GUNRUNNER TO THE WORLD

Australia agrees to $3.5 billion tank deal with US: report
Sun, January 9, 2022


Australia has agreed to a $3.5 billion deal with the U.S. to acquire more than 120 tanks and other armored vehicles to upgrade its military fleet, The Sydney Morning Herald reported.

Australian Defense Minister Peter Dutton will confirm the new deal Monday after the U.S. initially approved the purchase last year.

Australia will commit to buying 75 new M1A2 abrams tanks, 29 explosive-clearing assault breacher vehicles, 17 assault bridge vehicles, and six additional armored recovery vehicles.

In a statement, Dutton said the vehicles will give its soldiers the best possibility for success and protection from future harm, according to the Morning Herald.

"The M1A2 abrams will incorporate the latest developments in Australian sovereign defence capabilities, including command, control, communications, computers and intelligence systems, and benefit from the intended manufacture of tank ammunition in Australia," Dutton said in a statement.

"The introduction of the new M1A2 vehicles will take advantage of the existing support infrastructure, with significant investment in Australian industry continuing in the areas of sustainment, simulation and training."

Australia is expected to spend somewhere between $30 billion and $42 billion on armored vehicles over the next couple years.

The agreement has ignited a debate over Australia's military needs, with some national security experts arguing that heavily armored vehicles will not be necessary in maritime and air conflict with another world power like China, the Morning Herald reported.

The first vehicles from the Australia-U.S. deal will be delivered in 2024 and are expected to be in service the year after, the Morning Herald noted.

The deal is the latest sign of the U.S. and Australia's strengthening military alliance to counter China's expanding power in the Indo-Pacific region.

President Biden, along with leaders of Australia and the United Kingdom, announced the "AUKUS" alliance in September, initially focused on helping Australia acquire nuclear-powered submarines.

SEE LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for PERMANENT ARMS ECONOMY 

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
Contractor Gets Jail After Defrauding Government Out of $346 Million in Contracts Meant for Vets and Minorities



Rebecca Kheel
Mon, January 10, 2022, 3:43 PM·3 min read

A construction company owner who is neither a veteran nor a minority has been sentenced to 28 months in prison for defrauding the government out of $346 million in contracts meant for service-disabled veterans and minorities.

Matthew C. McPherson, 45, of Olathe, Kansas, was also ordered to pay the government back $5.5 million, which was his share of profits from the scheme, the Justice Department said in a news release.

"This contractor not only defrauded the government, but cheated to get contracts that should have gone to firms led by disabled veterans and minority owners," U.S. Attorney Teresa Moore said in the release Wednesday, the day McPherson was sentenced in federal court. "His greed and deception allowed him to enrich himself at the expense of disabled veterans and minority owners."

McPherson had pleaded guilty in June 2019 to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and major program fraud after admitting he participated in a plot from September 2009 to March 2018 to get federal contracts meant for small businesses owned and controlled by veterans, service-disabled veterans and certified minorities, according to the Justice Department.

McPherson's sentencing "sends a clear message that contractors unjustly enriching themselves at the expense of our nation's veterans will not be tolerated," Gavin McClaren, acting special agent in charge with the Department of Veterans Affairs inspector general's central field office, said in a statement.

McPherson and his co-conspirators were accused of setting up two companies using straw owners to fraudulently win the contracts.

The first was Zieson Construction Company in July 2009. Stephon Ziegler, 61, of Weatherby Lake, Missouri, a Black service-disabled veteran, was listed as the "nominal owner" of the business, but McPherson and his co-conspirators actually ran the company and received most of its profits, according to the Justice Department.

Zieson was awarded 199 federal contracts worth about $335 million meant for small businesses, minority-owned small businesses and veteran-owned small businesses, according to the news release. McPherson and his co-conspirators each got about $4.2 million through Zieson by using false and fraudulent invoices, the Justice Department said.

When Zieson grew too big for small business contracts in 2014, McPherson and his co-conspirators set up another company using the name of a Native American employee at Zieson, Rustin Simon, 45, of Smithville, Missouri.

Much like Zieson, the second company, called Simcon Corp., was actually controlled by McPherson and his co-conspirators, according to the Justice Department. Simcon also used the same office space and employees as Zieson, and Zieson falsely claimed to subcontract work to Simcon so Simcon would have a track record that made it able to better compete for federal contracts, the department said.

Simcon won a $4.4 million contract in July 2016 from the Air Force and a $6.9 million contract in September 2016 from the Army. McPherson and his co-conspirators each got about $319,866 from Simcon using false and fraudulent invoices, according to the Justice Department.

One of McPherson's co-conspirators, Patrick Michael Dingle, 50, of Parkville, Missouri, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire and major program fraud and is awaiting sentencing. A third conspirator, Matthew L. Torgeson, of Topeka, Kansas, had been indicted as well, but died in November 2019.

Ziegler has pleaded guilty to making a false statement to the VA and is scheduled to be sentenced Jan. 20. Simon has pleaded guilty to two counts of making material false statements to the Small Business Administration and is awaiting sentencing.

-- Rebecca Kheel can be reached at rebecca.kheel@military.com. Follow her on Twitter @reporterkheel.

Woman who sparked international debate over request for euthanasia finally gets her wish


Pamela Subizar, Noticias Telemundo
Mon, January 10, 2022, 6:56 PM·5 min read
Martha Sepúlveda, 51, finally got her wish.

The devout Roman Catholic died by euthanasia on Saturday morning in a clinic in Medellín, Colombia, in the company of her family.

