MURDERER OF LGBTQ CHECHEN'S

Ukraine forces say Chechen commander Magomed Tushayev killed near Kyiv


Volunteers make a masking net at a help center in Lviv in western Ukraine, on March 2. Photo by Oleksandr Khomenko/UPI | License Photo

March 3 (UPI) -- Ukrainian military officials say Chechen-Russian Gen. Magomed Tushayev, who has been accused of torturing and killing LGBTQ+ people in the past, was killed fighting in Ukraine.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces said Tushayev was killed Saturday in fighting north of Kyiv.

"Magomed Tushayev, the head of the 141st Motorized Regiment of the Kadyrov Guard, was destroyed!" the Ukrainian Armed Forces said in a tweet.

Tushayev was commanding a Chechen armored column in Ukraine when he was killed. Chechnya is a Muslim-majority constituent republic in southern Russia that has feuded with Moscow for years. Tushayev has been accused of killing LGBTQ+ Chechens in recent years during a violent crackdown ordered by Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov.

On Saturday, a convoy of 56 Chechen tanks was targeted by Ukrainian missile fire near the town of Hostomel and was wiped out, the Kyiv Independent reported.

A reporter for the Independent said that Tushayev was killed by Ukraine's elite Alpha Group.

The Chechen fighters were sent to assassinate Ukraine President Zelensky, according to Ukrainian security official Oleksiy Danilov.

Russian newspaper Pravda reported that Ukrainian forces received information about Tushayev's convoy and mission from someone claiming to be a Russian intelligence officer.

#HALTDEATHPENALTY #RIGHTTOLIFE

Expert testifies Okla. death row prisoners likely felt 'extreme pain' during executions

March 3 (UPI) -- An expert of anesthesiology has testified in trial challenging Oklahoma's lethal injection protocol that a prisoner the state executed last month was likely in "extreme pain."

Gail Van Norman, a professor at the University of Washington who has trained anesthesiology students for 36 years, told the court Wednesday that Gilbert Postelle attempted to make a fist after prison officials declared him unconscious during the lethal injection process. The state executed him Feb. 17 for killing four people in 2008.

"It was a purposeful movement," Van Norman said, according to The Oklahoman.

She said she believed with "virtual medical certainty" that Postelle, along with the state's three other most recent executed prisoners "experienced extreme pain and suffering.

Van Norman's testimony comes as part of a federal lawsuit filed by a group of Oklahoma death row prisoners challenging the state's lethal injection protocol.

Attorneys for the prisoners rested their case Wednesday, KOTV-TV in Oklahoma City reported. Witnesses from the Oklahoma Department of Corrections were expected to testify on behalf of the state later in the week.

The state announced Feb. 13, 2020, that it plans to resume executions, nearly six years after the use of an incorrect drug led to the botched execution of a convicted murderer.

RELATED Lawyers for Texas death row prisoner say judge, DA have conflict of interest

Gov. Kevin Stitt said that after mulling the option of using nitrogen gas to cary out executions, the state has now found a "reliable supply of drugs" to resume lethal injections.

Oklahoma's lethal injection protocol came under scrutiny in 2014 when Clayton Lockett died of a heart attack amid complications during his execution.

Autopsy reports released a year later indicated Oklahoma corrections officials used the wrong drug -- potassium acetate instead of potassium chloride -- during the process. Lockett complained of a burning sensation and attempted to raise his head and speak after doctors declared he was unconscious.

The same incorrect drug was delivered to corrections officials for use in the planned 2015 execution of Richard Glossip. Former Gov. Mary Ballin called off Glossip's execution with a last-minute, indefinite stay after she learned of the discrepancy.

Oklahoma carried out one other execution after Lockett's, that of Charles Warner in January 2015, before resuming executions in 2021.

After Warner's execution, the state had an unofficial moratorium on executions as it attempted to secure a supply of lethal injection drugs. Oklahoma uses a three-drug cocktail of midazolam, vecuronium bromide and potassium chloride.

Van Norman testified Wednesday that midazolam, which is supposed to make the execution painless, doesn't actually numb the pain. She compared it to anti-anxiety medications Valium and Xanax.

Instead, she said midazolam together with the muscle relaxant vecuronium bromide, leave the prisoners unable to express pain. She also noted that documentation from Postelle's execution listed "rocuronium" was used instead of "vecuronium bromide."

"We can't rule out that the wrong drug was given," she said.

The Oklahoma Department of Corrections said the mistake was a transcription error and that the correct drugs were given to Postelle.

State attorneys took issue with Van Norman's testimony relying on media accounts of Postelle's execution.

Executions in the United States have undergone changes in recent years after states started running out of the essential lethal injection drug pentobarbital. The European Union in 2011 voted to prohibit the sale of the drug and seven other barbiturates to the United States for use in torture or executions. Other pharmaceutical companies have refused to sell drugs for lethal injection purposes outright, and some will only sell if their name is kept confidential.

