USA
Blinding health-care consumers: Hospitals shamefully dodge a federal rule demanding price transparency
Daily News Editorial Board, New York Daily News
Sun, February 27, 2022
A year after a federal appeals court upheld a government regulation requiring hospitals to publish their prices — a rule rooted in the 2010 Affordable Care Act, fought tooth and nail since, then finally advanced during the Trump administration after legal challenges failed — the institutions are flouting the mandate. In a report this month, PatientRightsAdvocate.org found that just 14% of 1,000 randomly selected hospitals nationwide were in full compliance. In New York State, just two of 22 were. In New York City and Long Island, none of 12 were.
That contempt for consumers is supposed to result in penalties of up to $2 million a year. Bring on the transparency or bring on the fines.
As anyone who’s ever asked for an itemized bill after being treated and discharged can attest, trying to make sense of it all can make you sick all over again. Hospitals negotiate wildly variable rates with different insurers, and also have a discounted cash price for those who pay upfront. But for years, many of those institutions have done everything in their power to keep the numbers fuzzy or hidden, lest those who actually pay for the services — insurers and ultimately patients and their employers — start asking why one provider charges double another for the same knee replacement or colonoscopy or c-section delivery, with no meaningful difference in quality.
Americans’ blindness on who charges what and why is one of the big reasons health-care costs here are twice those in comparable countries. Every time they grow, they take a bigger bite out of wages.
No, shopping around on a medically necessary procedure isn’t the same as hunting down the best deal on a TV — there are all kinds of reasons price sensitivity will always be different in health care — but the only way to begin to build a more functional marketplace is by telling the people who pay the bills what costs how much and why so the informed scrutiny can begin in earnest. There’s no second opinion.
Sunday, February 27, 2022
Tiny robots made in Mexico to explore moon in scientific first
Alberto Fajardo
Fri, February 25, 2022,
By Alberto Fajardo
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Five tiny robots designed and made in Mexico will blast off for the moon later this year, part of a first-of-its-kind scientific mission that envisions the two-wheeled bots scrambling across the lunar surface while taking sophisticated measurements.
The so-called nano robots developed by researchers at Mexico's National Autonomous University (UNAM) will work together like a swarm of bees, the senior scientist told Reuters, once they make the nearly 240,000 mile (386,000 km) trip from earth aboard a rocket from closely held U.S. firm Astrobotic Technology.
The mission is poised to launch on a United Launch Alliance Vulcan rocket and would be the first American spacecraft to land on the moon in nearly 50 years.
"This is a small mission where we'll test the concept, and afterwards we'll undertake other missions, first to the moon and then on to asteroids," said Gustavo Medina Tanco, a UNAM scientist who heads the Colmena project, which means "beehive" in Spanish.
Medina Tanco explained that the bots, made of stainless steel, titanium alloys and space-grade aluminum, are equipped to gather lunar minerals that could be useful in future space mining.
On a recent tour of UNAM's space instruments lab, Colmena team members tested a launch device for the wafer-thin almost 5-inch-diameter (12 cm) disk-shaped robots, which are designed to communicate with one another as well as with an earth-based command center.
The bots are scheduled to launch in June on Astrobotic's Peregrine lander, originally developed for Google's Lunar-X-Prize.
During their month-long mission, the nano robots will take first-ever lunar plasma temperature, electromagnetic and regolith particle size measurements, according to an UNAM article on the project published earlier this month.
Medina Tanco expressed pride about the upcoming mission, that also included contributions from some 200 engineering, physics, math and chemistry students.
"No one has done this, nobody, not just in Mexico," he said.
"We can make a difference in the technology and for international cooperation that can then lead to important joint ventures to study the minerals or undertake other scientific exploration."
(Reporting by Alberto Fajardo; Writing by David Alire Garcia; editing by Diane Craft)
Alberto Fajardo
Fri, February 25, 2022,
By Alberto Fajardo
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Five tiny robots designed and made in Mexico will blast off for the moon later this year, part of a first-of-its-kind scientific mission that envisions the two-wheeled bots scrambling across the lunar surface while taking sophisticated measurements.
The so-called nano robots developed by researchers at Mexico's National Autonomous University (UNAM) will work together like a swarm of bees, the senior scientist told Reuters, once they make the nearly 240,000 mile (386,000 km) trip from earth aboard a rocket from closely held U.S. firm Astrobotic Technology.
The mission is poised to launch on a United Launch Alliance Vulcan rocket and would be the first American spacecraft to land on the moon in nearly 50 years.
"This is a small mission where we'll test the concept, and afterwards we'll undertake other missions, first to the moon and then on to asteroids," said Gustavo Medina Tanco, a UNAM scientist who heads the Colmena project, which means "beehive" in Spanish.
Medina Tanco explained that the bots, made of stainless steel, titanium alloys and space-grade aluminum, are equipped to gather lunar minerals that could be useful in future space mining.
On a recent tour of UNAM's space instruments lab, Colmena team members tested a launch device for the wafer-thin almost 5-inch-diameter (12 cm) disk-shaped robots, which are designed to communicate with one another as well as with an earth-based command center.
The bots are scheduled to launch in June on Astrobotic's Peregrine lander, originally developed for Google's Lunar-X-Prize.
During their month-long mission, the nano robots will take first-ever lunar plasma temperature, electromagnetic and regolith particle size measurements, according to an UNAM article on the project published earlier this month.
Medina Tanco expressed pride about the upcoming mission, that also included contributions from some 200 engineering, physics, math and chemistry students.
"No one has done this, nobody, not just in Mexico," he said.
"We can make a difference in the technology and for international cooperation that can then lead to important joint ventures to study the minerals or undertake other scientific exploration."
(Reporting by Alberto Fajardo; Writing by David Alire Garcia; editing by Diane Craft)
Whoever Controls the Moon Controls the Solar System
Passant Rabie
Sat, February 26, 2022
Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway and Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty
In 1961, U.S. President John F. Kennedy declared that his nation would be the first to land a man on the moon. That ambitious goal would later be fulfilled as two NASA astronauts took wobbly steps across the lunar surface on July 20, 1969, much to the dismay of Russia’s own space program leaders.
More than 60 years later, a new space race to the moon has begun, albeit with much higher stakes and brand new players ready to make the 238,855-mile journey. This time, the race to the moon is about much more than just planting a flag on its dusty surface. Getting to the moon first could also mean calling dibs on its limited resources, and controlling a permanent gateway to take humans to Mars—and beyond.
Whether it’s NASA, China, Russia, or a consortium of private companies that end up dominating the moon, laying claim to the lunar surface isn’t really about the moon anyway—it’s about who gets easier access to the rest of the solar system.
Everyone’s Got an Agenda
James Rice, a senior scientist at the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University, remembers growing up with the Apollo program and getting bitten by the space bug as he watched the 1969 moon landing unfold on television.
“As a kid, I saw that happening and I wanted to be a part of it,” Rice told The Daily Beast. “That’s basically why I’m in this career today.”