But it was a long road for the woman who made headlines when she asked to be allowed to die by euthanasia without an immediate terminal prognosis — those expected to live for six months or less — arguing that she did not want to wait for even more pain and difficulties from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig's disease, an incurable and degenerative disease.

“God does not want to see me suffer,” Sepúlveda said last fall in a television interview with Colombia's Caracol network that went viral.

But the clinic that authorized the procedure last October canceled the euthanasia at the last minute — just 36 hours before.

Sepúlveda immediately fought back in the courts, and the judges agreed with her. “Forcing a person to prolong his existence for an indeterminate time, when he does not want to and suffers deep afflictions is equivalent to cruel and inhuman treatment,” the judge stated in his sentence.

Based on this decision, Martha was able to choose a new date and time for her dignified death and decided to do it on Saturday morning, Jan. 8.

“Martha left grateful to all the people who accompanied and supported her, who prayed for her and had words of love and empathy during these difficult months,” her lawyers, from the Laboratory of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, said in a statement.

Martha Sepúlveda Campo (Caracol via Noticias Telemundo)

Sepúlveda made history in her country but also in the region in defending the right to a dignified death. She had strong resistance from the Catholic Church. Her case transcended borders for speaking openly about her desire to die and the tranquility that she had as a fervent Catholic.

Sepúlveda's attorneys hope her case sets a precedent. “Those who want to exercise and guarantee their right to die with dignity should not be afraid to make it public. Those who exercise their rights should never hide," Lucas Correa Montoya, from the DescLAB team, told Noticias Telemundo.

On Friday, the day before Sepúlveda was euthanized, Colombia had already taken a big step forward in the right to a dignified death. In a Cali clinic, Víctor Escobar, a 60-year-old Colombian transporter who had suffered from various health problems for 30 years, was euthanized. It was the first procedure of this type in that country and in Latin America for a nonterminal patient.

A smile that reverberated on many screens

Before her scheduled euthanasia last October was abruptly canceled, Sepúlveda received the news that she was allowed to undergo the procedure with great joy, and was shown celebrating with her son on television cameras with a few beers in hand. “The best thing that can happen is to rest," she said at the time.

Sepúlveda suffered intense pain from her incurable disease, which progressively destroys motor neurons, and she could no longer walk or do personal hygiene without assistance. Some ALS patients live for months or decades, but most live two to five years after their diagnosis.

Sepúlveda did not want to wait for that progression and the suffering and spoke of a God as a “father who does not want to see his children suffer." The Catholic Church invited her to reflect, and many publicly questioned her in a country where a large part of the population are practicing Catholics.

Her family, emphasizing the right of each person to decide and have an independent opinion, supported her struggle.

Sparking a legal, medical debate

Colombia decriminalized euthanasia in 1997, becoming a pioneer around the globe in the right to die with dignity, but it took decades for health authorities to institute protocols to regulate the procedure for those who had a terminal illness.

In July of last year, the Constitutional Court expanded the right even more by eliminating the requirement for a terminal illness (a diagnosis of six months or less), since “it can impose the continuation of life in conditions that the person considers unworthy or humiliating,” the court said, claiming individuals had a right to autonomy.

That was the opportunity that Martha was waiting for. Four days after the ruling, she requested euthanasia, which was granted on Aug. 6 and scheduled for October, before the clinic rescinded the procedure.

Martha’s denial of euthanasia sparked an intense legal and medical debate surrounding her case and the right to die in what appeared to be a complex web of judicial and legal decisions in Colombia. Who makes the decision? How is it established that a person is seriously ill?

It was a debate that transcended borders: In countries such as Chile, Uruguay and Argentina, there are already bills that seek to decriminalize euthanasia.

The 20th Civil Court of the Medellín Circuit settled the discussion by responding to the appeal presented by the woman’s lawyers. “The judge recognized that it is up to each person to judge and define what type of suffering he considers unworthy and incompatible with his idea of ​​dignity,” explained Lucas Correa Montoya, Sepúlveda’s lawyer.

“It is not up to doctors or public opinion, or the church, to determine who suffers more or who suffers less,” he said.

“The reaffirmation of my rights at this very complex moment in my life fills me with joy and reaffirms my confidence in justice,” Sepúlveda said in a letter published after the court's ruling.

This past weekend, her protracted fight ended, on her own terms.

A previous version of this story was originally published in Noticias Telemundo.

UK
Developers 'must foot £4bn cladding bill or face exclusion from government schemes'

Harry Yorke
Sun, January 9, 2022

Government proposals come more than four years after the Grenfell Tower fire which killed 72 people - TOLGA AKMEN

Michael Gove will tell developers they must cover £4 billion worth of new cladding costs or face being excluded from Government-backed property schemes.

The threat will include blocking firms from the Help to Buy scheme for first-time buyers, with ministers also understood to be looking at a new levy on profits.

The Levelling Up Secretary will issue the ultimatum to the sector at a crunch meeting in the coming weeks, having decided to offer greater protection to flat owners who need to remove dangerous cladding from their buildings in the wake of the Grenfell Tower fire.


In a statement in Parliament on Sunday, Mr Gove will also confirm that he is shelving plans for a loan scheme which would have forced leaseholders in flats between 11 and 18 metres tall to shoulder the costs themselves.

Michael Gove, the Levelling Up Secretary, will tell developers they must foot a £4 billion bill for new cladding - Leon Neal

Instead, the costs of the major remedial works on thousands of flats across the country will be met by developers and firms responsible for the scandal.

The Government estimates the funds required to do so will total £4 billion, on top of the £5 billion already provided in grants to strip unsafe cladding from buildings over 18 metres tall.

A Whitehall source confirmed on Sunday that Mr Gove would tell developers that they will initially be given the opportunity to propose their own solutions for meeting the additional costs.

