FASCIST COUP

Trump Adviser Peter Navarro Lays Out How He and Bannon Planned to Overturn Biden’s Electoral Win

Jose Pagliery
Mon, December 27, 2021

Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/Getty

A former Trump White House official says he and right-wing provocateur Steve Bannon were actually behind the last-ditch coordinated effort by rogue Republicans in Congress to halt certification of the 2020 election results and keep President Donald Trump in power earlier this year, in a plan dubbed the “Green Bay Sweep.”

In his recently published memoir, Peter Navarro, then-President Donald Trump’s trade adviser, details how he stayed in close contact with Bannon as they put the Green Bay Sweep in motion with help from members of Congress loyal to the cause.

But in an interview last week with The Daily Beast, Navarro shed additional light on his role in the operation and their coordination with politicians like Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) and Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX).

“We spent a lot of time lining up over 100 congressmen, including some senators. It started out perfectly. At 1 p.m., Gosar and Cruz did exactly what was expected of them,” Navarro told The Daily Beast. “It was a perfect plan. And it all predicated on peace and calm on Capitol Hill. We didn’t even need any protestors, because we had over 100 congressmen committed to it.”

That commitment appeared as Congress was certifying the 2020 Electoral College votes reflecting that Joe Biden beat Trump. Sen. Cruz signed off on Gosar’s official objection to counting Arizona’s electoral ballots, an effort that was supported by dozens of other Trump loyalists.

Staffers for Cruz and Gosar did not respond to requests for comment. There’s no public indication whether the Jan. 6 Committee has sought testimony or documents from Sen. Cruz or Rep. Gosar. But the committee has only recently begun to seek evidence from fellow members of Congress who were involved in the general effort to keep Trump in the White House, such as Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA).

This last-minute maneuvering never had any chance of actually decertifying the election results on its own, a point that Navarro quickly acknowledges. But their hope was to run the clock as long as possible to increase public pressure on then-Vice President Mike Pence to send the electoral votes back to six contested states, where Republican-led legislatures could try to overturn the results. And in their mind, ramping up pressure on Pence would require media coverage. While most respected news organizations refused to regurgitate unproven conspiracy theories about widespread election fraud, this plan hoped to force journalists to cover the allegations by creating a historic delay to the certification process.

“The Green Bay Sweep was very well thought out. It was designed to get us 24 hours of televised hearings,” he said. “But we thought that we could bypass the corporate media by getting this stuff televised.”

Navarro’s part in this ploy was to provide the raw materials, he said in an interview on Thursday. That came in the form of a three-part White House report he put together during his final weeks in the Trump administration with volume titles like, “The Immaculate Deception” and “The Art of the Steal.”

“My role was to provide the receipts for the 100 congressmen or so who would make their cases… who could rely in part on the body of evidence I'd collected,” he told The Daily Beast. “To lay the legal predicate for the actions to be taken.” (Ultimately, states have not found any evidence of electoral fraud above the norm, which is exceedingly small.)

The next phase of the plan was up to Bannon, Navarro describes in his memoir, In Trump Time.

“Steve Bannon’s role was to figure out how to use this information—what he called ‘receipts’—to overturn the election result. That’s how Steve had come up with the Green Bay Sweep idea,” he wrote.

“The political and legal beauty of the strategy was this: by law, both the House of Representatives and the Senate must spend up to two hours of debate per state on each requested challenge. For the six battleground states, that would add up to as much as twenty-four hours of nationally televised hearings across the two chambers of Congress.”

His book also notes that Bannon was the first person he communicated with when he woke up at dawn on Jan. 6, writing, “I check my messages and am pleased to see Steve Bannon has us fully ready to implement our Green Bay Sweep on Capitol Hill. Call the play. Run the play.”

Navarro told The Daily Beast he felt fortunate that someone cancelled his scheduled appearance to speak to Trump supporters that morning at the Ellipse, a park south of the White House that would serve as a staging area before the violent assault on the U.S. Capitol building.

“It was better for me to spend that morning working on the Green Bay Sweep. Just checking to see that everything was in line, that congressmen were on board,” he said during the interview. “It was a pretty mellow morning for me. I was convinced everything was set in place.”

Later that day, Bannon made several references to the football-themed strategy on his daily podcast, War Room Pandemic.

‘Let’s Go Brandon’ Dad Runs to Bannon, Claims ‘Election Was 100% Stolen’

"We are right on the cusp of victory,” Bannon said on the show. “It’s quite simple. Play’s been called. Mike Pence, run the play. Take the football. Take the handoff from the quarterback. You’ve got guards in front of you. You’ve got big, strong people in front of you. Just do your duty."

This idea was weeks in the making. Although Navarro told The Daily Beast he doesn’t remember when “Brother Bannon” came up with the plan, he said it started taking shape as Trump’s “Stop the Steal” legal challenges to election results in Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin fizzled out. Courts wouldn’t side with Trump, thanks to what Navarro describes in his book as “the highly counterproductive antics” of Sydney Powell and her Kraken lawsuits. So instead, they came up with a never-before-seen scheme through the legislative branch.

Navarro starts off his book’s chapter about the strategy by mentioning how “Stephen K. Bannon, myself, and President Donald John Trump” were “the last three people on God’s good Earth who want to see violence erupt on Capitol Hill,” as it would disrupt their plans.

When asked if Trump himself was involved in the strategy, Navarro said, “I never spoke directly to him about it. But he was certainly on board with the strategy. Just listen to his speech that day. He’d been briefed on the law, and how Mike [Pence] had the authority to it.”

Indeed, Trump legal adviser John Eastman had penned a memo (first revealed by journalists Robert Costa and Bob Woodward in their book, Peril) outlining how Trump could stage a coup. And Trump clearly referenced the plan during his Jan. 6 speech, when he said, “I hope Mike is going to do the right thing. I hope so. I hope so… all Vice President Pence has to do is send it back to the states to recertify and we become president and you are the happiest people.”

When Pence certified the electoral votes instead, he became what Navarro’s book described as “the Brutus most responsible… for the final betrayal of President Trump.”

Although the bipartisan House committee investigating the violence on Jan. 6 has demanded testimony and records from dozens of Trump allies and rally organizers believed to be involved in the attack on the nation’s democracy, Navarro said he hasn’t heard from them yet. The committee did not respond to our questions about whether it intends to dig into Navarro’s activities.

And while he has text messages, phone calls, and memos that could show how closely an active White House official was involved in the effort to keep Trump in power, he says investigators won’t find anything that shows the Green Bay Sweep plan involved violence. Instead, Navarro said, the investigative committee would find that the mob’s attack on the U.S. Capitol building actually foiled their plans, because it incentivized Pence and other Republicans to follow through with certification.

“They don’t want any part of me. I exonerate Trump and Bannon,” he said.

The committee is, however, engaged in a bitter battle with Bannon. The former Trump White House chief strategist refused to show up for a deposition or turn over documents, and he’s now being prosecuted by the Justice Department for criminal contempt of Congress.

Navarro said he’s still surprised that people at the Trump rally turned violent, given the impression he got when he went to see them in person during an exercise run that morning.

“I’m telling you man, it was just so peaceful. I saw no anger. None. Zero,” he said.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

[USC02] 18 USC Ch. 115: TREASON, SEDITION

https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title18/part1...