As Rice reflected on the current space race, he recognized some key differences. “Things have really changed dramatically in terms of the technology and the players that are out there,” he said. “This is not the moon we thought of during the Apollo days.” Scientists have learned so much more about the moon through more detailed analysis of lunar samples, as well as several missions that have probed exactly what might be sitting on the moon’s surface and remain hidden deep underground.
Though we have known for over a decade that the moon is probably teeming with reserves of water ice, NASA announced just last year that it had found the best evidence yet that water trapped in icy pockets were far more spread out across the lunar surface than previously believed. The discovery further fueled the idea of building a permanent base on the moon, which astronauts could then use to reach Mars and other celestial destinations.
Conceptual art for a NASA-led astronaut base involving water ice prospecting and mining.
NASA
Why is this such a big deal? Water is a precious resource for space travelers—not just for astronauts to drink, but also to turn into rocket fuel to use to blast off.
Remember your grade-school science here: Water is made of hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen is known to be the most efficient rocket propellant whereas oxygen can be combined by fuel to create combustion. The ability to break down all that water ice on the moon means you have access to both of its constituent elements—an enormous supply of rocket fuel. (And as an added bonus, you can use any excess oxygen as breathable air for astronauts.)
Finding these resources on the moon is much better than transporting them from Earth. Packing resources to space comes at a hefty price—it costs about $10,000 just to launch a payload weighing a single pound into Earth’s orbit, according to NASA. It could be far less costly to use what the moon has to offer to build a lunar pitstop to cosmic destinations.
“I think the moon has been placed as this midpoint, or first step towards Mars,” Casey Dreier, senior space policy adviser at The Planetary Society, told The Daily Beast. “It’s not an end destination.”
In other words, going back to the moon is not really about the moon, at least not entirely. It’s a gateway to truly larger space ambitions. That’s why Artemis—NASA’s new lunar exploration program—has been consistently touted not as simply a redux of Apollo, but rather the initial foundation for a permanent presence on the moon.
Acting NASA Administrator Steve Jurczyk, left, and Rick Gilbrech, director of NASA's Stennis Space Center, right, watch as the core stage for the first flight of NASAs Space Launch System rocket undergoes a second hot fire test in the B-2 Test Stand on March 18.
NASA/Robert Markowitz via Getty
Martha Hess, the director for human exploration and spaceflight at the Aerospace Corporation, a nonprofit for technical guidance on space missions, echoed those sentiments. “This time, the moon is a training ground, and Mars is the destination,” she told The Daily Beast.
Today’s space race is also not merely between competing nations and political ideologies. It also involves private companies trying to pursue profits. “We are at a unique point in time where our economy and technology are aligned, allowing for private and commercial investment in space based capabilities,” said Hess. “This investment takes the pressure off government agencies to sustain the industry.”
Private companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin are also looking beyond the moon. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has an obsessive vision of going to Mars and terraforming the planet to make it suitable for human colonization. Blue Origin’s Jeff Bezos is looking to be a dominating player in the field of commercial space travel, transporting (probably very wealthy) citizens to the moon or beyond.
“Private companies have their own long term goals that exist outside of the national space program,” Dreier said. “They’ll do whatever NASA asks them to do, they don’t care whether NASA is going to the moon or Mars.”
A fight over resources
Something that will define the upcoming moon race is the fact that not every region on the moon is equal in value. “There are limited places to go, and it’s all about location,” Rice said.
Just as the California gold rush of the 19th century was defined by where the gold was found, so too will the water rush to the moon be defined by where the water is stored. The U.S. is looking to build its lunar base at the moon’s south pole, where there is thought to be a wealth of water ice reserves.
Moreover, the south pole is a wellspring for fulfilling energy needs: It’s exposed to more sunshine than anywhere else on the moon, which would fuel solar panels and supply power to the base.
Li Xianhua, China Academy of Sciences academician and Institute of Geology, speaks during a press conference in Beijing on Oct. 19.
Noel Celis/AFP via GettyMore
And with no clear space laws currently in place over ownership of objects in space, lunar resources may very well come down to whoever calls dibs first.
Who else wants to build a base on the moon’s south pole? For starters, there’s China, which recently announced long-term plans to build a base on the moon with Russia. Its more distant goal, of course, is to send a crewed mission to Mars by the year 2033.
The Chinese Lunar Exploration Program, or the Chang’e Project, is relatively new to the scene but has already made great strides. In Jan. 2019, the country’s Chang’e-4 lunar probe was the first spacecraft in history to safely land on the far side of the moon. In Dec. 2020, the Chang’e-5 mission returned samples from the lunar surface. Those new moon rocks are already paying off in new scientific revelations. .
China’s space agency recently approved three more missions to the moon, targeting—you guessed it—the lunar south pole. The nation’s space program is hoping to land astronauts on the moon by the year 2030. Down the line, we may see Chinese and American astronauts hanging out on the moon at the same time.
The finish line
Nevertheless, China and Russia don’t pose much competition to the U.S. as long as NASA doesn’t dawdle on its way back to the moon. “China is absolutely working on building up its capability,” Dreier said. “But I’d say they’re at least a decade behind, if not more, compared to the U.S. capability.”
First up on NASA’s agenda is Artemis I, an uncrewed test flight to the moon that is meant to debut the brand new Space Launch System (the biggest rocket system ever built) and the Orion crew capsule that will eventually take astronauts back to the moon. Launching tentatively in April, Artemis I will simply orbit the moon and come back to Earth. It won’t be until Artemis III, set to launch in 2025 (if you’re an optimist), that we’ll finally see human boots make it to the lunar surface.
Hess does believe, however, that China has one advantage over the U.S. that it could exploit to make speedy progress.
“China has the benefit of being able to establish a long-term plan and funding, which allows them the ability to chip away at their 30-50-100 year vision,” Hess said. “We don’t have that luxury; our plans are good for a presidential term, and our budgets are appropriated annually so our programs start, stop and starve.” Long-term exploration of the solar system isn’t actually something that’s crystallized in U.S. budgets for decades to come.
NASA estimates that the Artemis program will cost $86 billion by 2025. The current U.S. administration has made a $24.8 billion fiscal 2022 budget request for NASA to cover the return to the moon.
During the first space race, the agency spent $28 billion to land the first humans on the moon, which is about $280 billion when adjusted for inflation, according to The Planetary Society.
As the space program for each of the space race participants begins to take shape, policy makers are realizing that they need to update the laws at hand to better govern the new era of space exploration that’s about to launch.
Regardless of who gets to plant space boots on the moon next, there is an overarching benefit to human exploration as a whole.
“There's more to it than that because there's an inspiration to it that you can't put a price tag on,” Rice said. “It does something to you when you walk out there and look at the moon and now there are people out there doing something, that just resonates.”
Passant Rabie
Sat, February 26, 2022
Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway and Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty
In 1961, U.S. President John F. Kennedy declared that his nation would be the first to land a man on the moon. That ambitious goal would later be fulfilled as two NASA astronauts took wobbly steps across the lunar surface on July 20, 1969, much to the dismay of Russia’s own space program leaders.
More than 60 years later, a new space race to the moon has begun, albeit with much higher stakes and brand new players ready to make the 238,855-mile journey. This time, the race to the moon is about much more than just planting a flag on its dusty surface. Getting to the moon first could also mean calling dibs on its limited resources, and controlling a permanent gateway to take humans to Mars—and beyond.