Now states are being forced to use new drug cocktails, scramble to restock their stores of drugs and review their lethal injection policies.

In 2018, Oklahoma's attorney general's office announced it would use nitrogen gas inhalation as its primary method of execution. Officials, though, had difficulty finding a manufacturer to sell a method for administering the gas for an execution. Additionally, state law says nitrogen hypoxia may be used for executions only if drugs for lethal injections are unavailable.

In addition to Postelle, Oklahoma has put to death three prisoners since its resumption of executions, including John Grant on Oct. 28, Bigler Stouffer on Dec. 8 and Donald Grant on Jan. 27.

CAPITALI$M IS ADDICTION

Purdue Pharma deal has families deflated, angry but hopeful

By JOHN SEEWER and DAVE COLLINS

1 of 6

Lynn Wencus of Wrentham, Mass., holds a sign for her son Jeff along with wearing a sign showing loved ones lost to OxyContin and Opioid overdoses, during a protest at Purdue Pharma headquarters in Stamford, Conn., Friday, Aug. 17, 2018. Wencus lost her son Jeff to a heroin overdose in 2017. OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma and virtually all U.S. states have agreed to a new settlement of opioid lawsuits. The deal reached Thursday, March 3, 2022, would require members of the Sackler family who own the drugmaker to pay $5.5 billion to $6 billion in cash. They also apologized. A bankruptcy judge must still approve the deal. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill, File)

For those who lost loved ones in the opioid crisis, making sure the family behind OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma paid a price was never just about money. What many wanted was a chance to confront the Sackler family face to face, to make them feel their pain.

While some may get that chance — at least by video — under a tentative settlement reached Thursday that also would force the Sacklers to pay out billions, the families still are coming away feeling empty, conflicted and angry yet again. There’s a bit of hope mixed in, too.

Nothing, though, will bring back any of the lives lost or hold the Sacklers fully accountable, in their eyes.

“I’d like to see the Sacklers bleed all they can, but the bigger picture for me is what they’re doing to clean up the mess,” said Vicki Meyer Bishop of Clarksburg, Maryland, who lost her 45-year-old son, Brian Meyer, in 2017. “We’re all so very worried about the next generation and the next child who will be lost.”

The Sacklers, whose wealth has been estimated in court filings at over $10 billion, will get to hang on to a chunk of their vast fortune and be protected from current and future civil lawsuits over opioids.

The deal announced Thursday, which must be approved by a federal bankruptcy judge, requires the Sacklers to pay as much as $6 billion, with $750 million for victims and their survivors. Most of the rest will go to state and local governments to fight the crisis. They also must give up ownership of their company, with the new entity’s profits going toward fighting opioid addiction through treatment and education programs.

Some of the survivors of the opioid crisis and relatives of those who died will receive payments. But most will get just a few thousand dollars — not even enough to reimburse the cost of a funeral — and many more who have not filed claims already will be shut out altogether.

“These families do need to get something,” said Beth Schmidt, who started a support group in Sykesville, Maryland, after her son Sean died in 2013, one of 13 lost in their town in little over a year. “We have families that can’t afford to bury their children. They’re choosing cremation because it’s less expensive. They shouldn’t have to do that.”

The agreement also recommends that the victims be allowed to directly share their heartache with Sackler family members by videoconference at a hearing scheduled for Wednesday.

Meyer Bishop would love to face the Sacklers and show them a picture of her son that’s “so big they couldn’t look away.”

“It’s what I see before I fall asleep every night,” she said. “I don’t even know if that would touch them. I don’t think it would.”

The Sacklers have been cast as the leading villains in the country’s opioid crisis by activists who point to their lack of remorse and long-running efforts to shield their wealth while maintaining a lavish lifestyle. Their role in the epidemic was spotlighted in Hulu’s miniseries “Dopesick.”

A half-million Americans have died from opioids over the past two decades, a toll that includes victims of prescription painkillers like OxyContin and Vicodin and illicit drugs such as heroin and fentanyl.

“Everyday this goes on, we lose all of these people,” said Lynn Wencus, of Wrentham, Massachusetts, whose son Jeff died of an overdose in 2017. “If states use the money the way it’s supposed to be, then we will be saving lives.”

It bothers her that more money won’t end up in the hands of the families, but she also knows nothing would make up for what she and so many others have lost.

“Even if I got a billion dollars, it’s not going to bring back my son,” she said.

In one of the hardest-fought provisions in the settlement, the Sacklers will be protected from future opioid lawsuits. While they weren’t given immunity from criminal charges, there have been no indications they will face any.

Allowing the Sacklers to avoid any more lawsuits or jail time is a dangerous message to send to the pharmaceutical industry or any other business, said activists who have fought for Purdue owners and company officials to be charged with crimes.