However, should they fail to do so, he will warn that the Government will be forced to legislate to raise the funds, either through new levies or taxes on the industry.

Alongside this, officials pointed out that they had a range of “tools” available to force concessions from the developers, including the ability to freeze them out of Government-backed property and finance schemes.

This includes the Help to Buy scheme, which provides first-time buyers with the opportunity to secure a 20 per cent low-interest equity loan - rising to 40 per cent in London - meaning they only need a five per cent deposit.

The Government has already announced that developer Rydon Homes will be excluded from the scheme due to its sister company being the lead contractor of the Grenfell Tower refurbishment.

Workmen remove the cladding from a building in Paddington, north London - Aaron Chown /PA

Making clear that others could soon join the developer, an ally of Mr Gove told The Telegraph: “We don’t claim to have all the answers to this crisis yet but this is an important step. We will be guided by three principles - the polluter must pay, leaseholders must be protected and common sense and proportionality must be restored.

“Developers now have the chance to come forward and do the right thing. If not, we will impose a solution in law.”

The proposals to alleviate the scandal that has trapped leaseholders in unsafe and unsellable homes come more than four years after the Grenfell Tower fire in June 2017, in which 72 people were killed.

According to a draft of Mr Gove's Commons statement, he will warn developers: "I am putting them on notice. If you mis-sold dangerous products like cladding or insulation, if you cut corners to save cash as you developed or refurbished homes, we are coming for you."

While the move is likely to trigger a backlash from the industry, officials have pointed out that Britain’s biggest developers have amassed huge profits since the blaze.

Whitehall sources highlighted that the chief executives of the country’s four biggest building companies have received at least £50 million in pay, bonuses, shares and dividends since 2017.

Meanwhile, Barratt, Persimmon, Taylor Wimpey, Berkeley, Bellway, Redrow and Vistry have made £16 billion in profits over three years.

These 32 drainage basins exceed Florida’s BMAP nutrient pollution limits

Sydney Czyzon and Max Chesnes,

Treasure Coast Newspapers

Tue, January 11, 2022

Lake Okeechobee is being contaminated with high pollution levels from all around.

TCPalm’s exclusive investigation into Florida’s flagship program to limit nutrient pollution flowing into Lake O is the first one to show that every single rainfall runoff drainage basin around the lake with available data exceeds the state pollution limits.

Read the full investigation and see all the maps and charts

That’s 32 basins, which TCPalm created using geographic boundaries the South Florida Water Management District provided in lieu of exact boundaries that match the water quality data in the organization’s annual report.

The worst polluter is the East Beach Drainage District southeast of Lake O, near Pahokee, according to the SFWMD data showing five-year pollution averages from 2016 to 2021, measured in “water years” that run from May 1 through April 30.

The East Beach Drainage District isn’t shown on the map because it’s not in the state’s mapping file. Other missing areas include the East Shore Drainage District, L-61E Basin and the upper and lower Kissimmee subwatersheds.

There are 41 basins around the lake, but for nine of them, no data exists for water years 2020 and 2021.

This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers:

Map: These 32 basins around Lake O exceed Florida’s pollution limits

Jim Acosta Ribs Tucker Carlson About His Claim That Viagra Can Treat COVID-19 (Video)



Jeremy Fuster
Sun, January 9, 2022

CNN anchor Jim Acosta poked fun at Fox News host Tucker Carlson Sunday, teasing him about his latest claim that Viagra could be used as treatment against COVID-19 and pretty much daring him to reveal his vaccination status.

“I suppose some people will justify those prescriptions with just about anything,” Acosta snarked, adding that Carlson’s show “really should come with a Surgeon General’s warning for disinformation.”

CNN medical analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner condemned Carlson for spreading “myth and fallacy” about COVID-19 instead of telling viewers “what we know works to prevent mortality in this country, which is simply to vaccinate people.”



“My sense is that he’s almost certainly been vaccinated, and I would be shocked if he wasn’t boosted,” Acosta added. “But yet he hosts this continuing parade of clowns that propagate this nonsense that, you know, that somehow vaccines are harmful or that this is somehow a liberal plot to some subjugate the masses.”

Acosta continued: “And let’s just say right now a challenge to Tucker Carlson as we’re talking about this from yours truly and from Dr. Reiner — Tucker Carlson, tell the American people if you have been double vaccinated and boosted. We know the truth, we know you have been, but just tell us.”

Acosta has previously called out Carlson for airing segments that falsely claim that drugs like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine can be used as treatment for the virus as well as casting doubt on the efficacy of the vaccine. Reiner pointed out that Carlson creates doubts about the vaccine by “just raising questions” that could be answered by medical experts that he chooses not to interview.

Watch Acosta and Reiner’s remarks in the clip above.

UPDATE 2-Union wins representation at second U.S. Starbucks location

Mon, January 10, 2022
By Hilary Russ

NEW YORK, Jan 10 (Reuters) - A Starbucks cafe in Buffalo, New York, became the second unionized company-owned Starbucks Corp location in the United States after the federal labor board on Monday certified the results of last month's election there.

Baristas at the company's cafes in at least seven other cities have said since last fall that they also want to organize.

The union, called Workers United, had challenged several ballots for the Genesee Street location because it claimed the employees actually worked at a different store. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) agreed with Workers United that the ballots should be tossed out, making the final vote 15-9 in favor of the union.

The global coffee chain has 10 days to ask for a review of the NLRB's decision.

"We've been clear in our belief that we are better together as partners, without a union between us at Starbucks, and that conviction has not changed," a spokesman said.

