Meet the invasive species trying to get in your home this fall

Cheryl Santa Maria

Thu, October 7, 2021, 12:47 PM·

Meet the invasive species trying to get in your home this fall

It's fall, and that means migration. Birds are headed south. Chipmunks and squirrels are out in full force, gathering nuts for the winter. As temperatures drop, insects are looking for warm places, like your home, to hunker down.

Some of these bugs - like spiders and centipedes - likely won't come as a surprise. But others may look new to you.

Take, for example, the brown marmorated stink bug. Measuring about 2 cm in length and about the same width, with a flat, brown abdomen, it is native to Asia, and it's here in North America because it was accidentally introduced to the U.S. in 1998.

"They were first detected in Ontario in 2010," Cynthia Scott-Dupree, Ph.D., a professor of sustainable pest management at the University of Guelph, tells The Weather Network.

"It has since become established in Ontario, Quebec, and British Columbia."

While we're focusing on this particular invasive stink bug species, it should be noted there are a number of native stink bugs present in Ontario. "Some are pests, like the brown marmorated stink bug, and others are what we call beneficial," Dr. Scott-Dupree says.

The beneficial stink bugs work like a natural biological control, hunting and consuming pest insects. The pest insects, on the other hand, can cause significant damage to crops. More on that later.

Stink bugs aren't toxic, but they are armed with a defense mechanism that isn't too hard to figure out, given their name.

When disturbed they release a foul-smelling chemical, but you typically won't pick it up unless there's a group of them.

You'll likely see brown marmorated stink bugs congregating on brick surfaces on warm, autumn days, attempting to absorb some of the heat. They're also looking for a way to get inside.

If they do find their way indoors, here's the good news: They aren't likely to cause any structural damage, and they don't bite, nor do they sting. But when you zoom out, on a nationwide scale, they come with their fair share of problems.

Stinkbug - Canva Pro

Marmorated brown stink bugs up close. GIF created by Cheryl Santa Maria. Image courtesy: Canva Pro.

DAMAGE TO AGRICULTURE

The marmorated brown stink bug feeds on about 170 species of plants, namely agricultural crops, posing a risk to farmers. In 2010, they decimated apple crops in the Mid-Atlantic United States, resulting in $37 million (U.S.) in damages.

"Their numbers are increasing," Dr. Scott-Dupree says. "So far, in Canada, the damage has not been [significant]."

"So far," is the takeaway here, though. Right now, marmorated brown stink bugs are reproducing at a rate of about two generations per year. But if the weather continues to get warmer and the seasons get longer, there is potential for a third generation, which means population numbers will steadily increase in the fall.

"They like to attack apple crops when they're just about ready for harvest," Dr. Scott-Dupree says.

"So, if we're getting higher numbers of them as we head into fall, then there's a bigger potential impact these insects could have in the agricultural sector."

Efforts to control stink bugs are ongoing, but you can make your home less appealing to them by:

• Cleaning and vacuuming regularly.

• Removing crumbs from counters and the floor.

• Storing food in air-tight containers.

• Sealing cracks and openings in windows, doors, and walls.

• Fixing leaky faucets and cracks in your plumbing.

• Removing moisture with a de-humidifier.

OUTSIDE THEY LIVE UNDER ROCKS, SIDEWALKS ETC. THEY HAVE TRAVELED WEST

Bayeux exhibition celebrates war photographer Manoocher Deghati

Issued on: 09/10/2021 -

A Manoocher Deghati photo taken at Evin prison in Iran in 1982, before every woman in the image was executed by the Revolutionary Guards. 

© FRANCE 24 screengrab

Text by: NEWS WIRES|
Video by: Natalia RUIZ GIRALDO| Carys GARLAND

The 28th annual Bayeux War Correspondents' Awards get underway in Normandy this weekend, honouring journalists who have put their life on the line to tell important stories from war zones. This year’s president of the jury is Franco-Iranian photojournalist Manoocher Deghati, whose 45-year career is being celebrated with an exhibition in Bayeux. FRANCE 24 spoke to him about his work.

Ahead of the Bayeux Awards this weekend, 25 of Deghati’s photos are on display around this ancient city in northern France – focusing on the plight of women and children caught up in the horror of war.

“I wasn’t setting out to take pictures of those who wage war, but rather to photograph the people who pay for war with their lives,” Deghati said. “It’s women and children in particular who bear the heaviest toll in war.”

Despite the dangers inherent in going to warzones, Deghati never stopped taking photos, determined to show the world what was happening in any given conflict and to ensure that this reality was never forgotten: “Society needs this,” he said. “We can’t live without journalists who tell us the truth, the real story that can change the course of history.”

   

Unnamed Myanmar photographer wins Bayeux war reporting prize


Issued on: 09/10/2021 - 

The Bayeux awards honour coverage of wars in different categories

 Sameer Al-DOUMY AFP
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Bayeux (France) (AFP)

The prestigious Bayeux War Correspondents' Awards on Saturday honoured work by a range of international journalists including several veteran reporters and -- for the first time -- an unnamed Myanmar photographer.

The jury agreed unanimously to award the photography prize to the Myanmar candidate, its chairman Franco-Iranian correspondent Manoocher Deghati told AFP.

The jury wanted to highlight "the conditions in which very young photographers are working" in Myanmar, said Deghati, who himself had to flee Iran in 1985 after receiving death threats.

The photographer's work along with several other Myanmar photographers, was on show at Bayeux, the northern French city hosting the prize.

In the written press category, Wolfgang Bauer won for his coverage of the Taliban for Zeit Magazin. It is the second time he has been honoured, having won in 2016 for his work in Nigeria.

Bosnians Damir Sagolj and Danis Tanovic won in the long-form television as well as the video category for their report for Al Jazeera on the plight of thousands of migrants in northern Bosnia Herzegovina.