“What makes me most angry is they’re getting away with it,” said Tim Kramer, of Waterford Township, Michigan. “They’ve got more money than God, so it’s not going to hurt them. I’d like to see them go to prison, and a regular prison, not one of those resort prisons.”

His common law wife, LeeRae Conn, was 46 when she overdosed in 2018. He found out she was addicted soon after they met a decade earlier.

“No matter what she did, no matter what I did, she couldn’t get off it,” he said. “She tried.”

Sackler family members have never unequivocally offered an apology, but on Thursday issued a statement of regret about the toll of OxyContin.

The settlement comes more than two years after the Stamford, Connecticut-based company filed for bankruptcy while facing some 3,000 lawsuits that accused it of fueling the crisis by aggressively pushing sales of its signature painkiller.

An earlier settlement fell apart last year, but this time the Sacklers agreed to add another $1 billion and accepted other terms.

“It’s money, but there’s still no accountability,” said Liz Fitzgerald, of Southington, Connecticut, who said she wanted to hear a public apology.

She lost two adult sons, who first used OxyContin in high school, to overdoses in 2013 and 2017.

“My three children have lost two brothers, and I think that a lot more needs to be done to support families because of the traumatic PTSD. They just destroyed our lives,” she said.

“I have a granddaughter who lost her dad. No money in the world is going to bring back her dad,” Fitzgerald said. “How do you tell a 10-year child that your dad’s gone and not even understanding addiction? It’s just horrific.”

___

Associated Press writers Geoff Mulvihill and Susan Haigh contributed to this report.

Purdue and US states agree new $6bn settlement for opioid litigation

March 4, 2022


Members of the Sackler family who own Purdue Pharma have agreed to increase their financial contribution to a settlement with US states over their role in the opioid crisis to $6bn.

It follows a decision by a group of US states to drop their opposition to provisions in a deal to resolve Purdue bankruptcy’s that would protect the family from current and future civil lawsuits over the US opioid crisis.

Under the draft agreement, which was published by a court-appointed mediator on Thursday, the family members issued a statement of regret over the role that OxyContin — a highly addictive painkiller made by Purdue — played in fuelling an opioid crisis that has killed more than 500,000 Americans.

The Sackler family members have also agreed to a clause that allows any US institutions or organisations to remove their names from buildings, scholarships or endowments that they have sponsored, accelerating a process that has already begun amid public outrage over the opioid crisis’s death toll.

The revised settlement would still grant the Sackler family protection from all current and future civil liability claims that could threaten their remaining fortunes. They would not be protected from criminal prosecution, although there is no indication that any charges are pending.

In December an US federal court judge threw out a previous settlement worth at least $4.5bn following a legal appeal by a group of eight US states and the US attorney for the southern district of New York. The states argued the Sackler family owners were benefiting from the liability releases without having personally filed for Chapter 11 protection themselves.

Lawyers for Purdue warned that without such a settlement, years of litigation would delay payments to victims and shrink the available pot.

The objectors pointed to analysis presented in the bankruptcy court that showed the Sackler family members had taken more than $10bn out of Perdue between 2008 and 2017. As a requirement for the Sacklers’ contribution to the original agreement, the family members had demanded that they could no longer be pursued for liability.

The new agreement must be approved by Judge Robert Drain, who is overseeing the Purdue bankruptcy.

Carl Tobias, professor of law at University of Richmond, said the settlement could mark the end of the long-running Purdue Pharma bankruptcy. But this would depend on approval by Judge Drain and whether the US bankruptcy trustee, and the Department of Justice, which helped persuade the US federal court to throw out original bankruptcy deal, are satisfied, he said.

In compliance with the new settlement the families of the late Dr Mortimer Sackler and the late Dr Raymond Sackler issued a statement on Thursday, expressing regret for the role that OxyContin played in the opioid crisis. The statement reiterated they did not break any laws and emphasised that it was not an admission of wrongdoing.

“The families have consistently affirmed that settlement is by far the best way to help solve a serious and complex public health crisis. While the families have acted lawfully in all respects, they sincerely regret that OxyContin, a prescription medicine that continues to help people suffering from chronic pain, unexpectedly became part of an opioid crisis that has brought grief and loss to far too many families and communities,” the statement read.

The mediator recommended the bankruptcy court hold a virtual hearing to allow victims of the opioid crisis to tell their personal stories. At least one member from the two sides of the Sackler family who own Purdue should attend, the mediator said.

Source: Financial Times

Sacklers and Purdue Pharma Reach New Deal With States Over Opioids
March 3, 2022


The new settlement, however, still faces two potential hurdles. Even if Judge Drain, the bankruptcy judge, signs off, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has to approve the plan, which would formally reverse the December ruling that rejected the earlier plan.

A key component of the deal — the immunity shield for the Sacklers from civil suits — is being contested by the U.S. Trustee program, which serves as a watchdog over the bankruptcy system. The Justice Department did not return a request for comment on whether it would continue to pursue that case.