• Chapter 115—Treason, Sedition, and Subversive Activities
• §2381. Treason
• §2382. Misprision of Treason
• §2383. Rebellion Or Insurrection
• §2384. Seditious Conspiracy
• §2385. Advocating Overthrow of Government
• §2386. Registration of Certain Organizations
• §2387. Activities Affecting Armed Forces Generally
• §2388. Activities Affecting Armed Forces During War
• §2389. Recruiting For Service Against United States

• If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be …

HAWAII
Navy Flushes Pipes of Two Neighborhoods Hit with Tainted Water; More Than 20 to Go



Konstantin Toropin
Mon, December 27, 2021

The Navy has completed flushing the drinking water systems of two neighborhoods in Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam almost a month after families complained about contamination, according to an update released by the Navy on Friday. More than 20 neighborhoods have yet to have the water in their systems cleared..

Since Dec. 17, more than 1,600 military families and other occupants of base housing have been forced to stay at hotels and another 2,200 were living in homes without drinkable water. Families reported that the water was making them sick, and that it had a foul odor smelling of gasoline.

The source of the contamination appears to be the Navy's World War II-era underground fuel storage facility known as Red Hill. The facility sits above the Pearl Harbor aquifer, and it has had a history of environmental problems. In October, the Hawaii Department of Health fined the Navy more than $325,000 for violations from Red Hill. Then, on Nov. 22, the facility accidentally released 14,000 gallons of fuel and water from a fire suppression system drain line, according to the Associated Press.

According to the latest progress map, the Pearl City Peninsula, Aliamanu Military Reservation communities -- more than 1,700 homes -- have had the distribution systems that serve them flushed of contaminated water. Only after the systems have been cleared will the Navy flush the water in homes, including running taps and cleaning out appliances.

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If the Navy keeps to the current schedule, all homes should have new water in their pipes by the last week of January.

The Navy says that the flushing is being done with water from fire hydrants and the output is run through giant activated carbon filters before being put into the storm drains or allowed to drain over land.

In total, the service plans to bring 20 of these filtering systems to the island of Oahu to scrub the more than 25 million gallons of water it plans to flush.

"Once zones are flushed, water samples are taken and sent to a certified lab on the mainland for testing to confirm the drinking water meets federal and state standards," a Navy update said.

Assuming the samples come back safe, the Navy will move to flushing and sampling homes. Rear Adm. T.J. Kott, the commander of Navy Region Hawaii, said the plan is to flush every home, including appliances like water heaters and dishwashers, regardless of whether issues were reported.

The current schedule says the Pearl City and Aliamanu Military Reservation communities could be fully flushed and tested by the first and second weeks of January, respectively.

Another four neighborhoods, Red Hill Housing, Hale Moku, Hokulani and Moanalua Terrace, are having their distribution systems flushed now. More than 20 more areas are on the list.

-- Konstantin Toropin can be reached at konstantin.toropin@military.com. Follow him on Twitter @ktoropin.

Related: More than a Thousand Military Families in Hawaii Stuck in Hotels Through the Holidays

COVID USA
Uncounted: Inaccurate death certificates across the country hide the true toll of COVID-19

The Documenting COVID-19 project and USA TODAY Network
Sun, December 26, 2021

Talamo, Lafayette Parish’s chief medicolegal investigator, said he doesn’t think COVID-19 deaths go uncounted, instead blaming suicides or drug overdoses.

The CDC data, collected from his own office and data he provided the Documenting COVID-19 project, undercuts that. In 2020, deaths from accidents, homicides, suicides and drug overdoses exceeded the prior year by 45. Deaths attributed to natural causes jumped by 260.

Talamo, a full-time, trained death investigator, said he checks with a state registry to see whether people who died had a positive coronavirus test. If so, he includes COVID-19 on the death certificate.

He’s the only full-time employee in the coroner’s office in Lafayette Parish, one of the largest in the state. His office handles a lot of deaths at home, and most are pronounced dead over the phone.

“We don't have the infrastructure to go and check everybody for COVID,” Talamo said. He acknowledged that, because of a lack of testing, his office probably missed COVID-19 deaths that could’ve been identified with enough time and resources.

Ken Odinet, the Lafayette Parish coroner who was reelected as a Republican in 2019 and oversees the office, said he thinks the system of confirming COVID-19 deaths works.
The ‘scarlet letter’ of COVID-19

William Clark, the East Baton Rouge Parish coroner and president of the Louisiana State Coroners Association, said he has three requirements to put COVID-19 on a death certificate: The patient must have shown symptoms of respiratory illness, tested positive for the coronavirus and died of the respiratory illness.

Many families, he said, simply didn’t want their loved ones to be pronounced dead from the coronavirus.

“In 2020, getting COVID, or dying from COVID, or being a family member that had COVID, was a scarlet letter,” he said. “It was shunned.”

Limited testing in 2020 could account for some uncounted COVID-19 deaths, Clark said. And many people were hesitant to get tested.

“I can recall a guy who had COVID symptoms; his X-ray looked like COVID because I saw it. And the guy says, ‘You're not sticking a swab in my nose,’ and he died a few days later. That guy had COVID, but I didn't call it COVID,” Clark said. “He was not given a postmortem test. After he died, I think he still has a right to those wishes.”

Clark is wrong, according to the CDC, which tells coroners they can attribute a death to COVID-19 even without a positive test, as long as they use their “best clinical judgment.”

The coroner defended his reasoning, saying CDC guidelines are “just that – guidelines. They are not laws.” He said many families want COVID-19 listed on death certificates for financial reasons. “The number of phone calls we receive weekly in an attempt to defraud the government is astounding,” he said.

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Statewide, 4,644 of the spike in deaths during the pandemic were not attributed to COVID-19, according to the CDC.

A spokesperson for the Louisiana Department of Health acknowledged the gap. Deaths at home "do make up a substantial portion of the overall non-COVID-19 increase," Kevin Litten wrote in an email.

Still, Litten wrote, it’s difficult to know whether deaths at home increased because people died from the virus or because they avoided hospitals and died of something unrelated.

‘No one wants to be a coroner’

After another long day in November, David Ruth, the elected county coroner in Rankin County, Mississippi, counted how many calls he had gotten on his cellphone that day: 74.

Ruth, elected as a Republican in 2015 after more than three decades as a police officer, never could’ve planned for the change that 2020 would bring to his job. He prided himself on posting his cellphone number on the government website; now he has more calls than he can answer.

“No one wants to be a coroner,” Ruth said.

Coroners are one part of the patchwork system of death investigations in the USA. When people die in a hospital or health care facility, a physician usually reviews their medical history to determine the cause of death. When someone dies at home or in an accident before being brought to a hospital, a medical examiner or coroner like Ruth investigates and determines the underlying cause of death.

Rankin County lost 140 people to COVID-19 in 2020. But deaths surged by an additional 209 compared with a typical year.

Deaths in Hinds County, which neighbors Rankin and is home to most of the city of Jackson, mirror the trend. Official COVID-19 deaths account for half of the spike in deaths in 2020.

The Hinds County coroner, Sharon Grisham-Stewart, did not respond to requests for comment.

Some families have told Ruth they don’t believe in COVID-19 and don’t want it on death certificates. Others have said they want people to know the virus’s death toll.

He said he’s even been confused by inconsistencies between his office’s death figures and those reported by the county health department.

