It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Monday, November 15, 2021
Fighting near key Yemen port displaces over 6,000: UN
The insurgents on Friday took control of a large area south of Hodeida, a key port where the warring sides agreed a ceasefire in 2018, after loyalist forces withdrew.
"Some 700 families (approximately 4,900 people) were displaced" to Khokha, over 100 kilometres (60 miles) south of Hodeida, "while 184 other families (about 1,300 people) were displaced further south" to the Red Sea coastal town of Mokha, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said, citing Yemeni government sources.
"No displacement has been reported within the areas that came under control of the de facto authorities," it said in a statement Sunday, referring to the Houthis.
Citing aid partners on the ground, it said a 300-tent site for displaced people had been set up in the Khokha district, while the authorities were reportedly looking for another site to cope with the influx.
But the UN also said the Houthi advance could result in "improved movement for civilians" between the provinces of Hodeida and Sanaa, and along roads connecting Hodeida city with other districts.
The Hodeida ceasefire was agreed at Yemen's last peace talks in Sweden in 2018, but clashes have since broken out between the rebels and pro-government troops around the city.
Two military officials said that fighting also erupted Saturday when the rebels tried to push farther south into government-controlled territory, but loyalist forces repelled the advance.
A Saudi-led coalition intervened in Yemen in 2015 to shore up the government, a year after the Houthis seized the capital Sanaa.
Tens of thousands of people, mostly civilians, have been killed and millions displaced, in what the UN calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
The Iran-backed insurgents have also been engaged in a sustained attempt to capture Marib, the government's last stronghold in the north.
The UN last week called on "all parties to the conflict to ensure the safety and security of civilians in and around those areas where shifts in frontlines have taken place".
Op-Ed: COP26 — You’ve just sold out your kids and grandkids, if this babble is serious
You get what you deserve. End of the Worlders and other useless humanity-hating vermin, rejoice. If COP26’s limp text is anything to go by, you’re in luck. No more pesky future generations, etc. the rich will die slightly later than the poor, maybe. The geniuses have struck again.
Nothing I’ve seen in this babbling waffle binds anyone to anything much if at all. G20 set the stage. COP26 simply proved nobody’s doing much about anything or has the slightest intention to do so anytime soon. “Blunder smugly onward” is the glorious message from the truly insane.
You’d think there wasn’t a problem, just “urging” and “requesting” people to do things. As the Amazon vanishes in a grave of debt and corruption, the air becomes unbreathable and the oceans fill with plastic, and toxins, the future is clear. It’s back to politics and regressive social genocide, those healthy pursuits. Meanwhile, where is the full text of the actual agreement?
The actual agreement should be easily visible online. It isn’t. Not that there’s likely to be much to read. The phraseology in the Washington Post (link above) is pukeworthy at best. The little dears are being asked nicely to do something they all too obviously barely understand.
What I’ve seen so far proves humanity couldn’t run a dunghill. There’s not one single hard decision made or in progress.
No solid “end emissions now” provisions. No hard targets. No cohesive action plans. Reafforestation – A day care level no-brainer, 30 – 50 years after the fact. Reafforestation will reboot the carbon and water cycles to some level, but nothing specific. Water resources management and protection – Nothing visible. Ocean management – Not mentioned as an issue in coverage. Fossil fuels – Drive fossil thinking, and that’s about all to be said. Carbon credits – Another financial market for the deranged and the greedy. Hallelujah. (See Leonard Cohen for context.) America – China agreement. Awfully sweet of you, O mighty and adorable obstacle courses. Now back it up with something solid. ,,,And at the bottom of the stack, my own country, Australia, snivelling away like a spoiled brat and about as useful. If we fought bushfires and droughts like that, there wouldn’t be an Australia, just a set of excuses.
A house brick could have done a better, and far more credible, job to get this miserable pittance of an outcome. It’s a true indicator of the mediocrity of the people and intellects involved.
Leadership? None.
What COP26 has also proved, as though it needed doing, is that politics is basically for errand boys. Political authority goes as far as the paydays, and no further. A herd of subservient little yes-nobodies couldn’t be expected to get anything done without the OK from their owners. Politicians have no real power, and they prove it on an hourly basis. Nobody else causes such misery worldwide, every single day.
Their owners, in turn, are so well insulated that they seem to believe that a world with billions of displaced people without food and water will be fine. Their asset bases won’t dissolve in the rising tide of disasters. Really? A healthy percentage of property likely to be affected by rising sea levels will have no effect? Rising water tables go ever so well with high rise buildings? Sure they do, snookums. You just throw your petty tantrums and all will be well.
What, is the tooth fairy on holiday this century?
This is immediate danger, right now. None of this is guesswork. It’s happening. The total lack of urgency in the response is obvious. Presumably physical facts are now so unfashionable as to need the approval of mindless little PR companies before being released to the public.
Imagine an intellect which when confronted with facts produces nothing but irrelevance. In this case, the subject is survival. The response is endless self-righteous tomes about the “future” of a world which may not exist, based entirely on business needs and market perceptions.
