Kremlin crackdown silences war protests, from benign to bold

The Associated Press
April 14, 2022

Dmitry Reznikov holding a blank piece of paper with eight asterisks that could have been interpreted as standing for "No to war" in Russian, stands next to a Police van as he was detained in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, March 13, 2022. The court found him guilty of discrediting the armed forces and fined him 50,000 rubles ($618) for holding the sign in central Moscow in a mid-March demonstration that lasted only seconds before police detained him. (SOTA via AP)

FILE - A worker paints over graffiti saying 'Yes to Peace!' on a wall of an apartment building in St. Petersburg, Russia, March 18, 2022. 

(AP Photo, File)

Marat Grachev, director of a shop that repairs Apple devices, poses with a sign in Russian that reads "No to war" in the background, in Moscow, Russia, on Wednesday, March 16, 2022. Customers who came into the store expressed support when they saw the sign, but one elderly man demanded it be taken down, threatening to report Grachev to the authorities. Police soon showed up, and Grachev was charged with discrediting the military as part of an official crackdown against protests.

 (Anna Matveeva via AP)

FILE - A poster that says "No War" hangs over Nevsky Prospect, the main street in St. Petersburg, Russia, on March. 1, 2022. (AP Photo, File)

A former police officer who discussed Russia's invasion on the phone. A priest who preached to his congregation about the suffering of Ukrainians. A student who held up a banner with no words — just asterisks.

Hundreds of Russians are facing charges for speaking out against the war in Ukraine since a repressive law was passed last month that outlaws the spread of “false information” about the invasion and disparaging the military.

Human rights groups say the crackdown has led to criminal prosecutions and possible prison sentences for at least 23 people on the “false information” charge, with over 500 others facing misdemeanor charges of disparaging the military that have either led to hefty fines or are expected to result in them.

“This is a large amount, an unprecedentedly large amount" of cases, said Damir Gainutdinov, head of the Net Freedoms legal aid group focusing on free speech cases, in an interview with The Associated Press.

The Kremlin has sought to control the narrative of the war from the moment its troops rolled into Ukraine. It dubbed the attack a “special military operation” and increased the pressure on independent Russian media that called it a “war” or an “invasion,” blocking access to many news sites whose coverage deviated from the official line.

Sweeping arrests stifled antiwar protests, turning them from a daily event in large cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg into rare occurrences barely attracting any attention.

Still, reports of police detaining single picketers in different Russian cities come in almost daily.

Even seemingly benign actions have led to arrests.

A man was detained in Moscow after standing next to a World War II monument that says "Kyiv" for the city's heroic stand against Nazi Germany and holding a copy of Tolstoy's “War and Peace.” Another was reportedly detained for holding up a package of sliced ham from the meat producer Miratorg, with the second half of the name crossed off so it read: “Mir" — “peace” in Russian.

A law against spreading “fake news” about the war or disparaging the military was passed by parliament in one day and took force immediately, effectively exposing anyone critical of the conflict to fines and prison sentences.

The first publicly known criminal cases over “fakes” targeted public figures like Veronika Belotserkovskaya, a Russian-language cookbook author and popular blogger living abroad, and Alexander Nevzorov, a TV journalist, film director and former lawmaker.

Both were accused of posting “false information” about Russian attacks on civilian infrastructure in Ukraine on their widely followed social media pages -– something Moscow has vehemently denied, insisting that Russian forces only hit target military targets.

But then the scope of the crackdown expanded, with police seemingly grabbing anyone.

Former police officer Sergei Klokov was detained and put in pretrial detention after discussing the war with his friends on the phone. His wife told the Meduza news site that in casual conversation at home, Klokov, who was born in Irpin near Kyiv and whose father still lived in Ukraine when Russian troops rolled in, condemned the invasion.

Klokov was charged with spreading false information about the Russian armed forces and faces up to 10 years in prison.

St. Petersburg artist Sasha Skochilenko also faces up to 10 years in prison on the same charge: She replaced price tags in a grocery store with antiwar flyers. On Wednesday, a court ordered Skochilenko to pretrial detention for 1 1/2 months.

The Rev. Ioann Burdin, a Russian Orthodox priest in a village about 300 kilometers (about 185 miles) northeast of Moscow, was fined 35,000 rubles ($432) for “discrediting the Russian armed forces” after posting an antiwar statement on his church’s website and talking to a dozen congregants during a service about the pain he felt over people in Ukrain'e dying.

Burdin told AP his speech elicited mixed reactions. “One woman made a scene over the fact that I’m talking about (it) when she just came to pray, ” he said, adding that he believed it was one of those hearing the sermon who reported him to the police.

Marat Grachev, director of a shop that repairs Apple products in Moscow, similarly got in trouble when he displayed a link to an online petition titled, “No to war” on a screen in the shop. Many customers expressed support when they saw it, but one elderly man demanded it be taken down, threatening to report Grachev to the authorities.

Police soon showed up, and Grachev was charged with discrediting the military. A court ordered him to pay a fine of 100,000 rubles ($1,236).

Another court ruled against Moscow student Dmitry Reznikov for displaying a blank piece of paper with eight asterisks, which could have been interpreted as standing for “No to war” in Russian -- a popular chant by protesters. The court found him guilty of discrediting the armed forces and fined him 50,000 rubles ($618) for holding the sign in central Moscow in a mid-March demonstration that lasted only seconds before police detained him.

“It’s the theater of the absurd,” his lawyer Oleg Filatchev told AP.

A St. Petersburg court last week fined Artur Dmitriev for a sign containing President Vladimir Putin’s quote – albeit with a few words omitted for brevity – from last year’s Victory Day parade marking the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II.

“The war brought about so many unbearable challenges, grief and tears, that it’s impossible to forget. There is no forgiveness and justification for those who once again are harboring aggressive plans,” Putin had said, according to the Kremlin website.

