I’ll fight to overturn US ban on my ‘Queer Bible’, says British author

Former model Jack Guinness caught up in furore over Mississippi mayor’s attempt to withhold funding for library until ‘homosexual materials’ are withdrawn

Jack Guinness said he was proud that the controversy had turned him into a campaigner. 

Photograph: Pal Hansen/The Observer

Alice Fisher
Sun 13 Feb 2022 

A British writer, presenter and former model says he is shocked to find himself at the centre of an unprecedented wave of book banning in the US.

A Mississippi mayor has told the Madison County Library to remove LGBTQ+ books from its shelves or lose funding. One of the books singled out as an example was The Queer Bible, a collection of LGBTQ+ history essays edited by Jack Guinness. Ridgeland’s Republican mayor, Gene McGee, has refused to release funds to the library until “homosexual materials” are withdrawn.

Tonja Johnson, executive director of the Madison County Library System, said when she told McGee that the library served the whole community, he replied that he only served “the great Lord above”.
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Guinness discovered his anthology had been caught up in the book ban on Twitter. “I couldn’t quite believe my eyes,” he told the Observer. “When you write a book, you kind of imagine people might read it, but you don’t imagine anyone will ban it. Referring to it as ‘homosexual material’ – that’s the sort of phrase my grandmother would have used to talk about my jeans.”

Guinness, once described by GQ magazine as “the coolest man in Britain”, worked as a model after university for fashion labels such as Dolce & Gabbana, Gucci and Dunhill and became a famous face on the capital’s social scene. He was friends with Pixie Geldof, DJ Nick Grimshaw and musician Florence Welch, and used to be Alexa Chung’s flatmate.

He soon segued from modelling into work as a presenter and as a writer for Vogue, GQ and the Guardian. Since starting the Queer Bible as a website in 2017, he has been included in Attitude magazine’s trailblazers list of exceptional LGBTQ contributors to the arts. He is also now a member of London mayor Sadiq Khan’s diversity in the public realm commission.

The Queer Bible is a book of essays “by queer heroes about their queer heroes”. Contributors include Sir Elton John, Graham Norton, designer Tan France, skier Gus Kenworthy and model Munroe Bergdorf. It is adapted from the website, which showcases LGBTQ+ people and stories.

“I identified gaps in my knowledge about figures in queer history. People have had to hide their identity in the past to protect themselves, or stories have been straightwashed to fit into an accepted narrative.”

Guinness and other Queer Bible contributors joined crowdfunding efforts to replace the $110,000 (£81,000) withheld by the mayor. The target has now been reached.

He says he’s as surprised as anyone to find himself a campaigner. “I never imagined this would happen. I created The Queer Bible selfishly for myself because I wanted to read about queer heroes. Now I’m taking part in a campaign to fight a Mississippi mayor. It’s a surreal place to be and I feel very honoured. What keeps me going is that that this isn’t about me. It’s about using my platform so other people can tell their stories.”


US libraries report spike in organised attempts to ban books in schools

The American Library Association has recorded an unprecedented rise in campaigns to ban books in the last year. New legislation introduced in states such as Texas and Oklahoma has made it easier to remove books about black and LGBTQ+ stories on the grounds that “they may cause upset or stress”. Parents are behind many campaigns after getting hands-on experience of curriculum texts during pandemic home schooling.

“It’s terrifying to think that one individual, due to their personal beliefs, can withhold texts from an entire community,” said Guinness. “I grew up under section 28, which forbade the promotion of homosexuality in schools. An entire generation grew up without information about their history or any understanding that they were not freaks.

“Banning any book is also a slippery slope. In certain countries, LGBTQ+ people do benefit from equal rights but this shows how easy it is for things to slip. There is a shift, an idea of criminalising or deleting certain communities. Today it’s the queer community – tomorrow it could be your community.”

ARIZONA: Copper Mine Proposal Looms Over Sacred Apache Site

February 11, 2022 on ARIZONA: Copper Mine Proposal Looms Over Sacred Apache Site

PHOENIX, Arizona, February 11, 2022 (ENS) – The world’s two largest mining companies are pressing their proposal to mine for copper beneath a site most sacred to the San Carlos Apache Tribe.

House Natural Resources Committee Chair Raul Grijalva, an Arizona Democrat, today accompanied the U.S. Forest Service and San Carlos Apache tribal leaders on a visit to the Oak Flat site within Tonto National Forest. Beneath Oak Flat lies one of the largest untapped copper deposits in the world, estimated at more than $1 billion.

From the crest of the Mogollon Rim stretching 90 miles south, the Tonto National Forest spreads over 2.9 million acres of pine and cactus country northwest of Phoenix.

The Forest Service conducted the site visit in tandem with a formal tribal consultation session with the San Carlos Apache Tribe about proposed copper mining operations that would irreparably damage the sacred Oak Flat site.

The Forest Service is in the process of completing another environmental impact statement, EIS, for Resolution Copper’s proposed copper mine near the Oak Flat site.

Although Oak Flat is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a Traditional Cultural Property, a copper-molybdenum mine is proposed by Resolution Copper, a joint venture owned by the world’s two largest mining companies – Rio Tinto and BHP – with operations based in Australia and Britain.

San Carlos Apache tribal leaders warn that these companies have a record of destroying sacred indigenous sites around the world.

They point to the time in May 2020 when Rio Tinto blew up the 46,000-year-old sacred Aboriginal Juukan Gorge caves in Pilbara, Western Australia as part of an iron ore exploration project.

The Australian Parliament has ordered Rio Tinto to rebuild ancient Aboriginal cave system. But how can anyone reconstruct the evidence of continuous human habitation since the last Ice Age that had been contained in the caves?

In Arizona, the Resolution Copper proposal is for underground mining of a copper-molybdenum deposit located 5,000 to 7,000 feet (1,500 to 2,100 meters) below the surface.