Would you consider that response, which misses all possible issues, utterly incompetent? Because it is. That’s been the response to a world-changing situation.
Some parts of the world couldn’t handle lockdown. They couldn’t handle living in their own homes with their own families and acting responsibly. How do you think this useless rabble will react to no food, no water, perhaps no power?
You’re about to find out. Thanks, cretins.
COP26: Will the promised tree planting and Reforestation actually happen?
November 15, 2021 As deforestation and climate change ravage India's UNESCO heritage-listed Western Ghats mountain range, an all-female rainforest force is battling to protect one of the area's last enclaves of biodiversity - Copyright AFP Manjunath Kiran
The jury is out as to whether COP26 was a success. It certainly has not delivered everything that featured in the build-up to the event, although some impactful measures were announced from plans to phase out public finance for coal-fired power, to a pledge to end deforestation.
Following COP26, a new environment act comes into force in the UK, with similar measures being adopted in many countries (these that attended and took the conference seriously). The UK legislation sets out to improve air and water quality, tackle waste, increase recycling, halt the decline of species, and improve the natural environment.
The legislation has been treated cautiously by climate experts. For example, Dr Veronica Edmonds-Brown, Aquatic Ecologist, University of Hertfordshire states: “It’s certainly better than the original, mostly due to active lobbying from wildlife organisations such as the Wildlife Trusts. Having legally-binding 2030 species abundance targets may help reduce our losses and is very much welcomed.”
However, there are some downsides, as the academic points out: “On the negative side, the Office for Environmental Protection was promised to be completely independent and this has been undermined.” In particular, the measure presented provide “no indication that the Environment Agency or Natural England will have the funding to ensure they can deliver on the Act.”
As an example of one of the positive features, the BBC reports on a woodland of 13,000 trees to be planted on Exmoor, located in the south-west of England. The first 300 of 13,000 trees have been planted at a site near Winsford in Somerset by volunteers. This help lock away about 2,600 tonnes of carbon during the first 100 years.
The UK was one of 130 countries pledging to reverse forest-loss and land degradation by 2030 (the “Declaration on Forests and Land Use”). While this will be welcomed by environmentalists, the science publication Nature points out that all previous commitments remain unfulfilled and “latest target is unlikely to be met without an enforcement mechanism.”
Furthermore, without changes to lifestyle the goals may be unrealizable. This is the message from Greenpeace UK. The environmental organization indicates that the pledge is futile because the causes of deforestation have not been addressed. The organization states in a Tweet: “It’s simple. World leaders can’t commit to ‘end deforestation by 2030’ if we don’t cut down one of the main drivers of #deforestation: meat and dairy consumption.”
In addition, Louis Verchot, who is head of research for landscape restoration for the Bioversity International Alliance, in conversation with the website SciDev.Net, expressed a concern that the agreement lacks any clear and verifiable methods for reaching the new 2030 goal.
Numerous endangered species in SE Asia face extinction, studies show
Extinction is not primarily due to climate change, the scientists say, but it does contribute to extinction.
A commentary by Dan Southerland 2021.11.03
A freshwater Siamese crocodile, a critically endangered species native to southeast Asia, seen at Kaeng Krachan National Park in central Thailand, Jan. 23, 2021.AFP
A number of endangered animals and plant species in East Asia face extinction unless steps are taken soon to protect them, according to a new study.
The study, published in the journal Agriculture Ecosystems and Environment, states that as many as one in five species around the world now face the danger of extinction.
According to the website Sapiens, Southeast Asia should be the world’s priority for averting imminent species extinctions.
Compared with other regions, Asia has the highest proportion of plant, reptile, bird, and mammal species listed as threatened on the “Red List” produced by the IUCN, or International Union for Conservation of Nature, a Swiss-based international monitoring organization.
The 2010 IUCN Red List includes 2,380 animal species in Asia threatened to vanish forever, from Asian elephants to primates to wild cattle to frogs.
Southeast Asia has the world’s fastest recent habitat-loss rates due largely to a demand for wild species to be used as luxury food, medicine, tonics, and trophy parts. Much of the demand for these items comes from Chinese consumers.
Bumblebee species in East Asia are being threatened by climate change and vegetation change, according to a recent Chinese study.
As many people know, bumblebees are pollinators, which play an important role in agricultural and natural ecosystems. Due to the impact of environmental change, the number of bumblebees has declined sharply in several areas, including Europe and North America.
Protesters hold signs depicting bees during a demonstration called by climate change activist group Extinction Rebellion, on at the Place du Chatelet, Paris, October 7, 2019. Credit: AFP
Bumblebees in Asia
East Asia is a region abundant in bumblebees, but investigations of their condition in the region have been relatively late in coming.
However, researchers from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences have now evaluated 29 bumblebee species endemic to East Asia.
The researchers predicted that an estimated 59 to 93 percent of bumblebees in East Asia will experience range loss in 2050 due to climate change and vegetation changes.
By then some three percent of the species are predicted to be critically endangered” with about 10 to 17 percent categorized simply as “endangered.”