Dmitriev was fined 30,000 rubles for discrediting the Russian military. That prompted him to post Friday on Facebook: “The phrase by Vladimir Putin, and ergo he himself … are discrediting the goals of the Russian armed forces. From this moment on, (internet and media regulator) Roskomnadzor must block all speeches by Putin, and true patriots -– take down his portraits in their offices.”

Net Freedoms' Gainutdinov said that anything about the military or Ukraine can make a person a target. Even wearing a hat with the blue and gold of the Ukrainian flag or a green ribbon, considered a symbol of peace, have been found to discredit the military, the lawyer added.

Reznikov, who is appealing his conviction for the poster with asterisks, said he found the crackdown scary. After his first misdemeanor conviction, a second strike would result in criminal prosecution and a possible prison term of up to three years.

Both Burdin and Grachev, who also are appealing, received donations that exceeded their fines.

“I realized how important it is, how valuable it is to receive support,” Grachev said.

Burdin said the publicity about his case spread his message far beyond the dozen or so people who initially heard his sermon — the opposite of what the authorities presumably intended by fining him.

“It’s impossible to call it anything other than the providence of God," the priest added. "The words that I said reached a much larger number of people.”

—-

Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

Manifesto published in Russian media reflects Putin regime's ruthless plans in Ukraine

Susanne Sternthal,

 Lecturer in Post-Soviet Government and Politics, 

Texas State University
THE CONVERSATION
April 14, 2022,

A forensic worker exhumes several bodies from a grave in Bucha, Ukraine, on April 12, 2022. Anastasia Vlasova/Getty Images

Shortly after footage emerged of the carnage Russian troops left behind in the town of Bucha, Ukraine, an article was published April 4, 2022, in one of the largest Russian state-run media companies.

The article called for even more bloodshed in Ukraine.

Written by journalist and Kremlin-aligned political operative Timofey Sergeytsev and published in RIA-Novosti, the article answers the question posed by its headline: “What should Russia do with Ukraine?”

The answer, Sergeytsev writes, is total annihilation. He writes that “all who have associated themselves with Nazism should be liquidated and banned.”

Sergeytsev urges Russian soldiers to be merciless and force Ukraine to its knees and calls for more of the same inhumane tactics that took place in Bucha and the towns of Mariupul and Berdyansk.

As an academic focusing on Russian government, politics and society, I believe the article demonstrates what is foremost on the mind of President Vladimir Putin’s regime.
The silencing of independent Russian media

Sergeytsev’s piece merits close attention because RIA-Novosti is one of the three largest news agencies in Russia and has a mass circulation. It functions as a loyal mouthpiece of the Russian government and has an inordinate impact on what Russians see and hear about the war in Ukraine.

This is the result of the Russian government’s ever tightening control over independent media since 2000, when Putin became president. In his first year in power, Putin shut down companies of media businessman Vladimir Gusinsky.

Since then, Putin has used what is known as the Roskomnadzor, the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information technology and Mass Media, a federal agency that monitors and censors Russian mass media and decides which need to be shut down.

Russia President Vladimir Putin visits the Vostochny cosmodrome in Belarus on April 12, 2022. Mikhail Klimentyev/Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images

In 2022 alone, Putin closed the last remaining independent sources of information in Russia: liberal radio station Ekho Moskvy, online television channel TV Rain, bilingual news site Meduza and Novaya Gazeta, whose editor, Dmitry Muratov, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021.

The Russian government not only has total control over all media, but it dictates what can be seen and heard. The war in Ukraine, for instance, can only be referred to as “a special military operation.” Anyone who calls it a “war” is subject to a prison term of 15 years.

Given where it appeared, Sergeytsev’s article must have been published with the knowledge and approval of the Russian government.

Who is Sergeytsev?

Sergeytsev is an experienced Russian political operative who worked on behalf of the Russian government to prop up pro-Russian Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma in 1991. He also supported Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, whose questionable election victory, promoted by Putin, resulted in Ukraine’s Orange Revolution of 2004.

Sergeytsev is also a member of the Russian far right Zinoviev Club, named after Alexander Zinoviev. Zinoviev was a champion of Josef Stalin as a model leader, the murderous dictator who ruled the Soviet Union from 1928 to 1953.

Given this pedigree, it’s not surprising that it was Sergeytsev who wrote the answer to the question about what Russia should do about Ukraine.

A fight against Nazis?

In the invented world he describes in his article, Sergeytsev accuses both Ukraine’s former President Petro Poroshenko and current President, Volodymyr Zelensky, of using “total terror” against the Russian “anti-fascists in Odesa, Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk, Mariupol and other Russia cities.”

As for the Donbass regions of Donetsk and Lukhansk in Ukraine’s east, where pro-Russian separatists have fought Ukraine over the past eight years, Sergeytsev says they have been bravely rebelling “against Ukrainian Nazism.”

Sergeytsev calls for the destruction of all “Nazis that have taken up arms” and that they “should be destroyed to the maximum on the battlefield.”

He includes the Ukrainian armed forces, the national battalions, the territorial defense forces and “a significant part of the masses, which are passive Nazis” and “are also guilty.”

In this April 11, 2022 photograph, Grigori Zamogilni (R) and Anna Zamogilnaya (L), have been married for 58 years and continue to live in Bucha, Ukraine in time of heavy Russian attacks. Metin Aktas/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

All “are equally involved in extreme cruelty against the civilian population, equally guilty of the genocide of the Russian people, and do not comply with laws and customs of war,” Sergeytsev writes.

In this piece of bald disinformation, Sergeytsev further writes that the majority of Ukrainians have been drawn to the Nazi politics of their government and “this fact is the basis of the policy of denazification.”

The idea of Zelensky, the only Jewish president outside of Israel, subscribing to Nazi ideology along with his government has nothing to do with reality.

Russian propaganda

Sergeytsev’s choice of words, such as “de-Ukrainization” and “denazification,” are terms calling for the destruction of Ukraine. In his April 4 article of 1,700 words, Sergeytsev uses the word Nazi 69 times.

