Russia’s Panicked Confession: This Is What Scares Us Most

Julia Davis

DAILY BEAST
Tue, August 16, 2022

Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/Getty

In a recent interview with Russian state media outlet TASS, the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s North American Department, Aleksandr Darichev, said that in the event the U.S. designates Russia a state sponsor of terrorism, it would represent “a point of no return” in relations between the two countries. Speaking on behalf of the country that ruthlessly invaded its smaller neighbor and is continually being accused of human rights violations and serious war crimes, Darichev shamelessly claimed on Saturday that the West, led by the United States, “has trampled upon international law and absolute taboos in diplomatic practice.”

Appearing on the state TV show Sunday Evening With Vladimir Solovyov a day later, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova raged against the possibility of such a designation, claiming that these plans were caused by failure on the part of the U.S. to isolate Russia from the rest of the world. Zakharova derided the level of competency of the U.S. officials, questioning whether they even know how to read, since Moscow has repeatedly warned Washington of the “consequences” should the U.S. label Russia a sponsor of terror.

The bipartisan resolution to declare Russia a sponsor of terrorism passed in the Senate at the end of July, after being introduced by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT). In the House of Representatives, Speaker Nancy Pelosi reportedly warned Secretary of State Antony Blinken that unless he moves ahead with the designation, Congress will pass appropriate legislation of its own accord.

Last week, the parliament of Latvia declared Russia a “state sponsor of terrorism” for attacks on civilians during the war in Ukraine, urging other countries to follow suit. Rihards Kols, who chairs the parliament’s foreign affairs committee, asserted: “Russia has for many years supported and financed terrorist regimes and organizations in various ways, directly and indirectly.” To illustrate that point, Kols brought up Russia’s involvement in Syria, its downing of the MH-17 flight over eastern Ukraine in 2014, and the 2018 poisoning of Sergei Skripal in the U.K.

Russia Vows Revenge at the Latest Country to Cross Putin

Lithuania adopted a similar resolution in May and Estonia may soon do so as well. The prospect of this initiative gaining global traction terrified prominent talking heads on Russian state television.

The measure would add Russia to the list of such pariah states as North Korea, Iran, Syria, and Cuba, allowing global governments to expand the list of measures and sanctions to exert further pressure against Putin’s regime, including a ban on defense exports and additional financial restrictions. Prominent pundits and experts on Russian state TV clarified that the potential designation bothers Moscow the most not because of the damage to what is left of Russia’s reputation, but for legal and financial reasons.

Watch: Russia believes Ukrainian troops are 'superhumans' created in American biolabs


Two weeks ago, Andrey Sidorov, deputy dean of world politics at Moscow State University, explained why Moscow is so apoplectic about being labeled the sponsor of terrorism: “Regarding the declaration of Russia as a sponsor of terrorism—they will most likely pass this legislation. Unquestionably, all the sanctions they can impose against us are already in place. That’s not the scary part. What’s going to hurt is that the families harmed by the country that is a sponsor of terrorism have the right to file claims in American courts. Masses of Ukrainian citizens will be able to file suits. Where will the resources come from to pay out these claims?”

Referring to $300 billion out of the $640 billion that Russia had in its gold and forex reserves, which have been frozen by Western sanctions, host Vladimir Solovyov opined: “They’re looking for the way to grab our $300 billion.” Sidorov agreed: “They’ll take that $300 billion pursuant to court orders.”

Russian experts openly cherish the idea of taking Ukraine’s vast mineral and energy resources, which they predict will boost Russia’s failing economy. In addition to stealing Ukraine’s riches, pro-Putin propagandists have been openly hoping to get their seized funds and properties back—even threatening nuclear strikes in order to secure their release. The prospect of losing these billions for good is infinitely more worrisome than any label Putin’s regime so richly deserves.

Solovyov, twice honored by President Vladimir Putin for his services to the Fatherland, proposed a solution: forcefully turning all Ukrainians into Russian citizens after taking over Ukraine in its entirety. While Russia’s genocidal objectives with respect to the neighboring country were obvious from the start, Moscow’s mouthpieces are now attempting to blame the West for their destruction of Ukraine.

Speaking of Ukrainian victims of Russian aggression, Solovyov said: “These families should not have the opportunity to file lawsuits in a court of law. They should become Russian citizens and the nation of Ukraine should completely disappear.” Earlier in August, appearing on the state TV show 60 Minutes, military expert Igor Korotchenko conceded that Russia wants to erase Ukraine off the map, because “it never really existed in the first place,” is perceived to be “anti-Russia” and therefore has no right to exist.

Regardless of the final outcome of Russia’s war against Ukraine, Moscow’s prospects as a global power are bleak. Appearing on the program Solovyov Live on Monday, Yevgeny Satanovsky, president of the Institute of the Middle East, noted with grim resignation, “With respect to the West as a whole, particularly where America, Europe or international organizations are concerned, Russia has nothing to hope for.”

Brazil’s presidential campaign launches amid fears of violence and upheaval

Andrew Downie
Tue, August 16, 2022 

Campaigning in Brazil’s most important election for years formally gets under way this week amid fears of political violence on the campaign trail and possible turmoil before and after the October ballots.