The researchers also proposed measures to protect the bumblebees that include improving the grasslands, forests, and farmlands that the bumblebees inhabit.
Mark Green with the U.S.–based Wilson Center recently brought much-needed attention to the researchers’ study.
According to Green, a United Nations report in 2019 “sent shock waves through the conservation community when it stated that more than one million animal and plant species now stand on the brink of extinction.
The good news is that a number of citizens around the world are volunteering to help protect endangered animals.
A pangolin moves in a cage at night at Save Vietnam Wildlife's Carnivore and Pangolin Conservation Program in Cuc Phuong National Park in Vietnam's northern province of Ninh Binh, Oct. 21, 2016. Credit: AFP
Poaching and habitat loss
One example can be found in Vietnam where a critically endangered species of monkey has quadrupled in numbers under the protection of the Van Long Nature Reserve, inspiring hope for conservationists.
In the spring of this year, The Christian ScienceMonitor Weekly reported that when German primatologist Tilo Nadler first visited Vietnam in the early 1990s, he found only 50 of the Delacours langurs.
The Monitor’s main source for its story is the environmental website Mongabay.
Nadler teamed up with local communities to establish the Van Long Nature Reserve in 2001, and most of the country’s langurs, estimated to number between 235 and 275, live there today.
Outside the reserve, the species is still under pressure from poaching and habitat loss, but Van Long’s success gives conservationists a roadmap for the langurs’ future.
Nadler hopes to open a second reserve in 2021 and 2022 in an area north of Van Long where some 30 other langurs currently live and he wants to relocated primates from unprotected areas to Trang An, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
In another positive development, USAID is working with the Vietnamese government to combat wildlife trafficking by strengthening policies and law enforcement.
But persistent challenges to countering the illegal wildlife trade include conflicting administrative regulations and the limited capacity of Vietnam’s legal enforcement force.
Meanwhile, Indonesia, the largest and most populous nation in Southeast Asia, has announced a number of steps to halt illegal wildlife trafficking. But here again the problem is a limited enforcement capacity as well as corruption in the government system.
Scientists say that in the end, in Indonesia and elsewhere, “bio-sensitive urban development” will be required for the world to slow the rate of animal and plant species extinction
Extinction is not primarily due to climate change, the scientists say, although climate change does contribute to extinction. It is mostly human agricultural development and other activities, they say, that disrupt the eco-system.
Dan Southerland is RFA's founding Executive Editor.
Species feared extinct is the only frog with true teeth on its lower jaw
CT scans of Gastrotheca guentheri skulls revealed what appeared to be identical rows of teeth on both the upper and lower jaws, which researchers later confirmed through dissection. Credit: Florida Museum/Daniel Paluh
In a new study published in Evolution, biologists laid to rest a century-old debate by confirming that a single species of frog, out of the more than 7,000 living today, has true teeth on its lower jaw. The culprit, a large marsupial frog named Gastrotheca guentheri, has puzzled scientists since its discovery in 1882 for possessing what appeared to be a complete set of jagged, daggerlike teeth on the top and bottom of its mouth.
Scientists have since waffled over the exact nature of these structures. True teeth are composed of specific tissues, including dentin and enamel, which are notoriously difficult to observe in frog teeth due to their diminutive size.
"They're incredibly small, each about the size of a grain of sand," said lead author Daniel Paluh, a doctoral candidate in the University of Florida's department of biology. "There's no way to confirm the presence of dentin and enamel in frog teeth without using high-resolution techniques."
Frogs have lacked teeth on their lower jaw since their first appearance in the fossil record more than 200 million years ago. A single living species with a full dentition thus seemed unlikely at best and contradicted a long-standing biological theory, called Dollo's Law, which states that once a complex trait is lost in an organism, it never returns.
But frogs are known for flouting the rules when it comes to teeth. Although their basic body shape and anatomy have remained largely unchanged since the Jurassic period, Paluh and his colleagues recently determined that frogs have lost their teeth on more than 20 separate occasions and may have regained them an additional six times throughout their evolutionary history.
Some species, such as those that feed on ants and termites, are entirely toothless, relying instead on their sticky, projectile tongues to reel in food. Frogs that go after larger morsels are often equipped with a row of teeth on their upper jaw and a toothy, serrated palate on the top of their mouths, which helps keep wiggling prey from escaping.
In rare cases, some species have evolved large bony fangs that protrude from their lower jaw and superficially resemble teeth but lack the tell-tale dentin and enamel tissues. And instead of the conveyor-belt system of tooth replacement in other frogs, fangs grow only once and cannot be replaced.
For decades, no one was sure whether the structures on G. guentheri's lower jaw were bones masquerading as teeth or the genuine article. Finding a specimen to settle the question wasn't easy, either. Native to the cloud forests of Colombia and Ecuador, the last recorded observation of G. guentheri was made in 1996, prompting fears the species may have since succumbed to extinction.