In order to achieve the ultimate goal of “de-Ukrainization,” Sergeytsev calls for a rejection of Ukrainian ethnicity and the peoples’ right to self-determination.

Echoing Putin, Sergeytsev writes that Ukraine has never been a nation state, adding that its attempts at becoming independent have led to “Nazism.”

Sergeytsev calls on all of Ukraine’s elite to be “liquidated” and “the social swamp which actively and passively supports it should undergo the hardship of war and digest the experience as a historical lesson and atonement.”

The constant use of the word “Nazi” triggers a visceral reaction among the Russian population. During World War II, the Soviet Union suffered horrible atrocities at the hands of the Nazis. In one example, the Nazi blockade of Leningrad lasted from September 1941 until January 1944, a total of 900 days. An estimated over 1 million people died from systematic starvation.

A Russian soldier steps over the rubble inside the Mariupol drama theater on April 12, 2022, in Ukraine. Alexander Nemenov/AFP via Getty Images

Using the word “Nazi” is bearing fruit for the Kremlin.

The independent polling center Levada showed in late March polls, one month into the invasion, that 83% of Russians approved of Putin.

But despite Russian media efforts to falsely portray Ukrainians as Nazis, there have been reports of Russian soldiers captured by Ukrainian military confused by the purpose of the war, saying they couldn’t find any Nazis or fascists.

Old and new boundaries

In addition to calling for the need for “de-Ukrainization,” Sergeytsev writes that Ukraine “must be returned to its natural boundaries.”

These boundaries were the ones formed between 1765 and 1783 after Russia’s Empress Catherine the Great defeated the Turks, annexed Crimea and incorporated the entire southern part of today’s Ukraine known as Novorossiya into the Russian empire.

Sergeytsev says that the five regions in western Ukraine, which he refers to as the “residual Ukraine in a neutral state,” are not likely to become part of the pro-Russian territories and will remain hostile to Russia. “The haters of Russia will go there,” he writes.

For Sergeytsev, compromising with the United States, NATO and other Western nations is not an option.

The reason, Sergeytsev concludes, is because the “collective West itself is the designer, source and sponsor of Ukrainian Nazism.”


This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Susanne Sternthal, Texas State University.

Read more:

Ukraine: Zelensky’s ‘special mechanism’ for prosecuting war crimes explained

Russia isn’t likely to use chemical weapons in Ukraine – unless Putin grows desperate

Susanne Sternthal is affiliated with the Democratic Party.

ANTI-ANTI-SATELLITE

A satellite operator is asking the US government to stop blowing up spacecraft

REUTERS/US NAVY

In 2008, the US launched a missile from a warship to destroy a satellite.

By Tim Fernholz
QUARTZ
Senior reporter
Published April 14, 2022

Testing weapons is a dangerous business. When the US Air Force wants to practice blowing stuff up, it uses places like the Nevada Test and Training Range, a huge swathe of desert where it can drop bombs far from civilians.

But when militaries want to test missiles designed to destroy satellites, they shoot down spacecraft in orbit, scattering broken pieces into the path of other satellites. It’s the rough equivalent of testing air-to-ground missiles by blowing up trucks on public highways. In November 2021, for example, Russia tested an anti-satellite missile by destroying one of its decommissioned satellites. The explosion created thousands of pieces of debris in orbit and forced astronauts on the International Space Station to seek emergency shelter.

One firm that tracks objects in orbit coined the term “conjunction squall” to describe what happens when a cloud of spacecraft debris intersects with active satellites, creating record numbers of close passes. Operators are forced to maneuver their satellites away from danger, if they can, or simply cross their fingers and hope for the best.

Planet, a company with hundreds of Earth-observation satellites affected by these debris storms, has had enough. This week, it made a formal call for the US to unilaterally halt tests of “kinetic” anti-satellite weapons (as opposed to tests of weapons that attack satellites by jamming them or frying their electronics, without physically destroying them).

The first company to call for a kinetic ASAT test ban

Planet is the first satellite operator to call for such a moratorium, even though more established space companies operate billions of dollars of on-orbit hardware that is also at risk. The Satellite Industry Association, a US trade group representing dozens of companies, did not have any comment on Planet’s call to end US satellite weapons tests. A spokesperson noted the organization condemned Russia’s test, but its list of sustainability principles doesn’t mention the topic.

While sources won’t speculate publicly about why companies haven’t taken a harder line on anti-satellite weapons, it’s clear that traditional links between the US military and space contractors make them reluctant to push an arms control policy. Another reason for complacency is that the risk of outright collision remains fairly low for now. But with more and more satellites being launched, and more debris being created, the fear is that danger could increase exponentially.

“If I were the commercial sector, I’d be screaming about this,” says Victoria Samson, a military space expert at the Secure World Foundation. “I’m surprised they are not. I fervently hope that they will follow Planet, or if the US government releases a moratorium, they will support it.”

Space’s economic importance is linked to national security

Planet’s founders aren’t new to this problem. In 2003, CEO Will Marshall and chief strategy officer Robbie Schingler worked on the first Space Security Index, a report designed to assess whether nations were meeting treaty obligations to maintain free and safe access to space. At the time, the reduction of anti-satellite weapons testing by the US and Russia after the Cold War was cited as reducing debris in space.

But the same trends that helped Marshall and Schingler launch Planet in 2010—the growing importance of space to the military and global economy—have also increased interest in space warfare, which is documented in this recently-released Secure World Foundation report. China’s first anti-satellite test in 2007 was matched by the US in 2008. In 2019, India became the fourth nation to destroy a satellite—a move Planet condemned even as it launched satellites on an Indian government rocket weeks later. Russia’s latest test in 2021 only generated more global criticism.

There are hints that Planet’s call might see some government follow-through. Kathleen Hicks, a senior defense official, said last fall that the US “would like to see all nations agree to refrain from anti-satellite weapons testing that creates debris.” If the Biden administration pursues that policy, it may be a step towards the new norms and rules for space we hear so much about.