The company is evaluating its options and believes the employees whose ballots were set aside should be able to vote, he said.

Employees at the first Buffalo store to be certified, on Elmwood Avenue, walked out a week ago https://www.reuters.com/business/workers-unionized-new-york-starbucks-store-continue-walk-out-over-staffing-2022-01-06 in protest at what they said were unsafe, understaffed conditions amid a new wave of COVID-19 infections that has sickened workers and slowed service https://www.reuters.com/world/us/lattes-go-missing-drive-thrus-slow-omicron-hits-us-restaurants-2022-01-10 at many restaurants.

They went back to work on Monday.

"We said we weren't going to put customers or partners at risk until we had enough staff to operate safely. As of Monday, we believe we can now do that," said Michelle Eisen, a union organizer and employee at the store.

The store also returned to the more frequent hand washing and cafe sanitization routines that employees had requested, said Jaz Brisack, a barista there. (Reporting by Hilary Russ; Editing by Sandra Maler)

Tarnished Gold: Aircraft, fuel key to illegal Amazon mining





Planes and helicopters seized for allegedly being connected to illegal gold mining activity sit in the backyard of the Federal Police headquarters in Boa Vista, Roraima state, Brazil, Wednesday, Nov. 3, 2021. Here in Roraima state, where all gold mining is illegal, they are essential for transport to far-flung Indigenous reserves. 

(AP Photo/Andre Penner)

SAM COWIE and DAVID BILLER
Mon, January 10, 2022

LONG READ

BOA VISTA, Brazil (AP) — The scorching Amazon sun beats down as a group of agents inspect the body of a black helicopter. Nearby, in the backyard of the federal police headquarters in the city of Boa Vista, sit more than twenty aircraft — all seized.

Some bear signs of violent crashes: caved-in cockpits with wings broken off. Others feature interiors with stripped-out passenger seats in order to load up with more men and women, plus additional motors, fuel, food, and other cargo. Before they were confiscated, the aircraft were allegedly used for flying in and out of illegal gold mining sites.

Here in Roraima state, where all gold mining is illegal, they are essential for transporting prospectors and equipment to far-flung Indigenous reserves, including Brazil’s largest, Yanomami. Environmental and Indigenous rights groups estimate some 20,000 illegal miners are present on the reserve that is roughly the same size as Portugal. Government officials, including Brazil’s Vice President Hamilton Mourão, put the number closer to 3,500.

“Our focus over this last year has been to go after the logistics of illegal mining,” José Roberto Peres, the police superintendent for the state, told the Associated Press during an interview in November. “These are expensive machines; we can deduce that there is a lot of money involved.”

Police have intensified their efforts to identify and capture aircraft supporting illegal mining, but tracking down planes’ owners is stymied by the fact they’re usually registered to fronts – relatives, workers, or spouses who refuse to name names. Still, police said they have identified the true owners of most of the planes they've seized, and keep them as evidence while the investigations advance. Generally, the illegal aircraft owners are local elites who launder their money in Boa Vista hotels, restaurants, gyms, and gasoline stations, according to police officials, who declined to disclose names.

Drawn by high gold prices, reduced state and federal oversight, and outdated mining legislation, plus pro-mining rhetoric and proposed legislation from far-right President Jair Bolsonaro that would make it legal to mine on reserves, thousands of miners have flocked to the Yanomami reserve in search of the precious metal, exacerbating a longstanding problem that has only grown worse in recent years.

An Associated Press investigation, which includes interviews with prosecutors, federal law enforcement agents, miners, and industry insiders, shows that the unauthorized aircraft — and the countless liters of fuel needed to power them and other mining equipment — form the backbone of the shadowy economy of illicit mining here in Roraima state. Without that network functioning smoothly, law enforcement officials and environmental experts say illegal mining operations would collapse.

But attempts to disrupt the illicit operations have been met with just as many countermeasures to subvert the authorities.

AERIAL EVASION

Dozens of pilots arrived recently in Boa Vista from other states looking for work during Brazil’s economic downturn, a time that coincided with high gold prices and a drop in inspections due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Potential rewards for the pilots outweigh the risks which include possible arrest by police or getting lost in the vast, pristine expanse of the Amazon. Last year, one pilot crash-landed in the jungle and survived on his own for five weeks, losing 57 pounds in the process. Another vanished flying between two regions of Yanomami territory known for illegal mining. Local media reports have documented numerous lost and missing pilots.

Small aircraft frequently make trips carrying supplies to and illegally mined gold from the Yanomami reserve, which borders Venezuela. Nimbler helicopters used for internal logistics, moving from one mining site to another within the reserve, can quickly hop the border beyond Brazilian authorities’ reach.

Adding to law enforcement’s difficulties, illegal mining pilots fly low to avoid radar detection, according to Superintendent Peres. In addition, identifying tail numbers on the planes are often altered or removed to make them harder to trace.

A former illegal miner who said he used to operate on the reserve until he was indicted, and spoke with the AP on condition of anonymity, said aircraft serving illegal sites are usually kept in one location, loaded with supplies in another, and then flown to the Yanomami reserve. Locations are constantly switched up to try and avoid seizures, he said in an interview at a riverside public square in Boa Vista.

It is possible to reach parts of Yanomami reserve by boat. But rivers are difficult to navigate and the trip can take several days, making it an inefficient option to rely solely upon. So smugglers depend heavily on aircraft.

The former prospector and a federal police spokesperson told the AP said that the average cost to reach Yanomami land by plane is 10 grams of gold, worth more than $500 at black market prices.

The rush for gold and the building of illegal airstrips have created frictions with Indigenous groups and have led to a reported uptick in violence. Last year, miners gunned down two young Yanomami men that were hunting near a clandestine helicopter landing spot.

