated money for us to get out from the shelter."

The family set up a GoFundMe page, which provided the housing, legal and educational funds needed to find their feet in the US. Further donations are being channeled into the Tanitoluwa Adewumi Foundation, which supports underprivileged children around the world.

"We need to give back to the needy, because we know what it takes -- we've tasted everything," adds Mr Adewumi.

"When we were in the shelter, some people are still there. We need to help the needy, especially the chess community and the people that need help. That's why we put the money into the foundation, to help people."

The family feels indebted to the sport of chess -- so much so that, through the foundation, they have contributed money to a chess organization in Africa encouraging more people to take up the game.

Tani's story bears similarities to Netflix series "The Queen's Gambit" -- a fictional story about an orphaned Kentucky girl in the 1960s who becomes a chess champion in her teens. He has watched the series and says he "definitely did" see himself in it.

"Chess is everything to me, it's my life," says Tani. "That's how we came to where we are today."

But his early competitive experiences weren't easy; when he played his first chess tournament, Tani lost all of his games.

"It did take me time, of course," he says. "I believe it takes everybody time."

Today, much of Tani's training involves watching the world's best players -- the likes of reigning world champion Magnus Carlsen and grandmasters Hikaru Nakamura, Levon Aronian and Ian Nepomniachtchi. He studies how they think and how they plot each move.

According to Carlsen, there are few secrets to how he became the world's best player.

"It's been about putting in the time," he tells CNN Sport. "For me, I don't think I could have ever gotten far in chess without a great love of the game, that's what's been driving it for me all of these years.

"What I do remember from my childhood is that I would go to school; after school I would play soccer with my friends, and when I got home, I would sit down at my own little board where had my chessboard and chess books.

"I would usually eat there. If I didn't have to, I preferred not to eat with my family because then I could not study chess ... it must have been a lot of hours, but it was always because I loved it."

To follow in Carlsen's footsteps and reach the status of grandmaster -- the highest title in chess -- Tani will have to achieve three grandmaster norms -- an award given for a high level of performance in a chess tournament -- as well as earning an FIDE (Federation Internationale des Echecs) rating of 2,500.

Wherever his chess career takes him, Tani can be sure that his family's support will never be far away. His mother accompanies him to his tournaments, and more recently, his father has been able to attend when he can fit it in around his work schedule

As he watches his son emerge from his games, Mr Adewumi waits for a signal: thumbs up for a win, a horizontal thumb for a draw, and thumbs down for defeat. But whatever the result, his father's reaction is always the same.

"When I'm watching him playing, it's just like your chest wants to burst out until it can be free," says Mr Adewumi. "When he comes out ... we just grab him and are celebrating with him ... when he's lost the game, I embrace him, I encourage him.

"He has a philosophy that when you lose, you try again to work out what made you lose and encourage yourself to get better."

That philosophy has reaped rewards so far, and it might yet help Tani Adewumi achieve the status of chess grandmaster.

© Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images for Tribeca Film Festival

 Tani attends the Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Awards during the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival in New York.

IATSE strike: Members of TV and film workers union authorize strike

By Sandra Gonzalez, CNN 1 hour ago

Members of the union representing roughly 60,000 film and television workers have voted to authorize a strike that could shutter Hollywood productions indefinitely.

 Crystal Kan, a storyboard artist, draws pro-labor signs on cars of union members during a rally in Los Angeles on Sunday.

The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees union president Matthew Loeb announced the results on Monday.

"The members have spoken loud and clear," said Loeb. "This vote is about the quality of life as well as the health and safety of those who work in the film and television industry. Our people have basic human needs like time for meal breaks, adequate sleep, and a weekend. For those at the bottom of the pay scale, they deserve nothing less than a living wage."

The union said the results were made "by a nearly unanimous margin," with nearly 90% voter turnout. This is the first time in IATSE's 128-year history that members of the union have authorized a nationwide strike, according to IATSE.

The union had been in negotiations with the group representing producers, the Alliance of Motion Picture Television Producers (AMPTP), making a case for higher pay, improvements to on-set conditions (including longer rest and meal breaks) and larger contributions to health and pension benefits. Those talks were halted last week after the groups could not come to an agreement.