A version of this story was originally published in Quartz’s Space Business newsletter.

Noam Chomsky, 93, issues warning: 'We're approaching the most dangerous point in human history'

Jane Nam
NEXT SHARK
April 13, 2022


With the ongoing climate crisis and the looming possibility of nuclear war, Noam Chomsky, 93, often hailed as one of the world’s most important intellectuals alive, warns that “we’re approaching the most dangerous point in human history.”

The renowned linguist and social critic has lived through several consequential events of the 20th century. In a recent interview with The New Statesman, he recalled feeling terrified while “listening to Hitler’s speeches on the radio” at the age of 6 and writing about the 1939 fall of Barcelona at the age of 10.

It is now, however, that Chomsky says we are “facing the prospect of destruction” of human life on Earth.

Climate change

Climate change has been the central topic of Chomsky’s most recent works, in which he writes about the inextricable tie between global warming and capitalism. He has deemed Earth as unsalvageable within the “time scale” that capitalist countries such as the U.S. have made for it, even with the establishment of policies committed to decreasing carbon output.

“There is no one other than Donald Trump –in history– who has done more to try to drive the human race to extinction,” said Chomsky, who added that “nothing else mattered” if the future was destroyed. He listed Trump’s policies focusing on “maximizing fossil fuels” and “cutting back” regulations that addressed climate change.

Chomsky also likened “Trump’s fanaticism” to Hitler’s Nazis rallies, describing, in particular, the strong base of Republicans against addressing climate change as “a truly dangerous insurgency.” He described the party’s disregard of global warming as “a death warrant” for humankind.

Russia-Ukraine

Chomsky’s father, who was of Jewish descent, was born in present-day Ukraine. When asked what Russian president Vladimir Putin’s motivations for invading Ukraine might have been, Chomsky declared that it is not enough to simply write the conflict off as a matter of Putin’s “twisted” mind.

“Putin is as concerned with democracy as we are,” Chomsky told the Statesman, referring to the U.S.’ history of political and economic reach in the East. He cited September 2021, when the U.S. sent Ukraine advanced weapons in the name of “enhanced military cooperation,” as an example.

Chomsky also pointed to “Iran in 1953, Guatemala in 1954, Chile in 1973” before saying, “But we are supposed to honor and admire Washington’s enormous commitment to sovereignty and democracy.”

Russia-China

When asked about Russia’s relationship with China and whether he thought there was a chance of them joining forces to become a superpower under the current circumstances, Chomsky responded that it was a relationship based on strategy rather than a true “partnership.”

Drawing comparisons to the lack of global military support for the U.S.’ invasion of Iraq, which he has denounced as a crime disguised as “noble intentions,” Chomsky predicted that China, along with the rest of the world, would remain largely absent from the war in Ukraine.

Flooding kills hundreds in South Africa: 'This disaster is part of climate change'

David Knowles

Senior Editor
April 14, 2022,

More than 300 people have been killed in flooding following days of extreme rainfall in eastern South Africa, with some areas receiving up to six months’ worth of rain in a single day.

Touring the devastated region on Wednesday, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said the severity of the downpours was further evidence of the consequences of climate change.

“This disaster is part of climate change. It is telling us that climate change is serious, it is here,” said Ramaphosa, adding, “We no longer can postpone what we need to do, and the measures we need to take to deal with climate change.”

KwaZulu-Natal province in South Africa saw the heaviest single-day rains in more than 60 years, the country's national weather service reported.

“We’re traumatized, we can’t even eat. For the whole day I didn’t eat because I don’t know what to do,” Boniswa Shangase, a resident of Durban whose home was washed away in the flooding, told the BBC.

As the waters quickly rose around the hillside home where she raised her two daughters, Shangase jumped out a window before it gave way.

“Now I’m homeless,” she told the BBC. “We can’t live here anymore.”

A destroyed bridge in Durban, South Africa. (Rogan Ward/Reuters)

Numerous scientific studies have found that rising global temperatures are increasing the amount of moisture in the atmosphere, and that as a result, certain regions are now at greater risk of flash flooding due to extreme precipitation events.

“Extreme precipitation is expected to intensify with global warming over large parts of the globe as the concentration of atmospheric water vapor which supplies the water for precipitation increases in proportion to the saturation concentrations at a rate of about 6-7% per degree rise in temperature according to the thermodynamic Clausius-Clapeyron relationship,” stated a 2020 study by Hossein Tabari, who researches how climate change affects the hydrologic cycle.

The study added, however, that where the intensification will be experienced globally depends on a variety of factors.

While the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has concluded that the western portion of South Africa can expect to see drought in the coming years, eastern parts of the country face the possibility of an increased number of extreme rainfall events.

“Future warming is likely to be greatest over the interior of semi-arid margins of the Sahara and central southern Africa,” stated a study by researchers at the University of Oslo. “Projected changes in precipitation will lead to a drying throughout southern Africa and increases in rainfall over parts of eastern Africa."

Destruction from floodwaters north of Durban. (Marco Longari/AFP via Getty Images)

A massive continent, Africa will see an array of climate change impacts, the IPCC said in its latest report, such as the crippling drought that has endangered the lives of 350,000 children in Somalia and displaced more than 700,000 people over the last three years. By 2030, the IPCC warned in its report, “half the continent of Africa could be displaced as a result of climate change.”

In KwaZulu-Natal province, where power lines snapped from the force of rushing water, bridges were destroyed and thousands were left homeless, this week’s storms provided yet another preview of the climate change future.

“The heavy rainfall that has descended on our land over the past few days has wreaked untold havoc and unleashed massive damage to lives and infrastructure,” the province said in a message posted to its Facebook page.

US Supreme Court may toss an 'important tool' for regulating climate change

Ben AdlerSenior Editor
April 14, 2022,

The Supreme Court is on the verge of restricting the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to limit carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.