Far-right president Jair Bolsonaro is trailing in the polls and has hinted he will not give up power if defeated by the leftist frontrunner and former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

A woman holds a fan with the image of ‘Lula’ da Silva during a Black Women’s March in Rio de Janeiro, 31 July. Photograph: Bruna Prado/AP

A former army captain, Bolsonaro has sharpened his rhetoric in recent weeks, telling foreign diplomats that Brazil’s electronic voting system is not reliable and ordering army officers to monitor the source code used in more than half a million ballot boxes.

His supporters have attacked two Lula rallies in recent weeks, throwing faeces, urine and a crude explosive device at Lula backers, as well as shooting dead one prominent Workers’ party official in the western city of Foz de Iguaçu.

Politicians and poll watchers fear that political violence will only escalate ahead of the 2 October elections for president, congress and 27 state governors.

“There is real reason for concern because even though political violence has been a fact of life here for years the situation today has been exacerbated by the way Bolsonaro has promoted violent discourse as a way to resolve political conflicts,” said Pablo Nunes, head of the CESeC thinktank.

Related: Brazil: killing of Lula’s party treasurer raises fears of violent run-up to election

On the national stage, Lula’s security details have requested more manpower to deal with the threats and the 76-year-old now wears a bulletproof vest at public events. His campaign kicks off this week with rallies in São Paulo and Belo Horizonte.

Ironically, the most prominent victim of violence in recent years is Bolsonaro, who was stabbed at a campaign event in September 2018, just weeks before the election that brought him to power.

He spent three weeks in hospital and was forced to undergo surgeries as a result of the attack, carried out by a lone assailant with mental health problems.

The incident, though, did not temper his outlook.

Jair Bolsonaro during a March for Jesus Christ in Rio de Janeiro on Saturday. 

Photograph: Mauro Pimentel/AFP/Getty Images

The former army captain was already notorious for his love of weapons and his close links to the military, where he served for 15 years. One of his trademark moves is to make a gun with his thumb and index finger and he once joked he would like to “strafe” members of the Workers’ party.

It was only weeks after taking power that his justice minister sought to reduce punishment for law enforcement officials who killed suspects while acting with “excusable fear, surprise or violent emotion”.

The wording was removed from the eventual bill but under Bolsonaro’s watch congress has passed 20 different measures making it easier to buy weapons. In the first two years of his government alone the number of gun licenses issued in Brazil rose by 65% to more than 1m, according to the NGO Instituto Sou da Paz.

Bolsonaro, a former paratrooper, has also spent much of the last year undermining the electoral system, repeating baseless claims about the reliability of Brazil’s electronic ballot boxes and insulting the judges who preside over the supreme electoral court, which organises the election and sanctions results.

He has hinted at the possibility of closing congress and in May told evangelical voters that “Only God can remove me” – a comment that prompted fears of a Trump-like insurrection if the vote goes against him.

“There is good reason to fear a possible Brazilian January 6 kind of situation,” said Nunes. “The conditions are there for this to happen.”

Although Bolsonaro has the backing of many in the military, it is unclear whether the top brass would support any attempt to subvert the democratic process.

Bolsonaro, though, is obviously preparing his supporters for action. Last week he told agricultural leaders, “Buy your guns! It’s in the Bible!”

“He is doing it to focus attention away from the country’s real problems and frighten the opposition, as well as to keep his militant base charged,” said Felipe Borba, the coordinator of a political violence thinktank at Rio’s Unirio university.

“It’s also done to prepare his side for a violent reaction if they lose.”

Borba said Bolsonaro wants to accumulate chips for the high-stakes poker game that will come after the election, which will go to a runoff on 30 October if no candidate gets a majority on 2 October.

A congressional inquiry into his disastrous handling of the pandemic – 680,000 Brazilians perished from the Covid-19 virus, more than any other country outside the United States – accused the president of nine offences, including crimes against humanity. He also faces charges related to his spread of fake news.

If he loses, he could face jail time and those close to the president said he is terrified at the prospect. Borba believes the sabre-rattling is a tactic aimed “at gaining power in any possible amnesty negotiation for him and his family. He needs to show strength.”

Related: Brazilians fear return to dictatorship as ‘deranged’ Bolsonaro trails in polls

Bolsonaro continues to trail in the polls with one study this week giving Lula a 12-point lead, although the gap has narrowed slightly in recent weeks.

Lula remains the favourite but Bolsonaro has the government machine at his disposal and has already increased the amount of monthly aid handouts given to 18 million of Brazil’s poorest families.

Whether that will be enough to close the gap remains to be seen but political analysts said the incumbent can win only by taking votes directly from Lula.

“If he keeps growing by consolidating votes from those who in theory should be voting for him, the kind of people who hate Lula more than anything and who were maybe not entirely happy with his government, then that won’t change the game,” said Vítor Oliveira, a political scientist with the Pulso Público consultancy.

“He needs to take votes from Lula to win; there is no other way.”