Whether it’s NASA, China, Russia, or a consortium of private companies that end up dominating the moon, laying claim to the lunar surface isn’t really about the moon anyway—it’s about who gets easier access to the rest of the solar system.
Everyone’s Got an Agenda
James Rice, a senior scientist at the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University, remembers growing up with the Apollo program and getting bitten by the space bug as he watched the 1969 moon landing unfold on television.
“As a kid, I saw that happening and I wanted to be a part of it,” Rice told The Daily Beast. “That’s basically why I’m in this career today.”
As Rice reflected on the current space race, he recognized some key differences. “Things have really changed dramatically in terms of the technology and the players that are out there,” he said. “This is not the moon we thought of during the Apollo days.” Scientists have learned so much more about the moon through more detailed analysis of lunar samples, as well as several missions that have probed exactly what might be sitting on the moon’s surface and remain hidden deep underground.
Though we have known for over a decade that the moon is probably teeming with reserves of water ice, NASA announced just last year that it had found the best evidence yet that water trapped in icy pockets were far more spread out across the lunar surface than previously believed. The discovery further fueled the idea of building a permanent base on the moon, which astronauts could then use to reach Mars and other celestial destinations.
Conceptual art for a NASA-led astronaut base involving water ice prospecting and mining.
NASA
Why is this such a big deal? Water is a precious resource for space travelers—not just for astronauts to drink, but also to turn into rocket fuel to use to blast off.
Remember your grade-school science here: Water is made of hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen is known to be the most efficient rocket propellant whereas oxygen can be combined by fuel to create combustion. The ability to break down all that water ice on the moon means you have access to both of its constituent elements—an enormous supply of rocket fuel. (And as an added bonus, you can use any excess oxygen as breathable air for astronauts.)
Finding these resources on the moon is much better than transporting them from Earth. Packing resources to space comes at a hefty price—it costs about $10,000 just to launch a payload weighing a single pound into Earth’s orbit, according to NASA. It could be far less costly to use what the moon has to offer to build a lunar pitstop to cosmic destinations.
“I think the moon has been placed as this midpoint, or first step towards Mars,” Casey Dreier, senior space policy adviser at The Planetary Society, told The Daily Beast. “It’s not an end destination.”
In other words, going back to the moon is not really about the moon, at least not entirely. It’s a gateway to truly larger space ambitions. That’s why Artemis—NASA’s new lunar exploration program—has been consistently touted not as simply a redux of Apollo, but rather the initial foundation for a permanent presence on the moon.
Acting NASA Administrator Steve Jurczyk, left, and Rick Gilbrech, director of NASA's Stennis Space Center, right, watch as the core stage for the first flight of NASAs Space Launch System rocket undergoes a second hot fire test in the B-2 Test Stand on March 18.
NASA/Robert Markowitz via Getty
Martha Hess, the director for human exploration and spaceflight at the Aerospace Corporation, a nonprofit for technical guidance on space missions, echoed those sentiments. “This time, the moon is a training ground, and Mars is the destination,” she told The Daily Beast.
Today’s space race is also not merely between competing nations and political ideologies. It also involves private companies trying to pursue profits. “We are at a unique point in time where our economy and technology are aligned, allowing for private and commercial investment in space based capabilities,” said Hess. “This investment takes the pressure off government agencies to sustain the industry.”
Private companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin are also looking beyond the moon. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has an obsessive vision of going to Mars and terraforming the planet to make it suitable for human colonization. Blue Origin’s Jeff Bezos is looking to be a dominating player in the field of commercial space travel, transporting (probably very wealthy) citizens to the moon or beyond.
“Private companies have their own long term goals that exist outside of the national space program,” Dreier said. “They’ll do whatever NASA asks them to do, they don’t care whether NASA is going to the moon or Mars.”
A fight over resources
Something that will define the upcoming moon race is the fact that not every region on the moon is equal in value. “There are limited places to go, and it’s all about location,” Rice said.
Just as the California gold rush of the 19th century was defined by where the gold was found, so too will the water rush to the moon be defined by where the water is stored. The U.S. is looking to build its lunar base at the moon’s south pole, where there is thought to be a wealth of water ice reserves.
Moreover, the south pole is a wellspring for fulfilling energy needs: It’s exposed to more sunshine than anywhere else on the moon, which would fuel solar panels and supply power to the base.
Li Xianhua, China Academy of Sciences academician and Institute of Geology, speaks during a press conference in Beijing on Oct. 19.
Noel Celis/AFP via GettyMore
And with no clear space laws currently in place over ownership of objects in space, lunar resources may very well come down to whoever calls dibs first.
Who else wants to build a base on the moon’s south pole? For starters, there’s China, which recently announced long-term plans to build a base on the moon with Russia. Its more distant goal, of course, is to send a crewed mission to Mars by the year 2033.
The Chinese Lunar Exploration Program, or the Chang’e Project, is relatively new to the scene but has already made great strides. In Jan. 2019, the country’s Chang’e-4 lunar probe was the first spacecraft in history to safely land on the far side of the moon. In Dec. 2020, the Chang’e-5 mission returned samples from the lunar surface. Those new moon rocks are already paying off in new scientific revelations. .
China’s space agency recently approved three more missions to the moon, targeting—you guessed it—the lunar south pole. The nation’s space program is hoping to land astronauts on the moon by the year 2030. Down the line, we may see Chinese and American astronauts hanging out on the moon at the same time.
The finish line
Nevertheless, China and Russia don’t pose much competition to the U.S. as long as NASA doesn’t dawdle on its way back to the moon. “China is absolutely working on building up its capability,” Dreier said. “But I’d say they’re at least a decade behind, if not more, compared to the U.S. capability.”
First up on NASA’s agenda is Artemis I, an uncrewed test flight to the moon that is meant to debut the brand new Space Launch System (the biggest rocket system ever built) and the Orion crew capsule that will eventually take astronauts back to the moon. Launching tentatively in April, Artemis I will simply orbit the moon and come back to Earth. It won’t be until Artemis III, set to launch in 2025 (if you’re an optimist), that we’ll finally see human boots make it to the lunar surface.
Hess does believe, however, that China has one advantage over the U.S. that it could exploit to make speedy progress.
“China has the benefit of being able to establish a long-term plan and funding, which allows them the ability to chip away at their 30-50-100 year vision,” Hess said. “We don’t have that luxury; our plans are good for a presidential term, and our budgets are appropriated annually so our programs start, stop and starve.” Long-term exploration of the solar system isn’t actually something that’s crystallized in U.S. budgets for decades to come.
NASA estimates that the Artemis program will cost $86 billion by 2025. The current U.S. administration has made a $24.8 billion fiscal 2022 budget request for NASA to cover the return to the moon.
During the first space race, the agency spent $28 billion to land the first humans on the moon, which is about $280 billion when adjusted for inflation, according to The Planetary Society.
As the space program for each of the space race participants begins to take shape, policy makers are realizing that they need to update the laws at hand to better govern the new era of space exploration that’s about to launch.