Margaux Benn was honoured in the radio category for her report for Europe 1 on the villages littered with landmines in the area.

Orla Guerin and Goktay Koraltan won the television award for their report for BBC television on the snipers in Yemen targeting children. This report also won the special prize awarded by a jury of high school students.

The young reporter's award went to Thomas D'Istria for his report for Le Monde newspaper from Belarus, for which he spent a year undercover.

The public jury prize went to Abu Mustafa Ibraheem for his coverage for Reuters of the conflict in Gaza.

The winners, who are chosen by a jury of around 40 French and British journalists, receive prizes of between 3,000 and 7,000 euros each.

© 2021 AFP

Delhi warns of looming power 'crisis' as coal shortages bite

Delhi's Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal warned of a looming power crisis as coal reserves run low NARINDER NANU AFP

Issued on: 09/10/2021 - 

New Delhi (AFP)

New Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal warned of a looming power crisis in the Indian capital, saying on Saturday that some of the major coal-fired stations supplying the city barely have a day's stock left.

Several states in eastern and southern India have been hit by supply shortages, with utility providers resorting to unscheduled power cuts.

The shortage in India, the world's second-largest coal-consuming country, follows widespread power outages in China that have shut factories and badly hit production and global supply chains.

"Delhi could face a power crisis," Kejriwal said, adding the megacity has been struggling with energy supplies for the past three months.

"I am personally keeping a close watch over the situation. We are trying our best to avoid it," Kejriwal said on Twitter.

Kejriwal urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to immediately resolve the crisis, saying any major interruption would affect hospitals and disrupt vaccinations against the coronavirus for Delhi's 20 million people.

India's coal-fired power stations had an average of four days' stock at the end of September, the lowest in years.

More than half the plants are on alert for outages and the government is mulling bringing idled power stations back into operation.

Coal accounts for nearly 70 percent of India's electricity generation and around three-quarters of the fossil fuel is mined domestically.

As Asia's third-largest economy rebounds following a coronavirus wave, monsoon rains have flooded coal mines and disrupted transport networks, leading to a sharp rise in prices for coal buyers, including power stations.

International coal prices have also soared.

State-run giant Coal India, which produces most of the country's supply, has said it is on a "war footing" to ensure adequate deliveries.

India's long festival season, currently underway, has also added to the surge in demand for power.

© 2021 AFP

India staring at power crisis with coal stocks down to days



 In this Oct. 23, 2019, file photo, laborers eat lunch at a coal loading site in the village of Godhar in Jharia, a remote corner of eastern Jharkhand state, India. An energy crisis is looming over India as coal stockpiles grow perilously low, adding to challenges for a recovery in Asia's third largest economy from the pandemic. Supplies at the majority of coal-fired power plants in India have dwindled to just days worth of stock.

 (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi, file)

By KRUTIKA PATHI

yesterday

NEW DELHI (AP) — An energy crisis is looming over India as coal supplies grow perilously low, adding to challenges for a recovery in Asia’s third largest economy after it was wracked by the pandemic.

Supplies across the majority of coal-fired power plants in India have dwindled to just days worth of stock.

Federal Power Minister R. K. Singh told the Indian Express newspaper this week that he was bracing for a “trying five to six months.”

“I can’t say I am secure … With less than three days of stock, you can’t be secure,” Singh said.

The shortages have stoked fears of potential black-outs in parts of India, where 70% of power is generated from coal. Experts say the crunch could upset renewed efforts to ramp up manufacturing.

Power cuts and shortages over the years have subsided in big cities, but are fairly common in some smaller towns.

Out of India’s 135 coal plants, 108 were facing critically low stocks, with 28 of them down to just one day’s worth of supply, according to power ministry data released on Wednesday, the most recently available.

On average, coal supplies at power plants had fallen to about four days worth of stock as of the weekend, the ministry said in a statement. That’s a sharp plunge from 13 days in August.

Power consumption in August jumped by nearly 20% from the same month in 2019, before the pandemic struck, the power ministry said.

“Nobody expected economic growth to revive like this and for energy demand to shoot up so quickly,” said Vibhuti Garg, an energy economist at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.

The shortfalls in supply were worsened by flooding of mines and other disruptions from unusually heavy rains, Garg said.

India mostly relies on domestically mined coal. With global coal prices at an all-time high, increasing imports is not an option, experts said.

The government has asked state-run Coal India Ltd. to increase production.

In this Oct. 23, 2019, file photo, a laborer keeps watch as coal is unloaded from a truck in the village of Rajapur in Jharia, a remote corner of eastern Jharkhand state, India. An energy crisis is looming over India as coal stockpiles grow perilously low, adding to challenges for a recovery in Asia's third largest economy from the pandemic. Supplies at the majority of coal-fired power plants in India have dwindled to just days worth of stock. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi, file)

Coal prices in Indonesia, one of India’s suppliers, swelled to nearly $162 per ton this month from $86.68 in April, boosted by surging demand in China, where recent power cuts have forced factories to shut down and left some households in the dark.

“With the current prices, it is difficult for India to rely on external sources for coal as it’s about two or three times more than what we pay domestically right now,” said Swati DSouza, research lead at National Foundation for India.

With monsoon rains receding, coal deliveries have picked up and are likely to rise further, according to the power ministry. An official team is monitoring the situation and following up with Coal India Ltd. and the railways to improve supplies, the ministry said.

But the crisis has highlighted India’s need to develop more renewable energy resources given that demand is likely to keep increasing.

It should serve as a “turning point for India,” where there is ample renewable energy potential to help offset such disruptions, said Sunil Dahiya, an analyst at the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air.

“The situation shouldn’t be used to push for more coal -- that is not the crisis. The solution going forward is to move away from coal and other fossil fuels,” he said.