Strike four: Facebook misses election misinfo in Brazil ads
By BARBARA ORTUTAY

yesterday

An iPhone displays the Facebook app in New Orleans, Aug. 11, 2019. Facebook failed to detect election-related misinformation in ads ahead of Brazil's 2022 election, a new report from Global Witness has found, continuing a pattern of not catching material that violates its policies the group says is “alarming.” (AP Photo/Jenny Kane, File)


Facebook failed to detect blatant election-related misinformation in ads ahead of Brazil’s 2022 election, a new report from Global Witness has found, continuing a pattern of not catching material that violates its policies the group describes as “alarming.”

The advertisements contained false information about the country’s upcoming election, such as promoting the wrong election date, incorrect voting methods and questioning the integrity of the election — including Brazil’s electronic voting system.

This is the fourth time that the London-based nonprofit has tested Meta’s ability to catch blatant violations of the rules of its most popular social media platform— and the fourth such test Facebook has flubbed. In the three prior instances, Global Witness submitted advertisements containing violent hate speech to see if Facebook’s controls — either human reviewers or artificial intelligence — would catch them. They did not.

“Facebook has identified Brazil as one of its priority countries where it’s investing special resources specifically to tackle election related disinformation,” said Jon Lloyd, senior advisor at Global Witness. “So we wanted to really test out their systems with enough time for them to act. And with the U.S. midterms around the corner, Meta simply has to get this right — and right now.”

Brazil’s national elections will be held on Oct. 2 amid high tensions and disinformation threatening to discredit the electoral process. Facebook is the most popular social media platform in the country. In a statement, Meta said it has “ prepared extensively for the 2022 election in Brazil.”

“We’ve launched tools that promote reliable information and label election-related posts, established a direct channel for the Superior Electoral Court (Brazil’s electoral authority) to send us potentially-harmful content for review, and continue closely collaborating with Brazilian authorities and researchers,” the company said.

In 2020 Facebook began requiring advertisers who wish to run ads about elections or politics to complete an authorization process and include “paid for by” disclaimers on them, similar to what it does in the U.S. The increased safeguards follow the 2016 U.S. presidential elections, when Russia used rubles to pay for political ads designed to stoke divisions and unrest among Americans.

Global Witness said it broke these rules when it submitted the test ads (which were approved for publication but were never actually published). The group placed the ads from outside Brazil, from Nairobi and London, which should have raised red flags.

It was also not required to put a “paid for by” disclaimer on the ads and did not use a Brazilian payment method — all safeguards Facebook says it had put in place to prevent misuse of its platform by malicious actors trying to intervene in elections around the world.

“What’s quite clear from the results of this investigation and others is that their content moderation capabilities and the integrity systems that they deploy in order to mitigate some of the risk during election periods, it’s just not working,” Lloyd said.

The group is using ads as a test and not regular posts because Meta claims to hold advertisements to an “even stricter” standard than regular, unpaid posts, according to its help center page for paid advertisements.

But judging from the four investigations, Lloyd said that’s not actually clear.

“We we are constantly having to take Facebook at their word. And without a verified independent third party audit, we just can’t hold Meta or any other tech company accountable for what they say they’re doing,” he said.

Global Witness submitted ten ads to Meta that obviously violated its policies around election-related advertising. They included false information about when and where to vote, for instance and called into question the integrity of Brazil’s voting machines — echoing disinformation used by malicious actors to destabilize democracies around the world.

In another study carried out by the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, researchers identified more than two dozen ads on Facebook and Instagram, for the month of July, that promoted misleading information or attacked the country’s electronic voting machines.

The university’s internet and social media department, NetLab, which also participated in the Global Witness study, found that many of those had been financed by candidates running for a seat at a federal or state legislature.

This will be Brazil’s first election since far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, who is seeking reelection, came to power. Bolsonaro has repeatedly attacked the integrity of the country’s electronic voting system.

“Disinformation featured heavily in its 2018 election, and this year’s election is already marred by reports of widespread disinformation, spread from the very top: Bolsonaro is already seeding doubt about the legitimacy of the election result, leading to fears of a United States-inspired January 6 ‘stop the steal’ style coup attempt,” Global Witness said.

In its previous investigations, the group found that Facebook did not catch hate speech in Myanmar, where ads used a slur to refer to people of East Indian or Muslim origin and call for their deaths; in Ethiopia, where the ads used dehumanizing hate speech to call for the murder of people belonging to each of Ethiopia’s three main ethnic groups; and in Kenya, where the ads spoke of beheadings, rape and bloodshed.
__

Associated Press Writer Diane Jeantet contributed to this story.

Case against Alex Jones can proceed, Connecticut judge says


 Infowars host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones rallies pro-Trump supporters, Nov. 5, 2020, in Phoenix. A federal bankruptcy judge has cleared the way for a defamation lawsuit, filed by relatives of some victims of the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, to proceed against Jones. (AP Photo/Matt York, File)

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. (AP) — A federal bankruptcy judge on Monday cleared the way for a defamation lawsuit in Connecticut to proceed against Infowars host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.

The case was filed by relatives of some victims of the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Jones has falsely claimed that the nation’s deadliest school shooting — which killed 20 students and six educators — was a hoax.

Jones’ lawyer had sought to transfer the case to a federal bankruptcy court, rather than continue the case in Connecticut state court. That move brought the first day of jury selection to a sudden halt earlier this month.