"The AMPTP remains committed to reaching an agreement that will keep the industry working," the group said in a statement. "We deeply value our IATSE crew members and are committed to working with them to avoid shutting down the industry at such a pivotal time, particularly since the industry is still recovering from the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic."

It added: "A deal can be made at the bargaining table, but it will require both parties working together in good faith with a willingness to compromise and to explore new solutions to resolve the open issues."

IATSE is expected to return to negotiations but said it will do so hoping the studios "will see and understand the resolve of our members," Loeb said.

"The ball is in their court. If they want to avoid a strike, they will return to the bargaining table and make us a reasonable offer," he said.

When asked by the Los Angeles Times prior to the vote how likely it was that the union would go on strike, Loeb said, "That depends largely on the employers and what they're prepared to do to avoid it."

"They've made it about power, not reason, so my read is that if they see that the strike authorization is passed, then maybe they will return to reason and the bargaining table," he said. "But if it's about power, that's a problem."

If negotiators are not able to reach an agreement and the strike moves forward, it will shut down production nationwide. The last major Hollywood strike was in 2007 after the Writers Guild of America failed to reach a agreement with AMPTP. It impacted everything from movie productions and TV series to late-night shows and lasted 100 days.

Canada formally requests negotiations with U.S. over Line 5 pipeline dispute

© Dale G Young/The Detroit News/The Associated Press Fresh nuts, bolts and fittings are ready to be added to the east leg of the pipeline near St. Ignace, Mich., as Enbridge prepares to test the east and west sides of the Line 5 pipeline under the Straits of Mackinac…

The federal government has invoked a 1977 pipeline treaty in an effort to settle the Line 5 pipeline dispute.

The Enbridge Inc. pipeline, which runs through Michigan from the Wisconsin city of Superior to Sarnia, Ont., crosses the Great Lakes beneath the environmentally sensitive Straits of Mackinac, which links Lake Michigan to Lake Huron.

The dispute erupted last year when Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer — citing the risk of a catastrophe in the Straits of Mackinac — abruptly revoked the easement that had allowed the line to operate since 1953. Enbridge and the government of Michigan had been engaged in court-ordered mediation to resolve the dispute.

Gordon Giffin, a former U.S. ambassador to Canada currently acting as legal counsel to the Canadian government, recently informed the U.S. court that Canada has formally requested negotiations with Washington under the 1977 Canada-U.S. treaty on pipelines.

The Canadian government filed an amicus brief with the court in May siding with Calgary-based Enbridge and citing the treaty, stating that it guarantees the uninterrupted flow of oil and gas across the border.

At the time, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the government wanted to see the mediation process between Michigan and Enbridge continue. Michigan withdrew from mediation with Enbridge in September.

The treaty states that any dispute between the two countries can be settled with bilateral negotiations but can be elevated to arbitration should those negotiations fail.

Line 5 carries up to 540,000 barrels of Canadian crude oil and other petroleum products per day east from Western Canada and supplies about half of Ontario and Quebec's fuel — everything from jet fuel for Toronto Pearson Airport to gas for home heating.

Enbridge said it's grateful for the support from the Canadian government and is hoping for a resolution, through diplomatic relations or through continued mediation with the state.

"Our goal from the beginning has been to work cooperatively to reconcile interests, resolve disputes and move forward in the best interest of people throughout the region," Enrbidge communications adviser Tracy Larsson said in an emailed statement

Amazon prominently touts work by anti-vaxxers and COVID conspiracy theorists, even after other platforms cut them off

mjankowicz@businessinsider.com (Mia Jankowicz) 

A sample of four books on the first page of a search for "COVID" on Amazon.com's bookstore. Amazon/Insider

Anti-vaxx and COVID-19 conspiracist books loom large in Amazon search rankings.
As social media companies increasingly shun anti-vaxxer material, Amazon has done little.
Experts and campaigners told Insider this is having a real-world impact on people's health.
See more stories on Insider's business page.

Books pushing COVID-19 and anti-vaxxer misinformation are displayed prominently on Amazon's US bookstore, making the site a haven for figures whom social-media platforms are increasingly banning.