—

AP science writer Victoria Milko contributed from Jakarta, Indonesia.

LEARN A SECOND OR THIRD LANGUAGE

Bridging language barriers could improve efforts to protect Earth's biodiversity


Researchers identified several endangered species, including the Blakiston's fish owl, for which little to no English-language conservation science exists. Photo by Julie Edgley/Wikimedia Commons


Oct. 7 (UPI) -- Earth's biodiversity faces myriad challenges -- pollution, deforestation, invasive species -- but a language barrier isn't one of them. The same can't be said for the scientists and policy makers tasked with cataloguing and protecting the planet's ecological riches.

Like the logging roads that hem in chimpanzee or elephant populations and prevent migration and reproduction, language barriers curb the dissemination of vital scientific information.

When scientists don't take steps to account for non-English language research, they're ignoring a wealth of information on many of the planet's rarest and most endangered species, researchers say.

"English is not necessarily widely spoken in regions where biodiversity is the richest and threatened the most, and so conservation is needed the most, such as Latin America," Tatsuya Amano, conservation biologist and research fellow at the University of Queensland in Australia, told UPI in an email.

RELATED New maps reveal major threats to terrestrial biodiversity

Amano, who has spent the last several years investigating language barriers in science, is the lead author of a survey of non-English conservation research published Thursday in PLOS Biology.

"Much scientific knowledge on conservation is produced by local practitioners, who often find it a real challenge to publish their work in English, and so decide to publish it instead in their first language," Amano said.

Increasingly, efforts to document the world's biodiversity, both discovered and undiscovered, have relied on meta-analysis -- the amalgamation and examination of previously published research and biodiversity databases.

RELATED New global risk index anticipates loss of important pollinators

As Amano's previous studies have shown, these efforts often ignore non-English publications, and when they do, knowledge gaps manifest.

"These knowledge gaps might bias the results and affect the research's conclusion and robustness," Mario Moura, professor at Federal University of Paraiba in Brazil, told UPI in an email.

Moura, who was not involved in the new research, published a paper earlier this year on his effort to map Earth's undiscovered biodiversity.

RELATED Human whistled languages may help decipher dolphin communication

The places in which scientists are likely to find new -- and vulnerable -- species are the same places where English is less common -- places like the Andes and Borneo.

"In my view, biodiversity knowledge is scattered across too many small pieces of information available in very different languages," Moura said. "While publishing in English helps bridge researchers worldwide, it does not assure that past non-English research will be found and used in the future."

Hindering existing efforts

Ignoring non-English research doesn't just impede efforts to find and document biodiversity. It also, as Amano's latest research shows, hinders efforts to protect endangered species and imperiled ecosystems.

For his latest study, Amano and his research partners set out to document the quantity and quality of conservation research being published in non-English languages.

To do so, researchers first recruited the assistance of 62 multi- and bilingual collaborators from all over the world. Collectively, the research team spoke 17 languages.

Next, Amano and his collaborators surveyed 400,000 peer-reviewed papers in 326 journals published in 16 languages, identifying 1,234 studies offering scientific knowledge on species and ecosystem protections.

The analysis showed that efforts to incorporate non-English conservation research into future surveys could extend the geographic scope of conservation science by 12% to 25%, as well as incorporate knowledge for 5% to 32% more species.

Researchers identified several endangered species for which little to no English-language conservation science exists.

"In the paper, we mentioned two endangered species, Andean mountain cats, Leopardus jacobita, and Blakiston's fish owls, Bubo blakistoni, for which scientific studies on the effectiveness of conservation actions are available only in non-English languages, Spanish and Japanese, respectively," Amano said.

With more knowledge, policy makers can make better decisions about how to save vulnerable species and where to funnel conservation resources.

More collaboration may improve efforts

More than just revealing the wealth of non-English conservation science available for analysis, Amano's paper can serve as a test case for tackling language barriers in conservation science.

It all starts with collaboration, as evidenced by the diversity of co-authors after Amano's name at the top of his newly published paper.

"Research groups and collaborations need to include more researchers who are fluent or able to read and write in non-English languages," co-author Alec Christie, conservation scientist and research fellow at the University of Cambridge, told UPI in an email.

"There needs to be greater thought put into how data are collected and what sample of the total scientific literature, English and non-English, they are actually analyzing, rather than assuming the English literature contains the totality of scientific research," Christie said.

In addition to nurturing diverse scientific communities and encouraging international collaboration, Amano said he supports efforts to expand access to English language learning.

The elevation of English as the de facto language of science comes with significant inequities, but Amano agrees that it is essential to have a common language of science.

Scott Montgomery, who writes extensively on science communication and who has been critical of Amano's work, said he recognizes the importance of non-English languages for scientific discovery.

"I very much agree with Dr. Amano on the point about biodiversity -- this is very often an issue with decidedly local aspects," Montgomery told UPI in an email. "Public awareness -- thus, in the local-national language -- and national decision-making tend to be key in much species protection and preservation."

"I would add, however, that the issue of biodiversity also has a global context, a very pressing one," he said. "New knowledge related to this very much needs to be shared internationally, with the global collegiate of researchers. For this, translation into English would be the most effective approach."

English translations are worth having

Both Amano and Montgomery stress the importance of translation, preferably by human translators, not machines, but translation is time-consuming and expensive.

And so is English education.

"Many global challenges, such as the biodiversity crisis, climate change and the pandemic, are urgent issues," Amano said. "We desperately need solutions today. For those challenges, we can't afford waiting for 6 billion people who don't speak English to become proficient in English."

By collaborating with local researchers in areas of rich, but vulnerable, biodiversity, researchers can ensure much of the necessary translation work happens throughout the scientific process.

In addition to filling knowledge gaps, collaborative efforts can help ensure that important scientific data simply is not extracted, but shared -- and shared in many languages.