The company estimates that the mine would take 10 years to construct and would have an operational life of 40 years, which would be followed by another five to 10 years of reclamation activities.

A view of Oak Flat, site of the proposed Resolution Copper Mine. (Photo by Russ McSpadden, Center for Biological Diversity)

If approved, a final EIS would greenlight a land transfer between Tonto National Forest and Resolution Copper, allowing the company’s mining plans to move forward despite strong public opposition, including that of over 40 tribal governments and 150 national and regional organizations, Congressman Grijalva said.

The Resolution Copper Mine could not be built without the transfer of Oak Flat from public ownership, where federal laws would prohibit its destruction, into private ownership where these laws would not apply.

The current EIS process began after the Biden administration withdrew a “final EIS” published in the last days of the Trump administration due to what Grijalva says were “inadequate environmental analyses and lack of good faith tribal consultation.”

Tribal Chairman Terry Rambler said at the time, “The Trump administration rushed to publish a seriously-flawed FEIS just five days before President Trump leaves office. This callous, immoral and illegal action is being done to enrich wealthy foreign mining interests while knowing that mining will destroy Oak Flat that for many generations has been the heart of Apache religious and cultural practices.”

The San Carlos Apache Tribe filed a lawsuit to stop the land transfer January 15, 2021, just five days before President Trump left office. President Joe Biden put the brakes on the land transfer in March 2021.

In addition to the sacred nature of the site, environmentalists say the proposed mine would require the withdrawal of substantial groundwater in the already drought-stricken state of Arizona.

Congressman Grijalva sides with the tribe. He introduced the Save Oak Flat Act on March 15, 2021, to permanently protect the Oak Flat area from mining operations. The bill passed out of Committee on April 28, 2021.

“Our fight to stop this backroom land grab isn’t over,” Grijalva said on his visit to Oak Flat. “We’re going to stand up for Indigenous communities and protect sacred sites against corporate greed.”

Congressman Grijalva sent a letter on February 8 to the Biden administration urging adoption of the White House’s agency guidance for using Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge in the tribal consultation process for Oak Flat.

Advocates attending the site visit explained the traditional and religious significance of Oak Flat, or Chi’chil Bildagoteel, emphasizing the national importance of protecting the holy site.

Tribal Chairman Rambler said, “The United States must not provide rubber-stamp approvals for these companies to destroy sacred sites on our homeland in Arizona.”

Featured image: Congressman Raul Grijalva, center front row, meets with San Carlos Apache tribal leaders to visit the Oak Flat site within Tonto National Forest, February 11, 2022 (Photo courtesy Office of Congressman Grijalva)

Environment News Service (ENS) © 2022 All Rights Reserved. 

 

UK Local Governments Demand Plutonium Safety Upgrades

February 12, 2022 LONG READon UK Local Governments Demand Plutonium Safety Upgrades

MANCHESTER, UK, February 12, 2022 (ENS) – At least 50 local governing councils across England, Scotland, and Wales are worried about radioactive contamination in their communities, as about half of the UK’s current nuclear generating capacity is due for decommissioning by 2025.

The decommissioning process will separate the radioactive fuel rods that power the nuclear reactors from the rest of the structures for storage and reprocessing. It’s the reprocessing that worries the local governments because it creates nuclear waste.

The UK now has 11 operating nuclear reactors at five locations and roughly half of them will start decommissioning by 2025. But the one most worrisome to the councilors and mayors is not an operating nuclear generator, it is the world’s largest stockpile of plutonium under civil, not military, control. At Sellafield on the shore of the Irish Sea in Cumbria, the stockpile now stands at roughly 120 tonnes.

Those 50 communities have organized as the Nuclear Free Local Authorities of the UK and Ireland, NFLA, and they are calling for “Britain’s deadly plutonium stockpile to be labeled “out of use,” which does not appear to be an official classification, but the NFLA’s meaning is clear.

The group of local governments wants “an early end to reprocessing,” and “greater accountability and more transparency about the long-term management of radioactive materials arising from decommissioning operations at the country’s former nuclear power plants,” they said in a statement last week in response to the government’s request for public comment on its latest decommissioning business plan.

Once considered a valuable asset for reuse as fuel, the plutonium, most stored in tight security at the Sellafield nuclear plant in Cumbria, northwest England, is now seen as an expensive liability and a potential terrorist target.

Originally a munitions factory producing plutonium for nuclear weapons in 1947, the British government transformed Sellafield into a working nuclear facility by 1960. Today, Sellafield covers six square kilometers and hosts more than 200 nuclear facilities.

The Thorp nuclear reprocessing plant at Sellafield was shut down in 2018. But the NFLA says the reprocessing is still going on at the B205 Magnox Reprocessing Plant at Sellafield. The B205 plant has had safety issues including a leak of radioactive condensation that went unnoticed for 12 months, according to the International Panel on Fissile Materials, which says that B205 operations have been the largest source of radioactive discharge to the Irish Sea from the Sellafield site.

Nuclear Decommissioning Authority’s Business Plan

In its comment, the Nuclear Free Local Authorities group expressed its “disappointment that reprocessing at Sellafield did not end in 2020 as was originally promised and that there is still no clear end date.”

The NFLA also wants to see a comprehensive inventory of all radioactive materials created for each nuclear site, including those arising from decommissioning operations, and for local authorities to be consulted over arrangements for their transport and management.

Councillor David Blackburn of Leeds City Council, a member of the Green Party who chairs the NFLA Steering Committee, said, “Reprocessing at Sellafield continues to pollute the marine environment of the North East Atlantic, and plutonium is perhaps the most-deadly material known to mankind.”

“As a result of our nuclear civil and defence programmes, and because past government policy invited other nations to send us their nuclear waste for reprocessing, we have a huge stockpile,” said Blackburn.

“Plutonium can be converted into nuclear weapons, and so in our view it should be made safe and placed out of use,” he said.