Regardless of who gets to plant space boots on the moon next, there is an overarching benefit to human exploration as a whole.
“There's more to it than that because there's an inspiration to it that you can't put a price tag on,” Rice said. “It does something to you when you walk out there and look at the moon and now there are people out there doing something, that just resonates.”
POPULISM IS NOT PROGRESSIVISM
Tulsi Gabbard Slams Fellow Dems for Promoting Freedom Abroad While Undermining It at Home: ‘Hypocrites’
EVEN IF IT SOUNDS LIKE IT
Caroline Downey
Sat, February 26, 2022
Addressing the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Fla., Friday evening, former Democratic congresswoman and presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard accused the modern progressive movement of hypocrisy for punishing dissent at home while standing up for democracy abroad.
Making an unexpected appearance that ruffled feathers on both sides of the aisle, Gabbard noted the increasingly authoritarian trajectory of the modern Left.
“They’re hypocrites. They proclaim that we must go to war to spread democracy and freedom while they actively work to undermine our democratic republic and our freedoms right here at home,” she said.
As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine escalates, Gabbard criticized the Biden administration’s “neo-con, neoliberal” foreign policy, which she claims ships soldiers overseas to “be the policemen of the world… all in the name of ‘spreading democracy.'”
While the U.S. has increased its troop presence in Poland and other NATO countries to help process refugees fleeing the conflict, the Pentagon has not deployed troops to join the fight in Ukraine.
After taking on the Democratic Party’s alleged foreign policy failures, Gabbard slammed the Biden administration for punishing dissent at home. While a Democrat, Gabbard has differentiated herself from the party through her isolationist foreign policy views and her opposition to radical left-wing social ideology.
She said she’s observed that progressives exploit times of panic to tighten the government’s grip on the population.
“They use crises, emergencies, times of war, whether it’s a cold war or a hot war to embolden the security state and infringe on our liberties and our rights. We saw it with the Patriot Act, we saw it with Covid, we’re seeing it happening now in the name of ‘democracy’ as again our government works with Big Tech to censor misinformation about what’s going on with Russia’s war with Ukraine,” she said.
The former Army national guard major then slammed the Department of Homeland Security for using the specter of domestic terrorism to harass political opponents.
“Those in power see themselves as the high priests in a secular theocracy. This explains why they see those who disagree with them as heretics. So it’s not surprising that those who reject their leadership, these are the people who were targeted by Biden’s attorney general as domestic terrorists simply for holding anti-authority views,” she said.
“Basically what they’re telling us is ‘you are an enemy of the state if you dare to oppose or even question the president, his administration, or his policies. Shut up, step back, fall in line, or we’re coming after you.'”
She blasted Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for “resorting to genuinely authoritarian and tyrannical means” to squash the “peaceful mass protest” of the trucker convoy lobbying the government to end the cross-border vaccine mandate.
“The execution of emergency powers, freezing of bank accounts, seizure of children from parents, etc.” are all things that “could happen here,” she warned, if Americans aren’t vigilant.
“What are they so afraid of? Who are they afraid of? You know the answer, it’s simple. They’re afraid of us. They’re afraid of a free people,” she said to the crowd.
Gabbard lauded the parents of Loudoun County, Va. for their efforts to take back control of their children’s education. She bashed Attorney General Merrick Garland’s memo that mobilized the FBI and federal law enforcement to probe and potentially prosecute parents who allegedly leveled “threats” against school administrators.
“They’re fighting against boards of education and politicians who believe that parents don’t have the right to raise their own children,” she said.
Caroline Downey
Sat, February 26, 2022
Addressing the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Fla., Friday evening, former Democratic congresswoman and presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard accused the modern progressive movement of hypocrisy for punishing dissent at home while standing up for democracy abroad.
Making an unexpected appearance that ruffled feathers on both sides of the aisle, Gabbard noted the increasingly authoritarian trajectory of the modern Left.
“They’re hypocrites. They proclaim that we must go to war to spread democracy and freedom while they actively work to undermine our democratic republic and our freedoms right here at home,” she said.
As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine escalates, Gabbard criticized the Biden administration’s “neo-con, neoliberal” foreign policy, which she claims ships soldiers overseas to “be the policemen of the world… all in the name of ‘spreading democracy.'”
While the U.S. has increased its troop presence in Poland and other NATO countries to help process refugees fleeing the conflict, the Pentagon has not deployed troops to join the fight in Ukraine.
After taking on the Democratic Party’s alleged foreign policy failures, Gabbard slammed the Biden administration for punishing dissent at home. While a Democrat, Gabbard has differentiated herself from the party through her isolationist foreign policy views and her opposition to radical left-wing social ideology.
She said she’s observed that progressives exploit times of panic to tighten the government’s grip on the population.
“They use crises, emergencies, times of war, whether it’s a cold war or a hot war to embolden the security state and infringe on our liberties and our rights. We saw it with the Patriot Act, we saw it with Covid, we’re seeing it happening now in the name of ‘democracy’ as again our government works with Big Tech to censor misinformation about what’s going on with Russia’s war with Ukraine,” she said.
The former Army national guard major then slammed the Department of Homeland Security for using the specter of domestic terrorism to harass political opponents.
“Those in power see themselves as the high priests in a secular theocracy. This explains why they see those who disagree with them as heretics. So it’s not surprising that those who reject their leadership, these are the people who were targeted by Biden’s attorney general as domestic terrorists simply for holding anti-authority views,” she said.
“Basically what they’re telling us is ‘you are an enemy of the state if you dare to oppose or even question the president, his administration, or his policies. Shut up, step back, fall in line, or we’re coming after you.'”
She blasted Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for “resorting to genuinely authoritarian and tyrannical means” to squash the “peaceful mass protest” of the trucker convoy lobbying the government to end the cross-border vaccine mandate.
“The execution of emergency powers, freezing of bank accounts, seizure of children from parents, etc.” are all things that “could happen here,” she warned, if Americans aren’t vigilant.
“What are they so afraid of? Who are they afraid of? You know the answer, it’s simple. They’re afraid of us. They’re afraid of a free people,” she said to the crowd.
Gabbard lauded the parents of Loudoun County, Va. for their efforts to take back control of their children’s education. She bashed Attorney General Merrick Garland’s memo that mobilized the FBI and federal law enforcement to probe and potentially prosecute parents who allegedly leveled “threats” against school administrators.
“They’re fighting against boards of education and politicians who believe that parents don’t have the right to raise their own children,” she said.
CONSERVATIVE CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
CPAC Is Not Registered As A Foreign Agent, But Is Taking Money From Foreign Interests AnywayS.V. Date
Fri, February 25, 2022
ORLANDO, Fla. — Organizers of the CPAC conference have taken tens of thousands of dollars in sponsorship fees from foreign interests – including one which is actively advocating against legislation before Congress – without registering as foreign agents.
Neither Matt Schlapp, the chairman of the American Conservative Union, nor CPAC itself appears to be registered as a foreign representative under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, a circumstance that drew a complaint to the Department of Justice this week.