Many, if not most, of the decision-makers living and working in biodiversity hotspots are not fluent in English.

If the goal of conservation science is to inform and influence local policy, researchers say it's vital that important conservation science flows not just up, but also back down to those on the ground, whether they are politicians, farmers, biologists or wildlife managers.

"I'd also say that we have to ensure that summaries of the literature and syntheses are translated into as many languages as possible," Christie said. "So combining and synthesizing evidence from multiple languages is key, but also disseminating that evidence in multiple languages is key, too."

Americans agree misinformation is a problem, poll shows
By AMANDA SEITZ and HANNAH FINGERHUTyesterday

1 of 5

FILE - In this Sept. 16, 2017, file photo, a person uses a smart phone in Chicago. Nearly all Americans agree that the rampant spread of misinformation is a problem. Most also think individual users, along with social media companies, bear a good deal of blame for the situation. That's according to a new poll from The Pearson Institute and the Associated Press—NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. (AP Photo/File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly all Americans agree that the rampant spread of misinformation is a problem.

Most also think social media companies, and the people that use them, bear a good deal of blame for the situation. But few are very concerned that they themselves might be responsible, according to a new poll from The Pearson Institute and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Ninety-five percent of Americans identified misinformation as a problem when they’re trying to access important information. About half put a great deal of blame on the U.S. government, and about three-quarters point to social media users and tech companies. Yet only 2 in 10 Americans say they’re very concerned that they have personally spread misinformation.

More, about 6 in 10, are at least somewhat concerned that their friends or family members have been part of the problem.

For Carmen Speller, a 33-year-old graduate student in Lexington, Kentucky, the divisions are evident when she’s discussing the coronavirus pandemic with close family members. Speller trusts COVID-19 vaccines; her family does not. She believes the misinformation her family has seen on TV or read on questionable news sites has swayed them in their decision to stay unvaccinated against COVID-19.

In fact, some of her family members think she’s crazy for trusting the government for information about COVID-19.

“I do feel like they believe I’m misinformed. I’m the one that’s blindly following what the government is saying, that’s something I hear a lot,” Speller said. “It’s come to the point where it does create a lot of tension with my family and some of my friends as well.”

Speller isn’t the only one who may be having those disagreements with her family.

The survey found that 61% of Republicans say the U.S. government has a lot of responsibility for spreading misinformation, compared with just 38% of Democrats.

There’s more bipartisan agreement, however, about the role that social media companies, including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, play in the spread of misinformation.

According to the poll, 79% of Republicans and 73% of Democrats said social media companies have a great deal or quite a bit of responsibility for misinformation.

And that type of rare partisan agreement among Americans could spell trouble for tech giants like Facebook, the largest and most profitable of the social media platforms, which is under fire from Republican and Democrat lawmakers alike.

“The AP-NORC poll is bad news for Facebook,” said Konstantin Sonin, a professor of public policy at the University of Chicago who is affiliated with the Pearson Institute. “It makes clear that assaulting Facebook is popular by a large margin — even when Congress is split 50-50, and each side has its own reasons.”

During a congressional hearing Tuesday, senators vowed to hit Facebook with new regulations after a whistleblower testified that the company’s own research shows its algorithms amplify misinformation and content that harms children.

“It has profited off spreading misinformation and disinformation and sowing hate,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said during a meeting of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Consumer Protection. Democrats and Republicans ended the hearing with acknowledgement that regulations must be introduced to change the way Facebook amplifies its content and targets users.

The poll also revealed that Americans are willing to blame just about everybody but themselves for spreading misinformation, with 53% of them saying they’re not concerned that they’ve spread misinformation.

“We see this a lot of times where people are very worried about misinformation but they think it’s something that happens to other people — other people get fooled by it, other people spread it,” said Lisa Fazio, a Vanderbilt University psychology professor who studies how false claims spread. “Most people don’t recognize their own role in it.”

Younger adults tend to be more concerned that they’ve shared falsehoods, with 25% of those ages 18 to 29 very or extremely worried that they have spread misinformation, compared to just 14% of adults ages 60 and older. Sixty-three percent of older adults are not concerned, compared with roughly half of other Americans.

Yet it’s older adults who should be more worried about spreading misinformation, given that research shows they’re more likely to share an article from a false news website, Fazio said.

Before she shares things with family or her friends on Facebook, Speller tries her best to make sure the information she’s passing on about important topics like COVID-19 has been peer-reviewed or comes from a credible medical institution. Still, Speller acknowledges there has to have been a time or two that she “liked” or hit “share” on a post that didn’t get all the facts quite right.

“I’m sure it has happened,” Speller said. “I tend to not share things on social media that I didn’t find on verified sites. I’m open to that if someone were to point out, ‘Hey this isn’t right,’ I would think, OK, let me check this.”

___

The AP-NORC poll of 1,071 adults was conducted Sept. 9-13 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.

WE WILL FIGHT THROUGH IT
Pentagon climate plan: war-fighting in hotter, harsher world

 In this Sept. 29, 2021, file photo, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin testifies before the House Armed Services Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington. A new Pentagon plan calls for incorporating the realities of a hotter, harsher Earth at every level in the U.S. military, from making worsening climate extremes a mandatory part of strategic planning to training troops how to secure their own water supplies and treat heat injury. (Rod Lamkey/Pool via AP)

WASHINGTON (AP) — A new Pentagon plan calls for incorporating the realities of a hotter, harsher Earth at every level in the U.S. military, from making worsening climate extremes a mandatory part of strategic planning to training troops how to secure their own water supplies and treat heat injury.

The Pentagon — whose jets, aircraft carriers, truck convoys, bases and office buildings cumulatively burn more oil than most countries — was among the federal agencies that President Joe Biden ordered to overhaul their climate-resilience plans when he took office in January. About 20 agencies were releasing those plans Thursday.