Sellafield Plutonium Will Take 1,000 Years to Degrade

The stockpile of nuclear waste at Sellafield is now a dangerous proposition, the local leaders warn.

Scientists at the University of Manchester say it will take around 100 years to decommission the facility, and more than 1,000 years for the legacy radioactive waste to degrade.

The University of Manchester is leading Sellafield Site Futures – a project funded by the UK Energy Research Centre. The focus is the Sellafield Nuclear Plant, which is being decommissioned at a cost between £60 and 140 billion over a 120-year period, with an end date of 2140.

Among the questions the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority is considering are what will be done about the waste currently stored on the site.

Nuclear workers at the Sellafield nuclear site in Cumbria, England. 2021 (Photo courtesy Sellafield Ltd)

In the early days of nuclear technology, plutonium from reprocessed nuclear waste was stockpiled as a source of fuel for a new breed of experimental nuclear reactors. But in the 1990s, Britain canceled the reactor program due to cost and safety concerns with only a small amount of plutonium used.

The Sellafield stockpile grew again when Britain agreed to reprocess nuclear waste from other countries. The plan was to reprocess the waste into plutonium and send it back to its country of origin for a fee. But to date, the nine countries of origin are not clamoring to buy it back, so foreign-owned plutonium now accounts for a quarter of Britain’s entire plutonium stockpile, the BBC reports.

Add a New Coal Mine to the Mix

To complicate matters, West Cumbrian Mining wants to develop an underground and undersea coal mine off the Cumbrian coast and partially under the Irish Sea.

Although twice approved by Cumbria County Council, there is local opposition to the plan. More than 2,300 people objected along with Friends of the Earth, Keep Cumbrian Coal in the Hole, and the World Wide Fund for Nature, WWF.

The NFLA, too, worries about the potential impact on radioactive wastes on the Irish Seabed which derive from the Sellafield site. A Freedom of Information request by the KCCH group regarding the “expected subsidence” and resuspension of Sellafield’s radioactive wastes from the seabed as a result of the coal mine has gone to the Sellafield site for internal review.

Writing in “TheEnergyMix,” in January, Paul Brown reminded us that, “From its inception, the reprocessing works was a highly polluting plant, discharging contaminated water into the Irish Sea. Plutonium, cesium, and other radionuclides were sent out to sea in a mile-long pipeline.” Radioactivity was picked up in shellfish in Ireland, and as far away as Norway and Denmark. Brown says these discharges now have been “considerably cleaned up.”

The hopeful coal mine developer West Cumbrian Mining said in statement last August that its Woodhouse Colliery “…will be net carbon zero for all aspects of the mining process and delivery of the product to UK customers or port for onward shipping to European customers.”

This has been achieved, West Cambrian said, “by combining a series of proven & emerging technologies, including renewable electricity, methane gas capture and elimination, microgrid power generation, green bio-fuel and gold standard carbon offsetting.”

West Cumbrian says the Woodhouse Colliery project will create 532 direct and 1,618 indirect jobs and deliver new UK exports, which are forecast to reduce the UK balance of trade deficit.

The Local Authorities group also wants to create jobs, but not with a new coal mine. Instead, the NFLA wants renewable technologies to be located on former nuclear sites . Renewable energy could then be produced to power decommissioning operations on these sites, with any surplus exported to the National Grid, they suggest.

Councillor Blackburn said, “Installing green technologies would also provide additional jobs and opportunities for local people to train in the construction, installation and maintenance of renewable power. Employing local people also means less commuting and this will help the NDA achieve its goal of being a net zero (carbon) business.”

Waste Issues Plague Many UK Nuclear Plants

EDF, Électricité de France S.A., a French state-owned multinational electric utility, will begin decommissioning Britain’s Hinkley Point B nuclear power plant no later than July 15, 2022, the company said.

Matt Sykes, managing director of EDF Generation, said the company had originally hoped to operate the plant to March 2023, but cracks in the graphite blocks of the reactor cores makes an earlier shutdown necessary.

Hinkley Point B in Somerset, southwest England, began operation in 1976. It is capable of generating enough electricity to power 1.8 million homes.

The Dungeness B nuclear power plant located in a Kent nature reserve is being decommissioned, June 2004 (Photo public domain via Wikipedia)

And the final nuclear power station on the Kent coast closed ahead of schedule after problems within its reactors proved beyond repair.

Dungeness B shut for repairs in 2018, but had been projected to start producing electricity again. The closure marks the end of 50 years of generating nuclear power in the region, after the neighboring Dungeness A nuclear plant ended production in 2006.

The Dungeness B station is situated on the tip of a headland surrounded by the Dungeness National Nature Reserve in Kent,  one of the largest shingle landscapes in the world, inhabited by some 600 species of plants, a third of all plants found in the UK.

It employs about 500 staff and 250 contractors onsite. Most jobs will continue through the defueling process, which could take up to 10 years, EDF said.

On the North coast of Scotland, the Dounreay nuclear establishment was the center of the UK’s fast reactor R&D programme from 1955 to 1994 and is currently being decommissioned.

In 2018 a contract was awarded to Cavendish Nuclear Limited to dismantle and demolish the Dounreay reactor. The fuel and heavy-water coolant have been removed, leaving the reactor vessel, supports and containment shell for final demolition.

Work is currently focused on the fuel element storage block, FESB, where irradiated fuel was stored after its removal from the reactor.

Fiona Forbes, project manager of Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd, said today, “Demolition of the reactor will be the biggest change to the Dounreay skyline since decommissioning began, and a major strategic achievement.

“The next phase of work, to surround the FESB with an atmosphere-controlled containment structure, is underway and will enable operators to demolish the reinforced concrete block,” Forbes said. “This is expected to be carried out using a remotely-operated demolition machine in the coming months.”