A handful of G. guentheri are preserved as museum specimens, but given their rarity, biologists are hesitant to subject them to the type of destructive analyses that would be required to study their teeth. But Paluh was able to capitalize on a peculiar feature of Gastrotheca's biology to use a preserved embryo as a sample rather than a full-sized adult.
Rather than laying eggs in ponds or streams, female marsupial frogs carry them around in a pouch on their back. "In the case of G. guentheri, these eggs will skip the tadpole stage and hatch directly into miniature versions of the adult called froglets," Paluh said.
The researchers took CT scans of the embryo's jaws and carefully stained razor-thin sections of individual teeth with dyes that bind to enamel and dentin, with unequivocal results. G. guentheri's teeth were virtually identical to those of other frog species in their overall shape, development and the tissues they were composed of.
"This was surprising given the extreme length of time since they were lost and regained," Paluh said. "Our expectation was that if they did regain teeth, they would somehow be different, but that's not what we saw at all."
As to how structures that have remained absent for millions of years reappeared in an otherwise unassuming frog, Paluh suspects the answer resides in the complex pathway of dental development retained in the majority of living amphibians. Although the location of teeth can vary from species to species, the same basic genetics likely underlies their development, and producing them on the lower jaw might be as simple as throwing a switch.
Paluh plans on leveraging several genetic tools in the near future to map the contours of tooth development and evolution in frogs, but for G. guentheri and a host of other imperiled species in the American tropics, finding the exact answer may no longer be possible. DNA degrades over time in plants and animals stored in museum collections, and the scant number of aging G. guentheri specimens aren't likely viable resources for genetic study.
More information:Daniel J. Paluh et al, Re‐evaluating the morphological evidence for the re‐evolution of lost mandibular teeth in frogs,Evolution(2021).DOI: 10.1111/evo.14379
Biden eyes desert drilling ban at US tribal summit
Issued on: 15/11/2021 -
Washington (AFP) – President Joe Biden told a summit of Native American tribal leaders Monday that he intends to extend oil and gas drilling restrictions in a swath of New Mexico desert considered sacred.
Biden said that "taking action to protect the Greater Chaco Landscape... from future oil and gas leasing" was one of his priorities.
The toughening of regulations in the New Mexico region is Biden's latest push to protect wild and historic areas from energy companies, in a break with the aggressively pro-drilling policies of his predecessor Donald Trump.
Ahead of the summit, the Biden administration said it was considering a 20-year ban on new drilling in the Greater Chaco area.
The Chaco zone has "great cultural, spiritual, and historical significance to many Pueblos and Indian Tribes" and contains "thousands of artifacts that date back more than one thousand years," the White House said.
It is also one of 24 places in the United States inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
The drilling ban would only apply to federal leases in a 10-mile (16-kilometer) zone around Chaco Canyon. It would not affect existing operations or lands under private, state or tribal authority.
The proposed restrictions on drilling come as Biden faces political pressure over rocketing fuel prices amid a broader rise in Covid-19 pandemic-related inflation.
Trump was cheered by his Republicans when he stripped federal protections around the country to encourage oil and gas production.
Biden has sought to roll that back. In October, he restored environmental protections for two wild Utah expanses linked to America's indigenous history and a biodiverse area of the Atlantic.
Biden also became the first US president to issue a proclamation for Indigenous Peoples' Day, which coincides with the increasingly controversial national holiday celebrating explorer Christopher Columbus on October 8.
Biden Administration Will Hold US’s Largest Offshore Drilling Auction Days After COP26
Tug boats tow a semi-submersible drilling platform through the Port Aransas Channel into the Gulf of Mexico on December 12, 2020, in Port Aransas, Texas.
The Biden administration is preparing to auction off more than 80 million acres of the Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas drilling companies less than a week after the United Nations COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, where global negotiations over plans to reduce fossil fuel emissions faced an official deadline on Friday.
The annual Gulf of Mexico lease sale planned for November 17 in New Orleans is the largest federal offshore drilling auction in United States history and comes just months after Hurricane Ida unleashed dozens of oil spills and petrochemical leaks from aging fossil fuel infrastructure near the Louisiana coast. On October 1, a ruptured underwater pipeline off the coast of California spilled an estimated 25,000 gallons of crude oil across ocean waters and beaches, the latest disaster to raise fears about the dangers of offshore drilling.
More than 250 environmental, social justice and Indigenous groups sent a letter to President Joe Biden on Wednesday with an “urgent plea” to cancel the lease sale as the U.S. and other major polluters hammer out their latest pledges at the UN climate conference. Fossil fuels produced in the Gulf would contribute to global greenhouse gas emissions driving the climate crisis, environmentalists say, and feed onshore refineries and petrochemical plants that pollute low-income communities and neighborhoods of color.
“The Gulf of Mexico continues to be treated as a sacrificial zone to oil and gas development, disproportionately harming local communities already at the frontlines of climate disaster, wreaking havoc on the environment, and contributing to global climate change,” the groups wrote in the letter. “The region’s communities are frontline Black, Indigenous and people of color and low-income families who have been living with degraded air, land, and water for decades.”