Under the agreement, Purdue will be renamed Knoa Pharma and overseen by a public board. The restructured company will contribute $1.5 billion through 2024 to funds for the plaintiffs’ programs, plus more as the company evolves into a manufacturer of medications for addiction reversal and treatment, among other drugs, including OxyContin.

The Sacklers’ shield against lawsuits was the major sticking point for states that fought the plan. The District of Columbia and nine states — California, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, New Hampshire, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington — had voted against the earlier proposal, contending they should have the right to pursue the Sacklers under state civil laws.

The earlier deal, which included a $225 million federal settlement, had less money but it was to be paid out over roughly nine years. The Sacklers now have 18 years to pay the additional $1 billion, according to the revised plan.

As marathon sessions of negotiations dragged on, the opioid crisis continued to deepen, with overdoses soaring during the pandemic. The dilemma for the holdout governments was whether to keep pursuing the Sacklers in court, a process that could take years with no guarantee of victory, or just take the money, now that the cash offer had increased.

While all the states and, in turn, their local governments, will get a bigger payout than the original deal outlined, the holdout states will get even more, as a bonus for their resistance. The $750 million set aside to compensate more than 100,000 individual victims and survivors and whose stories help build the governmental lawsuits will not grow, but states have committed to funding an “opioid survivors trust” specifically for them.

Source: NY Times

Purdue Pharma agrees to new settlement with states to resolve opioid lawsuits


As part of the settlement deal, the Sackler family must give up control of Stamford, Conn.-based Purdue -- which will be turned into a different company that will fight opioid abuse. File Photo by Justin Lane/EPA-EFE

March 3 (UPI) -- The Sackler family and their company Purdue Pharma agreed to a new settlement on Thursday to resolve lawsuits in almost every state over their connection to the opioid crisis.

The family agreed to a new bankruptcy plan with states that had been holding out on an earlier agreement. The new bankruptcy settlement will free billions of dollars for opioid addiction treatment nationwide.

Under the settlement, the Sackler family will pay as much as $6 billion -- and the deal could be worth around $10 billion over time. The Sacklers said earlier this week that they were close to increasing the total amount of the settlement to get the remaining states to sign on.

The settlement was filed in federal bankruptcy court in New York state. It still must be approved by judge Robert Drain to make it final.

The proposal would end all claims against the Sackler family now and in the future over Purdue's role in the opioid crisis. Purdue introduced OxyContin in 1995 and the painkiller has been at the center of opioid abuse in the United States virtually ever since.

As part of the deal, the family also must give up control of the Stamford, Conn.-based pharma company -- which will be turned into a different company that will fight opioid abuse.

"This settlement is both significant and insufficient -- constrained by the inadequacies of our federal bankruptcy code," Connecticut Attorney General William Tong told The New York Times. "But Connecticut cannot stall this process indefinitely as victims and our sister states await a resolution.

"This settlement resolves our claims against Purdue and the Sacklers, but we are not done fighting for justice against the addiction industry and against our broken bankruptcy code."

Connecticut, California, Delaware, Maryland, New Hampshire, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and the District of Columbia, which had declined to sign on to an earlier agreement, approved the new proposal. The other states accepted a previous settlement last year, but the deal was ultimately rejected by a bankruptcy judge.

While Purdue Pharma has pleaded guilty to criminal charges -- for misleading marketing and minimizing OxyContin's addiction risk -- the Sacklers have never taken responsibility for playing any part of the opioid crisis and they have never been charged with an offense.

Last month, hundreds of Native American tribes agreed to a settlement with opioid producers worth almost $600 million.

The bleak market outcome for Russia after Ukraine invasion

March 4, 2022



The writer is an investment director at GAM

The implosion of Russia’s financial markets following the country’s invasion of Ukraine is not the first crisis to befall emerging markets. Nor will it be the last.

Since emerging markets were popularised as a collective asset class in the 1980s and 90s, there have been events like the Asian financial crisis, the 1998 Russia debt crisis and Argentina’s serial defaults. The scale of such episodes are a reminder of the risks that come with returns in emerging markets. Investors are notoriously amnesiac but it will be a long time before they regain trust in Russian markets.

Those unfortunate enough to be caught with investments in Russian assets should obviously attract limited sympathy while Ukrainian civilians are being bombarded. But the combination of western sanctions on Russia in response to its aggression and Moscow’s response has severely disrupted Russian markets — including, crucially, sending the rouble spiralling.

Index provider MSCI is removing Russian stocks from its widely tracked emerging markets indices and is likely to record the last price for them as “effectively zero”. Holders of Russian rouble bonds have either left their holdings marked at stale prices or marked them down in line with the external debt. The endgame there looks to be similar.

Cutting some of Russia’s banks from the Swift financial messaging system has drawn many headlines but the most powerful international action was to freeze the foreign reserves of the Russian central bank. It is this that caused the 25 per cent drop in the rouble after the sanctions were announced, and this which prompted the effective declaration by Moscow of economic hostilities on foreign investors.