Trawsfynydd nuclear power station in Snowdonia National Park, Wales. September 6, 2008 (Photo by William M. Connolley via Wikipedia)

In Wales, there is only one nuclear power station, but it, too, has decommissioning issues. The Trawsfynydd nuclear power station is a decommissioned generating plant located in Snowdonia National Park in Gwynedd, Wales. Started in 1965, it was the only nuclear power station in the UK to be built inland, using cooling water from a built reservoir.

Trawsfynydd was closed in 1991. Its planned decommissioning by Magnox Ltd was expected to take almost 100 years, but in 2021 the Welsh Government arranged for the power station to be redeveloped using small-scale reactors.

The UK Government has stated its commitment to sustainable, carbon-free sources of energy as it seeks to achieve its 2050 net-zero carbon emissions target, and has confirmed that nuclear power has a role to play in the future energy mix of the country.

Featured image: Sellafield nuclear facility in Cumbria, northwest England. 2020 (Photo courtesy University of Manchester)

Environment News Service (ENS) © 2022 All Rights Reserved.

US has a habit of deceiving foes and friends – and Lebanon is No Exception!

February 13, 2022 -  Source : Al Ahed NewsLink:

AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA)

: Beirut – Lebanon continues to suffer from US sanctions and siege.

When Hezbollah Secretary General His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah announced the commencement of importing fuel supplies from Iran to break the sinister American plots against Lebanon, the US ambassador to Lebanon Dorothy Shea who was saddened rather shocked by Sayyed Nasrallah’s announcement, rushed hastily to announce that her government would allow Lebanon to receive the gas from Egypt and Jordan via Syria to maintain electricity supplies to the down trodden country.

Months have passed since this American announcement but nothing has materialized and the US ambassador’s promises have not been delivered. Washington did not bother to clarify its position.

The US has never been at any time a friend to Lebanon, and it can never be. As long as it totally sides with Lebanon’s first and only enemy, “Israel”. Washington has always supported the Zionist enemy with military aid and sophisticated heavy equipment. It has always given the green light for all the invasions, incursions and even to the occupation of Lebanon. Moreover, Washington offered our enemy “Israel” the political cover by sabotaging any international attempt to condemn it by the international community by using the veto power at the Security Council. This puts Washington in the position of a complete partner and accomplice with “Israel”.

No Lebanese can be fooled anymore by Washington, except if he or she wants to!

So, why did Washington make those promises and why it is breaking them!

The answer is a very simple and easy one.

The US ambassador was at a hurry to announce anything to devaluate Hezbollah’s achievement of bringing the Iranian fuel. This is normal in the American standards, as it meets directly with their fixed policy to distort Hezbollah’s image. This is not a secret policy and they have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to make it come true according to their former ambassador to Lebanon Jeffrey Feltman.

Another equally or even more important issue has to do with the maritime dispute between Lebanon and the enemy entity “Israel”.

Washington wants Lebanon to accept its proposals about the distribution of the oil and gas present in the disputed area. It is exercising its pressure and using the policy of procrastination and blackmail.

The enemy has an open greedy appetite to steal our natural resources of every kind.

Washington has used every method possible to pressure Lebanon so it can surrender to its proposals; the US blackmail and dictations want simply to give the larger proportion of gas and oil present in the disputed maritime area to “Israel”.

Washington is notorious for deceiving and betraying its enemies and friends. Lebanon is no exception to the US.

The question now is where are the US friends and why did they swallow their tongues.

It is again a lesson to be learned by the Lebanese, friends and enemies alike; will they do!

Rights Groups Urge Crack Down on US Prison Surveillance Technology

February 13, 2022
VOA
Thomson Reuters Foundation

FILE - A death row inmate uses a phone from his cell in 

 San Quentin State Prison in San Quentin, Calif. Dec. 29, 2015.

Dozens of rights groups are demanding a crackdown on an artificial intelligence system used to eavesdrop on U.S. prisoners' phone calls, after a Thomson Reuters Foundation investigation highlighted the risk of rights violations.

Documents from eight states showed prison and jail authorities were using surveillance software called Verus, which scans for key words and leverages Amazon's voice-to-text transcription service, to monitor prisoners' phone calls.

California-based LEO Technologies, which operates Verus, says it has scanned close to 300 million minutes of calls going in and out of prisons and jails in the United States, describing the tool as a way to fight crime and help keep inmates safe.

But a coalition of civil and digital rights groups said the surveillance sometimes overstepped legal limits by targeting conversations unrelated to the safety and security of detention facilities, or possible criminal activity.

"This surveillance infringes the rights of incarcerated Americans, many of whom have not been convicted and are still working on their defenses, as well as those of their families, friends, and loved ones," the groups wrote in a joint letter.

Four different letters were sent to the attorney general's office in New York State, the state's Inspector General and the federal Department of Justice (DOJ).

The DOJ provided a $700,000 grant to the sheriff's office in Suffolk County, New York, to implement a pilot of the AI-powered voice-to-text surveillance system in 2020.

Undersheriff Kevin Catalina, who helps run the Verus program in Suffolk, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that the system is crucial for alerting jail authorities to people who are suicidal and to identify gang members behind bars.

"It saves lives," he said.

A DOJ official said the department is reviewing technology programs receiving federal funding to ensure they are enhancing public safety while respecting constitutional rights.

A spokesperson for the New York State Inspector General's Office said in emailed comments that they would review the letter and "thoroughly investigate" complaints that are sent in.

More than 50 advocacy groups are part of the campaign, among them the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Worth Rises, the Innocence Project, and Access Now.

They also raised concerns about the prison phone call company Securus, and the possible recording of conversations protected by attorney-client privilege.

A Securus spokesperson said the company is committed to protecting civil liberties, that users can set attorney numbers to private - meaning calls are not recorded and cannot be monitored - and that they act immediately to delete "inadvertent" recordings.

A representative for LEO did not respond to requests for comment on the letters.

"It seems like the regulators have been asleep at the switch at the federal, state and local level," said Albert Fox Cahn, head of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, which helped draft the letter.