However, Monday’s ruling by Judge Julie Manning essentially allows the plaintiffs to continue the defamation lawsuit against just Jones as an individual, without Free Speech Systems, a company owned by Jones and a defendant in the Connecticut case.

“The plaintiffs’ rights to have that process continue in the Connecticut Superior Court should not be disturbed,” Manning wrote in the decision, adding that the plaintiffs’ claims for damages were ready for trial.

A message was left seeking comment with Jones’ attorney, Norm Pattis.

Chris Mattei, an attorney for the plaintiffs, praised the bankruptcy judge’s decision. “We’re grateful the bankruptcy court saw through Alex Jones’s brazen effort to block a jury from being empaneled and holding him accountable. We look forward to trial,” he said in a written statement.

Free Speech Systems filed for bankruptcy in Texas about a week before Jones’ lawyer sought to have the Connecticut case transferred.

A Texas jury this month ordered Jones to pay $45.2 million in punitive damages to the parents of one of the children killed at Sandy Hook, in addition to another $4.1 million he must pay for the suffering he put them through by claiming for years that the shooting was a hoax.

Jones’ attorneys plan to appeal and try to lower the amount. Meanwhile, besides the case in Connecticut, a trial for damages is pending in Texas that was filed by the parents of another child killed at Sandy Hook.

Before the trial in Texas, Jones had already been found liable in a separate defamation lawsuit in Texas and another in Connecticut by relatives of some of the Sandy Hook victims.

The Connecticut jury will decide what, if any, damages Jones owes in that case, although state law could also limit what he would have to pay.

The two remaining trials are expected to begin next month, after juries are selected. Jury selection in the Connecticut case could resume this week, lawyers said.

___ This story has been corrected to show that only Free Speech Systems filed for bankruptcy, not Alex Jones as an individual.

BUYING VOTE$ WITH FED FUND$
Kemp will hand out up to $1.2B in cash to poorer Georgians

By JEFF AMY

ATLANTA (AP) — Gov. Brian Kemp said Monday he will spend up to $1.2 billion in federal COVID-19 aid on payments of $350 apiece to more than 3 million Georgians who benefit from Medicaid, subsidized child health insurance, food stamps or cash welfare assistance.

The payments will start in September, said Katie Byrd, a spokesperson for the governor’s office.

The move comes atop Kemp’s proposals last week to spend $2 billion in state surplus, split between property tax rebates and a second round of income tax rebates, if voters choose him for a second term in November over Democratic challenger Stacey Abrams. Those separate plans would require legislative approval next year.

Monday’s announcement will put money in the hands of less affluent Georgians in the months before the nationally watched election in a narrowly contested swing state. Those are voters to whom Abrams has been tailoring her economic platform. She also backs another round of income tax rebates, like those Kemp already pushed though, but has been arguing that Georgia also needs to do more to invest in long-term expansions of health, education and small business assistance to try to create a less unequal economy.

Kemp, though, appears to be betting that handing out cash now will outweigh the promise of future improvements. Under Georgia state law, he alone controls how billions in federal COVID-19 relief is spent, meaning he can hand out money even as he bashes Democratic President Joe Biden and Abrams for inflation and high spending.

The governor again said that his reason for handing out cash was to help people pressured by higher prices, even though economists agree that such spending worsens inflation by dumping more cash into the economy to bid up the prices of goods and services.

“This assistance will help some of Georgia’s most vulnerable citizens cope with the continued negative economic impact of the COVID-19 public health emergency and 40-year-high inflation caused by disastrous policies that were implemented by the Biden administration,” Kemp’s office said in a statement.

Kemp has cited the same reason for repeated suspensions of the state’s gas and diesel taxes since March, a move that has cost the state more than $800 million in foregone tax revenue. Abrams has called on Kemp to guarantee a suspension of fuel taxes through the end of the year.

Abrams has repeatedly accused Kemp of hypocrisy for taking credit for federally financed benefits while bad-mouthing Biden. Abrams spokesperson Alex Floyd in a Monday statement called the move another of Kemp’s “election-year vote buying schemes.”

While Kemp is boosting the income of poorer Georgians now, he terminated a monthly boost of at least $95 in food stamp benefits at the end of May when he ended Georgia’s COVID-19 state of emergency. His administration has also lagged in distributing hundreds of millions of dollars in federal money meant to prevent evictions.

“The reality is Brian Kemp refuses to expand Medicaid, has cut food assistance amid rising prices and failed to fully deploy federal rental assistance, leaving too many Georgians evicted,” said Abrams spokesperson Alex Floyd said in a statement. “Now, in the middle of a reelection campaign, he’s taking money to stage more political gimmicks. Kemp’s PR stunt is too little, too late.”

The state Department of Human Services said on its website that beneficiaries will get the payment automatically, but urged people to update their contact information on a state website that manages health and welfare benefits. The state said that people who get food stamps and cash welfare benefits will not get the money on the same debit card they get those benefits, but didn’t immediately respond to questions about how the money will get sent out.

Only people enrolled as of July 31 will get the money. Anyone who enrolled later or who left programs earlier is not eligible. If someone benefits from multiple programs, they will only get one $350 payment, but separate payments will be given to everyone in a household that benefits, meaning a single parent with two children would get $1,050, for example.