“It got to the point the health department was reporting one number, and I was like, ‘I don’t know where they got that number.’ Sometimes it was more, sometimes it was less,” he said.

‘COVID-19 can mimic an awful lot of diseases’

Mississippi has the country’s highest COVID-19 death rate, with 1 in 285 people dead from the disease. In September 2020, State Health Officer Thomas Dobbs said the death toll of about 2,700 at the time was “almost certainly” low.

The state saw some of the nation’s highest increases in deaths attributed to natural causes, especially heart and lung disease, from 2019 to 2020, according to CDC data. Deaths from Alzheimer’s, hypertensive heart diseases and dementia all increased about 20% or more.

These increases may be key to understanding which COVID-19 deaths were misclassified.

“COVID-19 can mimic an awful lot of diseases,” said Marinelle Payton, a physician and professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at Jackson State University and director of the university’s Center of Excellence in Minority Health and Health Disparities.

“In a state like Mississippi that has low economic resources, those resources are not going to be utilized for testing people that have already died,” she said.

Early in the pandemic, COVID-19 overwhelmed health care facilities, leading to reporting errors.

“As someone who has been in the hospital in the middle of the night and who has had to fill out a death certificate, I can tell you that it is sometimes difficult to rely upon what is written regarding cause of death,” said Dr. Lionel Fraser, Central Mississippi Health Services’ chief medical officer.

“Now consider what happens with deaths at home without the resources of a chart, history or diagnostic tests,” he said. “Errors may occur, and these data may be skewed.”
‘None of the things on her death certificate was her cause of death’

A combination of fear and misinformation compounded Mississippi’s problem with access to health care, said Paul Burns, a social epidemiologist and professor of population health at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. In Hinds County, 26% of residents live below the poverty line and 15% are uninsured, both well above the national average. The county is 73% Black.

First lady Jill Biden comforts a young man who expressed his fear of needles during her visit to a COVID-19 vaccination site at Jackson State University in Mississippi on June 22, part of the administration's nationwide tour to educate Americans who haven't been vaccinated.

“Even before the pandemic, communities of color had concerns about whether or not the health care system was really addressing their needs,” Burns said.

Payton said she’s familiar with inaccurate death certificates, not just as a physician or a professor but as a family member. When her sister died recently, Payton realized the death certificate was wrong.

“I was absolutely outraged. Because none of the things on her death certificate was her cause of death,” Payton said. Over the years, “the same thing happened with my mother, my father and my brother. All of their death certificates are incorrect.”

The Mississippi State Department of Health said in an advisory in October that it “has been aware of mortality increases that exceed COVID deaths.”

When presented with findings from the CDC data about increases in deaths at home, especially from heart and lung disease, department spokesperson Liz Sharlot said in a written statement, “We don’t have sufficient information to answer these questions. It would take a lot of speculation and that is all it would be – speculation."
Undertrained and under-resourced

In Cape Girardeau County, Missouri, the coroner has not pronounced a single person dead of COVID-19 in 2021. “When it comes to COVID, we don’t do a test, so we don’t know if someone has COVID or not,” said Jordan, the coroner.

The 113 deaths officially blamed on COVID-19 in 2020 account for half of the county’s 226 excess deaths that year.

Deaths at home attributed to heart attacks, Alzheimer’s and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease increased. In 2020 and 2021, death certificates say 35 people died of “cardiac arrest” or “cardiac arrhythmia,” both of which are garbage codes.

Jordan, a Republican who took office in 2021, had no medical training or experience handling the dead before his election. In an interview, Jordan said he requires families to provide proof of a COVID-19 diagnosis before he puts it on a death certificate. That goes against accepted CDC practice that allows those signing death certificates to take into account symptoms of the virus and the patient’s medical history.

“You know, I have to go by what the family says,” Jordan said. “The family can tell me all they want that this person had COVID, but I just can’t put it on there unless I have some type of proof.”

Finding that proof is supposed to be the job of death investigators such as Jordan. The official guidance that the CDC has given coroners is not to rely on families but to investigate each case to the best of their ability with all the tools they have.

The CDC even tells coroners they can certify COVID-19 as the cause of death without a positive test when there’s strong reason to believe that the person died of COVID-19, such as deaths during nursing home outbreaks in which everyone wasn’t tested before they died.

A spokesperson from the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, Lisa Cox, said the department is aware of an increase in deaths beyond those tied to COVID-19. She said the agency follows CDC guidance for death reporting and makes that guidance available to localities.

Other Missouri counties with coroners describe a very different process than the one in Cape Girardeau. Across the state in Buchanan County, a review of a patient’s medical file, or a chart review, is performed for every death. If the death is unattended – such as a death at home with no one else around – and it’s unclear why they died, the body is sent to a forensic pathologist in Kansas City for a full autopsy.

“We don’t reach out to family and find out,” said Richard Shelton, a medical investigator for the Buchanan County Medical Examiner. “We want to make an outside, independent investigation.”

The patchwork system of death investigations in the US

The training, expertise and resources of the people who sign death certificates in one county can be wildly different from the county next door. Some states have coroners in each county; others have a statewide medical examiner’s office. And some, including Missouri, have a mix of both systems.

A third of Americans are served by coroners, who typically work in rural areas and smaller cities – often for low pay and with little resources. Just 14% of coroner’s offices in the country are accredited by one of two national groups, according to a Department of Justice report. On average, a coroner's salary ranges from $17,000 to $38,000 a year, while experienced medical examiners and trained forensic pathologists in urban areas make two to 10 times more.

Medical workers use mobile morgues near the El Paso Medical Examiner on Nov. 9, 2020, as coronavirus cases spike in El Paso, Texas.

Medical examiners are appointed while coroners are usually elected, which can come with political pressure.

“It really comes down to the resources available to the office,” said Dr. Bob Anderson, chief of mortality statistics at the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics. “Particularly early in the pandemic, a lot of the medical examiner/coroner offices didn't have tests for postmortem. So they had to make assumptions based on the available information.”

To a lesser degree, some elected coroners – lacking formal training or clear guidance on how to determine cause of death – let politics dictate their decision-making.

Last summer, Documenting COVID-19 reported on a coroner in Macon County, Missouri, who said he left COVID-19 off at least a half-dozen death certificates when another major factor could be justified as the sole cause of death.

“There is no standardized training in the United States to do it right,” said Ali Mokdad, a professor of health at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.

When asked whether the CDC should provide medical examiners and coroners with clearer guidelines to standardize death certificate reporting, Anderson said the CDC works with state vital records offices, not counties. He deferred to national professional organizations and the professional opinion of individual medical examiners.

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“We're a statistical outfit,” Anderson said. “We can't very well go around telling medical examiners and coroners – knowing that they don't report to the federal government in any way – telling them how to do their jobs.”

Mokad, who worked as a senior epidemiologist at the CDC, disagrees. “The CDC can do better. Let's be realistic. ... The CDC tells every state, every county, it has to do certain things. So why stop at the causes of death?”
A missed opportunity to intervene

In Lafayette Parish, the COVID-19 pandemic was handled like a minor inconvenience in the months after the first local cases were reported. Despite recommendations from state and regional public health officials, authorities largely failed to enforce statewide mask mandates during the 13 months they were in place.

A push for an additional mask mandate in the city of Lafayette in February met with widespread opposition. More than 2,000 residents called the City Council after the mandate was proposed. The proposal was sponsored by Councilman Glenn Lazard, who was diagnosed with leukemia in 2019.