'Unproven, invasive, and biased'

As Suffolk County was trialing Verus, it also expanded beyond New York, winning state contracts in Georgia and Texas, and in local sheriff's departments across the United States.

The rights groups urged regulators to block further expansion of surveillance tools in prisons and jails, saying they have the potential to produce racial bias and undermine privacy rights, without any clear track record of success.

In their letter addressed to the DOJ's Civil Rights Division, the groups cited research showing voice-to-text tools have a much higher error rate for Black voices. Black people are disproportionately represented among U.S. prisoners.

"Even absent discrimination, Verus and similar technologies exceed prisons and jails' lawful surveillance powers," they wrote.

Documents obtained by the Thomson Reuters Foundation from the pilot site in Suffolk County showed Verus was used to analyze more than 2.5 million calls between its launch in April 2019 and May 2020 - leading to 96 "actionable intelligence reports."

While Catalina did not specify how many prisoners had been disciplined or faced charges based on those leads, he said the tool had helped prevent 86 suicides.

The rights groups also raised concerns about mission creep, noting the technology had been used to identify conversations that could flag problems for prison or jail administrators - such as complaints about their response to COVID-19.

Catalina said the sheriff's office reviews all its surveillance strategies on a monthly basis to make sure that their terms used in the Verus system are appropriate, and that it has never found any issues.

The surveillance of detainees' phone calls is especially troubling in county jails, where people are frequently held before being convicted of any crime, said Bianca Tylek, executive director of criminal justice nonprofit Worth Rises.

"People who are innocent, (who) have the presumption of innocence, who cannot afford bail ... should not be subjected to surveillance that no one else is," said Tylek.

Besides infringing the privacy of incarcerated people and their relatives, AI-powered surveillance in prisons and jails could also lead to increases in the cost of phone calls for prisoners, rights campaigners fear.

The average 15-minute phone call from a jail already costs $5.74, according to a 2019 report from the Prison Policy Initiative, while 2015 research found more than a third of families reported getting into debt to pay for calls or visits.

Worth Rises, which has been pushing to reduce the cost of prison phone calls across the country, is urging state and local law enforcement to offer calls for free.

Emails between LEO and sheriff's offices, which were obtained through public records requests, show use of LEO's Verus system could cost as much as 8 cents per minute.

They also give a picture of how the company worked in tandem with law enforcement officials to raise funds - enlisting PR personnel, helping draft federal grant proposals, and making appeals to lawmakers.

In Suffolk County, the Sheriff's office discussed plans to pass the cost onto prisoners themselves if grant funding ran out, the emails reveal.

The office said that while it had considered passing along the costs to prisoners, they ultimately decided not to.

Tylek said the federal government should not be funding pilots involving systems like Verus, warning that authorities rarely relinquish surveillance powers once they have been granted.

"It (becomes) almost impossible to pull it out," she said.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

MALTA

Tax chief flew to Las Vegas with abduction gang boys


Christian Borg was summoned for tax audit two months before Las Vegas trip over company which today has €22 million in accumulated losses, despite flaunting wealth and luxury cars
 
13 February 2022, 9:35am
by Matthew Vella / Luke Vella



The former Commissioner of Revenue, Marvin Gaerty, flew to Las Vegas in 2018 together with two of the men who stand charged with the abduction and assault of a man in Rabat.

Gaerty, who stepped down from his powerful role at the end of January, flew in October 2018 with Christian Borg and Tyson Grech, to watch the historic clash between MMA fighters Khabib Nurmagomedov and Conor McGregor in Las Vegas.

Tyson Grech (left) and Christian Borg at the lucrative Caesars Palace hotel in Las Vegas (Photo: Facebook)

But the holiday came just under two months after Borg, 28, was summoned by the Tax Compliance Unit for an audit of his company Princess Holdings.

At that time, Borg and Grech, were running their car rental business and dealership, but had not yet submitted a single set of their annual accounts for Princess Holdings and No Deposit Cars.

Tyson Grech (left) and Christian Borg (Photo:Facebook)

As the accounts filed in January 2022 show, Princess Holdings amassed €22 million in accumulated losses, despite Borg and Grech, 26, flaunting their wealth on social media with snaps of their holidays and supercars. Now they stand accused of having abducted a man whom they threatened to have his fingers cut.

MaltaToday has established that Borg, Grech and Gaerty all travelled together from Malta to Las Vegas in October 2018.The three tickets were booked together on the same reservation. The three men were seated next to each other on the Air Malta flight from Malta to Frankfurt on 3 October.

According to a social media photo posted by Tyson Grech at the time, he snapped a photo of the Skyscanner website with a pending selection for the flights Malta-Frankfurt-Las Vegas and back – priced at £3,645 individually but at a total of £10,934, or for three tickets. A return ticket was booked for return on the 8 October. The Nurmagomedov-McGregor fight took place on 7 October, at 4am.

A screengrab uploaded on social media by Tyson Grech showing a provisional booking for flights to Las Vegas (Photo:Facebook)

Another photo by Tyson Grech on social media, shows Borg and him standing next to a Bentley they hired during their holiday. The same car appears in a drone photo snapped by Grech and Borg, seated in the back seat of the Bentley, with Gaerty at the wheel. The social media photo is tagged with the date 5 October 2018.

Then on 7 October 2018, Tyson Grech is snapped next to the same Bentley Continental, outside the MGM Grand, right before the Nurmagomedov-McGregor fight.

Tyson Grech with a Bentley in Las Vegas in October 2018 (Photo:Facebook)

In comments to MaltaToday, Gaerty said he had paid for the trip, event and accommodation for the MMA event “along with a group of Maltese people who attended this event”. Having met Borg at a boxing event, Gaerty however denied having a close friendship with Christian Borg.