“These are essential steps, not just to meet a requirement, but to defend the nation under all conditions,″ Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin wrote in a letter accompanying the Pentagon’s climate plan.

It follows decades of U.S. military assessments that climate change is a threat to U.S. national security, given increased risks of conflict over water and other scarcer resources, threats to U.S. military installations and supply chains, and added risks to troops.

The U.S. military is the single largest institutional consumer of oil in the world, and as such a key contributor to the worsening climate globally. But the Pentagon plan focuses on adapting to climate change, not on cutting its own significant output of climate-wrecking fossil fuel pollution.

It sketches out in businesslike terms the kind of risks U.S. forces face in the grim world ahead: Roadways collapsing under convoys as permafrost melts. Crucial equipment failing in extreme heat or cold. U.S. troops in dry regions overseas competing with local populations for dwindling water supplies, creating “friction or even conflict.”

Already, worsening wildfires in the U.S. West, fiercer hurricanes on the coasts and increasing heat in some areas are interrupting U.S. military training and readiness.

The new Department of Defense plan cites the example of Hurricane Michael in 2018, which hit Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida. Beyond the $3 billion it cost to rebuild, the storm knocked out the country’s top simulator and classroom training for F-22s stealth fighter jets for months. It was just one of several hurricanes and floods that have affected operations as U.S. bases in recent years.

The climate adaptation plan focuses on what it says is the need to incorporate accurate and current climate data and considerations into strategic, operational and tactical decision-making. That includes continued training of senior officers and others in what the report calls climate literacy.

“Failure to properly integrate a climate change understanding of related risks may significantly increase the Department’s adaptation and operating costs over time, ... imperil the supply chain, and/or result in degraded and outdated department capabilities,” the plan warns.

The Department of Defense since 2001 accounts for up to 80% of all U.S. government energy consumption annually, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

A U.S. military focus on more energy-efficient equipment has reduced fossil-fuel use in some ways, and allowed some warships, for instance, to increase range and deployment times, the military says.

But the Pentagon’s emphasis remains on its mission of maintaining the military’s striking power. Thursday’s plan suggests deploying climate-mitigation technology like battery storage and microgrids when that fits the U.S. defense mission. It suggests “exploring” — rather than mandating — steps like asking suppliers to report their own output of fossil-fuel pollution.

___

This story was first published on Oct. 7, 2021. It was updated on Oct. 8, 2021, to correct that the Department of Defense since 2001 accounts for up to 80% of all U.S. government energy consumption annually, not up to 80% of all U.S. energy consumption annually.

USA DEA BENEFITS FROM WAR ON DRUGS
Colombian corruption case latest overseas stain for DEA

In this Dec. 30, 2020 file photo, a police officer stands on a coca field during a manual eradication operation in Tumaco, southwestern Colombia. The case of Colombian Capt. Juan Pablo Mosquera, who faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted in the U.S. of obstructing justice for allegedly selling evidence and information, is the latest black eye for the DEA program to train and support foreign law enforcement that has been repeatedly subverted by corrupt cops and deadly leaks. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia, File)


MIAMI (AP) — For years, Capt. Juan Pablo Mosquera rose through the ranks of Colombia’s national police, earning accolades from his bosses on his way to becoming the trusted supervisor of a unit that worked hand-in-glove with U.S. anti-narcotics agents.

Now he’s facing up to 20 years in a U.S. prison for allegedly betraying the Drug Enforcement Administration to the same drug traffickers they were jointly fighting.

His 2018 arrest and subsequent extradition to the U.S., which has not been previously reported, is another black eye for an elite DEA program to train and support foreign law enforcement that has been repeatedly subverted by corrupt cops and deadly leaks.

The rare prosecution of a once-standout U.S. ally follows a report this summer from a U.S. government watchdog that blasted the DEA’s leadership in Washington for failing to oversee its foreign law enforcement partners even in the aftermath of a string of well-publicized scandals.

“The DEA needs to be more vigilant of the operations that it’s conducting in foreign countries because the corruption is so rampant,” said Mike Vigil, the DEA’s former Chief of International Operations.

Mosquera goes on trial Oct. 13 in Miami federal court on two counts of obstructing justice for allegedly selling evidence and information gathered by the vetted unit he oversaw to key targets of U.S. investigators.

It’s not clear what led the DEA to doubt the 37-year-old Mosquera — the three-page indictment says almost nothing about his alleged crimes.

But Juan Carlos Dávila, a co-defendant with a long history in Colombia’s criminal underworld, testified as part of a plea agreement that Mosquera enlisted him to try to sell information to a target of a DEA investigation: an American who was living in Colombia under a false identity.

The American, who was identified in court papers only by his initials P.L., is described in court papers as someone who ditched probation in Arkansas in the 1990s and was indicted in Miami for conspiring to smuggle cocaine into the U.S. shortly after Mosquera learned of the case from his DEA handlers. That appears to match the criminal history of Kylan Patrick Liljebeck, who allegedly helped organize a shipment of 50 kilograms of cocaine aboard a sailboat in Colombia.

Unbeknownst to Dávila, a man he thought was the unnamed American’s associate was a confidential source working at the direction of the DEA.

“Mosquera corruptly used his position ... to access investigative information regarding DEA investigations and targets with the intent to make money from that information,” Dávila said in a proffer accompanying his plea agreement.


Dávila, who was reportedly arrested in 2013 on an Italian warrant for ties to the Sicilian mafia, agreed to testify against Mosquera in exchange for a reduced sentence. Others who may take the stand include five DEA agents and an unnamed Colombian law enforcement officer, according to court papers filed by prosecutors.