Georgia had 2.3 million people benefiting from Medicaid or the Child Health Insurance Program in April, according to the most recent federal figures, while it had 1.59 million people benefitting from food stamps in May.

___

Follow Jeff Amy on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jeffamy.

Why the Eastern Kentucky flood was no natural disaster. Let's call it what it is



Charles Calhoun
Tue, August 16, 2022 

It’s been two weeks since the historic and deadly flooding event in central Appalachia left 39 people dead and countless homes, businesses and lives destroyed. Naturally, narratives around this disaster have run amuck with some going so far as to name the very people dealing with it as the harbingers of their own destruction. And while this contributor will address that narrative below, there is another narrative that needs clarifying: The flood of July 28, 2022 was not a natural disaster.To imply this flood, along with so many other weather-borne catastrophes plaguing our world, is a natural disaster is to say three things: We don’t know why it happened, we don’t know how it happened and we don’t know how to prevent the next one. But we do know the answers to these questions. We’ve known them for some time. A combination of unfettered capitalism, environmental degradation through extraction economies and government indifference or plain inaction have borne a land in these hills ripe for weather related disasters and left behind communities with little to no defenses against them.

More: These are the people we lost in the Eastern Kentucky flooding

This disaster was man made. Strip mining and mountaintop removal reengineered the land and left communities and towns towards the valley floor exposed to record levels of storm runoff. Then the coal companies left and government officials let them offload their bonds tied to abandoned strip mining operations and their promise to clean up their mess. Logging companies also helped, clear cutting hillsides of trees capable of absorbing large amounts of moisture and holding the ground in place and leaving behind fields of kudzu, an invasive plant ill-suited for the job of mountain integrity. Throw in increased greenhouse gas emissions from the global industrialization of the 20th century and you have all the ingredients needed for continued and more frequent catastrophes.

Not the community's fault

This disaster is not the fault of those experiencing it. I consider myself an acquaintance of liberals and progressives and strive to abide no hate in the communities I live and work in. But to see folks of the same bent implying the assumed votes of the affected region in 2016 and 2020 and earlier are the reason why this man-made disaster has left them devastated is childish, infuriating and embarrassing.

To these same critical thinkers, I would ask: Will you say the same when the next disaster affects your democratic bulwark (i.e. Chicago, LA, Austin)? Did we not decry Sodom and Gomorrah references from conservatives after Hurricane Katrina? This is dangerously dualistic, incredibly callous and easily exploitable. We can’t be voices addressing climate change and in the same breath fall prey to such unscientific claims.

The science is clear

Finally, the next disaster is coming. The science is clear on this. The warmer our world becomes due to greenhouse gas buildup and environmental degradation, the more moisture will be absorbed into storms and the more volatile they will be, bringing prolonged rains and stronger winds. But when our government let the capitalists destroy these lands for profit and then let them off the hook for repairing them before they left, all while refusing any considerable legislation on addressing climate change, they left these communities vulnerable.

Without serious investments into repairing the land, rebuilding and refortifying infrastructure and providing those affected with free sturdy homes to replace the ones they lost, these man-made disasters will compound one after the other and the most vulnerable amongst us will suffer the consequences.

Charles Calhoun is a member of the Appalachian diaspora living in Columbia, SC but working remotely for an NPO in SEKY. He was present on the day of the floods.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: The Eastern Kentucky flood is no natural disaster. Call it what it is

In northern Chile, miners ask government to curb crime, robberies


A view of a brine pools of a lithium mine on the Atacama salt flat in the Atacama desert

Tue, August 16, 2022 at 9:46 AM·2 min read
By Fabian Cambero

SANTIAGO (Reuters) - The mining industry in Chile, the world's largest copper producer, on Tuesday called on the government to take action to stop an "escalation of crime" that has hit operations in the country's far north.

The call comes after the robbery last week of some 500 ounces of gold worth the equivalent of $1 million from the premises of a company, in addition to attempts to rob copper trucks and a train transporting copper cathodes, according to the National Mining Society (Sonami).

"We hope that the levels of crime, which have increased in the country recently, do not directly affect us and that the different operations can continue operating without putting their workers at risk," said Sonami's president, Diego Hernandez, in a press release.


"It is key that the authority adopts the necessary measures to ensure safety in mining operations and the transport of copper and other mineral shipments," he added.

Concerns have mounted in recent months over a rise in crime in the north of the country, which is also affected by an irregular migration crisis and has even led local authorities to ask the government to declare a state of emergency.

The government has launched a plan to increase police presence and surveillance in the northern region, which has vast unpopulated areas due to its location in the middle of the Atacama Desert, the driest desert in the world.

The local mining industry has for years reported the theft of goods such as copper by organized gangs, and police have reported various operations in which tons of copper ore have been recovered from robberies.

Photos and videos have circulated on social media of strangers throwing copper plates from trains transporting the reddish metal in the middle of the South American nation's arid northern region.

Neither the PDI nor Sonami immediately had figures available on the extent of the crimes.