“I know Christian Borg as I know many other people, including people in business. I know many people but my decisions were never compromised in any way, as I always stated publicly. I always keep separate my personal life from my work and treat everyone the same when it comes to taking decisions. I have always acted strictly in accordance with the law and department policy and procedures,” Gaerty told this newspaper.

Gaerty was also asked whether he saw it fit to investigate the tax affairs of Borg, given that up until December 2021 the accounts for Princess Holdings had never been filed. Now they are shown to have accumulated €22 million in losses.

“As you know I cannot provide any tax information due to confidentiality. I can state that the department always took full action in cases where taxpayers are not compliant with the law. In fact it is always up to the Tax Compliance department to initiate tax investigations, that is, to decide who to audit. I never get involved as to who they decide to audit – there is a special unit which decides who to audit,” Gaerty told MaltaToday.

Gaerty also said that as Commissioner for Revenue, it did not mean that he got involved or influenced the decisions taken by separate units within the department. “Those decisions are left entirely to the directors of the specific units. In fact, before I was appointed Commissioner there was a procedure whereby the Commissioner used to approve cases for investigations carried out by providing a delegation. I immediately removed this procedure when I was appointed and left such decisions entirely in the hands of the unit head.”

Tyson Grech (left) and Christian Borg in Las Vegas (Photo: Facebook)

Gaerty stepped down in January after nearly 10 years in office, and was replaced by Joseph Caruana, the permanent secretary at Ian Borg’s transport ministry.

Gaerty took up an advisory role on fiscal policy matters within the finance ministry.

Shortcomings in the way tax crimes are uncovered were highlighted as one of the leading reasons Malta was last year placed on the so-called greylist of untrustworthy financial jurisdictions by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).

Gaerty had already been in the headlines in the past, questioned by the police in 2020 as part of an investigation into trading in influence involving Yorgen Fenech, who stands accused of conspiring to murder Daphne Caruana Galizia in 2017. An investigation into a 2014 message exchange between Gaerty and Fenech was closed with no charges brought.

Princess Holdings

The startling aspect of Christian Borg’s Princess Holdings, one of his main companies, is how it amassed €22 million in accumulated losses between 2016 and 2020.The accounts seen by MaltaToday show an adverse audit opinion for a company which is entirely supported by Borg, as shareholder, and where assets are funded mainly by creditors.

Since 2016, revenue climbed from just €10,000 to €988,000 in 2019, and then €254,000 in 2020.

But the company’s expenses, its cost of sales, climb from €2.9 million in 2017 to €7.2 million in 2020.The Princess Holdings accounts, filed only with the regulator at the beginning of January 2022, reveal a company backed by interest-free loans from its shareholder – €3.6 million – and €26 million from creditors.

Christian Borg (Photo:Facebook)

The accounts show that the company’s assets generate little revenue, and that if creditors call in what they are owed, there will be little to liquidate to pay them back. The accounts also suggest that the company operates without a bank account, resulting negative equity with losses year by year.

In the meantime, Princess Holdings seems to have booked €4 million in receivable VAT for 2020, over and above €2.7 million in 2019, €1.4 million in 2018, and €695,000 in 2017.

Borg is also sole shareholder in Princess Construction, which has €11 million in property acquisitions, according to its accounts.

His other company No Deposit Cars Malta is also backed by shareholders loans of €8.8 million in 2020, with some €10.8 million in second-hand vehicles registered as inventory.

READ ALSO: Rabat abduction: who are the men behind a car hire business empire?


Matthew Vella is executive editor at MaltaToday.
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Luke Vella joined MaltaToday as a reporter in 2021

US Congress expected to pass bipartisan resolution calling on UK to drop Troubles amnesty

Bloody Sunday

Christopher Leebody

BELFAST TELEGRAPH
February 13 2022 08:43 AM

A US House of Representatives resolution calling on the UK Government to drop plans for an amnesty on Troubles killings is expected to pass, according to The Times.

Some 35 congressmen and women, including senior Republican Party members, have co-sponsored the motion before the House foreign affairs committee, which also calls for the full implementation of the Northern Ireland Protocol.

According to Bill Keating, a Democratic congressman for Massachusetts, the bipartisan resolution – which also calls for the prosecution of army soldiers in relation to Bloody Sunday in 1972 – could be passed “in the next few weeks”.

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Mr Keating, who drafted resolution 888, told the newspaper: “Those of us in the US on both sides of the aisle feel America is part of the Good Friday agreement so we feel vested in its success.

“It is again being threatened on issues surrounding Brexit and the protocol. It was the UK that brokered the language [on] Brexit so they, in a sense, are trying to orphan their own child as this progresses.”

In July last year, the UK Government published a command paper outlining its intention to prohibit future prosecutions of military veterans and ex-paramilitaries for Troubles incidents pre-dating April 1998.

The proposals, which Prime Minister Boris Johnson said would allow Northern Ireland to “draw a line under the Troubles”, would also end all legacy inquests and civil actions.

The proposals are opposed by all the main parties at Stormont, the Irish government and many victims’ groups.

In November last year, twenty-one members of the US Congress are asking Secretary of State Antony Blinken to issue a public statement of opposition to the UK Government’s proposed Troubles amnesty.

The resolution is understood to have secured support from senior Democrats, including Congressman Richard Neal, chair of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee.

It has also won the backing of influential Republicans such as Elise Stefanik, who chairs the Republican Conference on Capitol Hill.

Resolution 888 calls: “Upon British authorities to charge individuals who committed unjustifiable crimes on Bloody Sunday [and] opposes any attempt by the British government to implement amnesty or statute of limitation laws that would end or inhibit investigations and prosecutions of crimes committed during the Troubles, including on Bloody Sunday”.

On the protocol, Mr Keating added: “I do think that Simon Coveney, the minister for foreign affairs, has been trying to find areas of agreement and we are hoping that Britain’s foreign secretary, Liz Truss, would be able to perhaps put new eyes on it.