Prosecutors also intend to rely on extensive audio and video recordings of meetings between Dávila and DEA informants — none of which Mosquera himself appears to have attended.

Daniel Hentschel, an attorney for Mosquera, declined to comment on the case, as did the U.S. attorney’s office and the DEA.

Mosquera, before his arrest, led a police squad in the city of Cali overseen by what’s known as the DEA’s “Sensitive Investigative Unit,” or SIU, the gold standard for its partnerships abroad. The program of vetted units was set up to help the DEA conduct investigations in foreign countries where the drug business begins but where its agents are guests and face more restrictions.

In this Thursday, Aug. 10, 2017 file photo, police officers walk among packages of seized cocaine at the Pacific port of Buenaventura, Colombia, after about one ton of cocaine was seized in a container during an operation by counternarcotics police at the port.

 (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)

The DEA credits the vetted units with some of the world’s biggest busts and the arrest of hundreds of capos. Selected agents receive five weeks of special training at the DEA Academy in Virginia and frequently leverage the Americans’ mentorship into top positions inside their country’s security forces. Since its start in the late 1990s, the program has expanded to more than 20 countries, including Thailand and Kenya.

To mitigate risks and prevent corruption, foreign agents are supposed to go through extensive vetting that includes drug tests and polygraphs.

But a scathing Inspector General report this summer found that the DEA’s oversight of its SIU partners is insufficient and faults the agency for failing to learn lessons from a decade-long string of well-publicized scandals.

In Mexico, an SIU unit was the subject of U.S. congressional inquiries following reports that a drug cartel in 2011 carried out a savage massacre of dozens of civilians after receiving a leak from the vetted unit. A commander of the same unit was charged by American prosecutors in 2020 with taking bribes from drug traffickers in exchange for protection.

In Honduras, a vetted unit was implicated in the killing of four civilians during a botched raid, while in Haiti a police officer was promoted to the commander of a vetted unit despite having previously failed a DEA-administered lie detector test.

In Colombia, a former DEA agent who worked with the vetted units pleaded guilty last year to 19 counts of conspiring to launder millions of dollars from DEA-controlled accounts and spending the proceeds lavishly on luxury sports cars and Tiffany jewelry. The Inspector General found that two SIU members also accompanied DEA agents in cartel-organized “sex parties” with prostitutes — a scandal that forced DEA Chief Michele Leonhart to resign in 2015.

In the wake of each well-publicized incident, the DEA made little effort to investigate the leaks, often deferring to local authorities, the audit found. Meanwhile, the Inspector General said it was “troubling” to learn that the DEA had scaled back the frequency of its lie-detector testing — from every two years to three.

Vigil said polygraphs should ideally be taken every quarter or six months.

“The temptations are very great,” he said. “The police officers got paid a little more for belonging to a vetted unit but it’s never going to compete with the amount of money the cartels will pay to compromise information.”

New DEA Administrator Anne Milgram called for a top-to-bottom review of the agency’s 91 foreign field offices following publication of the report. She said the review would identify areas for improvement to ensure effectiveness, integrity and accountability.

___

Follow Goodman on Twitter: @APJoshGoodman

#DECRIMINALIZEDRUGS

Israel uses  Palestinians  bodies as bargaining chips


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Palestinian Mustafa Erekat, whose son Ahmed was shot dead by Israeli forces at a West Bank checkpoint last year and held his body after, sits at his shop in the village of Abu Dis, South of Ramallah, Tuesday, Sept. 21, 2021. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)

ABU DIS, West Bank (AP) — More than a year after his son was killed by Israeli forces under disputed circumstances in the occupied West Bank, Mustafa Erekat is still seeking his remains.

It is one of dozens of cases in which Israel is holding the remains of Palestinians killed in conflict, citing the need to deter attacks and potentially exchange them for the remains of two Israeli soldiers held by the Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The Palestinians and human rights groups view the practice of holding bodies as a form of collective punishment that inflicts further suffering on bereaved families.

“They have no right to keep my son, and it is my right for my son to have a good funeral,” Erekat said.

The Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center, a Palestinian rights group, says Israel is holding the bodies of at least 82 Palestinians since the policy was established in 2015. It says many are buried in secret cemeteries where the plots are only marked by plaques of numbers. Hamas holds the remains of the two Israeli soldiers killed during the 2014 Gaza war in an undisclosed location.

Last year, Israel’s Security Cabinet expanded the policy to include the holding of the remains of all Palestinians killed during alleged attacks, and not just those connected to Hamas. Israel considers Hamas, which rules Gaza, a terrorist group.

Defense Minister Benny Gantz said at the time that holding the remains deterred attacks and would help ensure the return of Israeli captives and remains. The Defense Ministry declined to comment on the policy.

One of the bodies is that of Erekat’s son, Ahmed, who Israeli officials say was shot and killed after deliberately plowing into a military checkpoint in June 2020. Security camera footage shows the car veering into a group of Israeli soldiers and sending one of them flying back. Ahmed steps out of the car and raises one of his hands before he is shot multiple times and falls to the ground.

His family says it was an accident. Mustafa said his son was passing through the checkpoint on his way to the nearby city of Bethlehem to buy clothes for his sister’s wedding later that night. The shooting attracted widespread attention, in part because Ahmed was the nephew of Saeb Erekat, a veteran Palestinian spokesman and negotiator who died last year.

Ahmed was to get married soon, his father said: ”He had a house that was ready for him.”

To this day, he has no idea where his son’s remains are.

A man attends Friday prayers under a poster with picture and name of Mai Afaneh, who was shot dead by Israeli forces at a West Bank checkpoint last June and held her body after, and reads "the martyr doctor who watered the land of Palestine," at a sit-in tent for families of Palestinians killed in conflict and Israel is holding their bodies, in the village of Abu Dis, South of Ramallah, Friday, Sept. 24, 2021. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)

Omar Shakir, the Israel and Palestine director at the New York-based Human Rights Watch, said Israel has turned “corpses into bargaining chips.” The policy is “deliberately and unlawfully punishing the families of the deceased, who are not accused of any wrongdoing,” he said.