The court’s conservative majority appears likely to side with Republican-controlled states and coal companies in West Virginia v. EPA, for which the court heard oral arguments on Feb. 28 and is expected to issue a ruling in June. Such a ruling could eliminate some of the key methods that the Biden administration can use to accelerate the power sector’s transition to cleaner sources of energy, potentially hamstringing its ability to meet the president’s goal of halving greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.

Experts say the court is virtually guaranteed to side with the petitioners — a coalition of red states and coal companies — but that the still unknown logic and details of the ruling may determine the shape of U.S. climate regulation in the future.

“Taking the case is a very clear sign that they’re going to rule against EPA in some way, but we don’t know how," David Doniger, senior strategic director of the Climate & Clean Energy Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, told Yahoo News. “It wasn’t clear from the oral argument what the dominant approach would be.”

Observers do not expect the Supreme Court to overturn previous rulings that give the EPA authority to regulate carbon pollution, but they say it’s possible the court may say the agency cannot use certain tools in doing so.

“It’s about how [and] what kind of regulation EPA can put in place,” Doniger said.

“From the oral argument, it looks like the Supreme Court is likely to rule in favor of the petitioners, but it could be a broad ruling or a narrow ruling,” Jeff Holmstead, who heads the Environmental Strategies Group at the law firm Bracewell, told Yahoo News. “Most of us who have been following the cases for a while suspect that their reasoning will set some limits on EPA’s authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions — not just from power plants but from industrial plants more generally.”

To understand how the case reached this point, it’s necessary to go back to 2007, when the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in Massachusetts v. EPA that the agency is obligated to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act. But the EPA did not write any regulations of carbon emissions under then-President George W. Bush.

Then-President Barack Obama speaking at the largest photovoltaic solar plant in the U.S., in Boulder City, Nev., in 2012. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

When President Barack Obama took office, he focused on trying to get Congress to pass a bill to regulate carbon emissions across the economy, which would have displaced the EPA’s regulatory authority. After unified Republican opposition blocked that effort in the Senate, the EPA drafted regulations, which were finalized in 2015 under the rubric Clean Power Plan.

The rules for new power plants essentially required such low emissions that no new coal-fired power plants would be built unless they included technology to remove carbon dioxide from the smokestack and store it underground. This is an expensive practice known as carbon capture and sequestration, or CCS. Since gas-fired power plants and renewable sources of energy — such as wind and solar — are cheaper than coal when starting from scratch, that rule actually made little difference.

The more contentious question is how to regulate existing power plants, which may be active for decades to come. The Clean Power Plan answered that with an innovative approach to gradually reducing emissions: Instead of just requiring new pollution controls like CCS, it set limits for the emissions of a state’s entire energy portfolio that could be met through approaches like buying solar and wind power produced elsewhere or reducing demand for electricity by helping consumers weatherize their homes. In the parlance of energy policy wonks, these tactics are called “outside the fence line” of a power plant.

Coal-friendly states sued, arguing that this approach went beyond the EPA’s power under the Clean Air Act, and the Supreme Court stayed the rule in 2016. The Democrats then lost the White House that year to Donald Trump, a climate science denier and coal industry booster. In 2017, Trump’s EPA — arguing that “outside the fence line” rules go beyond the agency’s authority — revoked the Clean Power Plan and replaced it with a regulation called the Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule, which eliminated those measures and actually could allow for more carbon pollution by changing the way it is calculated.

EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler prepares to sign the Affordable Clean Energy rule in June 2019 as Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and Council on Environmental Quality chairman Mary Neumayr look on.

 (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

A group of Democratic-controlled states sued to block the Trump-era ACE rule, arguing that the EPA was wrong to determine that only very modest pollution-control technology additions at power plants could be required. Last year, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit agreed and overturned the ACE rule, and the conservative state and coal industry challenges to that ruling are what the Supreme Court is now considering.

So, experts say, the court is likely to overturn that decision and find that the Trump rule was valid. But doing that and nothing else would merely signal to future Republican administrations that they can get away with writing toothless carbon regulations; it wouldn’t stop Biden’s EPA from devising a much stronger one.

A broader decision could have a broader impact, though: If the court holds that the federal government lacks the authority to require lowering emissions through anything but pollution control technology, the Biden administration will not be able to write a new rule that includes other approaches.

“The oral argument was focused almost exclusively on the legality of the Clean Power Plan and whether the EPA in the Clean Power Plan exceeded its authority by what its opponents have termed the ‘beyond the fence line’ generation-shifting feature of it,” Richard Revesz, a professor at New York University School of Law, told Yahoo News.

And so the future of climate regulation hangs in the balance.

EPA Administrator Michael Regan indicated two weeks ago that “the EPA is waiting for the Supreme Court decision to guide what it would like,” Revesz noted.

The Supreme Court. (Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

If the court rules that “outside the fence line” rules are not allowed, “it’s a significant constraint on EPA’s ability to regulate the greenhouse gas emissions of existing power plants,” Revesz said.

“You’re taking an important tool out of the EPA’s toolkit,” he added. “It might ultimately affect the stringency of the rule, and if it doesn’t affect the stringency of the rule, it might end up being more costly.” That’s because the only way to require similarly significant emissions cuts is by requiring carbon capture and sequestration.

“It will have lost the ability to get significant reductions that are low-cost,” Revesz said. That’s why most energy utilities actually supported the EPA in this case.

The upcoming ruling and subsequent power plant regulations are central to Biden’s climate legacy because it increasingly appears that he will not be getting major action to address climate change through Congress. Since Biden’s sweeping Build Back Better legislation — which includes large investments in clean energy and electric vehicles — has failed to pass the Senate, his administration has argued that the United States can still meet its pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. At the U.N. Climate Change Conference last November, special presidential envoy for climate John Kerry told reporters that “we’re not dependent on the schedule of Congress” because “we’re already doing” what needs to be done on climate change through executive action.