Months later, according to a federal police statement at the time, when they raided the properties searching for one of the suspects, police found guns, cash, and gold – but the suspects were long gone.

‘THEY’VE TAKEN IT OVER’

Those involved in the illegal gold trade represent a cross-section of individuals and companies ranging from shady fly-by-night operators to legitimate businesses. And a variety of federal agencies have been clamping down on criminal enterprises that profit from illegal mining in protected areas.

Brazil’s civil aviation agency is investigating an air taxi company, Icaraí Turismo Táxi Aéreo, that was awarded government contracts by the country's health ministry to transport Indigenous people and medical equipment. The agency has said it was probing whether the company was also using its planes to bring in prospectors and supplies for illegal mining. The company didn’t respond to requests for comment from the AP.

Federal police also froze 9.5 million reais ($1.7 million) in assets from a group thought to be operating illegal aerial logistics on the Yanomami reserve. Investigations suggest that the group had transactions totaling 425 million reais ($75 million) over a two-year period. But reports from Brazil’s Council for Financial Activities Control indicated the amount of money was beyond the individuals' means, suggesting possible money laundering, the police said.

Police investigators found that the main suspect, who wasn't named, had leased land bordering a protected forest and installed an aviation fuel storage tank. He had permission from the state environmental agency, despite it being illegal, according to the federal police. Investigations said the man used his air taxi company in order to supply wildcat mining operations. Police said those involved include his two children, three others, and frontmen.

Brazil’s environmental regulator, Ibama, has also ramped up its efforts against illegal gold mining operations. Last September, the agency closed 59 clandestine airstrips, five helicopter pads, and three river ports within the Yanomami reserve. Agents also seized 11 aircraft, eight vehicles, and three tractors.

More than 300 mostly short videos filmed by agents — part of a report obtained by the AP — show planes hidden with brush and tarps, plus stockpiles of fuel under the forest canopy, sometimes after agents have set them ablaze. Videos shot by agents from helicopters often show people on the ground fleeing the scene — by car, motorcycle, or small boat. Three videos show helicopters taking off just as the agents’ aircraft draws close.

In his office in Boa Vista, Roraima state, Alisson Marugal, a federal prosecutor, stood beside a map of the Yanomami reserve and pointed to its outside border. There, he said, are “many more” illegal airstrips, mostly on private properties like farms.

“There is a huge demand inside (coming from the wildcat mines on the reserve),” said Marugal. “For food, for fuel… And if this demand is not met, they (the miners) will leave.”

“At the same time, such huge demand always guarantees that there are willing suppliers,” he said.

According to data provided exclusively to the AP by MapBiomas, a network of nonprofits, universities, and technology companies that study Brazilian land use, there are at least 40 landing strips within the Yanomami reserve, most of them illegal.

Even airstrips that are supposed to be used by the government to send doctors and medical supplies for the Indigenous people are used by illegal miners, according to Marugal.

Last year, a young Yanomami tribesman was killed when struck by a plane piloted by illegal miners.

“It is supposed to be a landing strip for us, but they’ve taken it over,” Junior Hekurari Yanomami, president of the Yanomami and Ye’kwana Indigenous Health Council, said angrily in an interview in his office.

Superintendent Peres, of the federal police, said despite the beefed-up efforts to go after illegal gold mining and clandestine airstrips in Roraima state, cracking down remains a challenge.

“It’s very easy to make a landing strip,” he said.

‘CAPITAL INVESTMENT’

Brazil’s Amazon gold prospecting is a far cry from the folkloric image of a man with a pan and a dream wading into the river. Nor does it resemble the low-tech operations of massive pits filled with thousands of men carrying sacks of dirt, immortalized in pictures by Brazil’s famous photographer Sebastião Salgado.

Instead, it has become increasingly mechanized. High-powered backhoes manufactured by international brands like Hyundai and Caterpillar are capable of tearing up immense trenches of earth and trees. Prospecting sites in the upper Tapajos River basin, where the Munduruku ethnic group lives, look as though a bomb laid waste to the forest, leaving behind toxic pools.

Authorities earlier last year raided a huge illegal mining camp on the Munduruku Indigenous territory, destroying multiple backhoes.

The prospectors are invaders “who want to destroy, who are sick with hatred,” Maria Leusa Munduruku, president of the Munduruku Womens’ Association, whose house was burned to the ground by the miners in retaliation, said during a panel discussion last October.

“People who are sick wanting to exploit us, take the gold. We can’t eat gold. Gold isn’t worth anything to us. What’s valuable to us is the water, the river and the forest.”

Prospecting on the Yanomami Indigenous land mostly takes two forms: dredging of waterways with barges and surface mining. In the latter, prospectors dig pits and blast away sediment with powerful hoses, from which they separate the water then use mercury to extract the gold.

Due to illegal satellite internet networks that are ubiquitous on Yanomami land, miners are alerted when law enforcement operations begin, giving them time to hide themselves and their valuable equipment.

“When an operation begins, people there are already talking about it,” said Superintendent Peres. “They hide machinery in the forest and even sink their dredger barges into the rivers. After they retrieve them, they still work.”

FUELING DESTRUCTION

The spread of clandestine communications networks on Yanomami land is one of the many new challenges authorities are scrambling to adapt to in Roraima’s modern-day gold rush.

Authorities have long considered seizing or destroying costly planes, helicopters, excavators, and dredging barges an effective means of kneecapping the investors financing the illegal mining.

“Investigations into individuals are slow and take time, proof is difficult to acquire,” said Marugal, the federal prosecutor in Roraima state.