Starbucks asks labor board to halt union votes temporarily

By DEE-ANN DURBIN

 yesterday

Pro-union pins sit on a table during a watch party for Starbucks' employees union election, Dec. 9, 2021, in Buffalo, N.Y. Starbucks is asking the National Labor Relations Board to temporarily suspend all union elections at its U.S. stores in response to allegations of improper coordination between regional NLRB officials and the union. (AP Photo/Joshua Bessex, File)

Starbucks on Monday asked the National Labor Relations Board to temporarily suspend all union elections at its U.S. stores, citing allegations from a board employee that regional NLRB officials improperly coordinated with union organizers.

In a letter to the board chairman and other officials, Starbucks said the unnamed career NLRB employee informed the company about the activity, which happened in the board’s St. Louis office in the spring while it was overseeing a union election at a Starbucks store in Overland Park, Kansas.

The store is one of 314 U.S. Starbucks locations where workers have petitioned the NLRB to hold union elections since late last year. More than 220 of those stores have voted to unionize. The company opposes the unionization effort.

The Seattle coffee giant alleges that St. Louis labor board officials made special arrangements for pro-union workers to vote in person at its office when they did not receive mail-in ballots, even though Starbucks and the union had agreed that store elections would be handled by mail-in ballot.

In its letter, Starbucks referred to memos the regional office sent confirming that workers were allowed to come to the office and vote in person after the union told the regional office that some workers had not received ballots in the mail. The memos, citing “board protocol,” said the workers voted alone in an empty office, according to Starbucks.

“Because observers were not present, no one can be sure who appeared to vote, whether NLRB personnel had inappropriate communications with the voters, told them how to vote, showed them how to vote or engaged in other undisclosed conduct,” Starbucks wrote in its letter.

Starbucks said regional board officials also disclosed confidential information to the union, including which workers’ ballots had arrived in the mail to be counted.

Starbucks Workers United, the group seeking to unionize U.S. Starbucks stores, accused the company of trying to “distract attention away from their unprecedented anti-union campaign, including firing over 75 union leaders across the country, while simultaneously trying to halt all union elections.”

“Ultimately, this is Starbucks’ latest attempt to manipulate the legal process for their own means and prevent workers from exercising their fundamental right to organize,” the group said in a statement.

A spokesperson for the NLRB said Monday the agency doesn’t comment on open cases.

Press secretary Kayla Blado said the NLRB will “carefully and objectively” consider any challenges that Starbucks raises through “established channels.” Starbucks can also seek expedited review in the case, Blado said.

Workers at the Overland Park store petitioned the NLRB to hold a vote in February. In April, workers voted 6-1 to unionize, but seven additional ballots were the subject of challenges from Starbucks or the union.

A hearing on those challenges was scheduled for Tuesday. Starbucks asked for that hearing to be delayed, but as of Monday afternoon, the board had not postponed it.

Risa L. Lieberwitz, a professor of labor law and academic director of the Worker Institute at Cornell University, said Starbucks’ push to delay the hearing was curious. Lieberwitz said the hearing is the ideal place for Starbucks to present evidence about the Overland Park election and ask the board to investigate.

“This certainly seems to be a tactic to shift attention away from Starbucks’ own conduct and try to put negative connotations or allegations against the board,” Lieberwitz said.

In its letter, Starbucks said the evidence in this case indicates misconduct in other regions as well. The company wants the NLRB to investigate other Starbucks union elections and make public a report on its findings. The company said the board should also implement safeguards to prevent regional officials from coordinating with one party or another.

Starbucks also asked the NLRB to issue an order requiring all elections to be conducted in person with observers from both sides.

Starbucks has long opposed unionization, dating back to CEO Howard Schultz’s acquisition of the company in the late 1980s. The current unionization effort has been riddled with accusations and lawsuits on both sides.

Starbucks Workers United has filed 284 unfair labor practice charges with the NLRB against Starbucks or one of its operators, according to the labor board. Starbucks has filed two charges against Workers United.

Earlier this month, the labor board dismissed one of the charges filed by Starbucks, saying the company failed to prove that pro-union workers blocked store entrances or intimidated customers during a spring rally.

In June, the NLRB asked a federal court in western New York to order Starbucks to stop interfering with unionization efforts at its U.S. stores.

The NLRB’s actions against Starbucks haven’t always been successful. In June, a federal judge in Phoenix ruled that Starbucks didn’t have to rehire three workers who claimed that the company had retaliated against them for organizing a union.

Unionization efforts at Starbucks, Amazon, Trader Joe’s and elsewhere are gaining steam under President Joe Biden, who has vowed to be “the most pro-union president” in American history.

But Bill Gould, a former NLRB chairman who now teaches at Stanford Law School, said NLRB decisions issued under Biden have not been much different than those issued under Republican presidents.

“Starbucks doesn’t like the message that workers are giving them, pretty uniformly, across the country,” Gould said. “So they’re trying to eliminate the messenger.”

Starbucks isn’t the only large company facing a unionization effort that has attacked the voting process.

Amazon has also levied accusations of improper conduct against the NLRB’s regional office in Brooklyn in its attempt to re-do a historic labor win at a warehouse on Staten Island, New York. Among other allegations, Amazon said the agency tainted the voting process by seeking reinstatement of a fired Amazon worker in the weeks leading up to the March election.

Attorneys for the agency have pushed back. A regional director for an NLRB office in Phoenix is expected to issue a ruling on that case in the coming weeks.