Israel has a long history of exchanging prisoners and remains with its enemies. In 2011, it traded more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners for an Israeli soldier who had been captured by Palestinian militants five years earlier and was being held in Gaza.

In 2008, it traded five Lebanese prisoners, including a notorious militant, and the remains of nearly 200 Lebanese and Palestinians killed in fighting, for the remains of two Israeli soldiers captured by the Lebanese militant Hezbollah group two years earlier.

Egypt has been mediating negotiations over a similar agreement that would return the remains of the two soldiers, as well as two Israeli civilians believed to be alive, held by Hamas in Gaza.

In the meantime, the Erekats and other Palestinian families must turn to Israel’s Supreme Court in a process involving multiple hearings that can drag on for years.

The court denied a recent appeal by the Erekats, citing confidential information submitted by the military. Mustafa Erekat says the system is rigged. He accused the court of dragging its feet until the policy on holding the remains was expanded and then relying on secret evidence.

Mohammed Aliyan, spokesman for six Palestinian families who filed a Supreme Court petition for the return of their relatives’ bodies in 2016, said the judges initially sided with the families before an appeal from the military.

“They always go along with the military’s demands,” Aliyan told The Associated Press, “They are afraid to take any decision against them.”

Liron Libman, an expert on military law at the Israel Democracy Institute, said there are situations where certain pieces of information can’t be made public for fear of exposing protected sources or special operations.

“Each side has the right to request a postponement of the hearing, and the court will accept the request if it believes it is for a justifiable reason,” Libman told the AP.

Even if a family’s petition is successful, locating relatives’ bodies for exhumation can pose further challenges, especially in cases when bodies were buried decades ago.

Rami Saleh, the director of Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center, said his organization has dealt with cases where Israeli authorities were unable to locate bodies and also those where Palestinian family members needed to take DNA tests to confirm the remains of a relative.

Mustafa said he has not given up hope and intends to challenge the Supreme Court’s decision. In the meantime, he and Aliyan, the spokesman for the other families, attend weekly sit-ins calling for the release of all bodies held by Israeli authorities.

“The feeling of not being able to bury your relative’s body is more painful than their death,” Aliyan said.

POST COLONIAL NOVELIST

African novelist, refugee Abdulrazak Gurnah wins Nobel Prize in Literature


Abdulrazak Gurnah, an African immigrant who often detailed the experiences of refugees and the impact of colonialism, was awarded the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday. Image courtesy of Nobel Prize/Twitter


Oct. 7 (UPI) -- Novelist and retired English Professor Abdulrazak Gurnah, an African immigrant who detailed the experiences of refugees and the impact of colonialism, was awarded the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday.

Born in Zanzibar, Gurhah is the fifth African to win the award. He was raised on the autonomous island off the eastern coast of Tanzania before his family emigrated to Britain as refugees in the 1960s.




An author of 10 novels, he recently retired from the University of Kent in Canterbury.

In Thursday's announcement, the Swedish Academy said Gurnah was recognized "for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents."

Three of Gurnah's novels -- Memory of Departure, Pilgrims Way and Dottie -- all focused on being an immigrant in Britain. His novel Paradise, about an African boy dealing with colonialism, made the shortlist for the prestigious Booker Prize in 1994.



Gurnah's was the fourth Nobel Prize awarded this week. The fifth and final official award, the Nobel Peace Prize, will be given out on Friday. A semiofficial prize, the Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences, will be awarded on Monday.

U.S.-based scientists David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine on Monday. Syukuro Manabe, a senior meteorologist at Princeton University, shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Klaus Hasselmann and Giorgio Parisi on Tuesday. Professor David MacMillan of Princeton University and German scientist Benjamin List won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry on Wednesday.

Nobel literary winner: UK govt lacks compassion for refugees

Tanzanian writer Abdulrazak Gurnah poses ahead of a press conference in London, Friday, Oct. 8, 2021. Gurnah was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature on Thursday. The Swedish Academy said the award was in recognition of his "uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism." (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

LONDON (AP) — Nobel literature laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah on Friday criticized the “lack of compassion” of governments, including Britain’s, that treat migrants as a problem or a threat.

Gurnah grew up on the island of Zanzibar, now part of Tanzania, and arrived in England as an 18-year-old refugee in the 1960s. He has drawn on his experiences for 10 novels, including “Memory of Departure,” “Pilgrims Way,” “Afterlives” and the Booker Prize finalist “Paradise.”

Announcing the Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday, the Swedish Academy said the award recognized Gurnah’s “uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents.”

He is only the sixth person born in Africa to win the world’s most prestigious literary accolade, first awarded in 1901. The prize carries a purse of 10 million Swedish kronor (over $1.14 million) from a bequest by founder Alfred Nobel.

Gurnah said migration is “not just my story … It’s a phenomenon of our times.”

The 72-year-old novelist said the tribulations faced by migrants hadn’t lessened in the decades since he left his homeland.

“It might seem as if things have moved on, but once again you get new arrivals, same old medicine,” Gurnah told reporters a day after winning the prize. “Same old ugliness in the newspapers, the mistreatment, the lack of compassion from the government.”

Gurnah said Britain has become more aware of racism over the decades and had “accelerated” discussion of its imperial past. But “institutions, it seems to me, are just as mean, just as authoritarian as they were.”

Gurnah said Britain’s detention of asylum-seekers and the Windrush scandal, in which thousands of long-term residents of the U.K. from the Caribbean were caught up in crackdown on illegal immigration, “seem to me to be just continuations of the same ugliness.”