After campaigning on a pledge to ban new oil and gas leases on public lands and ocean waters, President Biden in January issued an executive order placing a moratorium on new federal leases while his administration conducts an environmental review that has yet to materialize. The moratorium was expected to have little immediate impact on drilling companies, which have already secured leases and permits to drill on public lands and waters for years to come. Still, Louisiana and a dozen other fossil fuel-producing states filed suit, and in June a federal judge in Louisiana blocked the “pause” on leasing.
The Biden administration is appealing the decision, but the Department of Interior is moving ahead with plans to lease 734,000 acres of public lands in western states and millions of acres across the Gulf despite objections filed by environmental groups. John Filostrat, a spokesman for the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), said the federal agency is conducting the Gulf of Mexico lease sale in compliance with the court order.“The administration has more than sufficient authority under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to cancel this lease sale.”
BOEM and Interior Department agencies collect revenue from the leases they sell and royalties from the oil and gas produced as private drilling companies develop vast swaths of the Gulf and prairie lands from West Texas to the Dakotas. For more than a decade, the Government Accountability Office has flagged federal leasing programs as “vulnerable to waste, fraud, abuse, or mismanagement, or in need of transformation.” Interior Department officials say they “continue review the programs’ noted shortcomings.”
“The Biden-Harris Administration is continuing its comprehensive review of the deficiencies associated with its offshore and onshore oil and gas leasing programs,” Filostrat said in an email.
About 26 million federal acres of the country were under a federal fossil fuel lease in 2018, and that does not include the Gulf of Mexico, where hundreds of drilling platforms dot the horizon from Texas to Alabama. Since 2017, offshore leasing in the Gulf has generated more than $1 trillion in federal revenues.
Fossil fuels produced from public lands and waters are responsible for about 24 percent of the carbon dioxide emissions in the U.S., according to federal researchers. If oil and gas leasing on public lands came to a halt, researchers estimate that carbon dioxide emissions would fall by 280 million tons by 2030, a sizeable reduction compared to other proposed climate policies.
After the federal court injunction blocked Biden’s “pause” on new leases, BOEM’s offshore regulators announced on August 31 that they would move forward with the Gulf lease sale. Hurricane Ida had just swept across Louisiana, “wreaking havoc on the same frontline communities” the Biden administration “committed to help heal by stopping the deep-rooted injustices perpetrated by the oil and gas industry and helping build clean, sustainable local economies,” according to the letter from environmental and Indigenous groups.
Environmental attorneys quickly filed a lawsuit, arguing the analysis used by federal regulators to estimate the environmental impacts of the lease sale is outdated and insufficient.
Developed in 2016 and 2017, this legally-required Environmental Impact Statement acknowledges some ecological impacts but estimates that the greenhouse gases from fossil fuels produced under new drilling leases in the Gulf — projected to be as high as 1.12 billion barrels of crude oil and 4.4. trillion cubic feet of gas — would not contribute to climate change. Regulators argue oil and gas would still be imported and burned if not produced in the Gulf, but environmentalists say their analysis is flawed, and new leases would lock in fossil fuel production for decades even as the world turns to alternatives.
Kristen Monsell, an oceans defense attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, said advances in climate science in recent years tell us that burning this amount of oil and gas will absolutely contribute to the climate crisis. Widespread and rapid reduction in emissions is necessary to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, the threshold first championed by the Alliance of Small Island States that has guided international climate negotiations but appears increasingly out of reach.
“A slew of new information demonstrates that those old analyses don’t adequately consider just how risky continued oil and gas activity actually is, and a federal appeals court has held the greenhouse gas analysis the administration is relying on fails to properly consider the impacts of more leasing on the climate crisis,” Monsell told Truthout in an email.
Monsell said the court order blocking Biden’s moratorium on new leasing does not “compel” offshore regulators to hold the lease sale for the Gulf of Mexico. At the very least, regulators could postpone the offshore drilling auction and update the environmental impact review that advocates have challenged in court, according to a brief the groups filed with the Interior Department.
“The administration has more than sufficient authority under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to cancel this lease sale,” Monsell said. “It’s incredibly disappointing to see them not doing so and instead casting their lot with the fossil fuel industry and worsening the climate emergency.”
The Biden administration has committed to cutting U.S. emissions by 50 percent under 2005 levels by 2030 and reaching net-zero emissions by 2050, but the proposal to stop the leasing public lands and waters to private drilling companies appears to have fallen to the wayside in the face of stiff opposition from the fossil fuel lobby.
Instead, the administration is focusing on new methane regulations and investments in cleaner technology and renewable energy, along with updates to infrastructure included in two bills Democrats are pushing through Congress. Biden is expected to sign the first package on Monday, which passed with support from a handful of Republicans. Climate advocates say the legislation will not result in serious reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and are urging Democrats to pass their broader spending package with a ban on offshore drilling for the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and the eastern Gulf of Mexico.
Myanmar frees US journalist Danny Fenster days after conviction
He was released to former governor Bill Richardson and the two are en route to the US via Qatar.