A review by Insider of pandemic-related terms on the store showed how deeply misleading titles continue to occupy the retailer's lucrative first page of search results.

They continue to occupy prominent spots despite expert warnings that they lead to real-world harm.

Strikingly, a book by one of the country's most censured misinformation profiteers, Dr Joseph Mercola, appeared as the top result in the search for both "COVID" and "vaccines" conducted by Insider.

The searches were conducted with browsers in "incognito" mode and a deleted search history in order to limit the number of variables informing the results.

Non-conspiracist books also get high search rankings. But they share space with misleading titles, including "Anyone Who Tells You Vaccines Are Safe and Effective is Lying."

The results would seem to imply that questioning vaccine safety and the motives of those providing them is a mainstream position, when in fact it is almost entirely confined to fringe figures.

"The concern is that Amazon gets to decide for the public what is relevant when they're searching for, say, vaccines," Imran Ahmed, CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) told Insider.

"And the first thing that pops up is misinformation."

The findings come after several social media companies tightened their clampdown on misinformation, with YouTube announcing last week a total ban on anti-vaccine content.

In early September, Sen. Elizabeth Warren led a Democratic charge against Amazon, writing to CEO Andy Jassy requesting an immediate review of the company's algorithms and accusing it of "peddling misinformation."

Rep. Adam Schiff also wrote to both Facebook and Amazon over the issue, saying "lives are on the line."

An Amazon spokesperson told Insider that the company recognizes "that there are heavily debated titles in our store and different views on where to draw the line protecting freedom of expression."

The company "removes products that do not adhere to our guidelines" and puts links to authoritative sources at the top of its COVID-19-related pages, the spokesperson said.

"When a concern is raised we promptly investigate it."
A triumph of misinformation

Dr Joseph Mercola in a 2015 video conversation. YouTube

In April, CCDH named Dr Joseph Mercola among its so-called "disinformation dozen" - a small group it said was responsible for up to 65% of all anti-vaxxer misinformation consumed online.

Mercola was dubbed by The New York Times, "the most influential spreader of coronavirus misinformation online."

He has a book for sale, called "The Truth About COVID-19: Exposing The Great Reset, Lockdowns, Vaccine Passports, and the New Normal."

It was declared a "lucrative, conspiratorial fever dream" and "monumentally wrong" in a review from McGill University's Office for Science and Society.

At time of writing, it came up as Amazon's first recommendation for "COVID" and "vaccines."

It is also no. 13 on the site's bestseller list, and is rated five stars by buyers. Buyers who opt in to Amazon's Audible audio book app can have it for free - saving $14.99 on the hardcover price. (The number of results Amazon displays on a first page can vary by device and browser settings - these all appeared within the first 50 results.)

Mercola's title is not an outlier. Other titles given first-page search rankings - and often tempting deals - under the terms "COVID" and "vaccines" include:

"COVID-19 and the Global Predators: We Are the Prey" (13th in a search for "COVID")

"Is COVID-19 a Bioweapon?: A Scientific and Forensic investigation" (2nd in a search for "COVID")

"Vaccine-nation: Poisoning the Population, One Shot at a Time" (7th in a search for "vaccines")

"Vaccine Epidemic: How Corporate Greed, Biased Science, and Coercive Government Threaten Our Human Rights, Our Health, and Our Children" (10th in a search for "vaccines")

"Calling the Shots: Why Parents Reject Vaccines" (24th in a search for "vaccines")

A title by Dr. Christiane Northrup - another member of the disinformation dozen - appears prominently, as does one by conspiracy theorist Dr Simone Gold.

The workings of Amazon's algorithm is not clear, and results can vary day-to-day as well as according to the searcher's history.

In 2018, digital marketing publication Search Engine Journal calculated from Amazon data that 70% of its customers don't click past the first page of results. 35% click on the first product shown, the outlet reported.

Censoring the marketplace?

Prof Timothy Caulfield is the research director of the University of Alberta's Health Law Institute in Canada, and the author of several books on the impact of health pseudoscience and misinformation.

He compared Amazon's situation to that of social media companies.