“There is sufficient evidence of alleged violations to support a federal criminal or civil investigation,” the complaint reads, according to a copy obtained by HuffPost.
The complaint names Schlapp, his wife, Mercedes Schlapp, a former Trump White House official and prominent player at the Conservative Political Action Conference, the American Conservative Union, the ACU Foundation, and Cove Strategies, Matt Schlapp’s consulting firm.
The complaint was provided to HuffPost on condition of anonymity by a conservative activist who would likely face retaliation in business relationships.
ACU officials did not respond to HuffPost’s queries about the complaint.
The Department of Justice FARA unit told HuffPost that it “does not comment on any activities the staff conducts in its efforts to enforce the Act, nor does it comment on compliance matters related to registered agents or other parties.”
CPAC is a production of the ACU Foundation, which is a 501(c)3 educational charity under the federal tax code. The group has posted prominent signs at the conference venue stating: “Electioneering is strictly prohibited. Those found to be electioneering may be asked to leave the premises.”
FARA, meanwhile, requires those who are paid to advance the interests of foreign entities in the United States to register that affiliation. At CPAC this year, foreign entities likely paid CPAC’s organizers at least $200,000 to participate in the four-day event.
Matt Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union,
speaks during the Conservative Political Action Conference in São Paulo,
Brazil, on Oct. 11, 2019.
(Photo: NELSON ALMEIDA/AFP via Getty Images)
The conference attracts a few thousand activists from around the country, but also dozens of sitting members of Congress and congressional candidates, several of whom are also paying CPAC for exhibition space while another dozen or so are appearing as featured speakers.
The foreign groups participating at CPAC include New Direction, a conservative think tank in Europe, CPAC Hungary, the Japanese Conservative Union, and CPAC Korea. According to CPAC’s own “sponsorship prospectus,” the groups were charged based on the size and prominence of their display space.
Based on the published tiers, CPAC Hungary was charged $15,000 for its 10-by-10-foot booth, while the Japanese Conservative Union and CPAC Korea each paid $75,000 for their 20-by-10-foot booths. Their packages also included three-minute videos to be shown from the main stage and two Facebook shares and two retweets from the CPAC social media accounts.
CPAC Korea’s video played Friday afternoon and urged viewers to sign a petition calling for the defeat of a House bill that would encourage a peace treaty between North and South Korea. The group is displaying signs and distributing literature from its booth in the exhibit hall telling attendees to “End the #fakepeace on the Korean peninsula act – OPPOSE H.R. 3446.”
This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.
The conference attracts a few thousand activists from around the country, but also dozens of sitting members of Congress and congressional candidates, several of whom are also paying CPAC for exhibition space while another dozen or so are appearing as featured speakers.
The foreign groups participating at CPAC include New Direction, a conservative think tank in Europe, CPAC Hungary, the Japanese Conservative Union, and CPAC Korea. According to CPAC’s own “sponsorship prospectus,” the groups were charged based on the size and prominence of their display space.
Based on the published tiers, CPAC Hungary was charged $15,000 for its 10-by-10-foot booth, while the Japanese Conservative Union and CPAC Korea each paid $75,000 for their 20-by-10-foot booths. Their packages also included three-minute videos to be shown from the main stage and two Facebook shares and two retweets from the CPAC social media accounts.
CPAC Korea’s video played Friday afternoon and urged viewers to sign a petition calling for the defeat of a House bill that would encourage a peace treaty between North and South Korea. The group is displaying signs and distributing literature from its booth in the exhibit hall telling attendees to “End the #fakepeace on the Korean peninsula act – OPPOSE H.R. 3446.”
This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.
DEJOY'S SABOTAGE
Biden Administration Suffers
Crushing Defeat For Electric Vehicle Pledge
The United States Postal Service is renewing its fleet of gas-powered
vehicles as the Biden administration promises a mostly-electric federal fleet.
Finally, there will be no twists or last-minute changes. The play will be played as originally written, despite pressure and controversy.
The United States Postal Service (USPS) has confirmed its deal with specialty vehicle manufacturer Oshkosh Corp (OSK) - Get Oshkosh Corp Report to finalize plans for between 50,000 and 165,000 gas-powered delivery vehicles.
Why This Was A Controversial Decision
The USPS/Oshkosh venture had been in limbo after the Biden administration urged the United States Postal Service to reevaluate its plans to electrify only 10% of its fleet of more than 200,000 vehicles.
The White House was looking to pause and reevaluate the USPS contract, which could have a total value of $11.3 billion over 10 years.
Part of the pushback comes from growing frustration with President Joe Biden's pledge to transform the country's entire fleet of 645,000 vehicles into electric vehicles. Of that 645,000, around 225,000 are post office vehicles.
But the management of USPS has just closed that door and decided to move forward with its plan to purchase its next-generation mail trucks with nearly all gasoline-powered vehicles.
The majority of its current trucks have been in service for more than two decades.
"USPS concludes there is no legal or other basis to delay the NGDV (the Next Generation Delivery Vehicle) program," said the group in a press release.
“As we have reiterated throughout this process, our commitment to an electric fleet remains ambitious given the pressing vehicle and safety needs of our aging fleet as well as our fragile financial condition," said USPS chief executive officer Louis DeJoy.
"As our financial position improves with the ongoing implementation of our 10-year plan, Delivering for America, we will continue to pursue the acquisition of additional BEV as additional funding — from either internal or congressional sources — becomes available.”
Shutterstock/TheStreet
The Process Needs to Keep Moving Forward
Last year, the USPS awarded Oshkosh Corp a 10-year contract, with an initial $482 million investment.
That will be used to finalize the production design and construction of between 50,000 and 165,000 of the next generation of the mail service's iconic right-hand-drive delivery vehicles.
But DeJoy said the plans for the new fleet need to keep an ongoing momentum.
'That's a good sign.' Manatee poop shows lettuce program for starving seacows may be working
Max Chesnes,
TCPalm | Treasure Coast Newspapers
Fri, February 25, 2022
They say hope comes in many forms. In the case of the ongoing effort to feed wild manatees, hope may come in the form of poop.
Since the unprecedented feeding experiment began in December, biologists have put out roughly 63,000 pounds of lettuce to feed sea cows, said Jon Wallace, a U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service joint unified command member, in a media call Wednesday.
In an early indication manatees are digesting the leafy provisions, response teams have noticed an uptick of manatee poo floating on the surface of the feeding site at Florida Power & Light's Cape Canaveral Clean Energy Center in Brevard County.
"We're seeing more fecal material in the warm-water site, which means that animals are eating — and they're eating enough for them to process the vegetation," said Ron Mezich of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
"That's a good sign."
What does manatee poop look like?
Manatees typically take seven days to fully digest their food. In the first week of the feeding trial, biologists saw "little to no" poop in the water, but it's been a regular observation since, Mezich said.
Never seen manatee excrement? Their average fecal material comes out in a compressed, cylindrical-shaped pellet called a "bolus." It's roughly the size of what a medium dog might produce, according to Mezich.
Like with any animal, diet and health may affect manatee fecal composition, Mezich said. Researchers collected fecal samples before winter, and have collected more samples since the feeding trial began for further analysis.