2021.11.15
US journalist Danny Fenster (left) and former governor Bill Richardson (right) at the airport in Naypyidaw, Nov. 15, 2021.Richardson Center via AP Photo
Myanmar’s military regime on Monday released American journalist Danny Fenster just three days after he was sentenced to 11 years of hard labor in prison for encouraging resistance to the junta and other alleged crimes.
Fenster, the managing editor of online magazine Frontier Myanmar, was released after nearly six months in jail to former U.S. diplomat Bill Richardson, who met with junta chief Snr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing two weeks earlier as part of a humanitarian mission to Myanmar. The two were on their way back to the U.S. via a flight to Qatar early on Monday.
Junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun confirmed to RFA’s Myanmar Service that Fenster had been freed from Yangon’s Insein Prison and “deported,” although he was unable to explain why the journalist was freed.
“As usual, in this kind of case, he has to be deported. And so, he was released and deported,” the spokesman, adding that the reason for his release and other details “will be announced later.”
A court found Fenster guilty of encouraging resistance to the junta, unlawful association and violating immigration laws on Nov. 12 in a ruling that the U.S. State Department called “an unjust conviction of an innocent person.”
On Monday, the Secretary of State Antony Blinken welcomed his release, which he credited Richardson for helping to facilitate.
“We are glad that Danny will soon be reunited with his family as we continue to call for the release of others who remain unjustly imprisoned in Burma,” Blinken said in a statement.
Richardson, the former governor of New Mexico who once served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, has a history of serving as a kind of intermediary between the U.S. and nations with whom Washington maintains few or no ties, including North Korea and Venezuela. The U.S. has sanctioned the junta for its use of violence against opponents to its rule and relations are at a low.
On Monday, the Richardson Center released a statement by the former governor in which he said that securing Fenster’s release was the outcome “you hope will come when you do this work.”
“We are so grateful that Danny will finally be able to reconnect with his loved ones, who have been advocating for him all this time, against immense odds,” Richardson said.
Fenster’s brother, Bryan Fenster, expressed relief that his sibling had been freed in a tweet that began by noting that Monday marked “Day 176” of the ordeal.
“We are overjoyed that Danny has been released and is on his way home – we cannot wait to hold him in our arms,” the tweet said.
“We are tremendously grateful to all the people who have helped secure his release, especially @GovRichardson … as well as our friends, family and the public who have expressed their support and stood by our sides as we endured these long and difficult months.”
Journalists targeted
Fenster’s charges were in part based on his former work at Myanmar Now News, which continued to broadcast after the junta ordered it and other outlets to close. But the journalist had stopped working for Frontier Myanmar in July 2020, months before the military seized power in a Feb. 1 coup.
Thirty-four journalists who were arrested in Myanmar following the coup remain in custody following prisoner amnesties that many had hoped would see them freed, sources in the country say.
Many of the reporters who remain jailed have been charged with defaming Myanmar’s military or for suspected ties with the opposition National Unity Government or the local People’s Defense Force militias set up to resist military rule, sources say.
Paris-based RSF ranked Myanmar 140th out of 180 countries in the 2021 edition of its annual World Press Freedom Index and singled out junta chief Snr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing as among the world’s 37 worst leaders in terms of media restrictions.
The country has fallen in position every year since it was ranked 131st in 2017.
Reported by RFA’s Myanmar Service. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
Freed US journalist says not 'beaten' in Myanmar jail ordeal
US journalist Danny Fenster arrives at Hamad International Airport in Qatar's capital Doha on November 15, 2021 after his release from jail in Myanmar - Copyright AFP/File - Anne LEVASSEUR with Ross ADKIN in Yangon
A US journalist freed from a prison in Myanmar just days after being handed an 11-year sentence said Monday he wasn’t “starved or beaten” — but was worried his ordeal would never end.
Danny Fenster, looking gaunt after his six-month imprisonment, said he was held for no reason but not mistreated by the Myanmar authorities.
The 37-year-old American — who was handed an 11-year sentence last week for incitement, unlawful association and breaching visa rules — was freed one day before he was to face terror and sedition charges that could have seen him jailed for life.
“I was arrested and held in captivity for no reason… but physically I was healthy,” he told journalists after arriving in the Qatari capital Doha. “I wasn’t starved or beaten.”
Myanmar’s military has squeezed the press since taking power in a February coup, arresting dozens of journalists critical of its crackdown on dissent, which has killed more than 1,200 people according to a local monitoring group.
Fenster had been working at Frontier Myanmar, a local outlet in the Southeast Asian country, for around a year and was arrested as he headed home to see his family in May.
“I’m feeling all right physically. It’s just the same privations that come with any form of incarceration. You’re just going a little stir-crazy,” Fenster said, who will fly onwards to the United States from Doha.
“The longer it drags on, the more worried you become that it’s never going to end. So that’s the biggest concern, just staying sane through that.”
– ‘So happy’ –
On Monday, Fenster was pardoned and released on “humanitarian grounds” the junta said, ending 176 days spent in a colonial-era prison where many of Myanmar’s most famous dissidents have been held.