The Louisiana State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education holds a meeting on Aug. 18, 2021, to discuss the governor's mask mandate. The meeting was adjourned due to disorderly conduct.

“Our response to COVID in Lafayette gets an F,” Lazard said. “We basically refused to follow the governor's mandates, saying that it needs to be enforced by the state. We've never enforced the occupancy limits, primarily in nightclubs and so forth and so on. It was very frustrating and very disappointing.”

Experts said an incomplete picture of the coronavirus’s toll can lead people to take preventive measures less seriously. If communities don’t have accurate data on how many of their residents are dying, they are less likely to wear masks and avoid big groups indoors.

Lazard said he believes his mask mandate would have failed even if the true number of deaths from COVID-19 had been known. “This was turned into a purely political issue, as opposed to a health care issue,” he said.

Enbal Schacham, a professor of public health at Saint Louis University who studies how people respond to information about the virus, said inaccurate death figures contribute to the nation’s struggle to respond.

“Underreporting of COVID deaths actually makes us think that we're not in control of any of it,” Schacham said. “And I do think we are, in effect, choosing not to prevent it.”
How this story was reported

Since the beginning of the pandemic, the Documenting COVID-19 project at Columbia University’s Brown Institute for Media Innovation and MuckRock have worked to figure out how public health records and resulting data influences and shapes government policy. Death certificates are among the most influential records.

For this story, journalists from five newsrooms reviewed CDC mortality data at the county level. They compared those figures with models developed by the CDC and a team of demographers at Boston University, collected death certificates and documents and interviewed more than 100 medical examiners, coroners, public health experts, families and policymakers. The team at Boston University worked with the journalists on this project, providing models of expected deaths in every U.S. county and identifying areas of potential underreporting of COVID-19 deaths.

A full data repository of CDC mortality statistics by state, which will be updated and added to, is available here. We invite the public to share stories about their experiences with death certificates.

Contributing: Jennifer Borresen, Janie Haseman and Javier Zarracina

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: COVID-19 deaths obscured by inaccurate death certificates

Coronavirus Facebook group: Come together and share the latest information about coronavirus, coping with lifestyle changes and more

IRELAND

Debate needed on how Covid technologies exclude most vulnerable – charity chief

Dominic McGrath
Mon, December 27, 2021

Dr Fiona O’Reilly warned about the impact of vaccine certificates 

(Brian Lawless/PA) (PA Wire)

Ireland needs to soon “pause” and consider the impact that vaccine certificates and other Covid-19 measures have on marginalised communities, a medical charity has warned.

In an interview with the PA news agency, Safetynet chief executive Dr Fiona O’Reilly also warned that the Government should create a new department to co-ordinate the country’s response to the global migrant crisis.

Safetynet, which provides and organises medical care for homeless and vulnerable people, was one of the many charities that saw its work made significantly more challenging by the Covid-19 pandemic.

But the crisis that has engulfed the world since March 2020 also presents important lessons and new opportunities for governments to rethink how they care for the poorest people in society, said Dr O’Reilly.

“I think in the emergency response, I think we responded pretty well to Covid in these groups,” she said.

If we have too much dissent around vaccines certs it will cost lives, but I 100% think that there needs to be pause, thought and debate

Dr Fiona O'Reilly, Safetynet

“But what it revealed is and was an awful indictment of our society that it revealed people living in situations that are Dickensian and so that the pandemic is almost like the plague in those settings.

“If we learn anything from Covid, it should be that it has identified or uncovered the huge inequalities in our society. And that’s what we need to address.”

One concern raised by Dr O’Reilly is that the rush to introduce Covid-19 vaccination certificates and a whole range of digital technologies to tackle the virus threatens to exclude people already isolated from society.

She spoke herself about struggling to fill in a passenger locator form, required for all travellers entering Ireland from abroad.

“What you’re doing is you’re potentially designing an underclass, because you’re excluding people who are not highly educated with a high amount of income, that have smartphones and laptops. And that speak one language. And this is infiltrating every aspect of what we do.

“This is about what shops you go to, how you travel, whether you go and socialise in pubs. This is everything.”

She said it is “assuming that we have all these things and large segments of our society just don’t”.

Dr O’Reilly said she understood that in the early stage of the crisis there was simply not time for those kinds of debates.

“Discussion of it in the middle of the battlefield or when the fire is raging around you will cost lives,” she acknowledged.

Dr Fiona O’Reilly wants ministers to create a new department with a specific focus on co-ordinating the response to increased migration

(Brian Lawless/PA) (PA Wire)

“The fact that we just kind of roll over and do it has meant that we have amazing vaccination rates and that will save lives. Similarly, if we have too much dissent around vaccines certs it will cost lives, but I 100% think that there needs to be pause, thought and debate,” she told PA.

Dr O’Reilly suggested that the time for discussion was “once you’re out of the crisis phase and things are stable”.

Yet she also believes that the Irish Government needs to prepare for another imminent crisis, building on the urgency the pandemic instilled in officials.

Dr O’Reilly said: “I began to see and I do begin to see that actually homelessness can be solved. It’s doable.”

The next five to 10 years, she thinks, will bring the issue of what she calls the “global homeless” to Ireland’s shores.

“We can see what’s happening globally with borders being challenged and literally being broken down. And this is going to mean more people in difficult situations arriving on our shores, and it will only be a crisis if we don’t plan for it.”

Dr O’Reilly is proposing that the Government creates a new department with a specific focus on co-ordinating the response to increased migration.

“I would have an emergency preparedness department for the changing world that we’re fast becoming that would prevent this becoming a crisis. And it’s possible, because people coming into Ireland, they’re not looking for handouts. There’s a win-win,” she told PA.

“We don’t have enough doctors. We don’t have enough healthcare provision. That’s why we get so busy.

“There’s an increasing number of asylum seekers coming into Ireland and we don’t have the medical care providers to tend to them. But they’re coming in with doctors among them, with healthcare professionals.

“I’d be preparing now for the increases and sustained increases and planning that happening. Not just responding, because that’s what we’re doing at the moment. We’re just firefighting.”

Drastic changes, she believes, are called for in the health system and beyond.

“We should plan, not respond, but we know what’s coming. So therefore design it to what’s coming. The other thing that is important, there is the people who design the systems are coming from a certain sector in society.

“They’re well educated, they vote, they work, they keep appointments, and they’re you and me.

“So those systems end up being for you and me. They assume people are working, they assume people have phones, they assume they get text messages, they assume they speak English So all of those systems are for a certain segment.

“This is changing and it is going to change more. Now we have people that don’t speak English, that don’t have phones, that don’t have work, that can’t get appointments or make appointments.

“But those people aren’t involved in the design. So they need to be brought into being involved in the design.”

How to distinguish a psychopath from a 'shy-chopath'

John Edens, Professor of Psychology, Texas A&M University
Tue, December 28, 2021

Ted Bundy, a day before his execution in January 1989. AP Photo/Mark Foley

What makes a criminal a psychopath?

Their grisly deeds and commanding presence attract our attention – look no further than murderer Ted Bundy and cult leader Charles Manson.

But despite years of theorizing and research, the mental health field continues to hotly debate what are the defining features of this diagnosis. It might come as a surprise that the most widely used psychiatric diagnostic system in the U.S., the DSM-5, doesn’t include psychopathy as a formal disorder.