The central bank first instructed local investors not to bid for assets held by foreigners, next froze foreigners’ accounts and then dictated that dividends and coupons would not be paid to foreigners. Neither equity nor bond markets had been reopened at the time of writing.

Russia might believe it is self-sufficient in capital. After the experience of the 1998 financial crisis, the country opted for rigid fiscal discipline and has been running a sustained current account surplus. So the combination of capital controls and sanctions should in theory not require a significant adjustment at the macroeconomic level. However, that theory is reliant on sanctions not inducing big changes in behaviour. This seems optimistic.

More important is the effect on the rouble. Since the end of communism, convertibility of the rouble was crucial to restoring the domestic currency as a store of value.

At least part of the rationale for preventing foreigners from selling Russian assets was to reduce the pool of roubles looking to buy foreign currency. The situation is clearly perilous. Before sanctions were announced, a dollar was worth 83 roubles in the market. Three days later, the currency market rate touched 122, while ordinary Russians faced much higher retail rates — where there were dollars available at all. Financial uncertainty leads to capital flight — the proximate cause of the 1998 meltdown.

The Russian authorities have boasted of how little the country relies on imports. It is comfortably self-sufficient in food and energy. However, Russian industry is reliant on western machinery and parts. And Russia’s efforts to prepare for sanctions have also been heavily reliant on China.

China is unlikely to match western sanctions. It is an eager buyer of Russian resources and Moscow is also the biggest foreign holder of Chinese bonds, according to ANZ. But there would be an irony if Russia’s attack on Ukraine left it at the mercy of a richer, more populous neighbour.

The good news for international investors is that almost none of the factors that caused the 1998 debacle are in place. The default then triggered a chain reaction that ripped through highly leveraged markets, starting at hedge fund Long Term Capital Management. There is now far less leverage applied in emerging market assets and the run-up to the Russian attack was drawn out, giving some investors time to adjust.

But what this week has illustrated is how important access to international capital markets have been for Russia. It has allowed the country to import a degree of institutional certainty — vast foreign reserves in reserve currencies and the use of western courts for dispute resolution. These are not available to a country with arbitrary government. And the current crisis serves as an excellent example of what can go wrong for investors braving erratic jurisdictions in search of higher yields.

Source: Financial Times

Credit Suisse names Rawra head of clean tech banking for Canada - memo

March 3 (Reuters) - Credit Suisse has named Saad Rawra as its head of clean-energy technology banking and Canadian head of diversified industries group to help drive the Swiss bank's growing global energy tech franchise, according to a memo seen by Reuters.

Rawra will be based in Toronto and report to Credit Suisse Canada CEO Ron Lloyd and Robert Santangelo, the co-head of global energy and infrastructure banking. Rawra returns to the Swiss bank after spending the past three years with National Bank Financial as the head of cleantech, the memo said.

In his new role, Rawra will be responsible for advancing Credit Suisse's Canadian platform to help drive its "rapidly growing Global Energy Tech franchise," according to the memo.

He has worked on deals including Brookfield's $4.6 billion purchase of Westinghouse and $13.2 billion buyout of Power Solutions, as well as Bombardier's sale of its Aerostructures business for $1.2 billion.

A Credit Suisse spokesperson confirmed the content of the memo.

(Reporting by Shariq Khan in Bengaluru)

Total’s Top Financier Urged to Sever Ties Due to Russia Exposure

Alastair Marsh
Wed, March 2, 2022


(Bloomberg) -- Credit Agricole SA, which provides more financial support to TotalEnergies SE than any other institution, has become the target of an activist campaign urging it to sever ties with the French oil major due to its continued operations in Russia.Reclaim Finance, a Paris-based nonprofit focused on sustainable investing, wrote to the chief executive officers of Credit Agricole and its asset management unit, Amundi SA, to demand that they stop providing capital to Total and all other fossil-fuel companies still active in Russia. Amundi, which oversees more than $2 trillion, is Total’s biggest shareholder after BlackRock Inc., while Credit Agricole is its biggest lender.

Total’s stance has left it increasingly isolated as rivals such as BP Plc, Shell Plc, Equinor ASA and Exxon Mobil Corp. all turn their backs on Russia in response to President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. It’s part of a mass exodus that’s rapidly turning Russia into a political and economic pariah amid international condemnation of Putin’s war.