His release was secured following “face-to-face negotiations” between former US diplomat Bill Richardson and junta chief Min Aung Hlaing, Richardson’s organisation said in a statement.
Fenster’s father Buddy expressed relief after speaking with his son on the phone, saying there was “nothing harder on a parent” than knowing a child is in distress and being unable to help.
“He has been sleeping on a wooden pallet for close to six months. And he said, ‘The plane’s got a bed in it’ and I said, you know, ‘Danny, take a rest, man, just stretch out on that thing.’ I’m just so happy to hear that,” he said.
The junta said two Japanese envoys, Hideo Watanabe and Yohei Sasakawa, had been involved in the negotiations to release Fenster, without providing details.
“It’s wonderful news for all of his friends and family,” his colleague at Frontier Myanmar, Andrew Nachemson, told AFP.
“But of course he never should have spent six months in jail… and all the local journalists who remain imprisoned should also be released immediately.”
– ‘Hostage’ –
The United States welcomed his release, saying he had been “wrongfully detained”.
“We are glad that Danny will soon be reunited with his family as we continue to call for the release of others who remain unjustly imprisoned in Burma,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, using Myanmar’s former name.
Richardson visited Myanmar earlier this month on what was described as a “private humanitarian mission.”
He said at the time that the US State Department had specifically asked him not to raise Fenster’s case during his visit.
Fenster is believed to have contracted Covid-19 during his detention, family members said during a conference call with American journalists in August.
“I doubt there were any concessions” from Washington, International Crisis Group’s Myanmar senior advisor Richard Horsey told AFP.
“More likely it was politely explained that keeping US citizens hostage is a bad idea.”
Myanmar has been in turmoil since the military seized power in February, ousting Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected civilian government.
More than 10,000 people have been arrested by security forces in a crackdown on dissent, according to a local monitoring group.
Media outlets have also been under pressure as the junta tries to tighten control over the flow of information, throttling internet access and revoking the licences of local outlets.
More than 100 journalists have been arrested since the putsch, according to Reporting ASEAN, a monitoring group. It says at least 30 are still in detention.
UK Union considers legal action over Channel refugee ‘pushbacks’
Border Force staff express concern at Priti Patel’s proposed tactic of forcing boats back to France
The Border Force vessel Seeker leaves the Port of Dover in Kent on 11 November.
Border Force guards, who the government says will be asked to turn refugee boats in the Channel around, are considering applying for a judicial review to stop the tactic from being used.
Officers from the PCS union have said they are prepared to launch a high court challenge to the lawfulness of Priti Patel’s plans. The home secretary has maintained that the tactic of intercepting and sending back boats to France would be within the law.
Documents from the Home Office seen by the Guardian show that the government’s own lawyers have warned ministers that the tactic could lead to a legal challenge from a union or possible strike action.
It emerged last week that counsel warned the home secretary that the odds of successfully defending a challenge are “less than 30%”.
The number of asylum seekers crossing the English Channel hit a new daily record of 1,185 on Thursday.
Three people were feared lost at sea after two kayaks were found adrift off the coast of Calais on Thursday. There has been a spate of recent deaths and disappearances of those people trying to reach the UK across the Channel.
Kevin Mills, the PCS lead for Border Force, said: “We have examined the possibility of launching a judicial review. PCS is in consultation with its members and a number have raised direct concerns about the pushback tactic – the safety and if it is legal.
“If someone dies, it won’t be Priti Patel taking the body out of the water. And to say that the officers concerned won’t be prosecuted does not help our members’ mental health,” he told the Guardian.
A document circulated within the Home Office in September outlined government lawyers’ concerns that unions could launch a successful challenge if ministers go ahead with “pushback” plans.
“We have commenced the required three weeks of formal consultation with the three relevant Home Office trade unions on the operational proposals,” the document said.
“While consultation requires listening, responding and, where possible, reaching mutual agreement in basic terms we can ultimately proceed without trades union agreement,” the document said.
The document warned that unions could take industrial action, apply for a judicial review or use the Employment Rights Act to challenge the tactic.
“However, there are the potential risks of the trades unions taking strike action or action short of a strike following a ballot and they could also be the source of a legal challenge. They may apply for a judicial review and support individual claims – including under section 44 of Employment Rights Act,” it said.
Enver Solomon, the chief executive of the Refugee Council, said: “The union is right to challenge pushbacks as cruel, dangerous and in conflict with international law. Conservative prime ministers since Winston Churchill have welcomed people, regardless of how they have reached our shores, who through no fault of their own have had to flee for their lives.”
Patel is under increasing pressure from Boris Johnson and Conservative MPs to cut the numbers making the crossing. The home secretary promised to make the route “unviable” in August 2020.
The Guardian first heard of the plans to push back boats in the Channel from Conservative MPs who had meetings with Patel in early September following a surge of crossings.
Days later, the Home Office announced that they aimed to turn around boats, despite warnings from the French authorities, unions and refugee charities that it could endanger lives.