As a personality researcher and forensic psychologist, I’ve spent the last quarter-century studying psychopaths inside and outside of prisons. I’ve also debated what, exactly, are the defining features of psychopathy.

Most agree that psychopaths are remorseless people who lack empathy for others. But in recent years, much of this debate has centered on the relevance of one particular personality trait: boldness.

I’m in the camp that believes boldness is critical to separating out psychopaths from the more mundane law-breakers. It’s the trait that creates the veneer of normalcy, giving those who prey on others the mask to successfully blend in with the rest of society. To lack boldness, on the other hand, is to be what one might call a “shy-chopath.”

The boldness factor

About 10 years ago, psychologist Christopher Patrick and some of his colleagues published an extensive literature review in which they argued that psychopaths were people who expressed elevated levels of three basic traits: meanness, disinhibition and boldness.

Most experts in the mental health field generally agree that the prototypical psychopath is someone who is both mean and, at least to some extent, disinhibited – though there’s even some debate about exactly how impulsive and hot-headed the prototypical psychopath truly is.

In a psychological context, people who are mean tend to lack empathy and have little interest in close emotional relationships. They’re also happy to use and exploit others for their own personal gain.

Highly disinhibited people have very poor impulse control, are prone to boredom and have difficulty managing emotions – particularly negative ones, like frustration and hostility.

In adding boldness to the mix, Patrick and his colleagues argued that genuine psychopaths are not just mean and disinhibited, they’re also individuals who are poised, fearless, emotionally resilient and socially dominant.

Although it had not been the focus of extensive research for the past few decades, the concept of the bold psychopath isn’t actually new. Famed psychiatrist Hervey Cleckley described it in his seminal 1941 book, “The Mask of Sanity,” in which he described numerous case examples of psychopaths who were brazen, fearless and emotionally unflappable.

Ted Bundy is an excellent example of such a person. He was far from unassuming and timid. He never appeared wracked with anxiety or emotional distress. He charmed scores of victims, confidently served as his own attorney and even proposed to his girlfriend while in court.

“It’s probably just being willing to take risk,” Bundy said, in the Netflix documentary, of what motivated his crimes. “Or perhaps not even seeing risk. Just overcome by that boldness and desire to accomplish a particular thing.”

Seeds planted in the DSM

In the current DSM, the closest current diagnosis to psychopathy is antisocial personality disorder. Although the manual suggests that it historically has been referred to as psychopathy, the current seven diagnostic criteria for antisocial personality disorder mostly fall under the umbrella of disinhibition – qualities like “recklessness,” “impulsiveness” and, to a lesser extent, meanness, which are evident in only two criteria: “lack of remorse” and “deceitfulness.”

There’s no mention of boldness. In other words, you don’t have to be bold to have antisocial personality disorder. In fact, because you only need to meet three of the seven criteria to be diagnosed with the disorder, it means you don’t even need to be all that mean, either.

However, the most recent revision to the DSM, the fifth edition, did include a supplemental section for proposed diagnoses in need of further study.

In this supplemental section, a new specifier was offered for those who meet the diagnosis for antisocial personality disorder. If you have a bold and fearless interpersonal style that seems to serve as a mask for your otherwise mean and disinhibited personality, you might also be diagnosable as a psychopath.
Can a psychopath be meek?

Whether this new model, which seems to put boldness center stage in the diagnosis of psychopathy, ultimately will be adopted into subsequent iterations of the DSM system remains to be seen.

Several researchers have criticized the concept. They see meanness and disinhibition as much more important than boldness when deciding whether someone is a psychopath.

Their main issue seems to be that people who are bold – but not mean or disinhibited – actually seem to be well-adjusted and not particularly violent. In fact, compared with being overly introverted or prone to emotional distress, it seems to be an asset in everyday life.

Other researchers, myself included, tend to view those criticisms as not particularly compelling. In our view, someone who is simply disinhibited and mean – but not bold – would not be able to pull off the spectacular level of manipulation that a psychopath is capable of.

To be sure, being mean and disinhibited is a bad combination. But absent boldness, you’re probably not going to show up on the evening news for having schemed scores of investors out of hundreds of millions of dollars. The chances that you’ll successfully charm unsuspecting victim after unsuspecting victim into coming back to your apartment to sexually assault them seem pretty slim.

That being said, timid but mean people – the “shycho-paths” – almost certainly do exist, and it’s probably best to stay away from them, too.

But you’re unlikely to confuse them with the Ted Bundys and Charles Mansons of the world.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: John Edens, Texas A&M University.

Read more:

This trait could be key to a lasting romance

Not all psychopaths are criminals – some psychopathic traits are actually linked to success

How evolutionary psychology may explain the difference between male and female serial killers

John Edens has received funding from the National Institute of Mental Health to conduct research on individuals in criminal justice and forensic settings.

Men across America are getting vasectomies 'as an act of love'

A demonstrator holds up a placard reading 'Against Abortion ? Have a vasectomy' during a demonstration against Poland's near-total ban on abortion in Berlin on November 7, 2020. - Mass protests began in Poland in October when Poland's Constitutional Court ruled that an existing law allowing the abortion of damaged foetuses was "incompatible" with the constitution. The government has defended the verdict, saying it will halt "eugenic abortions", but human rights groups have said it would force women to carry non-viable pregnancies. Poland, a traditionally devout Catholic country of 38 million people, already has one of the most stringent abortion laws in Europe. 

(Photo by Tobias Schwarz / AFP)

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Emily Wax-Thibodeaux, (c) 2021, The Washington Post
Sun, December 26, 2021

After Andy and Erin Gress had their fourth child, Andy decided it was time for him to "step up" and help with the family planning. So he did something that the mere thought of makes some men cringe: He got a vasectomy.

It was early one morning last winter - a brief moment of peace, before juggling getting the kids ready for online school and work Zoom calls. He happened to see a local news story about discounts being offered during "World Vasectomy Day." He made an appointment that day.

His wife had taken birth control pills, but she struggled with the side effects. She had worked as a night nurse through four pregnancies, and the couple had children ranging in age from 2 to 11.

"The procedure was a total relief, almost like the covid shot - like I'm safe now," said Gress, who works in higher education. "I wanted to man up."

But Gress's action wasn't just about his family. He also believed he should do more to support his wife and other women who don't think the government should decide what they do with their bodies. "I've seen the miracle of life," he said. "But I've also seen kids who are born into poverty and misery and don't have a fair shot."

With the Supreme Court set to decide the fate of Roe v. Wade next year and with more than 20 states poised to ban or impose restrictions on abortion depending on what the court decides, some reproductive rights advocates say it is time for men to take a more active role in both family planning and the fight for reproductive rights.

In their own form of protest, state lawmakers in Alabama, Illinois and Pennsylvania introduced legislation that highlights the gendered double standards with regards to reproductive rights.

Pennsylvania state Rep. Chris Rabb, a Democrat, introduced "parody" legislation this fall in response to the Texas law that amounts to a near-total ban on abortion. Rabb's proposal would require men to get vasectomies after the birth of their third child or when they turn 40, whichever comes first. It would be enforced by allowing Pennsylvanians to report men who failed to comply, for a $10,000 reward.