“If TotalEnergies refuses to burn ties with Putin's oil and gas industry, then Credit Agricole must burn ties with TotalEnergies,” Lucie Pinson director at Reclaim Finance, said in Wednesday’s letter . She also condemned the French bank’s continued role as one of the main financiers for Russian state-controlled energy giant Gazprom PJSC.In a letter addressed to Credit Agricole CEO Philippe Brassac and Amundi CEO Valérie Baudson, the nonprofit called on Credit Agricole and its subsidiaries to cease financing not only Gazprom, but all non-Russian fossil-fuel companies active in the country “until these groups have withdrawn from their operations.” Credit Agricole has paused its financing of new business related to Russia, including for projects and movements of commodities, people familiar with the matter said Tuesday. “In the context of the current crisis, any isolated initiative can only be risky and could prove unfortunate,” said a spokesperson for Credit Agricole. The bank will observe sanctions and the firm’s corporate and investment banking division now “deals only by exception with Russian counterparties and only in response to the needs for goods and services essential to Europe, as long as these remain of course authorized by the public authorities.” A spokesperson for Total didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.The list of those cutting ties or reviewing their operations is growing by the hour as foreign governments ratchet up sanctions against Russia. The role of fossil fuels in bankrolling the Russian war machine has exposed Western oil majors still doing business in the country to intense criticism. On Wednesday, Exxon CEO Darren Woods pointed to the “ needless destruction” caused by the war in Ukraine as he mapped out plans to end a decades-long relationship with Russia.

Verde to expand potash output in Brazil to counter supply disruption

Roberto Samora
Thu, March 3, 2022

By Roberto Samora

SAO PAULO, March 3 (Reuters) - Verde Agritech PLC has decided to expand its potash production in Brazil as the global fertilizer supply chain faces a major bottleneck owing to the Russia-Ukraine conflict and Western sanctions on Belarus, an important producer.

The company said its board has approved accelerated investment so it can boost output capacity and become Brazil's largest potash producer.

Verde expects to double capacity of its second production facility in the state of Minas Gerais, currently under construction, and reach 3 million tonnes of output capacity in 2022. Plant 2 - as the venture is called - is on track to start production in the third quarter of 2022 with initial capacity of 1.2 million tonnes a year, Verde said, while the expanded production capacity is expected to be set by early fourth quarter.

"Given the latest sanctions applied to Belarus and Russia, we are acutely aware of the collateral impact on Brazil's agriculture in the case of a potash supply disruption," Verde President and Chief Executive Cristiano Veloso said. "We are equally worried about a global food shortage, which might be unavoidable if there is a breakdown in fertilizer supply."

Brazil imports about 85% of its fertilizer consumption, including potash.

Brazil Agriculture Minister Tereza Cristina Dias on Wednesday said the country has fertilizer stocks that should last until October and would soon launch a national plan to stimulate investments in potash and phosphorus mines.

Verde said its board approved an expenditure of 51 million reais ($10.04 million) to fund the expansion plan, up from the 22 million reais previously approved for the construction of Plant 2.

The company also expects to start building its Plant 3 unit in 2023, but such a move still requires permits. ($1 = 5.0794 reais) (Reporting by Roberto Samora; Writing by Gabriel Araujo; Editing by David Goodman and Mark Porter)

Canada Rail-Strike Threat Latest Upset to Fertilizer Supply



Jen Skerritt
Wed, March 2, 2022, 

(Bloomberg) -- A labor dispute at one of Canada’s largest railways is threatening to further disrupt global supplies of fertilizer just as farmers need key nutrients to plant spring crops.

About 3,000 workers at Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. have voted for a plan to strike March 16, if necessary, according to their union. Canada, along with Russia and Belarus, is one of the main sources for the world’s potash, a commonly used fertilizer that contains potassium. A potential work stoppage comes amid concerns of shortfalls in supplies amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and sanctions on Belarus.

“The disruption at CP in the middle of spring has a potential devastating impact on the ability to supply the American farmer,” said Jeff Blair, chief executive officer of GreenPoint Ag, an agriculture supply company in the southern U.S.

CP has offered wage increases for a two-year collective pact and has agreed to 20 union demands, spokeswoman Salem Woodrow said in an email. The union leadership “appears poised to force a shutdown of the essential rail supply chain” in mid-March by making unreasonable demands, she said.

“A work stoppage of any duration at CP will impact virtually all commodities within the Canadian supply chain, thereby crippling the performance of Canada’s trade-dependent economy,” Woodrow said.

Shipping woes have also been driving lumber prices higher and the threat of a CP strike will just “exacerbate an already tough situation,” said Kevin Mason, managing director of ERA Forest Products Research. Lumber futures in Chicago rose by the exchange limit Wednesday to $1,268.70 for 1,000 board feet, a two-week high.

War Abroad and Politics at Home Push U.S. Climate Action Aside

Somini Sengupta and Lisa Friedman
Thu, March 3, 2022

Supporters of Ukraine outside the White House on the day of President Joe Biden's State of the Union address in Washington, March 1, 2022. (Valerie Plesch/The New York Times)

War and politics are complicating the efforts of the two biggest polluters in history — the United States and Europe — to slow down global warming, just as scientists warn of intensifying hazards.