How can you help?: 2021 was a record year for Florida manatee deaths. Here are 5 ways you can help sea cows
"Seeing fecal matter from the manatees at the supplemental feeding trial shows that some of the animals there are eating enough food for them to process the vegetation and produce fecal material that was not evident early in the feeding trial," Mezich said.
Due to the size of the area and number of manatees nearby, it's difficult to quantify the amount of poop produced, Mezich said. Last week, manatees numbered anywhere from 60 to 500.
Romaine and butterleaf lettuce is purchased about three times a week from Belle Glade and Okeechobee-area farmers at about 60 cents a pound, Wallace said. Donations to the Fish and Wildlife Foundation of Florida are footing the bill.
Manatees typically take seven days to fully digest their food. In the first week of the feeding trial, biologists saw "little to no" poop in the water, but it's been a regular observation since, Mezich said.
Never seen manatee excrement? Their average fecal material comes out in a compressed, cylindrical-shaped pellet called a "bolus." It's roughly the size of what a medium dog might produce, according to Mezich.
Like with any animal, diet and health may affect manatee fecal composition, Mezich said. Researchers collected fecal samples before winter, and have collected more samples since the feeding trial began for further analysis.
How can you help?: 2021 was a record year for Florida manatee deaths. Here are 5 ways you can help sea cows
"Seeing fecal matter from the manatees at the supplemental feeding trial shows that some of the animals there are eating enough food for them to process the vegetation and produce fecal material that was not evident early in the feeding trial," Mezich said.
Due to the size of the area and number of manatees nearby, it's difficult to quantify the amount of poop produced, Mezich said. Last week, manatees numbered anywhere from 60 to 500.
Romaine and butterleaf lettuce is purchased about three times a week from Belle Glade and Okeechobee-area farmers at about 60 cents a pound, Wallace said. Donations to the Fish and Wildlife Foundation of Florida are footing the bill.
As of Thursday, roughly 96,605 pounds of lettuce were purchased from $97,400 in donations, according to foundation spokesperson Michelle Ashton. The nonprofit hopes to raise $150,000 to pay for the feeding through March.
Despite rescues, manatee death rate is still high
There's currently 82 manatees in rehabilitation facilities across 13 different facilities in Florida, Texas, Ohio and Puerto Rico, according to Teresa Calleson of Fish & Wildlife.
At least 31 manatees were rescued through Feb. 18, with roughly a third of those from Brevard County, according to the latest FWC data. Many are showing signs of emaciation along Florida's east coast.
Manatees that suffer from starvation take longer to heal, averaging anywhere from three to eight months, Calleson said. SeaWorld in Orlando has added emergency space to take on more animals.
Sea World rescue teams join the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission during a manatee rescue.
"Critical care space is always a challenge," said Jon Peterson, co-chair of the Manatee Rescue and Rehabilitation Partnership at SeaWorld. "This need doesn't stop at the end of the cold season this year. This is something that's going to carry on for awhile. A couple of years, maybe even longer."
Despite rescues and rehab, the manatee death rate is still high. At least 326 animals died through Feb. 18, according to FWC data updated Wednesday. That's nearly twice the five-year average from 2017 to 2022.
More wildlife news: Leatherback sea turtle nest is the earliest on record for Indian River County
Over two-thirds of those deaths, or 221, were in Brevard County. In just one week, there were 83 deaths statewide, with 53 logged at the die-off's epicenter in Brevard.
The deaths are pacing just behind last year, when a record 1,100 manatees died after starvation left many animals weak and emaciated.
Seagrass, their main food source, has withered away. Decades of human-caused pollution in the Indian River Lagoon has sparked repeated algal blooms, which block out sunlight and choke seagrass.
Max Chesnes is a TCPalm environment reporter focusing on issues facing the Indian River Lagoon, St. Lucie River and Lake Okeechobee.
This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: Florida manatees: Are starving seacows eating? Poop sightings offer hope
CRIMINAL CANNIBAS CAPITALI$M
Charles Hymas
Sat, February 26, 2022
Albanian gangs are cornering the market in cannabis farms as they exploit modern slavery laws to avoid prosecution, the National Crime Agency (NCA) has warned.
NCA investigators say Albanians have brought a ruthless professionalism to cannabis farming that has displaced the Vietnamese as the main domestically-produced source of the drug.
After gaining a stranglehold over the cocaine market in London and south east of England, Albanian gangs have in the past five years imported expertise gained from industrial-scale cannabis farming in their home country to the UK, according to the NCA.
“They have brought in their own expertise, their own cannabis growers - gardeners as we call them, their own electricians, their own facilitators, their own hydroponic setups. Everything you need to grow it successfully on an industrial scale, they have brought in,” said NCA intelligence manager Ged McCann.
“If you speak to any single police force, the biggest issue with cannabis at the moment is Albanians. With cannabis comes associated violence, mostly because other groups are trying to thieve off the Albanians and vice versa.
“That will lead to violence, firearms and a lot of stabbings and kidnappings and some fairly extreme violence. That’s something we are very conscious of at the moment. We think that it’s growing. That is a real issue for us.”
TELEMMGLPICT000283144625.jpeg
When police raid the disused industrial buildings or residential properties housing the cannabis farms, the “labourers” often claim that they are victims of trafficking and exploitation to avoid prosecution and deportation.
In its annual strategy report, the NCA noted that Albanian nationals were “increasingly reported as being exploited in cannabis cultivation in England and Wales, primarily influenced by changes in the control of the marketplace.”
However, an NCA source said: “They will claim they are victims of modern trafficking and should not be prosecuted. We genuinely believe they know what they're doing. They are not being forced into it. They are there to make good money.”
One case last summer saw four Albanian “gardeners” who were caught with 70 plants and 100kg of harvested cannabis in a house in south west Wales claim they feared for their safety if they returned to Albania because of unpaid debts to the gang that trafficked them into the UK.
One had been referred to the national system for victims of exploitation although the judge said their story - that they had been recruited to work in the farm by an Albanian they met in a local supermarket - required “a significant pinch of salt.”
Albanian gangs have moved into cannabis because it is “very, very low risk,” turns a good profit due to high demand - Britons consumed 240 tonnes of the drug worth £2.4 billion last year - and does not require risky cross-border transportation because it is home-grown, says the NCA.
”If someone is caught and arrested, they will not face much of a sentence. It is easy to set up. You don’t need an infrastructure in place. Put all that together with the unlimited cheap labour supply that they have got and it just makes a very cost effective way of working for them,” said Mr McCann.
The only major cost is setting up the lighting after which electricity is often stolen off the grid. “As to what percentage of the market is Albanian, we don’t really know. Anecdotally, most cannabis seizures in the UK have an Albanian link,” added Mr McCann.
Albanian gangs are dominant in the cocaine market in the south east of England, having established links with south American producers to bring the drug direct into Europe at cheaper cost and purer quality. They supply not only Albanian but also UK gangs as effective wholesalers for the drug.