"As long as state legislatures continue to restrict the reproductive rights of cis women, trans men and nonbinary people, there should be laws that address the responsibility of men who impregnate them. Thus, my bill will also codify 'wrongful conception' to include when a person has demonstrated negligence toward preventing conception during intercourse," Rabb wrote in a memo about his proposal, as reported by the Keystone.

Rabb, a father of two who had a vasectomy in 2008, noted that he only had to discuss his choice with his wife and his urologist. The point of his proposal, he said, was to highlight the sexism, double standard and hypocrisy inherent in the antiabortion debate. But it blew up in a way he didn't expect.

"I underestimated the vitriol this proposal brought," Rabb said in an interview, adding that he received thousands of hate-filled emails, Facebook posts and even death threats. "The notion a man would have to endure or even think about losing bodily autonomy was met with outrage, when every single day women face this and it's somehow OK for the government to invade the uteruses of women and girls, but it should be off limits if you propose vasectomies or limit the reproductive rights of men."

Since Dec. 1, when the Supreme Court heard a case that is expected to decide the future of Roe v. Wade, social media has been filled with tweets, memes and quips using tongue-in-cheek humor to point out how men's role in reproduction is almost never talked about. "Against abortion? Have a Vasectomy," says one bumper sticker.

Koushik Shaw, a doctor at the Austin Urology Institute in Texas, said his practice saw about a 15% increase in scheduled vasectomies after the Sept. 1 Texas abortion ban went into effect.

Patients are saying "'Hey, I'm actually here because some of these changes that [Gov. Greg] Abbott and our legislature have passed that are really impacting our decision-making in terms of family planning,' so that was a new one for me as a reason - the first time, patients are citing a state law as their motivating factor," Shaw said.

Advocates say they want to be clear: They are not pushing vasectomies as a replacement for the right to obtain an abortion, nor do they believe men should have a say in the decision to have an abortion. In 1976, the Supreme Court ruled in Planned Parenthood v. Danforth that the father's consent to an abortion was no longer required, largely because of a risk of violence or coercion in a relationship.

Doctors who perform vasectomies say they want men to be open and comfortable talking about the procedure instead of recoiling in horror at the idea, said Doug Stein, a urologist known as the "Vasectomy King" for his billboards, bar coasters and ads at child support offices around Florida.

"An act of Love," for their partners, "the ultimate way to be a good man," is how he and others market the procedure.

"It's a remarkable trend in the family planning community of recognizing and promoting vasectomy and birth control for men, where this was once considered more fringe," said Sarah Miller, a family medicine doctor who has a private practice in Boston and joined Stein's movement.

Advances in the needle- and scalpel-free 10-minute procedure need a cultural push and maybe some fun to make men less bashful around doctors coming near their "junk," Stein said.

He has a full-time vasectomy and vasectomy-reversal practice in Tampa and has traveled the world performing the procedure. He was inspired by his concern about population growth, but he also wanted to empower men to be responsible.

Stein, a father of two, had his own vasectomy more than 20 years ago.

Reliable statistics on the number of men who have sought vasectomies since the Texas ban and the U.S. Supreme Court hearing aren't available, doctors say. But, Miller said, she has seen an increase in patients at the small clinic she opened in Boston less than three years ago because she couldn't believe "the paucity of options for men and people with men parts."

At one point, she was told that vasectomy was not considered part of family planning, and she had to make her own arrangements to get the necessary training.

"It warms my heart to hear men say, 'I am so nervous, but I know this is NOTHING compared to what my wife has gone through,'" she said in an email.

"It's outrageous that we don't have more contraceptive options for people with man parts," Miller said. "There's even a misguided sense that birth control is not a man's job. That men can't be trusted, or that they would never be interested, and that has led to lack of funding and development," she said.

Engaging men in the abortion debate is tricky, experts say, because on the abortion rights side, men don't want to be viewed as questioning a woman's right to choose. And on the antiabortion side, the procedure is viewed as murder. But some abortion rights advocates contend that men have a huge stake in legal and safe abortions, and "the fact we're not out there fighting every bit as hard as women is shameful," said Jonathan Stack, a co-founder with Stein of World Vasectomy Day.

"The quality of life for millions of men will be adversely affected if this right is taken from women," said Stack, a documentary filmmaker who made a film about Stein called "The Vasectomist."

Stack said that while filming the documentary, he would ask men: "Why are you choosing to do this?"

"They expressed something rarely heard in films about men - love or kindness or care," he said.

"I had already come to believe that there was a story about masculinity that was not being told - not of power and control or rage, but of alienation, of insecurities, of uncertainty and of fear," he said.

"We already know that men don't always want to wear condoms, or they don't work, or well, they take them off," Esgar Guarín said with a sigh and chuckle. He is a family medicine doctor who runs SimpleVas in Iowa and performed Gress's vasectomy.

Guarín trained under Stein and joined his movement. "We have to invest in helping men understand how easy and safe vasectomies are," he said. After having two children, Guarín performed a vasectomy on himself.

The doctors also started "Responsible Men's Clubs," chat groups where men can share information such as how sexual performance is just fine after the procedure, and that it "doesn't take away their manhood, but in fact makes them a better man," Guarín said.

One man asked for a sort of "vasectomy passport," a letter from Guarín to show his wife that sex would now be free of worry.

Brad Younts, 45, said his wife, Lizz Gardner, wants him to become a "vasectomy evangelist," after he had the "simple procedure" without any problems.

"Men are big babies. Considering everything women go through - menstruation, Pap smears, OB/GYN visits," said Younts, who lives in Chicago. "I'm proud I did it. And I went on to tell two friends who are also looking into it, too."

Hidden poverty on Cape Cod is no surprise to service providers


Cynthia McCormick, Cape Cod Times
Mon, December 27, 2021

Some people were surprised when the town of Orleans was included among 102 Massachusetts communities that recently qualified for free COVID-19 at-home testing kits due to the local poverty rate.

Not Larry Marsland, CEO of the Lower Cape Outreach Council, which serves eight towns including Orleans.

Marsland said there is a high demand for council programs, including emergency financial assistance, fuel assistance, tuition aid and free clothing from residents of Orleans and neighboring Harwich.

“I certainly wasn’t surprised,” he said, when state officials last week included Orleans among four Cape towns earmarked for free test kits based on the highest number of families living below the federal poverty level.

Larry Marsland, CEO of the Lower Cape Outreach Council, says: “On Cape Cod, our poor are well disguised. We’re just not aware of how many people are struggling here."

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, the 2021 poverty guidelines (the government does not refer to "poverty level") are based on the number of people in a household and household income: one person, $12,880 annually; two, $17,420; three, $21,960; and four, $26,500, for example.

Data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows "percent of persons in poverty" by town. In Orleans, the rate is estimated at 7.6% for 2021; with a total population of 6,307, the data indicates 479 people living below the federal poverty guideline.

The other Cape towns that qualified for the free test kits were Barnstable, Dennis and Eastham. Ninety-eight other Massachusetts cities and towns also qualified.

Poverty on this side of the bridge can look different, as in nearly invisible, Marsland said.

“On Cape Cod, our poor are well disguised. We’re just not aware of how many people are struggling here. I live in Chatham. It’s all McMansions here now and yet Chatham Elementary School” has a food pantry for families, Marsland said.

“It’s very difficult.”

The high cost of housing, the difficulty of finding affordable — or any — rentals, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the already struggling seasonal and service-based economy and the rising cost of nearly everything are taking a financial toll on families across the peninsula.