But they told the AP they are targeting a new flank in their fight: fuel. Huge amounts of diesel are needed to keep mining machines running and highway police regularly seize large quantities they believe are being supplied to illegal mining operators.

The former prospector, who agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity, said that illegal mining fuel providers constantly switch up which gas stations they use to avoid detection.

Superintendent Peres confirmed the federal police are also investigating the source of fuel used in aircraft engaged in illegal mining operations.

“It is a concern of ours to identify where this fuel is coming from,” Peres said, declining to provide details on the probe. “It would be very difficult to supply the mining sites without this fuel.”

Last month, Brazil’s environment regulator dismantled a scheme by a company to resell fuel taken from Boa Vista’s airport to clandestine airstrips, according to an agency statement. The company was fined 1.5 million reais. The company, Pioneiro Fuels, faces additional fines of up to 5 million reais from the oil regulator for presenting insufficient documentation of where and how it moved aircraft fuel, the regulator said in an emailed statement. The company and Pioneiro director Lindinalva Lobato declined to comment when reached by the AP.

The internal report from Brazil’s environment regulator obtained by the AP shows a list of Pioneiro’s clients from Jan. to Oct. 2021, and detailed investigator notes that revealed some of the alleged buyers had no planes or activities requiring aircraft fuel. Some 868,000 liters (229,000 gallons) of the fuel had no known destination -- more than half what the company sold in the 10-month period, according to the report.

In addition, the report said Pioneiro supplied fuel to illegal airfields and planes that are unlicensed, grounded for technical reasons or for other violations. The tail numbers of at least two planes seized by authorities on the outskirts of Yanomami territory matched those of planes that were previously found fueling up at an airfield supplied by Pioneiro.

“The direct connection between the airfields supplied irregularly by the Pioneiro company with aircraft used in logistical support for irregular mining operations in the Yanomami Indigenous Territory was clear,” the report said. “As such, there is indisputable evidence of the link between the company and illegal activities in the Indigenous Territory.”

The civil aviation agency, with support from the federal police and environment regulator, last September raided a property where Cataratas Poços Artesianos, a well-drilling contractor, is based. Inside, they found thousands of liters of aviation fuel, mining equipment, and aircraft with illegal modifications – such as stripped interiors.

One of the business partners is Rodrigo Martins de Mello. He is also a partner in the government-contracted air transport company investigated for possibly flying equipment and miners to illegal gold mining sites.

Since 2018, the health ministry has awarded contracts worth a total 26 million reais ($4.6 million) to the air taxi company, according to an AP review on the government's transparency database.

De Mello's lawyer, Ana Paula Cruz, said in a statement to the AP that neither he nor his companies have any involvement in illegal mining on Yanomami territory nor the logistics to support it, and that aircraft were seized while parked on his company's property in Boa Vista, not on Yanomami lands. Cruz said she is prevented from discussing details regarding the investigations because of a court decision placing them under seal.

While De Mello is under criminal investigation, he has not been charged with a crime. He has alleged that the lead police detective and some agents of the environment regulator and aviation agency have committed crimes including abuse of authority and producing evidence illegally, Cruz said.

A judge found those arguments partially convincing and last month ruled that half of De Mello's seized assets must be released. The ruling hasn't yet been carried out; for now, his aircraft remain parked behind the federal police headquarters in Boa Vista.

‘CAT AND MOUSE’

Attempts to crack down on illegal mining in Roraima state face fierce local resistance, despite the fact all mining in the state is illegal. Mining has long been a fixture in the region and deeply ingrained in its history.

In downtown Boa Vista, there is a seven-meter statue adorned with the names of prominent past miners. The monument stands adjacent to the state’s legislative assembly.

There, on a recent Thursday morning, members of the Association of Independent Prospectors of Roraima gathered for a public hearing to protest recent operations by environmental agency Ibama and federal police that destroyed mining equipment, during which a miner was shot and killed.

Dozens of them, donning yellow T-shirts emblazoned with a print of the Boa Vista miner’s monument and the words “The Prospector is a Worker,” sang Brazil’s national anthem.

“We are the founders of the state,” said Isa Carine Farias, the association’s president, and who told the AP she previously worked with illegal mining. “They take an Indigenous person to the United Nations (climate summit); why not take a miner, too?”

Earlier last year, the vast majority of state legislators voted to pass a law allowing gold mining in the state as long as it wasn’t on Indigenous lands. The measure was later struck down by the Supreme Court, which deemed it unconstitutional.

Critics feared the law could have allowed the gold mined on Indigenous lands to be fraudulently passed off as gold mined elsewhere, which has occurred in other Brazilian states.

Meanwhile, Sen. Telmário Motta, who represents Roraima state, has proposed legislation to prevent the destruction of mining equipment by federal officials. By law in Brazil, agents are permitted to destroy equipment that cannot be seized and auctioned because it is too costly or difficult to move, which is often the case with mining equipment or aircraft found on far-flung lands.

President Bolsonaro, who is popular in Roraima state, has also repeatedly spoken out against the destruction of equipment.

But the biggest legislative flashpoint is a bill presented by Bolsonaro’s mining minister, which would regulate mining on Indigenous territories nationwide. Bolsonaro has pressured lawmakers to bring it to a vote, even as federal prosecutors have called it unconstitutional and activists warn it would wreak vast social and environmental damages.

Vice President Mourão, who oversees the government’s Amazon Council, said in response to an AP question during a meeting with the foreign press that authorities face great challenges in combating mining on Indigenous lands.