Gurnah, who holds British citizenship and recently retired as a professor of literature at the University of Kent, urged governments to stop seeing migrants as a problem to be solved.

“These people are not coming with nothing,” he said. “They are coming with youth, with energy, with potential.”

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Follow AP’s Nobel Prizes coverage at https://www.apnews.com/NobelPrizes and global migration coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/migration

Russian Nobel winner: Peace Prize is for my paper, not me


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Novaya Gazeta editor Dmitry Muratov talks to media at the Novaya Gazeta newspaper, in Moscow, Russia, Friday, Oct. 8, 2021. As a new Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Russian newspaper editor Dmitry Muratov has downplayed the buzz around his name. The award isn't for him, he says, but for all of the staff at Novaya Gazeta, the independent Russian newspaper noted for investigations of official corruption, human rights abuses and Kremlin criticism. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)


MOSCOW (AP) — As editor of Novaya Gazeta, Dmitry Muratov was well aware that his independent Russian newspaper — a persistent critic of the Kremlin, government corruption and human rights abuses in Russia — was seen as a top contender for the Nobel Peace Prize.

But the prestigious award wasn’t on his mind when the announcement came down that he’d been named co-winner. At the time Friday, Muratov was absorbed in an argument on the phone with a reporter, Elena Milashina.

“At that time, there were several calls from Oslo. But only a reckless person would say to Milashina ’Wait, I’ll talk to Oslo and then you and I will quarrel,” Muratov said on Ekho Moskvy radio.

Finally, he was told by his paper’s spokeswoman that he had won the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize, along with journalist Maria Ressa of the Philippines, for their fight for freedom of expression in countries where reporters have faced persistent attacks, harassment and even murder.

The 59-year-old Muratov was similarly casual, even sardonic, about the recognition of the prize that came from the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov. In the radio interview, the host asked him for comment on Peskov’s statement. Muratov said he hadn’t read it and the host offered to read it to him.

“Should I rise?” Muratov said, then heard that Peskov said “he is committed to his ideals, he is talented, he is brave.”

“All the above is certainly true,” Muratov responded.

Other reactions from Kremlin circles were far less generous.

“The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the most controversial nominations of the Nobel Committee. Such decisions devalue the prize itself, it is already difficult to be guided by it,” said Dmitry Kiselev, whose weekly news magazine program on state TV is larded with paeans to Russian President Vladimir Putin and disdain for the opposition.

Considering how critical Novaya Gazeta has been toward Putin and his government, Peskov’s congratulatory words could be seen as determined spin-control. They also likely reflect relief that the Norwegian Nobel Committee did not chose another Russian nominee for the Peace Prize — imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

Navalny’s dramatic arrest this year when he returned from Germany after recuperating from nerve-agent poisoning that he blames on the Kremlin gave him international prominence. Many of his supporters were disappointed that his bravery in confronting Russia’s government did not earn him the Nobel.

Lyubov Sobol, one of Navalny’s closest and most visible aides, congratulated Muratov on Twitter, but added that she believes Navalny is “the most important fighter for peace in our country.”

Muratov, though pleased by the recognition, agreed.

“I can tell you directly that if I were on the Nobel committee, I would have voted for him for his absolutely crazy courage,” he said.

Novaya Gazeta has courted controversy since its founding in 1993 by Muratov and other former colleagues at the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, the onetime organ of the Communist Youth League. The goal was to create “ an honest, independent, and rich publication that would influence national policy,” according to his citation for the 2007 International Press Freedom Award.

Although the Nobel has brought him intense international attention, Muratov has been at pains to downplay his personal prominence, saying repeatedly that he regards the award as being given to the whole paper and as a tribute to its six reporters or contributors who have been killed.

The most famous victim was Anna Politkovskaya, who reported on Russia’s Chechnya wars and was gunned down in the elevator of her Moscow apartment building in 2006. Muratov’s Nobel award was announced one day after the 15th anniversary of her killing. Although six people were convicted of involvement in the shooting, whoever ordered it has not been identified and the statute of limitations on the case expired on Thursday.

Yuri Shchekochikhin, a reporter investigating corrupt business deals and the possible role of Russian security services in the 1999 apartment house bombings blamed on Chechen insurgents, died in 2003 of poisoning and the culprits were never found. Anastasia Baburina was shot to death in 2009 after a news conference with a lawyer representing the family of a Chechen girl raped and murdered by a Russian military officer; the lawyer also died in the attack.

The paper and its journalists also have endured an array of threats, ranging from a severed goat’s head and funeral notices sent to the paper, to mysterious dustings of powder at the home of a reporter.

Prominent investigations at the paper in recent years include reporting on the alleged torture and murders of gay men by Chechen officials, publishing bodycam footage of Russian prison officials torturing an inmate and the beheading of a detainee in Syria by men believed to be Russian mercenaries working for a contractor closely tied to Putin.

The paper’s report on the “Blue Whale” phenomenon in which Russian youths reportedly were lured online into committing suicide was criticized as possibly overstated, but a Russian man later claimed to have organized it and was sentenced to prison.



The Nobel Peace award raised concerns about whether it could subject Novaya Gazeta to being designated as a “foreign agent” under Russian law, a term applied to organizations and individuals who receive foreign funding and are engaged in unspecified political activity. The stipulation apparently is aimed at undermining their credibility.

“I hope that this status of Muratov will protect Novaya Gazeta from the status of a foreign agent and will become some kind of protection for Russian journalists, who are massively announced as foreign agents,” said Yevgenia Albats, editor of the Novoye Vremya news magazine. “I hope this will help Russian journalism survive in these difficult conditions.”

But a few hours after the Nobel announcement, the Russian Justice Ministry added nine more journalists and three more organizations to its list of foreign agents.