“We’ve [tried] to demonstrate in a bipartisan sense in the US that we want to see success here as well.”

Arctic seed vault to receive rare deposits

Gwladys Fouche
Sun., February 13, 2022, 


: Television crews stand outside the Global Seed Vault before the opening ceremony in Longyearbyen

OSLO (Reuters) - A vault built on an Arctic mountainside to preserve the world's crop seeds from war, disease and other catastrophes will receive new deposits on Monday, including one from the first organisation that made a withdrawal from the facility.

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, on Spitsbergen island halfway between mainland Norway and the North Pole, is only opened a few times a year to limit its seed banks' exposure to the outside world.

On Monday, gene banks from Sudan, Uganda, New Zealand, Germany and Lebanon will deposit seeds, including millet, sorghum and wheat, as back-ups to their own collections.

The International Center for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA), which moved its headquarters to Beirut from Aleppo in 2012 because of the war in Syria, will deposit some 8,000 samples.

ICARDA made the first seed withdrawal from the vault in 2015 to replace a collection damaged by the war, and two further withdrawals in 2017 and 2019 to rebuild its own collections, now held in Lebanon and Morocco.

"The fact that the seed collection destroyed in Syria during the civil war has been systematically rebuilt shows that the vault functions as an insurance for current and future food supply and for local food security," said Norwegian International Development Minister Anne Beathe Tvinnereim.

The vault, which holds over 1.1 million seed samples of nearly 6,000 plant species from 89 seed banks globally, also serves as a backup for plant breeders to develop new crop varieties.

The world used to cultivate over 6,000 different plants but U.N. experts say we now get about 40% of our calories from three main crops - maize, wheat and rice - making food supplies vulnerable if climate change causes harvests to fail.

(Editing by John Stonestreet)

Lothian Pension Fund invests in US firm behind Grenfell cladding panels

Billy Briggs
February 13, 2022

Scotland’s second largest council pension fund has shares worth £847,000 in a firm that made the cladding panels found to be the main cause of the Grenfell Tower fire that killed 72 people.

Lothian Pension Fund (LPF) – which has 79,000 members and £7.5bn in assets – invests in a US engineering corporation called Arconic based in the city of Pittsburgh.

Arconic manufactured the cladding panels for London’s Grenfell Tower in France and its product was never put through the standard test widely used in the UK construction industry.

A campaign group established after Grenfell – End Our Cladding Scandal – said it was “shocked” to learn that LPF has shares in the American firm and called on the fund to review its investment.

The Ferret can also reveal that LPF invested in five major housebuilders accused of failing to resolve fire safety risks at other tower blocks across the UK, in the wake of the devastating fire.

The fund holds shares in Barratt, Bellway, Berkeley, Crest Nicholson and Persimmon. These firms have been under mounting pressure recently to address urgent safety problems.

Will LPF ensure it lives up to its stated approach of responsible investment and ensure those developers in which it is invested, such as Barratt, Bellway, Berkeley, Crest Nicholson and Persimmon, cease playing games with our lives and now, finally act to do the right thing?Spokesperson for End Our Cladding Scandal

In response LPF said it had engaged with housebuilders post-Grenfell to “ensure that problematic cladding is removed/replaced and lessons learned for the future”.

The aftermath of the tower block fire in 2017, due to flammable cladding, led to the discovery of safety defects in buildings across the country, leaving leaseholders facing thousands of pounds worth of fire safety costs. Many people cannot afford the massive bills they now face.

Removing cladding can cost millions of pounds per block. The cost has often been passed on to flat owners under the leasehold system in England and Wales.

Many leaseholders have also seen sharply increasing service charges, and some have had to pay for so-called “waking watch” fire wardens.

In Scotland, it emerged last year that almost 400 buildings, including tower blocks, have a potentially deadly type of cladding. But the Scottish Government has not made public the sites of those buildings, arguing it was not in the public interest to reveal them.

The End Our Cladding Scandal campaign, set up to support people affected by the crisis, has been calling on the UK Government to lead an urgent, national effort to fix building safety issues.

A spokesperson for the campaign questioned LPF’s investments, pointing out it emerged during phase one of the Grenfell Tower inquiry that Arconic’s cladding panels were found to be the “primary cause” of the fire.

“We are shocked that Lothian Pension Fund has chosen to invest in Arconic,” the spokerson added.

Part of the top floors of the Grenfell Tower block of council flats in which at least 80 people are thought to have been killed following a fire in Kensington, West London. Photo Credit: iStock/Amanda Lewis

Pointing to LPF’s website, which states the fund has a responsibility to take environmental, social and governance issues seriously, the spokesperson questioned how this “noble statement sits alongside the disgraceful behaviour of Arconic” They also questioned whether LPF has “pursued its policy of ‘constructive engagement’ with Arconic?”

Arconic initially refused to hand over documentation to the Grenfell Tower Inquiry, and only did so after a European Investigation Order was served by the Metropolitan Police, the spokesman pointed out.

Regarding firms under pressure to resolve fire safety risks in the UK, End Our Cladding Scandal accused them of “PR spin” and continuing to “hide behind vague statements of meeting regulations at time of construction or saying they are doing the right thing”.

The spokesperson continued: “Will LPF ensure it lives up to its stated approach of responsible investment and ensure those developers in which it is invested, such as Barratt, Bellway, Berkeley, Crest Nicholson and Persimmon, cease playing games with our lives and now, finally act to do the right thing?”

“The time for passing the buck is over – this was a collective state and industry failure and both must play their part in ensuring this living nightmare is finally brought to an end.”

In reply LPF said its policy on responsible investment is “informed by a fiduciary duty owed to members and employers”, set out in law, to invest for the best returns and to ensure pension benefits can be paid when they fall due.

The fund added it has a “transparent approach” and publishes all investments on its website along with information on how it invests. This includes information on how its investment team integrates environmental, social and governance into its decision-making to “ensure that both the financial and non-financial factors are taken into account”.