Congress must act to stop illegal pot grows from polluting national forests in Sierra
Craig Kohlruss/Fresno Bee file
Gary Lasky and Rich McIntyre
Sat, February 26, 2022
Today there are thousands of cartel-controlled marijuana trespass plantings (grows) that are polluting California’s public lands and making many places we love to visit potentially dangerous. These operations have increased throughout California, including in the Sierra foothills and in our national forests where major cannabis farms have been discovered and reclaimed.
Local rivers, including the San Joaquin, flow from these public lands, and are the lifeblood for communities, agriculture and wildlife.
While many hoped that the legalization of cannabis would curb destructive trespass marijuana growing on our public lands, the unfortunate truth is that it has not. These dangerous operations continue to poison our forests and waters, and are now spilling onto private lands.
Trespass marijuana grows have devastating impacts. Cartel operators routinely cut trees, remove stream-side vegetation critical to many species of wildlife, and routinely use deadly and illegal pesticides, such as carbofuran, that contaminate both soil and water.
We all know how critical our water is in the Central Valley, especially during drought. Water for residential use and agriculture, an integral part of our economy, is increasingly threatened by cartel operations that divert and pollute water upstream of our farmers and residents. Statewide, it is estimated that trespass grows consume enough water to supply a town of 50,000 people for an entire year.
Moreover we now know that these trespass operations have been the cause of major wildfires throughout California. According to research done by the Cannabis Removal on Public Lands Project, trespass grows have burned a bare minimum of 285,000 acres (over 445 square miles) on California’s public lands, which have cost billions to suppress.
In addition to causing fires, trespass grow operations endanger firefighters, with many incidents of firefighters burned and being confronted by armed growers, who often set booby traps, weaponize pesticides, and leave explosive ammunition to deter firefighters and law enforcement.
Law enforcement officials commonly find banned and deadly pesticides like carbofuran, which impairs the nervous system and often causes death. Cartel operators use these pesticides to kill and prevent local wildlife from damaging their crop. One quarter of a teaspoon of carbofuran is enough to kill a 600-pound bear.
Those deadly pesticides do not stay in place; there is clear evidence of those chemicals going into public waters that connect to community water systems. The accelerating expansion of cartel marijuana grows on Central Valley lands presents a clear and present danger to public water supplies.
Our law enforcement on our public lands is outmanned and outgunned. On California’s 20 million acres of national forests, current staffing levels have only one officer responsible for protecting a minimum of 250,000 acres from these dangerous operations — in addition to their other duties.
If we are going to protect California’s public lands from the destruction of trespass grows, the federal government must increase its prevention and reclamation efforts. We can no longer accept that the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management remain woefully understaffed to prevent or even clean up after trespass operations.
Congress must act to stop this destruction, and hold the cartels responsible. The House of Representatives has voted to approve robust funding for the Forest Service and BLM to address this issue. Now is the time for the Senate to follow suit. We invite other members of Congress to join Rep. Jim Costa, D-Fresno, in urging the Senate to support the full appropriation, and report language addressing trespass grows.
It is time for bold and swift action to protect our land, water, and environment. Our communities are counting on it.
Gary Lasky is the legal chair of the Sierra Club’s Tehipite chapter.
Craig Kohlruss/Fresno Bee file
Gary Lasky and Rich McIntyre
Sat, February 26, 2022
Today there are thousands of cartel-controlled marijuana trespass plantings (grows) that are polluting California’s public lands and making many places we love to visit potentially dangerous. These operations have increased throughout California, including in the Sierra foothills and in our national forests where major cannabis farms have been discovered and reclaimed.
Local rivers, including the San Joaquin, flow from these public lands, and are the lifeblood for communities, agriculture and wildlife.
While many hoped that the legalization of cannabis would curb destructive trespass marijuana growing on our public lands, the unfortunate truth is that it has not. These dangerous operations continue to poison our forests and waters, and are now spilling onto private lands.
Trespass marijuana grows have devastating impacts. Cartel operators routinely cut trees, remove stream-side vegetation critical to many species of wildlife, and routinely use deadly and illegal pesticides, such as carbofuran, that contaminate both soil and water.
We all know how critical our water is in the Central Valley, especially during drought. Water for residential use and agriculture, an integral part of our economy, is increasingly threatened by cartel operations that divert and pollute water upstream of our farmers and residents. Statewide, it is estimated that trespass grows consume enough water to supply a town of 50,000 people for an entire year.
Moreover we now know that these trespass operations have been the cause of major wildfires throughout California. According to research done by the Cannabis Removal on Public Lands Project, trespass grows have burned a bare minimum of 285,000 acres (over 445 square miles) on California’s public lands, which have cost billions to suppress.
In addition to causing fires, trespass grow operations endanger firefighters, with many incidents of firefighters burned and being confronted by armed growers, who often set booby traps, weaponize pesticides, and leave explosive ammunition to deter firefighters and law enforcement.
Law enforcement officials commonly find banned and deadly pesticides like carbofuran, which impairs the nervous system and often causes death. Cartel operators use these pesticides to kill and prevent local wildlife from damaging their crop. One quarter of a teaspoon of carbofuran is enough to kill a 600-pound bear.
Those deadly pesticides do not stay in place; there is clear evidence of those chemicals going into public waters that connect to community water systems. The accelerating expansion of cartel marijuana grows on Central Valley lands presents a clear and present danger to public water supplies.
Our law enforcement on our public lands is outmanned and outgunned. On California’s 20 million acres of national forests, current staffing levels have only one officer responsible for protecting a minimum of 250,000 acres from these dangerous operations — in addition to their other duties.
If we are going to protect California’s public lands from the destruction of trespass grows, the federal government must increase its prevention and reclamation efforts. We can no longer accept that the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management remain woefully understaffed to prevent or even clean up after trespass operations.
Congress must act to stop this destruction, and hold the cartels responsible. The House of Representatives has voted to approve robust funding for the Forest Service and BLM to address this issue. Now is the time for the Senate to follow suit. We invite other members of Congress to join Rep. Jim Costa, D-Fresno, in urging the Senate to support the full appropriation, and report language addressing trespass grows.
It is time for bold and swift action to protect our land, water, and environment. Our communities are counting on it.
Gary Lasky is the legal chair of the Sierra Club’s Tehipite chapter.
Rich McIntyre is the eirector of Cannabis Removal on Public Lands Project.
EUROPE/ASIA
Albanian gangs corner market in cannabis farmsCharles Hymas
Sat, February 26, 2022
Albanian gangs are cornering the market in cannabis farms as they exploit modern slavery laws to avoid prosecution, the National Crime Agency (NCA) has warned.
NCA investigators say Albanians have brought a ruthless professionalism to cannabis farming that has displaced the Vietnamese as the main domestically-produced source of the drug.
After gaining a stranglehold over the cocaine market in London and south east of England, Albanian gangs have in the past five years imported expertise gained from industrial-scale cannabis farming in their home country to the UK, according to the NCA.
“They have brought in their own expertise, their own cannabis growers - gardeners as we call them, their own electricians, their own facilitators, their own hydroponic setups. Everything you need to grow it successfully on an industrial scale, they have brought in,” said NCA intelligence manager Ged McCann.