Home Office sources insisted that Border Force guards were being trained to employ the tactic in specific circumstances, but union officials warned that they could envisage few circumstances where it would be viable.
Lucy Moreton, from the Immigration Services Union that also represents Border Force guards, said the plan would never work because France would not engage with it. “This announcement makes it more likely that some could jump into the sea when they are approached to ensure their boat is not turned back,” she said.
At the Conservative party conference in October Patel said she would move forward on the plan to turn back boats after consulting the prime minister.
“Boris [Johnson] and I have worked intensively with every institution with a responsibility to protect our borders. Border Force, the police, the National Crime Agency, maritime experts – and yes, the military – to deliver operational solutions, including new sea tactics, which we are working to implement to turn back the boats,” she said.
Patel also appeared before the House of Lords in October, and insisted that the practice of sending boats back to France would be within the law. Asked by Baroness Shami Chakrabarti if she had received legal advice regarding the pushback of boats. Patel replied: “There is a legal basis for it.”
The Home Office said it does not comment on leaks or legal advice. Dan O’Mahoney, the “clandestine Channel threat commander”, said: “Migrants making these dangerous crossings are putting their lives at risk and it is vital we do everything we can to prevent them and break the business model of the criminal gangs exploiting people.
“As part of our response it is important we have a maritime deterrent in the Channel, and Border Force officers are authorised, trained and stand ready to use safe and legal options to stop these deadly crossings.”
Cop26: Pacific delegates condemn ‘monumental failure’ that leaves islands in peril
Representatives particularly disappointed by softened language on coal and a lack of funding to pay for loss and damages
A boy rides through floodwaters near high tide in a low-lying area of Tuvalu, in the South Pacific. Pacific island leaders have expressed disappointment at the Cop26 climate summit’s outcome. Photograph: Mario Tama/Getty Images
Pacific representatives and negotiators have condemned the outcome of the Cop26 meeting as “watered down” and a “monumental failure” that puts Pacific nations in severe existential danger, with one saying that Australia’s refusal to support funding for loss and damage suffered by Pacific countries was “a deep betrayal” of the region.
Some Pacific leaders expressed qualified optimism about the result of the critical climate summit, such as the Fijian prime minister, Frank Bainimarama, who tweeted: “The 1.5-degree target leaves Glasgow battered, bruised, but alive.”
But many other Pacific experts and climate negotiators were disheartened by the result.
“The first draft of an otherwise very unambitious text had one notable bright spot in it – the phase-out of coal. This was further watered down. For a planet in crisis, this represents a monumental failure in recognising the clear and imminent danger entire countries are now in, including my own.
“For all the hoopla and greenwashing since yesterday, the fundamental fact remains: we are still headed for a two-degree-plus world,” he said.
For Samoan negotiator Galumalemana Anne Rasmussen, who is the representative of Small Island Developing States (Sids) to the Cop bureau, the Pacific can only do so much.
“The Alliance of Small Island States and Pacific Sids really pushed hard, everyone engaged, but unfortunately it is always up to the developed and rich to determine the fate and direction of these pledges and outcomes.”
A regional oceans and climate expert from Tonga, Taholo Kami, agreed: “I think we may be finding leadership at subnational and national level, private sector and even consumer and community level offer more hope at this time than the lethargic Cop process where we are forced to celebrate painful and minimal shifts with text and leave not knowing if this will result in meaningful outcomes.” Pacific islanders aren’t just victims – we know how to fight the climate crisis Brianna Fruean
In particular, Pacific leaders were disappointed by the softened language on “phasing down” rather than “phasing out” coal, and also the lack of strong commitment for funding to pay for loss and damages suffered by Pacific nations due to the climate crisis.
“Cop26 also failed to adequately recognise our present reality – we are facing the impacts of climate change right now,” said Auimatagi, who has worked with Pacific governments under the process of the UN framework convention on climate change. “Yet despite their historical responsibility for our current plight, developed nations like the US, UK and Australia refused to support a funding facility for loss and damage which, in Australia’s case, presents a deep betrayal and abdication of its responsibilities to its Pacific neighbours.”
Hilda Heine, the former president of the Marshall Islands, who has been a key figure in climate negotiations in previous years, tweeted she was “disappointed EU and US [High Ambition Coalition] members did not rally behind funding facility to support the vulnerable respond to loss and damages caused by industrialised world’s addiction to [fossil fuels] and coal”.
“It is not fiction, it is not projected to happen in the future – our land is fast disappearing. Tuvalu is literally sinking. We must take action now.”
But even the presence of Pacific negotiators could not influence the outcomes of the Glasgow summit, which as it stands – even if conditional and unconditional nationally determined contributions for the near-term target of 2030 were met – projected that warming might still spell the end for some Pacific atoll nations.
“Going forward, it’s time we look at not only drastically reducing our fossil fuels consumption, but begin taking serious steps ahead of Cop27 to stop fossil fuel production altogether and begin a just transition before it is too late,” Auimatagi said. “Only then can we have a real shot of keeping 1.5 alive and ensuring our islands – and our planet – survives.”