In his State of the Union speech Tuesday evening, President Joe Biden barely mentioned his climate goals, despite promises to make climate an issue that drives his presidency. European politicians have their own problem: They are struggling to get out from under one of the Kremlin’s most powerful economic weapons — its fossil fuel exports, which Europe relies on for heat and electricity.

Oil and gas prices are soaring globally. That is a boon to those who extract and sell the very products that drive fatal heat waves, wildfires and sea level rise. And it is leading to new demands for increased drilling in the United States, already one of the world’s biggest producers of oil and gas.

The developments come just days after an exhaustive report from the United Nations that implored world leaders to sharply reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases that are dangerously heating the planet. To fail, they said, is to face a harrowing future where the rate of global warming outpaces humanity’s ability to adapt.

In Washington, Biden’s ambitious climate legislation has been blocked by unanimous Republican opposition as well as a senator from his own party, Joe Manchin, who represents the coal-producing state of West Virginia and has strong backing from the fossil fuel industry. The Supreme Court could further limit Biden’s ambitions in a case that began this week that could restrict the federal government’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

In his State of the Union address — traditionally considered a president’s best opportunity to rally the nation around an agenda — Biden cited climate in the context of his proposals to create jobs by repairing roads, airports and other crucial infrastructure. “We’ll do it all to withstand the devastating effects of the climate crisis,” he said.

But high gas prices pose a risk to Democrats before midterm elections, and his remarks were intended to blunt that, too. He said he would release oil reserves — 30 million barrels worth — to keep prices down for Americans. “We are going to be OK,” he said.

Energy experts said Biden missed an opportunity to connect the war in Ukraine to the need to more swiftly sever an economic reliance on fossil fuels. “The president did not articulate the long-term opportunity for the U.S. to lead the world in breaking free of the geopolitical nightmare that is oil dependency,” said Paul Bledsoe, a strategic adviser to the Progressive Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank.

Vedant Patel, a spokesperson for the White House, said Biden has shown “unwavering support” for climate solutions.

The Russian invasion in Ukraine has brought world leaders to a new, difficult crossroad. The European Union is feeling its effects most acutely.

Russia supplies nearly 40% of the gas that Europeans use for heat and electricity. In exposing the enormous leverage that Russia has enjoyed with its energy exports, the Ukraine conflict is forcing European leaders to make some urgent choices: Should it build new fossil fuel infrastructure so that it can replace Russian fuel with liquefied natural gas from elsewhere, chiefly the United States? Or should it shift away from fossil fuels faster?

Next week the world will get an early glimpse of Europe’s leanings, because officials in Brussels are due to announce a new energy strategy aimed at weaning the continent off Russian gas.

A draft of the report, reviewed by The New York Times, suggests that the new strategy will propose speeding up energy efficiency measures and renewable energy installations. It views imports of liquefied natural gas, or LNG, from the United States and elsewhere as a short-term measure to offset Russian piped gas.

“This war will have deep repercussions one way or another on our own energy system,” Kadri Simson, the European Union energy commissioner, told reporters this week after an emergency meeting with energy ministers from the 27-member bloc.

Analysts have said European countries can quickly reduce gas dependence with energy efficiency measures and ramping up renewable energy investments, which are already in line with Europe’s ambition to stop pumping additional greenhouse gases into the atmosphere by midcentury. The conflict in Ukraine could fast-track some of that. It could also lead to what Lisa Fischer, who follows energy policy at E3G, a research group, called “a tectonic shift” — using renewables, rather than ample gas storage, to achieve energy security.

In an interview this week, John Kerry, Biden’s special envoy for climate change, emphasized that, saying Putin has “weaponized” fossil fuels, particularly gas.

“It’s related, and people need to see it that way. Energy is a huge part of the geopolitics of what the options are,” Kerry said. “Energy is a key weapon within this fight, and if there were far less dependency on gas there would be a different set of plays.”

The United States, for its part, has ramped up exports of LNG to Europe to counter the decline in Russian piped gas. By the end of this year, the United States is poised to have the world’s largest LNG export capacity.

Current sanctions that nations have imposed on Russia do not directly target its oil and gas sector, but the Ukraine invasion is expected to disrupt supply routes and has stoked fears that Russia could curtail shipments.

In the United States, Republicans have said the Russian invasion of Ukraine underscores the need to aggressively drill for more oil and gas in the United States to provide Europe with an alternative. Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N. D., on Tuesday called Biden’s opening of the strategic reserve “a thimble in the ocean.”

White House officials said Biden wove climate change and clean energy throughout his speech. He noted that Ford and GM are investing billions of dollars to build electric vehicles, creating millions of manufacturing jobs in the United States. He also noted that funding from the infrastructure package will build a national network of 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations.

But climate change policy is at a critical juncture in the Biden administration. The president’s centerpiece legislative agenda, which he had called the Build Back Better act, is dead. Democrats still hope to pass approximately $500 billion of clean energy tax incentives that had been part of the package, but opportunities to do so are waning. If that investment does not come through and the Supreme Court also restricts the administration’s ability to regulate emission, Biden’s goal of cutting U.S. emissions roughly in half compared with 2005 levels could be essentially unattainable.