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Associated Press Business Writer Haleluya Hadero in New York contributed to this report.

Safety concerns after deadly fire rips through Egypt church

By SAMY MAGDY

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A worker installs scaffolding at the Abu Sefein church, a day after a fire killed over 40 people and injured at least 14 others, in the densely populated neighborhood of Imbaba, in Cairo, Egypt, Monday, Aug. 15, 2022. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt was in mourning Monday over a blaze at a Coptic Orthodox church that killed 41 people, but many also raised questions about the emergency response, fire safety codes, and restrictions on building houses of worship for the country’s Christian minority.

Neighborhood residents expressed shock over the fire Sunday, one of Egypt’s deadliest in recent years, that killed 41 members of the congregation, including at least 15 children.

“The scene of dead children still haunts me,” said Salah el-Sayed, a 43-year-old civil servant who lives next to the Martyr Abu Sefein church in the working-class Imbaba neighborhood, and was one of the first to arrive at the scene as thick smoke poured from the building.

“Bodies of children littered everywhere,” he said.

The fire broke out during Sunday morning services, beginning on the second floor of the four-story building, which also housed a day care. Smoke quickly engulfed the upper floors.

Authorities blamed an electrical short-circuit in an air conditioner unit for the fire, but witnesses also pointed to a fault in a power generator which the church used during regular power outages. People also said ambulances were slow to arrive, which could have caused more deaths, although authorities said the first ambulance arrived within minutes after the fire was reported.

Witnesses speaking to The Associated Press recounted horrific scenes of people jumping out of windows, a stampede in the church’s main hall and stairs, and children lying motionless amid fire and burned furniture.

El-Sayed, who with others rushed to the church to rescue trapped worshippers and carried bodies to waiting ambulances, said electricity was down for about half an hour that Sunday morning. He saw smoke rising minutes after the current returned.

The thick smoke made it difficult for them to get inside, and some rescuers jumped from the roof of an adjacent building. Others stormed the church front gate and made their way upstairs where the children were trapped on the fourth floor.

Ahmed Ibrahim, who lived nearby, said he saw a man trying to jump from a second floor window. He and others tried to save the man’s life by holding out a blanket, but the man fell to the ground and died.

“Unfortunately he was heavy,” Ibrahim said. “It was frustrating.”

Mohammed Yahia was among those who ran to the church, heading immediately to the day care.

Of the 20 children inside the day care, he said all but five died, speaking to a local television station from a hospital bed. Yahia carried five bodies — one by one — to the ambulances, before he fell and broke his leg while helping an elderly person out of the building.

The dead children included siblings, twins aged 5 and a 3-year-old. Five-year-old triplets, their mother, grandmother and an aunt were also among those killed, according to Mousa Ibrahim, a spokesman for the Coptic Orthodox Church. Images of the dead children went viral on social media.

The church bishop, Abdul Masih Bakhit, was also among the dead.

The church is located on a narrow street in one of Cairo’s most densely populated neighborhoods. It was an apartment building before it was turned into a church like many others across the country, according to neighbors. It looks like other buildings in the area, recognizable only by a sign above its front door, and an iron cross on its roof.

Coptic Christian Pope Tawadros II said Martyr Abu Sefein, like many others, is too small for the number of congregants it serves. In televised comments late Monday, he urged authorities to find solutions to build more churches.

Anba Angaelos, the archbishop of the Coptic Orthodox Church in London, blamed restrictions on church construction that have forced Christians to convert residential buildings into places of worship.

The tragedy “is a direct result of a painful time when Christian communities could not build purpose-designed churches, and would have to covertly use other buildings, not fit for the purpose and lacking the necessary health and safety features and escapes,” he wrote Sunday on Twitter.

Church-building has for decades been one of the most sensitive sectarian issues in Egypt, where 10% of the population of 103 million are Christians, but where Muslim hard-liners sharply oppose anything they see as undermining what they call the country’s “Islamic character.”

In the past, local authorities had often refused to give building permits for new churches, fearing protests and riots by Muslim ultraconservatives. Amid such restrictions, Christians turned to building illegally or setting up churches in other buildings, such as the case of Martyr Abu Sefein.

Many similar churches lack licenses and are not up to safety code. In recent years, the government of President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi has sought to regulate church building. In 2016, the government issued the country’s first law spelling out the rules for building a church, though critics argued that the legislation is in line with previous restrictions.

On Monday, a senior government official said authorities, in coordination with the Coptic Orthodox Church, would review all safety measures in churches across the country especially those in Cairo slums. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Some relatives of victims and witnesses said ambulances and firefighters took too long to arrive, but Health Minister Khaled Abdel-Ghaffar said that the first ambulance arrived at the site two minutes after the fire was reported.

The street where Martyr Abu Sefein church is located remained cordoned off Monday as construction workers worked to clear away debris.

SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2022/08/anger-flares-at-slow-response-to-deadly.html

New climate deal spurs hopes of more carbon storage projects

By MEAD GRUVER

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Fred McLaughlin, director of the Center for Economic Geology Research at the University of Wyoming, stands near one of two wells drilled near the Dry Fork Station coal-fired power plant outside Gillette, Wyo., on June 14, 2022. McLaughlin and other researchers are studying whether formations as deep as 10,000 feet can be used to store the power plant’s carbon dioxide emissions. (AP Photo/Mead Gruver)


GILLETTE, Wyo. (AP) — The rolling prairie lands of northeastern Wyoming have been a paradise of lush, knee-deep grass for sheep, cattle and pronghorn antelope this summer.