People think of Falmouth as having more of a year-round economy.

But even there the trends are toward rising levels of need, said Elyse DeGroot, deputy director of the Falmouth Service Center.

The amount of assistance given out for mortgage payments, rent, utilities and other expenses from Oct. 1 to Nov. 30 more than doubled over the past two years, DeGroot said.

During the two-month period in 2019, the service center served 41 families with 70 household members by providing $27,336 worth of support, she said.

In that same period in 2020, when people were still receiving unemployment and government pandemic checks, 33 families with 73 members received $31,531.

From Oct. 1 to Nov. 30 this year, the service center helped 49 households with 101 members and gave out $73,413, a jump of 132% in aid, DeGroot said.

“A lot of times they are behind in their rent. The moratorium was lifted. They were behind in their bills. These are Falmouth families," DeGroot said.

In some cases, individuals had to decide between paying for medical expenses or tuition, so the Falmouth Service Center helped out with rent or utilities, she said.

People receiving aid included restaurant and hair salon workers whose hours were cut during the pandemic and independent tradespeople who were physically injured and required surgery.

“They weren’t earning the same income” as in the past, DeGroot said.

“It’s the small businesses that seem to be hit pretty hard.”

“The vast majority of our clients who are struggling are working people," Marsland said.

"It’s a convenient mythology that those who are looking for aid are unemployed or underemployed. They are under paid."

Orleans also has one of the highest percentages of older people in Massachusetts — another population that can be prone to financial fragility.

“People who are on fixed incomes are very vulnerable. We do everything we can to keep seniors in their housing and (make sure they) have their medications and groceries," Marsland said.

"This past year has been a year of inflation.”

One of the beauties of the Cape, in addition to its natural seaside splendor, is that it houses caring communities who band together to help those in need, Marsland said.

Even so, the hidden poverty on the Cape is becoming increasingly visible.

"I'm starting to see panhandlers at the grocery store,” Marsland said.

He said he has seen two people collecting money outside the store, including a woman with a “big smile” and a sign asking for help.

Marsland said he got used to seeing panhandlers when he lived in Manhattan, but “when you see it in East Harwich, you go, 'Wait a minute.' I grew up on Cape Cod and have never seen this in my life. You don’t think it’s possible. Not here.

“It’s certainly a sign that there’s a great deal of undercurrent of poverty and worry out there,” he said.

This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Based on poverty level, 4 Cape Cod towns get free at-home COVID tests

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Dubai Can’t Shake Off the Stain of Smuggled African Gold



Simon Marks, Michael Kavanagh and Verity Ratcliffe
Mon, December 27, 2021

LONG READ

(Bloomberg) -- In the moon-like landscape of northern Sudan, informal gold miners toil with spades and pickaxes to extract their prize from shallow pits that pockmark the terrain.

Mining ore in the sweltering heat of the Nubian desert is the first stage of an illicit network that has exploded in the past 18 months following a pandemic-induced spike in the gold price. African governments desperate to recoup lost revenue are looking to Dubai to help stop the trade.

Interviews with government officials across Africa reveal smuggling operations that span at least nine countries and involve tons of gold spirited over borders. That’s a cause for international concern because the funds from contraband minerals dealing in Africa fuel conflict, finance criminal and terrorist networks, undermine democracy and facilitate money laundering, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

While it’s impossible to say precisely how much is lost to smugglers each year, United Nations trade data for 2020 show a discrepancy of at least $4 billion between the United Arab Emirates’ declared gold imports from Africa and what African countries say they exported to the UAE.

The UN and NGOs have long questioned the apparent role of one of the Emirates — Dubai — in facilitating the trade by closing its eyes to imports from dubious sources. The UAE strenuously denies any involvement in illegal practices. But as global scrutiny over corporate governance intensifies, the extent of the smuggling now under way poses increasingly uncomfortable questions for Dubai and its reputation as a gold trading hub.

Allegations that it’s not doing enough to stamp out questionable flows of the precious metal have led to public slanging matches with London, home to the world’s largest gold market, and with Switzerland, the top refiner. Deputy U.S. Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo discussed concerns about gold smuggling with Emirati officials during a visit to Dubai and Abu Dhabi in mid-November, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter who asked not to be identified because they’re not permitted to speak publicly about it.

That same week, the head of Dubai’s commodities exchange, Ahmed bin Sulayem, answered the accusations head on.

“I want to address the elephant in the room: namely, the consistent and unsubstantiated attacks launched on Dubai by other trading centers and institutions,” he said at a conference in the Emirates. They are, he said, “lies.”

African governments are adding to the pressure. Besides Sudan, authorities in Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zimbabwe, Mali, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic and Niger complain that tons of gold leaks across their borders each year, and they allege most of it heads to Dubai.

“It’s a huge loss,” Nigerian Mines Minister Olamilekan Adegbite said in an interview in his office in Abuja, the capital, where glass cabinets display rock samples that illustrate the nation’s mining potential, so far largely untapped.

The bulk of Africa’s illegally mined gold is channeled to Dubai through refineries in countries like Uganda and Rwanda, or is flown there directly in hand luggage, often with false papers, according to government and industry officials, UN experts and civil rights groups. Once there, it can be further melted down to obscure the source before being turned into jewelry, electronics or gold bars, they say.

“Most European countries will ask you for your certificates of export from the country of origin,” said Adegbite. “If you do not have that, the gold is confiscated and returned back to source.”

On paper, the UAE requires the same. “But, you see,” Adegbite added, “in Dubai they look the other way.”

The UAE’s foreign trade ministry declined to answer questions on gold from Africa. Bin Sulayem said in an interview that a global ban on gold hand-carried on airlines — a traditional means of smuggling — would fix the problem. “We have a better track record than any of the major cities,” he said. “The main complaint we’re getting is ‘you’re too tough.’”

Gold smuggling is an age-old practice, but it became all the more rewarding as the price of bullion soared to a record $2,075 an ounce in August 2020. The illicit trade has since taken off like never before in Africa and authorities there have made scant headway in reining it in, an analysis of publicly available data from governments and other sources show.

Sudan’s Finance Ministry, for example, estimates that 80% of gold production goes unregistered. Rwanda is set to ship $732 million worth of the metal this year, more than two-and-a-half times the value of its 2019 exports, according to International Monetary Fund figures. That’s despite Rwanda barely mining any gold of its own, prompting accusations from the government in neighboring Congo that the precious metal originates from its territory.

Rwanda is working to become a regional mineral processing hub, which accounts for its increased exports, Rwanda Mines, Petroleum and Gas Board said in a statement. It has invested in new facilities which “source raw materials from local and regional operators in compliance with legal and regulatory requirements,” the board said.

Reports from the UN and other sources point to 95% of production from east and central Africa ending up in Dubai. That’s a potential problem because much of the region is designated by the OECD as a conflict or high-risk area, meaning companies are required to show that imported gold is responsibly sourced. The European Union brought in legislation this year aligning it with U.S. efforts to stem the trade. However, enforcement is notoriously difficult.

Uganda, one of Africa’s main refiners of informal, or artisanal gold, more than doubled its exports this financial year to some $2.25 billion, central bank statistics show. Again, the UAE was by far the top destination, according to UN trade data. The UN has accused Uganda and Rwanda of trading in gold smuggled from neighboring eastern Congo, a region mired in conflict.