The expected Supreme Court ruling against the EPA will follow a string of rulings limiting environmental regulations. Earlier this month, the court overturned a lower court ruling that had struck down a Trump-era rule limiting state and tribal authority to veto projects such as pipelines that could pollute their waters.

Oldest evidence of Mayan calendar found in Guatemala


An exterior view of the Great Jaguar, main building of Tikal, the most important city of the ancient Maya civilization at the province of Peten, Feb. 28, 2011. Tikal was one of the main cultural centers of the Maya civilization. The oldest known fragments of the Maya calendar were found in San Bartolo, Guatemala. 

Photo by Sandra Sebastian/EPA


April 14 (UPI) -- The oldest evidence of the Maya calendar has been excavated at San Bartolo, Guatemala, found among fragments of painted murals.

Acording to a new study, two fragments with a "7 deer" date notation date to between 300 and 200 BCE, based on radiocarbon dating.

Authors of the study said that the finding "represents a day in the 260-day divinatory calendar used throughout Mesoamerica and among indigenous Maya communities today."

"It's the one calendar that survives all the conquests and the civil war in Guatemala," the latter of which was waged from 1960 to 1996, study first author David Stuart told Live Science.

"The Maya of today in many communities have kept it as a way of connecting to their ideas of fate and how people relate to the world around them. It's not a revival. It's actually a preservation of the calendar," said Stuart, the Schele professor of Mesoamerican art and writing at the University of Texas at Austin.

Stuart was part of the team that discovered the San Bartolo site in 2001.

The 7 Deer day record represents the earliest securely dated example of the Maya calendar, according to the study.

The previous oldest known evidence of the Maya calendar also came from San Bartolo. the new discovery pre-dates that one by 150 years.

The fragments from the Maya calendar came from an architectural complex known as the Las Pinturas pyramid.

It consists of a pyramid with seven construction phases and several auxiliary structures.

The researchers say the fragments indicate it is a record in the Mesoamerican 260-day calendar, "7 Deer," or, in the colonial Maya system of 16th century Yucatán, "7 Manik."

The 260-day count is the traditional divination calendar used throughout ancient Mesoamerica, surviving up to the present day among some indigenous communities in southern Mexico and Guatemala, according to the study.

Until these fragments were discovered all early Maya calendar records came from stone monuments.

Quebec Health Ministry tweets adult video rather than COVID advice

The ministry in the Canadian province said it was investigating why it tweeted a link to pornographic material. The department has apologized for the "inconvenience" caused by posting "inappropriate content."

Quebec's Health Ministry tweeted out a link containing "inappropriate content"

The Health Ministry in the Canadian province of Quebec apologized on Thursday after publishing a tweet that linked "inappropriate content."

The tweet was reportedly meant to connect users to Quebec's COVID-19 portal.

But the local branch of the CTV News broadcaster reported that the tweet featured a link to a fetish video on pornography streaming site PornHub.

'Out of our control'

"Due to a situation out of our control, a link containing inappropriate content was published on our Twitter account," the ministry tweeted after the incident.

"We are searching for the causes of this," the ministry added, before apologizing for the inconvenience.

Pornhub is based in Montreal and owned by Canadian pornography firm MindGeek.

In 2021, dozens of women filed a lawsuit against MindGeek, accusing the company of profiting from sexual exploitation.

AFP material contributed to this report.

Edited by: John Silk

New California bill proposes four-day workweek for larger companies



Tue, April 12, 2022

Yahoo Finance Live examines the proposed legislation in California that would limit workdays and work hours in large businesses and how similar proposals are believed to affect worker productivity.

Video Transcript

RACHELLE AKUFFO: Welcome back to Yahoo Finance Live, everyone. We're never going back to the four-day workweek. That tweet from [INAUDIBLE] executive chairman after piloting a three-month test to see how effective and productive it is for the unicorn startup.

Now, he said he saw heightened productivity, engagement, and wellness, and he rejected what he calls fear to work-- work that looks good, but doesn't actually move the needle or make an impact. You know, and sometimes, you'll see someone sort of walking around busily with a coffee cup and scheduling a ton of meetings. But are they actually being productive? Does he have a point? Dave, what do you think?

DAVE BRIGGS: I am much more productive away from this house and in an office. I might stand alone on that. I'm OK with businesses making that decision. Where I draw the line is what they're doing in California, proposing legislation in the state assembly that would mandate it, mandate 32-hour weeks for businesses of 500 or more employees.

That's one of the five California businesses, and the Chamber of Commerce calls it a job killer. They also would require, if this law were to pass, you to pay time and a half anything over 32 hours, pay double time anything over a 12-hour day over a seven-day week. I have to agree with the Chamber of Commerce in California. That, to me, Brad, is a job killer.

BRAD SMITH: You know, when you started off your answer, I mean, I totally agree because the fact that we've already seen businesses need to stand in the gap for so many things that the federal legislation has dragged their feet on, whether that be on trying to make sure that even election day is a federal holiday, or making Juneteenth a holiday, or even making sure that your workers have certain rights internally, a lot of businesses have needed to step up to that task prior to the public sector actually doing so. And so how is a four-day workweek any different in this instance?

And so as we move forward from here, you're going to hear all the different test cases and studies of how businesses have taken this onus upon themselves to see how it's better for productivity, where they're seeing better work-life balance and camaraderie among their workforce and their team base, and also, how they're able to still retain the revenue that they've come to expect over time. And all of that is going to be the basis for whether or not they decide to move forward.

Of course, it's going to be harder in certain industries and roles and town sectors than others. But it's all about seeing exactly where we can start to draw the framework. And coming back to that Charlie Day reference, that's the CEO's job or the C-suite's job to be that Charlie Day and figure out, OK, how can we make sure we're adequately mapping to see how everything can still get done, how we can still retain our profitability and be a successful business, while also having success within the ethos and the corporate culture within our company as well?