“If you speak to any single police force, the biggest issue with cannabis at the moment is Albanians. With cannabis comes associated violence, mostly because other groups are trying to thieve off the Albanians and vice versa.
“That will lead to violence, firearms and a lot of stabbings and kidnappings and some fairly extreme violence. That’s something we are very conscious of at the moment. We think that it’s growing. That is a real issue for us.”
TELEMMGLPICT000283144625.jpeg
When police raid the disused industrial buildings or residential properties housing the cannabis farms, the “labourers” often claim that they are victims of trafficking and exploitation to avoid prosecution and deportation.
In its annual strategy report, the NCA noted that Albanian nationals were “increasingly reported as being exploited in cannabis cultivation in England and Wales, primarily influenced by changes in the control of the marketplace.”
However, an NCA source said: “They will claim they are victims of modern trafficking and should not be prosecuted. We genuinely believe they know what they're doing. They are not being forced into it. They are there to make good money.”
One case last summer saw four Albanian “gardeners” who were caught with 70 plants and 100kg of harvested cannabis in a house in south west Wales claim they feared for their safety if they returned to Albania because of unpaid debts to the gang that trafficked them into the UK.
One had been referred to the national system for victims of exploitation although the judge said their story - that they had been recruited to work in the farm by an Albanian they met in a local supermarket - required “a significant pinch of salt.”
Albanian gangs have moved into cannabis because it is “very, very low risk,” turns a good profit due to high demand - Britons consumed 240 tonnes of the drug worth £2.4 billion last year - and does not require risky cross-border transportation because it is home-grown, says the NCA.
”If someone is caught and arrested, they will not face much of a sentence. It is easy to set up. You don’t need an infrastructure in place. Put all that together with the unlimited cheap labour supply that they have got and it just makes a very cost effective way of working for them,” said Mr McCann.
The only major cost is setting up the lighting after which electricity is often stolen off the grid. “As to what percentage of the market is Albanian, we don’t really know. Anecdotally, most cannabis seizures in the UK have an Albanian link,” added Mr McCann.
Albanian gangs are dominant in the cocaine market in the south east of England, having established links with south American producers to bring the drug direct into Europe at cheaper cost and purer quality. They supply not only Albanian but also UK gangs as effective wholesalers for the drug.
U.S. To Help Uzbekistan Explore New Shale Deposits
Editor OilPrice.com
Sat, February 26, 2022
Scientists from the United States will team up with experts from Uzbekistan to prospect for shale oil and gas deposits this year as Tashkent moves to ramp up production to tackle energy shortages and provide raw material for the gas-processing industry.
Experts from the United States Geological Survey, or USGS, a government science agency, will join scientists from Uzbekistan’s State Geology Committee to hunt for shale reserves in May, Dunyo, the Foreign Ministry’s news agency, reported.
The prospecting mission, taking place under an existing $2.3 million cooperation agreement, will seek reserves in three regions: Samarkand, Jizzakh in central Uzbekistan, and Surkhandarya in the south.
Another team will prospect for mineral resources, including metals, at deposits already identified in the Amantazau–Kuljuktau area of the Kyzylkum desert in central Uzbekistan.
The size of Uzbekistan’s proven gas reserves is a matter of debate. The government says it boasts 1.8 trillion cubic meters, while the BP Statistical Review of World Energy, the industry’s bible for such matters, puts them at 800 billion cubic meters.
The government hopes the Uzbek-US missions will further its target of boosting prospective reserves (which are not proven but have a good chance of commercial extraction) by 35 billion cubic meters of gas and 1 million tons of liquid hydrocarbons this year, via prospecting and exploration at 20 new fields.
The extraction of oil and gas from inside shale rock by injecting a high-pressure mixture of water, sand and chemicals is controversial because of the potential for the contamination of water supplies and air pollution, and the chances of causing earth tremors.
It also uses large quantities of water, a resource which is in short supply in Uzbekistan.
The government, however, sees fracking as one solution to realizing its ambitious vision for the gas industry.
It is targeting a 20 percent rise in gas output, which has been stagnant at somewhere below 60 billion cubic meters a year for a decade, by 2030.
According to official data, Uzbekistan produced 53.8 billion cubic meters of gas last year. That was up on the 47.1 billion cubic meters produced in 2020, when the pandemic strangled demand and the government slashed production, but down on the 57.4 billion cubic meters extracted in 2019. This year Tashkent is targeting a 4 percent rise in gas output, to 56.3 billion cubic meters.
But to achieve that leap in output by the end of the decade, it urgently needs to find new reserves.
Even while targeting that exponential rise, officials plan to end gas exports altogether by 2025.
In January, Tashkent suspended exports, almost all of which go to China, to redirect gas to generate power to tackle the energy shortages that grip Uzbekistan every winter. It has not stated when, or if, it plans to resume them.
The authorities will use the extra gas from halting exports and increasing output for power generation and for the petrochemical industry.
The government says it can generate far greater revenues from processing gas into fuel and in-demand products such as plastics than exporting it raw.
In December, Uzbekistan opened one of its flagship projects for the sector: a $3.6 billion gas-to-liquids plant that will process gas into diesel, liquefied gas and jet fuel.
Its annual output of 1.5 million metric tons will save Uzbekistan $1 billion per year in fuel imports, officials say.
By Eurasianet.org
Nike just wiped out more than $900 million of Foot Locker's market value
Nike (NKE) just stuck a size 12 basketball shoe into the groin of trusted vendor partner Foot Locker (FL) as it seeks to bank even more money from its $150-plus pairs of sneakers.
Shares of Foot Locker crashed nearly 35% on Friday — wiping out about $950 million in market value — as the sneaker retailer warned on lost business from its large customer this year. Foot Locker said no single vendor (in this case Nike) is expected to represent more than 60% of its business this year, down from 70% in 2021 and 75% in 2020.
"This change reflects Nike's accelerated strategic shift to direct-to-consumer and Foot Locker's ongoing brand and category diversification efforts," said Foot Locker CFO Andrew Page on an earnings call.
Added Foot Locker CEO Richard Johnson, "There was a concentration into some very specific styles that Nike certainly drives through their direct-to-consumer [business] and that's where the allocation pressure will be. We still have access to all of those products, we'll just see different quantities flowing our way."
The shift put a spotlight on a mixed end to the year for the sneaker seller.
Here is how Foot Locker performed compared to Wall Street estimates for the fourth quarter:
Net Sales: $2.34 billion vs. $2.33 billion
Same-Store Sales: +0.8% vs. +3.8%
Diluted EPS: $1.67 vs. $1.48
Foot Locker outlined cautious guidance for the year, in large part reflecting the shift in thinking by the team at Nike.
The company outlined full-year earnings of $4.25 to $4.60 a share, well below analyst forecasts of $6.56 a share. Sales are seen down 8% to 10%. Analysts were looking for a slight sales increase.
"We continue to be a strong strategic partner of Nike's and we are working on building complementary strategies to their direct-to-consumer growth. They are supportive of us in specifically basketball, kids and sneaker culture continues to be elevated. So, again I feel great about the relationship. We have ongoing dialogs with them as we plan our business. And this has been something in process for a while," Johnson added.
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