"I think that one of the reasons [Amazon is] escaping that intensity of scrutiny is because they don't feel as much as an information provider. 'We're just a store,'" he paraphrased.

He firmly rejected Amazon's suggestion that taking action over what the company called "heavily debated titles" might endanger freedom of expression.

"Companies make decisions about what you see all the time, they're private actors, and they can decide what they're going to see all the time," he said.

"So for Amazon to make a decision about how they're going to treat those kinds of titles, if they're going to treat those kinds of titles with more care, that's not censorship, right. That's just a corporate policy."

Ahmed, of the CCDH, told Insider that its status as a store even gives Amazon an advantage over social media companies in regulating harmful content.

Social media companies can't tell what people are going to say in advance, he said. But Amazon can easily check what the books say before selling them, if it wants to.

Caulfield told Insider that researchers have found you can draw a line between the pushing of misinformation and rates of vaccine hesitancy.

"I think there's no doubt that that connection is there," he said. "And that alone could be costing people's lives.

"You know, killing people."

Read the original article on Business Insider

UPDATED

Lava from Spanish volcano surges after crater collapse

1 of 6

Lava flows from a volcano on the Canary island of La Palma, Spain on Monday Oct. 4, 2021. Lava flowing from new vents in the Cumbre Vieja volcano range has destroyed so far over 900 buildings and displaced about 6,000 people. The island of 85,000 is in the northeastern corner of the Canary Islands archipelago, in the Atlantic Ocean. (AP Photo/Daniel Roca)

an hour ago

MADRID (AP) — Authorities on the Spanish island of La Palma said Monday they are tightening their surveillance of an erupting volcano, after part of the crater collapsed and unleashed a cascade of more liquid and faster-moving lava.

The crater was “like a dam,” said María José Blanco, a director of the National Geographic Institute on the Canary Islands. When part of its wall collapsed, fiery molten rock poured out from a “lava lake” inside.

The more fluid lava followed the same course as previous molten rock which has now hardened, filling up gaps and spilling over the sides into surrounding countryside.

The river of lava is now 1,250 meters (4,100 feet) wide — 300 meters (1.000 feet) wider than on Sunday, when the crater partially crumbled.

More earthquakes also rattled the island Monday, though officials said they were deep underground and weren’t expected to create new fissures.

The volcano on the Cumbre Vieja ridge, which erupted two weeks ago, has become more explosive after subsiding for several days last week. The Canary Islands Volcanology Institute showed images of football-sized chunks of lava, which it called “volcanic bombs,” hurled hundreds of meters from the crater.



The area covered by lava has grown to more than 413 hectares (1,020 acres) and the new rocky shelf on the shore where the lava meets the Atlantic Ocean now covers almost 33 hectares (around 80 acres), according to Miguel Ángel Morcuende of the regional volcano emergency department.

“It’s not over yet, we don’t even know how long there is to go,” Canary Islands’ regional president Ángel Víctor Torres told public broadcaster RTVE. “We’re in nature’s hands.”

Most of La Palma, where about 85,000 people live, has been unaffected by the eruption. Swift evacuations helped avoid casualties from the eruption.

But the lava is causing significant damage to property, public infrastructure and farmland.

It has so far partially or completely wrecked more than 1,000 buildings, mostly homes, destroyed nearly 35 kilometers (about 20 miles) of roads, according to a European Union satellite monitoring agency.

Local authorities prepared to distribute drinking water to homes after the lava flow broke public supply pipes.

The volcanic emergency committee ordered emergency workers and scientists to pull back from the area around the volcano because of poor air quality.

Erupting Spanish volcano turns ‘more aggressive’: officials

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Lava flows from a volcano on the Canary island of La Palma, Spain, Saturday Oct. 2, 2021. An erupting volcano on a Spanish island off northwest Africa has blown open another fissure on its hillside. Authorities were watching Friday to see whether lava from the new fissure would join the main flow that has reached the sea. The new fissure is the third to crack open since the Cumbre Vieja crater erupted on La Palma island Sept. 19. (AP Photo/Daniel Roca)

By DANIEL ROCA and BARRY HATTON

October 2, 2021

LOS LLANOS DE ARIDANE, Canary Islands (AP) — An erupting volcano on a Spanish island off northwest Africa blew open two more fissures on its cone Friday that belched forth lava, with authorities reporting “intense” activity in the area.