In an unprecedented move, the London Bullion Market Association, which regulates the world’s biggest gold market, last year threatened to bar its accredited refineries from sourcing metal from countries that didn’t meet its responsible sourcing standards. While it didn’t name any state, Bin Sulayem issued a rebuke on behalf of Dubai, accusing the association of trying to undermine the UAE’s gold market.

The UAE signed up to LBMA’s recommendations and “has long been cooperative with all international regulations and best practices including anti-money laundering efforts and unethical sourcing of gold,” minister of state for foreign trade, Thani Al Zeyoudi, said in a statement to Bloomberg News. “The UAE is committed to embedding the very highest international gold standards.”

More than 12 months later, the LBMA has yet to follow through on its threat. Sakhila Mirza, its general counsel, said the association is still assessing what the UAE has done to combat smuggling. The LMBA does see the need for urgency, but has to act within the rules, and “disengaging is the last step,” Mirza said in an interview.

Dubai’s long association with the gold trade is evident in its main market in the oldest part of the city, where scores of shops with elaborate window displays of glittering necklaces, bodices and sunglasses line a pedestrian walkway. Trading operations are conducted in an adjacent rabbit-warren of a building, where men run between small offices, some with reinforced security doors.

“We welcome the world, we welcome anyone who wants to do trade”

Several traders who spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared repercussions said they risked having their supply cut off by Emirati refineries if they asked too many questions about where it came from. Still, controls have been tightened to tackle money laundering, with customers who spend more than $15,000 required to submit their identity documents and source of funds.

During his visit last month, the U.S. Treasury’s Adeyemo noted that stronger enforcement efforts targeting illicit finance could give the UAE a competitive advantage in the region, according to the two people with knowledge of the talks. The Treasury Department declined to comment through a spokesperson for the Office of Foreign Assets Control, who asked not to be named due to the sensitive nature of sanctions policy.

Thani Al Zeyoudi told reporters last month that Dubai will introduce a publicly accessible system for monitoring imports and exports of gold, and the Dubai Multi Commodities Centre’s “Good Delivery Standard,” will be rolled out nationwide — if only on a voluntary basis. All gold refineries in the UAE will be required to conduct audits that prove bullion deliveries are responsibly sourced, starting in February, the Economy Ministry said in a statement in December.

“We’re trying to be a real hub when it comes to gold trading,” Thani Al Zeyoudi said. “So we welcome the world, we welcome anyone who wants to do trade and we want to make sure that we adhere to the international standards through the delivery standards.”

In October, Switzerland’s State Secretariat for Economic Affairs instructed Swiss refineries to take steps to identify the true country of origin for all gold emanating from the UAE, saying that was necessary to ensure they weren’t being sent illicit supplies. Bin Sulayem again took to LinkedIn to say the Emirates enforced the OECD’s guidelines on sourcing minerals and accused the Swiss authorities of hypocrisy.

Michael Bartlett-Vanderpuye, the chairman of M&C Group Global, which mines and sources gold from Ghana that’s mainly sold to clients in the UAE, described the clashes with London and Switzerland as “an international gold power play” with each center protecting its turf.

“I always found it very difficult to believe that people are actually able to bring gold to the UAE without the documentation,” he said. “When I look at the system at the airport, I find it near to impossible.”

Swiss refiner Metalor Technologies SA remains skeptical.

“We don’t think everything coming from Dubai is illegal, but we have doubts about the legitimacy of some of the integrity of the supply chain,” Jose Camino, Metalor’s group general counsel, said in an interview. “We are happy to pass it by.”

Dubai’s supporters claim African customs data aren’t reliable and even the UN can’t accurately measure illicit trade flows. Behind closed doors, UAE officials point the finger at their counterparts in Africa and forgers who obscure the gold’s origins by issuing documents that are impossible to distinguish from the real thing.

That’s little comfort to the authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a vast central African country that’s struggling to rebuild after more than two decades of conflict. It has some of the world’s richest reserves, including Kibali in the northeast of the country — Africa’s biggest gold mine — yet, perversely, the DRC is one of the biggest losers of the illicit gold trade.

An army of small-scale miners operate below the government’s radar, but data show the informal industry generated just $2.4 million in official gold exports last year. Statistics from the UN and IMF suggest the fruits of their labor slipped across the border instead: Uganda and Rwanda shipped bullion worth $1.8 billion and $648 million respectively in 2020, despite having little gold of their own.

“It’s ours,” Congolese Finance Minister Nicolas Kazadi said in an interview at his office in the capital, Kinshasa. “It’s gold from Congo.”

Under U.S. law, gold from Congo and its neighbors is considered a “conflict mineral,” meaning companies publicly traded in the U.S. are required to report to the Securities Exchange Commission if they might be using gold mined in conflict areas — but there’s no sanction for doing so. A June report by UN experts found that much of the illegal gold trade in Congo is overseen by armed groups or soldiers, who traffic it across the borders or fly it directly to Dubai using forged documents to obscure its origin.

Related Story: From Minerals to Beer, Congo Finance Minister Hunts for Cash

Sasha Lezhnev, policy consultant for Washington-based anti-corruption group The Sentry, said that refiners trading in conflict gold aren’t being held publicly accountable by the UAE. “Dubai is the linchpin for change in the gold trade in east and central Africa,” he said.

Smuggling is also troubling the government in Nigeria, where most minerals are extracted by at least 100,000 informal miners whose operations are difficult to regulate and tax. Formal gold production totaled just 1,288 kilograms last year, almost all of which went to Dubai, according to Nigerian government data.

Efforts are being made to formalize the industry. Fatima Shinkafi is head of the Presidential Artisanal Gold Mining Initiative, which has registered 10,000 informal miners and is developing a supply chain whereby their output will be sent to LBMA-certified refineries in Europe, processed and transferred to the central bank to boost Nigeria’s foreign reserves.

Adegbite, the mines minister, wants to work with the UAE to combat smuggling, and says he even proposed to his government that it split the proceeds “50-50” with the Emirati authorities of any undeclared Nigerian gold recovered. The UAE Ministry of Economy and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation didn’t respond to emailed requests for comment on the minister’s proposal.

In Sudan, more than 2 million small-scale miners produce some 80% of the nation’s gold. They are paid about a quarter less for what they extract than it would fetch on international markets and are charged a $64 tax on each ounce of output, which encourages some to bypass official trading channels.

Some of Sudan’s internal trade happens in a dank six-story building in downtown Khartoum, the capital, where men melt rough nuggets into bars and dealers can be seen exiting the premises carrying piles of cash wrapped in cling film. Illicitly traded gold is flown to Dubai through the porous international airport or trafficked into neighboring Egypt, Ethiopia and Chad, according to industry experts.

Political upheaval has frustrated efforts to ensure Sudan’s people benefit from its mineral endowment. Dictator Omar al-Bashir was toppled in a popular uprising in 2019, then a transitional government was overthrown in an Oct. 25 coup as the military reasserted itself.

The security forces have set up road blocks between mining areas and Khartoum to combat smuggling. But controls remain woefully inadequate, according to Dafalla Idriss, the deputy chair of a panel in River Nile state set up to freeze assets plundered by the al-Bashir regime.

“There is corruption inside all government institutions,” he said. “The gold that leaves the country is getting past everyone.”