DAVE BRIGGS: Yeah, I think it's just to each his own when it comes down to the businesses. Mandating it is a very slippery slope. It works for Kickstarter [INAUDIBLE]

A bill proposing a 4-day workweek is moving through the California legislature and would target companies with 500+ employees


Hannah Getahun
Tue, April 12, 2022

AB 2932 could potentially shorten the workweek in California to 32 hours.

Two California assembly members are proposing a 32-hour workweek.

The bill is similar to a proposed bill in Congress from Rep. Mark Takano, also from California.

Asm. Cristina Garcia told Insider that she hopes California will set an example for other states.

California is taking the lead on making the four-day workweek a reality.

State Assembly members are proposing a bill that would create shortened workweek for non-union, hourly workers at companies with 500 or more employees.

The bill, authored by Asm. Evan Low and Asm. Cristina Garcia, is currently moving through committee. It's similar to a federal bill proposed by Rep. Mark Takano, also from California, that is currently awaiting a vote in the House Education and Labor Committee.

Low told Insider support surrounding Takano's bill partially inspired this one: "As we come out of the COVID pandemic, I am excited about how we reimagine our workforce while uplifting the voices of workers to get back in the job market in response to the Great Resignation," Low said.

Garcia told Insider that now is the perfect time for discussions surrounding a lessened workweek, especially as labor shortages continue across the country and companies begin experimenting with the concept. "Two years into this pandemic, you see a moment of employees driving change and employees reimagining what they think their work week or their work-life balance should be," Garcia said.

It could take years before a proposed bill like this can become a law, but "there's been a lot of enthusiasm more recently now that this bill was introduced out there," Garcia added.

AB 2932 would change state law and shorten the workweek to 32 hours but compensate employees at a similar pay rate. Employees who work over 32 hours would receive overtime at 1.5 times their hourly wages.

Companies around the world have tested or embraced the 4-day workweek, like Microsoft, which reported a 40% increase in productivity, and Buffer, which found that employees are less likely to burn out. The country of Iceland also had a trial of the 4-day workweek, which was so successful that 86% of the country's workforce moved to a shorter workweek.

Critics say it's a 'job killer'

Ashley Hoffman, policy advocate for the California Chamber of Commerce, argued in a letter to Low that the bill is a "job killer" and would present added costs to employers.

"AB 2932's impact on labor costs in California will discourage job growth in the state and likely reduce opportunities for workers," Hoffman wrote.

In a comment to Insider, a spokesperson from the Chamber of Commerce said they would not be able to support a proposal that "requires employers to pay for 32 hours of work at the rate they are currently paying for a 40 hour work week."

Garcia said that although labor costs are a concern, she feels a bill targeting larger companies would help protect smaller businesses. Additionally, she said boosting employee morale through a shortened workweek could help companies with hiring and retention.

"Especially if you're seeing more productivity, you're seeing less attrition, all those things are good things for companies," Garcia said. "All those things help with the bottom line."

Garcia hopes that as discussions on the bill progress, other states will look to California as an example.

"We like to say if California goes, the nation goes," Garcia said.

California takes a giant step toward making the 4-day workweek dream a reality

Colin Lodewick
Tue, April 12, 2022

Legislators in California are attempting to fulfill the dreams of countless workers and are taking steps toward enshrining a four-day workweek into law.

A new bill introduced in the state assembly, known as AB 2932, aims to lower the maximum threshold for overtime pay from 40 hours to 32 hours for companies with over 500 employees in the state. Assembly members Cristina Garcia and Evan Low coauthored the bill, which has not yet been set for a hearing.

“We’ve seen over 47 million people voluntarily leave their jobs for better opportunities. We’re seeing a labor shortage across the board from small to big businesses,” Garcia told Fortune. “And so it’s very clear that employees don’t want to go back to normal or the old way, but to rethink and go back to [something] better.”

She added that while catered meals or game rooms might have been enough for companies to attract workers in the past, she believes they want more now.

“They are looking for a healthier work/life balance. They want to feel less stress.”

The idea of a four-hour workweek has been gaining steam for years, but the pandemic and the subsequent so-called Great Resignation have dramatically expanded popular interest. And now, even politicians are getting serious about it. Advocates like Joe O’Connor, CEO of 4 Day Week Global, a nonprofit established to promote the idea of a four-day workweek, told Fortune that the California bill is significant.

“A bill such as this puts the idea of reduced work time on the legislative agenda in a way that wasn’t previously the case,” he said.

He argues the five-day workweek persists as a cultural norm despite decades-old innovations since the 1980s like email and the internet that have made workers more productive.

“That has not translated to working less,” he noted.

But that could be changing. Garcia and Low are not the only California politicians introducing four-day workweek legislation. Last July, Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) introduced a similar bill at the federal level.

Takano’s bill found support among progressive labor rights organizations and unions including the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and the National Employment Law Project (NELP). The bill has yet to be heard in the House.

The new California law is unlikely to pass the statehouse, and the California Chamber of Commerce added it to its “job killer” list.

But a slew of companies have announced four-day workweeks over the past few years. With the dissolution of the traditional workplace, employers are now more likely than ever to consider flexible work policies—especially when it seems as if workers have the upper hand and when those policies might ultimately be good for the bottom line.

Social media management software company Buffer initiated a four-day workweek in 2020 as a one-month test trial. The company made it a permanent policy later in the year after employees responded positively, said Hailley Griffs, Buffer’s head of communications and content.

“Folks felt that they were getting the same amount of work done,” Griffs told Fortune. She says that recent internal company data shows that 91% of her team reported feeling happier as a result of the policy change.

The four-day workweek is especially helpful for Griffs, who became a mother during the pandemic: “I get an extra day that I get to spend with [my daughter] as a baby.” There’s a financial benefit, too: Griffs needs to pay for childcare only Monday through Thursday.