The new fissures, about 15 meters (50 feet) apart, sent streaks of fiery red and orange molten rock down toward the sea, parallel to an earlier flow that reached the Atlantic Ocean earlier this week.

The volcano was “much more aggressive,” almost two weeks after it erupted on the island of La Palma, said Miguel Ángel Morcuende, technical director of the Canary Islands’ emergency volcano response department.

Overnight, scientists recorded eight new earthquakes up to magnitude 3.5.

The eruption was sending gas and ash up to 6,000 meters (almost 20,000 feet) into the air, officials said.

The prompt evacuation of more than 6,000 people since the Sept. 19 eruption helped prevent casualties.

A new area of solidified lava where the molten rock is flowing into the sea extends over more than 20 hectares (50 acres).

Officials were monitoring air quality along the shoreline. Sulfur dioxide levels in the area rose but did not represent a health threat, La Palma’s government said.

However, it advised local residents to stay indoors. It also recommended that people on the island wear face masks and eye protection against heavy falls of volcanic ash.

The volcano has so far emitted some 80 million cubic meters of molten rock, scientists estimate — more than double the amount in the island’s last eruption, in 1971.

The lava has so far destroyed or partially destroyed more than 1,000 buildings, including homes and farming infrastructure, and entombed around 709 hectares (1,750 acres).

La Palma, home to about 85,000 people who live mostly from fruit farming and tourism, is part of the volcanic Canary Islands, an archipelago off northwest Africa that is part of Spain’s territory.

The island is roughly 35 kilometers (22 miles) long and 20 kilometers (12 miles) wide at its broadest point. Life has continued as usual on most of the island while the volcano is active.

___

Hatton reported from Lisbon, Portugal.

BIDEN FOLLOWS UP ON TRUMP TARIFFS

U.S. to start talks with China over enforcing Trump's 'phase one' trade deal

A White House official said the administration will not take "any tools off the table," including Trump-era sanctions against China. File Photo by Sarah Silbiger/UPI | License Photo

Oct. 4 (UPI) -- U.S. negotiators will begin direct talks with China on Monday and pledge to enforce the "phase one" trade agreement that was negotiated by former President Donald Trump's administration, as well as bring up other policy concerns.

U.S. officials say China has failed to live up to the agreement and accuses Beijing of continuing unfair trade practices that have hurt American workers. U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, President Joe Biden's chief top official, will lead the talks Monday

"I think the best way to characterize what Ambassador Tai will say [Monday] is that she intends to have frank conversations with her counterpart in China about China's performance under the phase one agreement," a senior administration official told reporters.

"We are not going to predetermine what the outcomes of those conversations are but based on the data that we've seen, there are some commitments that have not been met, and we think the results overall of the agreement are mixed. We will be having conversations with the ambassador will be having conversations with her Chinese counterpart to discuss those things."

In prepared remarks for the discussion, Tai vows to enforce the trade deal.

"Today, I will lay out the starting point of our administration's strategic vision for realigning our trade policies towards China to defend the interests of America's workers, businesses, farmers and producers and strengthen our middle class," she will say, according to CNBC.

"China made commitments intended to benefit certain American industries, including agriculture that we must enforce."

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The White House official said the administration will not take "any tools off the table," including Trump-era sanctions against China.

"We are going to make sure that the trade enforcement actions that we take align with the Biden-Harris priorities and that any trade -- the exclusions process, like I mentioned, we also want to make sure we use that to align existing tariffs to those same priorities," they said.

While Biden's administration apparently plans to hold China to the deals it made with Trump, the White House official said there will be some differences.

RELATED Hong Kong changes law to protect Chinese flag from desecration, 'insult'

"Unlike his predecessor, President Biden is going to hold China to account where China is falling short of its commitments," they said. "Biden also believes that we have to use all our tools to make sure China's economic and trade policies do not hurt American workers and businesses.