“This is a game of cat and mouse,” Mourão said on Oct. 25. “It will end in one of two ways: either the community approves legal production, and that would be considering all environmental norms, or else we will have to keep soldiers all over that whole jungle area.”

But while soldiers can provide an additional show of force to aid law enforcement operations, they do little to help the investigations by understaffed environmental agencies, police, and prosecutors working to disrupt a sprawling illicit network bent on outfoxing them.

“If a big figure is arrested, another simply steps in… There is no big boss; there are too many,” said Marugal, the federal prosecutor in Roraima state.

He added that the time between enforcement operations by federal police and environmental agencies is often too long, allowing the miners to reorganize quickly and resume their mining of Yanomami lands.

“In certain regions (of the territory), even after operations this year, with equipment seized and destroyed, wildcat mining grew,” he said.

___

Biller reported from Rio de Janeiro ___ Follow Cowie on Twitter at https://twitter.com/SamCowie84 and Biller at https://twitter.com/DLBiller

___

Contact AP’s global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org or https://www.ap.org/tips/

Your Head of HR Is Now Basically the School Nurse


Emma Goldberg
Mon, January 10, 2022

Gia Ganesh, the chief of human resources at Florence Healthcare in Atlanta, Jan. 4, 2022. (Audra Melton/The New York Times)..

Gia Ganesh is a people person, so she loved running people operations — what many companies now call human resources — at Florence Healthcare. She led the health care technology company’s recruitment efforts, met with expecting moms planning for maternity leave and helped staff decide whether to spend their wellness benefits on therapy or a massage.

But like many working people, she found that the pandemic broke open her job description and filled it with new responsibilities. And like many human resources professionals, she found that she sometimes had to play a role akin to company nurse.

As COVID first started to spread, Ganesh made sure employees had stipends to set up workspaces at home and planned virtual activities, like a magic show and a cooking competition, to keep people connected. By last fall, she was in the meeting with the CEO writing up her company’s vaccine mandate, which requires that all employees, even those working remotely, be fully vaccinated against the coronavirus. She reviews every request for a vaccine rule exemption from people who would rather submit to regular coronavirus testing.

“What happens if employees test positive for COVID? How do we take care of them, and the role, if they’re out for a significant period of time? There’s a lot of new complexity that COVID has brought to the world of HR,” said Ganesh, whose company has about 150 employees globally.

Just as the COVID-19 crisis made amateur public health researchers of people trying to go about their daily lives, it also forced HR professionals, especially those at small and midsize businesses, into a new focus on public health. As companies weighed when to return to the office, whether to require coronavirus vaccines and what sort of exemptions from those rules to allow, it was often HR directors who were asked to lead those efforts. It was no longer sufficient for these professionals to manage the job satisfaction and career development of their colleagues. Suddenly, they were also charged with monitoring their health, safety and views on immunization.

The added dimensions of HR jobs are coming into sharper focus now, as more organizations put vaccine mandates into effect. About 17% of American employers were requiring vaccinations or negative COVID tests for employees returning to the office, according to a Gallagher survey of more than 500 employers conducted between August and October.

Hovering over company conversations about vaccines is the additional consideration of whether to mandate booster shots. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not updated its definition of “fully vaccinated” but said that being “up to date” on vaccination includes a booster. And some state and local leaders like Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York have indicated that they plan to include a booster requirement as well.

Then there’s the tug of war over return to office plans, with the pull of executives eager to see workers in person meeting the push of soaring COVID case counts. On top of that has come the challenge of retaining talent when workers are walking off the job, with 4.5 million leaving their roles voluntarily in November. The sources of stress, for some HR directors, seem to multiply by the month.

For George Boué, who ran HR at Stiles, a commercial real estate company based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the anxieties of his job began to increase this fall. He kept jerking awake at 3 a.m., his mind racing with questions. How was he going to roll out a vaccine mandate to his colleagues who viewed it as an intrusion? More important, how was he going to keep everybody in his office safe?

Boué, who is fully vaccinated, was surrounded by friends in South Florida who were citing misinformation about the vaccine. He estimated that one-third of his 300-person staff is most likely not fully vaccinated. When the Labor Department rolled out its vaccine rule in November, requiring large businesses to get their workers vaccinated or tested weekly, Boué started drafting the terms for his company’s vaccine policy; then he put it on hold because of legal battles over the mandates, especially in Florida. Boué decided that among teammates he wouldn’t refer to the policy as a mandate because he wanted to temper tensions whenever he could.

“There’s those that are feeling the world is coming to an end, and this is horrible, and those on the other side of the spectrum that feel this is all a bunch of baloney,” he said. “The toughest part of my role has been trying to address all sides.”

His responsibilities continued to grow thornier since the start of the pandemic: In the early months, his team had to order gallons of disinfectant and hundreds of masks. Over the summer, HR staffers had to start enforcing mask requirements in the office for unvaccinated employees, though his team did not ask for proof of vaccination for that rule and instead went by “the trust factor.”

Some executives are outsourcing COVID safety work to companies that set up turnkey vaccine and testing systems. DocGo, for example, a health care and technology company, creates testing programs for businesses and monitors the maintenance of employee confidentiality, data privacy and compliance with federal government standards.

Still, Anthony Capone, DocGo’s president, said he hears regularly from HR directors, especially those worried that their unvaccinated workers will struggle to obtain COVID tests, which could mean employers are in violation of government guidelines.

HR professionals said they’re trying, wherever possible, to point toward government rules and to emphasize to employees that they’re simply following advice from public health authorities.

“I try not to be a doctor or a scientist,” said Amy Zimmerman, chief people officer of Relay Payments, a software company based in Atlanta with just over 100 employees. “We’ve got institutions like the World Health Organization and the CDC and really smart people who are making decisions that if you’re reasonable, you trust.”