LPF’s spokesperson added: “We are as horrified by the Grenfell Tower tragedy as everyone else, and we fully support the view that individuals and companies should be held to account for wrongdoing.

“Responsible investment is about assessing the future prospects of companies and influencing positive change, and we focus our efforts on working with our investee companies to improve business practices.

“Over the past 12 months, we and our engagement provider have engaged directly on this issue with companies we hold within the UK housebuilder and construction industry to ensure that problematic cladding is removed/replaced and lessons learned for the future.”

Last month Michael Gove MP, secretary of state for housing, sent a letter to the development community urging them to work with him to deliver a lasting solution to this crisis. He asked companies to make financial contributions to a fund to “cover the full outstanding cost to remediate unsafe cladding on 11-18 metre buildings, currently estimated to be £4bn”.

Arconic did not reply to our requests for a comment, but a statement on its website details the firm’s policy on social responsibility.

It says: “We value human life above all else and are committed to operating worldwide in a safe, responsible manner which respects the environment and the health of our employees, our customers and the communities where we operate.


“Our focus on safety also includes an ongoing commitment to maintaining a secure work environment that respects the dignity and worth of every employee, which drives our continuous improvement approach in our robust safety programs.”

A spokesperson for Barratt said: “We do not believe that leaseholders should have to pay for necessary remediation work at their developments and we are working with managing agents and building owners to find suitable solutions to support leaseholders and residents in buildings we built.”

A spokesperson for Bellway said: “Bellway takes fire safety of our developments extremely seriously, and we have invested significant resources into tackling fire and building safety issues head on.

“We fully appreciate at the heart of the issue is the need to ensure leaseholders and residents feel safe in their homes, which is why since 2017, Bellway has committed £164.7m to make fire safety improvements where we are responsible, or to put in place interim fire safety measures at no cost to leaseholders.”

Crest Nicholson did not reply to our requests for a comment but a statement on its website details its policy on “community engagement”. It says: “We always aim to deliver positive impacts in the communities in which we operate. We engage with local communities to listen and understand any concerns they may have over new development.

“We are committed to bilding (sic) the right infrastructure and community spaces for the benefit of new and existing residents. We are proud to deliver many initiatives which provide increased social value and deliver a positive outcome for all those involved.”

Berkeley did not reply to our requests for a comment but its website states: “Berkeley has always been driven by a clear purpose – to build quality homes, strengthen communities and improve people’s lives. We have established a unique culture, and strong values that shape the way we work, and haven’t changed since our inception.

Persimmon declined to comment but its website says: “Building homes our customers love and happily live in for many years is at the heart of our entire business.

“Customer care is fully embedded into our ethos, with growing customer satisfaction ratings reflecting the hard work and effort that our colleagues put in every day. Our work continues to ensure every customer has an excellent experience of engaging with our business.”

Norway’s state investment fund, NBIM, has also been asked to pressure cladding firms and builders to fix fire safety issues, by the campaign. NBIM is an investor in three companies that were involved in producing materials used on Grenfell Tower including Arconic.

Last month End Our Cladding Scandal called on Norges Bank to pull £5.7bn of funds from companies if they fail to do so.

Photo Credit: iStock/Amanda Lewis

US senator admits failure of anti-Iran maximum pressure policy

February 13, 2022 - 10:50 AM News Code : 1228949 Source : IRNALink: 

The number of American politicians, who acknowledge adopting maximum pressure in dealing with Iran bore no fruit, is increasing and now US Democratic Senator Chris Murphy admits failure of the strategy, underlining the need for an agreement with Tehran.

AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): The number of American politicians, who acknowledge adopting maximum pressure in dealing with Iran bore no fruit, is increasing and now US Democratic Senator Chris Murphy admits failure of the strategy, underlining the need for an agreement with Tehran.

"Iran" newspaper published a memo on Sunday reviewing the acknowledgement, writing that Senator Murphy wrote an article for the Time magazine, criticizing policies of the previous administration in the US concerning their withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) warning that failures following adopting such a policy has left President Joe Biden with no option other than to reach an agreement with the Islamic Republic.

In the article, the senator emphasized that Iran complied with its commitments, restricted big part of its nuclear program and allowed international inspectors to monitor its nuclear facilities.

He further pointed to the current negotiations in Vienna, Austria, to revive the JCPOA and remove anti-Iran sanctions, saying that the Biden administration has been trying to return Iranians to negotiating table, but Tehran is completely reluctant because of what happened before following former president Donald Trump's move in May 2018.

Adhering to Trump's policy in the face of Iran for one month or one year seems to be a kind of madness, Murphy warned, noting that Biden's negotiating team should give necessary but intelligent concessions in order to resume a version of former president Barack Obama's nuclear agreement.

Answering opponents of lifting anti-Iran sanctions, the American politician mentioned that the United States have not benefited from the imposition of sanctions, and that the Trump-led sanction policy has been shamefully ineffective.

Ned Price, Spokesman for the United States Department of State, had emphasized that Trump promised that the maximum pressure would halt Iran's nuclear program, but the policy failed to achieve the objective.
In recent days, Former National Security Advisor of the United States John Bolton accepted that using rhetoric such as military option is a vain threat, and that the incumbent US administration is so weak that "Biden seems willing to do almost anything to put the deal back in place."

It is worth mentioning that Senator Murphy's article on the United States' only option to revive the nuclear deal shows the fact that American politicians are facing the reality that Iran has succeeded in exporting oil despite sanctions and the Islamic Republic has established good cooperation with its neighboring states and allies such as Russia and China, which allows Tehran to dodge the maximum pressure.

The increase of oil prices amid Ukraine crisis as well as the unprecedented inflation rate in the United States are serious challenges for the Biden administration, while Iran's oil export to world markets can help decrease the energy price; so, an agreement with Tehran would be beneficial for Washington ahead of upcoming congressional elections.