Trump and China imposed tit-for-tat tariffs during an 18-month trade war until the two sides signed the "phase one" agreement in early 2020. At the time, U.S. officials said the deal achieved progress in protections for intellectual property, technology transfer, agriculture, financial services and currencies and foreign exchange.

6-year-old finds mastodon tooth in Michigan nature preserve

Oct. 4 (UPI) -- A 6-year-old walking with his family in a Michigan nature preserve made a rare discovery: a 12,000-year-old mastodon tooth.

Julian Gagnon, 6, was walking with his family in the Dinosaur Hill Nature Preserve on Sept. 6 when he found an object that he initially identified to his parents as a "dragon's tooth."

"I just felt something on my foot and I grabbed it up, and it kind of looked like a tooth," Gagnon told WDIV-TV.

Gagnon's parents allowed him to bring his discovery home, where the family took a closer look and realized it might indeed be a fossil.

The family contacted the University of Michigan Museum of Paleontologists, which identified the discovery as the upper right molar of a juvenile mastodon, a species that lived in Michigan about 12,000 years ago.

"Mammoth and mastodon fossils are relatively rare in Michigan, but compared to other places in the United States, there actually have been more occurrences," Adam Rountrey, the paleontology museum's research museum collection manager, told MLive.com.

Experts said that while both mammoths and mastodons are known to have lived in Michigan, discoveries are rare because the carcasses of the animals were usually taken by scavengers far before they could become fossils.

The Gagnon family donated the tooth to the museum, which said Julian will be rewarded for his donated with a behind-the-scenes tour this month.

"This has only fueled his passion for archaeology and paleontology," mother Mary Gagnon said. "As far as he's concerned, this is his first discovery of his career, and now it's hard to dissuade him from picking anything up that he sees in the natural world."

'I was afraid we would die': Attack highlights violence of Romania’s 'wood mafia'

Issued on: 04/10/2021 

Left: Screenshot from a video Tiberiu Bosutar posted on Facebook to highlight illegal logging operations. Right: Bosutar after being attacked while filming a documentary about illegal logging.

 © Tiberiu Bosutar

Text by: Olivia Bizot

On September 16, 2021, two journalists and an environmental activist were beaten by some 20 attackers in Romania’s northeastern Suceava County while filming a documentary about illegal logging. It is the latest incident in a long history of violence in Romania’s primeval forests, which have become an unlikely battleground between illegal loggers and those trying to protect one of the world’s most ancient ecosystems.

The Observers team spoke to the three victims of the attack – the journalists Mihai Dragolea and Radu Constantin Mocanu, as well as the activist Tiberiu Bosutar, who was helping them track down environmental crimes in the region for their documentary.

The team travelled to a specific section of the forest after a villager reported unusual activities to Bosutar on Facebook, where the activist regularly shares live feeds of illicit deforestation.

'About 20 people armed with axes and bats [...] began attacking us'

Bosutar is one of many environmental activists who posts videos of illegal logging practices on social media, in order to gather enough proof to report the infractions to the police.




Romanians have lost trust in state authorities [regarding logging], so I end up receiving hundreds of messages every day about illegal logging. As much as possible, I will try and go to the field to document the cases, so that when I call the authorities, they can no longer hide the truth. There is proof of what is happening.

On September 14, I received a message about a logging operation that was suspected to be illegal. At the time, I was joined by two journalists working on a documentary about illegal deforestation, so we decided that two days later, we would go to the area to investigate.

We arrived at the section of the forest on September 16 at around 2:30pm, and about half an hour later, about 20 people armed with axes and bats arrived and, before long, they began attacking us.

Photos of Tiberiu Bosutar after the attack © Observers

Mihai Dragolea talked us through what happened next.


The men began shouting at us, telling us to stop the camera and ran towards us very quickly. We all jumped into the car but didn't get a chance to start it.

Before we knew it, they began hitting Tiberiu, and Radu was pulled out of the car. I was then pulled out as well and was punched hard in the jaw. I was afraid that if we didn’t call the police, we would die right there and then.

I threw myself into a ravine and called 112 [the police]. I asked them to arrive with sirens so that the attackers would hear and leave. About 30 minutes later, the police arrived and luckily they caught some of the attackers, who had stripped Tiberiu naked and kicked him. Radu had completely lost consciousness and had been punched in the mouth.