Even if climate wasn’t the stated focus of Biden’s address Tuesday, administration officials said Russia’s war against Ukraine has not pushed climate change off the agenda. They noted that Biden has made climate change an emphasis in virtually every federal agency, and has moved ahead with major clean energy deployments including a record-breaking offshore wind auction last week that brought in more than $4 billion.

© 2022 The New York Times Company

MYOB 

KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF OUR BODIES

Advanced Tennessee bill seeks to ban abortion medication at colleges, through mail

Melissa Brown, Nashville Tennessean
Wed, March 2, 2022

Francie Hunt, executive director of Tennessee Advocates for Planned Parenthood, speaks during a demonstration at state Capitol in Nashville, Tenn., Monday, April 19, 2021.

Tennessee legislators on Tuesday advanced a bill to ban abortion medication distribution through the mail and on college campuses, the latest in a round of similar legislation in the U.S. prompted by federal approval of delivery and telehealth dispensation of the pills.

The legislation, which passed the Senate Judiciary Committee, seeks to ban mail delivery of abortion medication, an increasingly common method to terminate early-term pregnancies up to 10 weeks.

More than 75% of Tennessee abortions occurred within the first 10 weeks of pregnancy in 2018, according to the most recent available state data. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has endorsed medical or chemical abortion as a safe procedure.


Rep. Robin Smith, R-Hixson, first introduced the bill, which would require physicians dispense the two-pill medication in person, blocking patients from receiving it through a qualified nurse or filling a doctor-written prescription at a pharmacy.

The bill would prohibit the medication at postsecondary schools as well, which Tennessee code defines as institutions in the state university and community college system.

“In this state, we have an opportunity to put safety measures around chemical abortion which currently allows the use of telemedicine and courier delivery, as opposed to a qualified examination and direct distribution of powerful medicines," Smith said.

Opponents of the legislation say it is a disingenuous attempt to further restrict access to safe abortion procedures in Tennessee, as abortion medication is taken over a 48-hour period and the bill simply requires in-person dispensation.

Sen. Raumesh Akbari, D-Memphis, voted against the legislation, calling it "arbitrary and unnecessary" when the bill doesn't require doctors to monitor women through the procedure. Akbari also criticized the postsecondary schools component, saying there is "no rationale" for placing additional restrictions on college students who are legal adults.

"The doctor is not going to monitor the woman as she takes the medication, she does not even have to start taking the medication at the office," Akbari said.

"You have women and families who are making a very difficult decision, and all this does is to make it more difficult to make this decision. I think women deserve the same freedom as men when it comes to accessing safe and legal medications," Akbari said, calling for a greater focus on comprehensive sexual education and expanding health coverage to address unplanned pregnancies. "There is evidence to suggest that these pills are less dangerous and have less incidents than Tylenol or Viagra."

Medical abortion Q&A: Are abortion pills safe? Can I get out-of-state prescription? Your questions answered

More: FDA makes abortion pills permanently available through mail and telehealth by removing in-person restriction

Bill calls for penalties

The legislation initially required physicians to keep detailed reports on patients who seek medical care for abortion complications and called for possible jail time for physicians who failed to follow the proposed statute, which one Nashville doctor said could have a dangerous chilling effect on women seeking care after miscarriages and abortions.

A Senate amendment to the bill struck the reporting requirements and jail time penalties, though the legislation maintains violation of the proposed law would be classified as a felony and liable for up to $50,000. Patients who receive the prescription medication are protected under the proposed bill.

Nashville emergency medicine physician Dr. Katrina Green this week spoke against the legislation, particularly any reporting requirements that could intimidate women seeking medical care for chemical abortions and miscarriages, medically referred to as spontaneous abortions. The two are often indistinguishable, Green said.

"I'm a firm believer in my patient's rights to decide what's best for them," Green said. "Part of that is having the ability to decide what happens with their pregnancies."

The FDA won't allow you to get the abortion pill from a pharmacy with a prescription. The coronavirus pandemic has made it even harder to access.

When asked about physician concern over the possible chilling effect of this legislation for women seeking medical care after an abortion or miscarriage, Smith said the legislation is "advocating for patient safety."

"What this bill simply does is it to establish protections for patients who, according to Planned Parenthood, could pass blood clots the size of a lemon as part of this chemical abortion," Smith said.

The Tennessee legislation mirrors a raft of similar anti-abortion measures brought across the U.S. in recent months after the Food and Drug Administration last year approved delivery and telehealth dispensation of the medication. Georgia legislators this week advanced a similar ban on women receiving the abortion bill through the mail or at universities that receiving state funds, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Reach Melissa Brown at mabrown@tennessean.com.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Tennessee abortion legislation would ban abortion pills at college, in mail