“Very few employers that we speak to would say the four-day workweek can’t work,” O’Connor noted. “The question they’re asking is, can the four-day workweek work for my business?”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

WAR IS RAPE
Ukraine rights group tells top U.N. body that rape used as weapon of war


The United Nations Security Council meets, amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine, at the U.N. in New York

Mon, April 11, 2022
By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United Nations is increasingly hearing accounts of rape and sexual violence in Ukraine, a senior U.N. official told the Security Council on Monday, as a Ukrainian human rights group accused Russian troops of using rape as a weapon of war.

Kateryna Cherepakha, president of La Strada-Ukraine, said her organization's emergency hotlines had received calls accusing Russian soldiers of nine cases of rape, involving 12 women and girls.

"This is just the tip of the iceberg," she told the council via video. "We know and see - and we want you to hear our voices - that violence and rape is used now as a weapon of war by Russian invaders in Ukraine."

Russia has repeatedly denied attacking civilians since its invasion of Ukraine began on Feb. 24.

The United Nations said last week that U.N. human rights monitors were seeking to verify allegations of sexual violence by Russian forces, including gang rape and rapes in front of children, and claims Ukrainian forces and civil defense militias had also committed sexual violence.

Ukraine's U.N. mission did not immediately respond to a request for comment on allegations against Ukraine forces.

"Russia, as we have stated more than once, does not wage war against the civilian population," Russia's deputy U.N. Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy told the Security Council on Monday, accusing Ukraine and allies of "a clear intention to present Russian soldiers as sadists and rapists."

UN Women Executive Director, Sima Bahous, said that all allegations must by independently investigated to ensure justice and accountability.

"We are increasingly hearing of rape and sexual violence," she told the council. "The combination of mass displacement with the large pressure results of conscripts and mercenaries and the brutality displayed against Ukrainian civilians has raised all red flags."

All sides in the Ukraine war have systems of conscription, where young men are required by law to do military service. Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of using mercenaries.

Russia says it is carrying out a "special military operation" to support independence declarations by separatists in two provinces in eastern Ukraine.

Ukraine's U.N. Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya told the Security Council that the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine was "launching a special mechanism of documentation of cases of sexual violence by Russian soldiers against Ukrainian women."

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Mary Milliken and Grant McCool)

Russian troops in Bucha turned to sexual violence against Ukrainian women — killing some and impregnating others — according to reports


A woman witnesses bodies being processed from a mass grave in Bucha, Ukraine.

Erin Trieb for Insider

Taiyler Simone Mitchell
Mon, April 11, 2022, 

The Ukrainian region of Bucha has been host to some of the war's worst atrocities.

Sexual violence against women is "the new weapon" used by Russian troops, a Ukrainian official said.

It's currently "impossible" to gauge how widespread sexual abuse is, the official added.

After Russian troops backed out of Kyiv and the surrounding areas, the world is learning about the damage left behind in the suburb of Bucha, just over an hour's drive to Ukraine's capital, which had been under Russian control.

Bucha has been the scene of some of the war's worst atrocities — largely including sexual violence against the region's civilian women.

A woman clothed only in a fur coat was found with a bullet to the head inside of the basement of a pillaged home, the home's owner told The New York Times.

Volodymyr Shepitko, 66, told the publication his home was overtaken by Russian troops. The woman's body was found near several condom wrappers and a single used one, the outlet reported.

The Ukrainian ombudswoman for human rights, Lyudmyla Denisova, previously called abuse by Russian soldiers their "new weapon."

She told BBC that a group of "About 25 girls and women aged 14 to 24 were systematically raped during the occupation in the basement of one house in Bucha."

"Russian soldiers told them they would rape them to the point where they wouldn't want sexual contact with any man, to prevent them from having Ukrainian children," she said, adding that nine of them wound up pregnant

Denisova told the outlet that it's currently "impossible" to gauge how widespread the sexual violence against women is in the region because not everyone is willing to speak up about it.

"The majority of them currently call for psychological support, so we cannot record those as crimes unless they give us their testimony," she added.

UN tells UK to stop matching single Ukrainian women fleeing the invasion with single men, following reports of sexual exploitation


Bill Bostock
Wed, April 13, 2022

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (L) and Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson (R) shake hands during their walk in downtown Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, April 9, 2022.Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP

The UN says a UK refugee program for Ukrainians must stop pairing single women with single men.

Reports have detailed how some men are trying tried to exploit vulnerable women seeking shelter.

150,000 UK homes signed up to house Ukrainian refugees, but the scheme is beset with delays.

The UN's refugee agency says the UK must stop placing single Ukrainian women fleeing the invasion in the homes of single British men, the Guardian reported.

Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the UK government launched the "Homes for Ukraine" scheme, which saw more than 150,000 people offer up rooms in their homes to those fleeing the invasion.

However, several UK media reports have detailed how British men are targeting vulnerable single Ukrainian women arriving in the country, in some cases asking for sexual contact in return for accommodation.

A spokesperson for the UN's High Commissioner for Refugees told the Guardian that "a more appropriate matching process" was needed so that single women could be paired with with women or families.

"Matching done without the appropriate oversight may lead to increasing the risks women may face, in addition to the trauma of displacement, family separation and violence already experienced," the spokesperson said.

The government's "Homes for Ukraine" system has been heavily criticized domestically, and applicants have been subject to long delays.

Several Ukrainian refugees previously told Insider that they are choosing to return to war-torn Ukraine as they are exhausted by the "hunger and homelessness" inflicted by the long wait for UK visas.

In late March, 16 refugee and anti-trafficking organizations warned that the program was in danger of becoming "Tinder for sex traffickers."

"By adopting a hands-off approach to matching, there is a high risk that traffickers, criminals and unscrupulous landlords set up matching sites and Facebook pages to prey upon the vulnerable," the letter said.

According to a tracker run by the UNHCR, more than 4.6 million Ukrainians have fled the country since Russia invaded on February 24.

AGAINST OUR WILL; MEN, WOMEN AND RAPE

SUSAN BROWNMILLER

PDF

https://www.academia.edu/5832605/Against_our_will_men_women_and_rape_blackatk_