All of our footage was deleted and our equipment destroyed by the attackers. If it’s worth acting like an organised mob towards journalists and activists, it means there is a lot to lose and there is a lot of money involved.

The attackers are now all free. I believe that judicial supervision has been issued so they can’t leave the area. But no one has been placed under arrest.

Mihai’s colleague, Radu Constantin Mocanu, told us that he couldn’t remember what happened as he experienced a concussion as a result of the attack. He only remembers waking up the next day in hospital, with a “busted lip, blood on [his] clothes and a headache”.

Our Observers are not the only ones to have been attacked while trying to save Romania’s trees. In recent years, six foresters have been killed, while 650 have been beaten, attacked with axes and knives, or even shot at after catching illegal loggers in the act, according to Romania’s Forestry Union. In 2019, the killing of two forest rangers trying to protect the country’s forests against the "wood mafia" sparked national and international outrage.


The rise of the ‘Wood Mafia’

The so-called “wood mafia” has been ravaging Romania’s forests for decades. In 2019, leaked data from a 10-year government report revealed that every year, 38 million cubic metres of wood are extracted from the country’s forests – around half of which is the result of illegal logging.


Logging is illegal when the wood is taken from areas that are supposed to be protected, or harvested in such great quantities that quotas are breached and entire forests simply disappear. Timber that is logged illegally is free of taxes, which pushes down timber's market price, offering an incentive for other illegal loggers.

Since the fall of communism in 1989, foreign timber companies have been rushing to Romania’s forests to take advantage of the timber resources. These include HS Timber, formerly known as Austrian Holzindustrie Schweighofer, which has supplied wood to major European companies, including Ikea. In 2015, the Environmental Investigation Agency released a report that revealed the existence of covert video recordings of a Schweighofer official admitting to buying illegal wood and even offering bonuses for suppliers of illicit timber. The company has denied the allegations, despite the evidence.

According to Mihai Dragolea, the rise of the "wood mafia" accelerated when Romania joined the EU, and has been facilitated by the Romanian government, which has a reputation for corruption, which it has struggled to shake off since coming to power 30 years ago.



Romania is a weak state with lots of corruption. Thanks to the communist system of forest management, Romania enjoys forest surpluses and species that have a high economic value. But since Romania joined the EU in 2007, when it began opening up its economy to international markets, the demand pressure on our forests has soared.

We can no longer say that we have the poverty we experienced in the '90s, but we have become victims of consumer culture and capitalist success models. Therefore, in rural areas such as Suceava, organised crime structures have developed.

These mafia groups take advantage of any vulnerable resources – like nature. So they cut, because there is lots of money involved in illegal logging. In many cases, the government is complicit in the destruction of our forests. They know what is happening but turn a blind eye to it.



'Since the EU decided to take action, logging in many areas has intensified'

Last year, the European Commission began infringement procedures against Romania for failing to effectively protect its forests and for not respecting EU legislation in protected Natura 2000 sites, a network of protected areas covering Europe’s most valuable and threatened species and habitats.

For many, this was seen as a step in the right direction. However, according to an activist who has asked to remain anonymous, EU regulations have not helped reduce illegal logging – quite the opposite.


Since the EU decided to take action, logging in many areas has intensified. It has had the opposite effect. When the EU announced it would take action, illegal loggers went into a logging frenzy. They tried to log as much as possible before the restrictions came into place.

EU regulations need to be implemented, but alongside stricter national policies as well. If not, we will not see any change. As long as people get away with illegal logging, they will keep doing it as there is so much money involved and people aren’t getting condemned for their actions.

Romania is home to more than half of Europe’s last remaining old-growth and virgin forests, which are valuable ecosystems inhabited by diverse wildlife. The trees are unique and absorb 70% more carbon than logged forests.

Despite the backdrop of violence in these woodlands, forest campaigners are continuing the fight. Our Observers told us that the attack would not deter them from speaking out and raising the alarm on what is left of Europe’s last great forests in the hope of saving them before it’s too late.