Still, there are plenty of scientific decisions — especially those on vaccine rule exemptions — that have to be made on a case-by-case basis, and they tend to fall to an HR team that doesn’t have scientific training.

Zimmerman’s company currently allows its staff to work from home, but those coming into the office have to show proof of full vaccination. The requests for exemptions from that rule go straight to HR. One involved concerns about fertility treatments, but the employee could not get a supporting doctor’s note and now cannot come into the office. Another was from an employee who had been previously infected with coronavirus, who Zimmerman’s team determined would have to show proof of antibodies every 90 days.

Relay Payments also had two large in-person gatherings last year, where it required both proof of vaccination and a negative test 72 hours before arrival. Right before its December gathering, an employee who was fully vaccinated tested positive and skipped the event. Zimmerman was relieved that he caught the case before his flight from home, which she viewed as validation of the company’s move to require both vaccines and testing.

Now her team is weighing whether to mandate boosters. She said it might hold off on for now, though it would continue to follow CDC recommendations.

Making these kinds of decisions demands constant consumption of news by business leaders, with many seeking out online expertise about COVID: “The CDC is my main source, but there’s multiple channels and mediums I’m plugged into,” said Ganesh, at Florence Healthcare.

Boué, in South Florida, has finally hit his limit on HR angst. He retired at the end of last year. His wife works at a hospital, and with the anxieties she carries — about freezer trucks and overflowing beds — he feels he can’t take home his own set of work worries.

Boué used to wake up raring to get to the office: “Even though I’m anti-social, I do enjoy working and helping people out,” he said. But the last two years have undercut that sense of enthusiasm: “There wasn’t a particular ‘Aha!’ moment,” he added. “I just realized the stress wasn’t good for me.”

© 2022 The New York Times Company

‘Abhorent’: Disability Advocates Slam CDC Director for Comments on ‘Encouraging’ Covid Deaths

Tim Dickinson
Mon, January 10, 2022

Rochelle-Walensky-CDC-2021 - Credit: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty Images

Advocates for people with disabilities are voicing outrage about comments the director of the CDC, Rochelle Walensky, made on national television insisting it was “really encouraging” that the omicron variant is predominantly killing Americans who have other health problems.

The Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund posted an open letter to Walensky on Twitter on Sunday calling the director’s remarks “abhorent”:

“Your words convey that the deaths of disabled people…are acceptable,” wrote executive director Susan Henderson. “Not only is this message from the head of the CDC abhorrent, it perpetuates widely and wrongly held perceptions that disabled people have a worse quality of life than nondisabled people and our lives are more expendable.” Henderson implored Walensky “reflect” on her words — and the potentially “fatal” consequences of “the bias behind them” — asking the CDC director to “change how you speak about the lives and deaths of disabled people.”

Walensky sparked the controversy in an interview on Good Morning America on Friday — ironically, as part of a push to course-correct from a cascade of communications failures from her agency — when she put her foot in her mouth, again.

The GMA interviewer teed Walensky up for what seemed like a softball question: “I want to ask you about those encouraging headlines that we’re talking about this morning: this new study showing just how well vaccines are working to prevent severe illness. Is it time to start rethinking how we’re living with this virus?”

The CDC director responded: “The overwhelming number of deaths — over 75 percent — occurred in people who had at least four comorbidities, so really these are people who were unwell to begin with — and, yes, really encouraging news in the context of omicron.” Walensky added a plug for getting vaccinated and boosted, before underscoring her earlier comment: “We’re really encouraged by these results.”

Americans who live with disabilities were pained by Walensky’s remarks. A TikTok user named Britt, who describes herself as “a disabled & chronically ill disability justice advocate,” used her platform to call out the CDC director: “Sometimes people really just say the quiet part out loud.”

She elaborated: “As someone with ‘comorbidities’ or ‘preexisting conditions’ or whatever language we’re using to wrap up disability and chronic illness these days, I don’t think that those numbers are encouraging — at all. And I certainly don’t think that they’re acceptable. Being disabled doesn’t mean a person is ‘unwell’ and it certainly doesn’t mean that they’re going to die anytime soon. And whether Dr. Rochelle Walensky chooses to recognize it or not, our deaths have meaning because our lives have meaning. We are not disposable and none of this should be encouraging or acceptable to anyone.”

@myelasticheart
Our lives aren’t disposable! #PutMeFirst #ChronicPain #boostofhope #WhatsGoingOn
♬ original sound – Britt

This latest CDC controversy — which Twitter critics have decried as flirting with eugenics — comes on top of a communications crisis in the agency, which has struggled to explain its shifting guidance on quarantine times and testing for people returning to work after omicron exposure. (Even the American Medical Association blasted the CDC’s guidance as “confusing” and “counterproductive.”)

The CDC did not respond to a request for comment from Rolling Stone. But Walensky herself appeared to address her misstep in tweet on Sunday. The CDC director did not offer an apology, to be clear, but highlighted her own CV to insist she was committed to “protect our most at risk.”

Walensky may have her hoped her tweet would quiet the outrage, by offering re-assurance of her good intentions. Instead it has enraged them:

“This is it,” tweeted Erin Biba, a noted science writer and contributor to WIRED. “Days and days of people with disabilities and chronic illness pleading for people to place value on their lives after the CDC Director admitted to eugenics policy, and the best she can do in response is nebulous, non-specific ‘taking steps.'”

Biba offered some advice of what the CDC could do concretely: “Send people N95 masks, free tests, support them so they don’t have to put themselves at risk,” she wrote, asking the CDC director to literally, “Do anything.”