But it’s a different green — greener energy — that geologist Fred McLaughlin seeks as he drills nearly two miles (3.2 kilometers) into the ground, far deeper than the thick coal seams that make this the top coal-mining region in the United States. McLaughlin and his University of Wyoming colleagues are studying whether tiny spaces in rock deep underground can permanently store vast volumes of greenhouse gas emitted by a coal-fired power plant.

This is the concept known as carbon storage, long touted as an answer to global warming that preserves the energy industry’s burning of fossil fuels to generate electricity.

So far, removing carbon dioxide from power plant smokestacks and pumping it underground hasn’t been feasible without higher electricity bills to cover the technique’s huge costs. But with a $2.5 billion infusion from Congress last year and now bigger tax incentives through the Inflation Reduction Act passed by Congress on Friday, researchers and industry continue to try.

One goal of McLaughlin’s project is to preserve the lifespan of a relatively new coal-fired power plant, Dry Fork Station, run by Basin Electric Power Cooperative. State officials hope it will do the same for the whole beleaguered coal industry that still underpins Wyoming’s economy. The state produces about 40% of the nation’s coal but declining production and a series of layoffs and bankruptcies have beset the Gillette area’s vast, open-pit coal mines over the past decade.

While the economics of carbon storage remain uncertain at best, McLaughlin and others are confident in the technology.

“The geology exists,” McLaughlin said. “It is a resource we’re looking for — and the resource is pore space.”

HOW IT WORKS

By pore space, McLaughlin doesn’t mean skin care but microscopic spaces between grains of sandstone deep underground. Countless such spaces add up: Enough, he hopes, to hold 55 million tons (50 million metric tons) of carbon dioxide over 30 years.

McLaughlin and his team used the same drill rigs as the oil industry to bore their two wells almost 10,000 feet (3,000 meters), taking core samples from nine geological formations in the process. The researchers will study how injection at one well, using saltwater as a stand-in for liquid carbon dioxide, could affect fluid behavior at the other.

“It’s basically like a call and response, if you want to think of it that way,” McLaughlin said. “We can ground truth our simulations.”

McLaughlin’s team also does a lot of lab work on carbon sequestration back at the University of Wyoming School of Energy Resources in Laramie, studying on a microscopic scale how much carbon dioxide different sandstone layers can hold. They model on computers how much carbon dioxide, well by well, could be pumped underground north of Gillette.

Eventually they want to advance to carbon dioxide captured from the smoke plume at nearby Dry Fork Station, using a technique developed by California-based Membrane Technology and Research, Inc.

WYOMING’S CARBON DREAMS

With an eye toward carbon storage, Wyoming in 2020 became one of just two states, along with North Dakota, to take over from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency primary authority to issue the kind of permit McLaughlin and his team will need to pump large volumes of carbon dioxide, pressurized into a high density “supercritical” state, underground.

Besides the permit, the geologists will also need more funding. The U.S. Department of Energy Carbon Storage Assurance Facility Enterprise (CarbonSAFE) program is funding 24 carbon capture and storage projects nationwide, and this is one of the furthest along.

Such projects were likely already eligible for some of the roughly $2.5 billion in last year’s infrastructure bill. Now the new Inflation Reduction Act will boost the “45Q” tax credit for electricity producers who sequester their carbon from $50 to $85 per ton.

Pumping carbon dioxide underground is nothing new. For decades, the oil and gas industry has used carbon dioxide, after it’s separated from the methane sold for fueling stoves and furnaces, to recharge aging oil fields.

UNTIL NOW, FAILED EXPERIMENTS

Critics, however, point out the process is expensive to use at power plants and provides a lifeline of sorts to the coal, oil and natural gas industries when the world, in their view, should stop using fossil fuels altogether.

To date, only one commercially-operational, large-scale project in the U.S. has pumped carbon dioxide from a power plant underground. But to defray costs, NRG Energy’s Petra Nova coal-fired power plant outside Houston sold its carbon dioxide to increase local oil production.

After three years in operation, Petra Nova closed in 2020, when low oil prices made using the gas to recharge a nearby oil field unprofitable.

In December, a U.S. Government Accountability Office review found that Petra Nova was the only one of eight carbon capture and storage projects at coal-fired plants to actually go into operation, after getting $684 million in Department of Energy funding since 2009.

Some communities that have dealt for years with industrial air pollution also worry that companies will use promises of carbon storage as a way to expand.

For Massachusetts Institute of Technology research engineer Howard Herzog, a carbon capture and storage pioneer, the question isn’t whether the technique is technically feasible at scale. He’s certain that it is. But whether it can be economically feasible is a different matter.

“People are starting to take it more seriously even though fundamentally changing our energy systems is not an easy task,” Herzog said. “It’s not something you do in the short term. You’ve got to really set the policy in place and we still haven’t really done that.”

It may be expensive, said Herzog. But doing nothing when it comes to climate, “may be much more expensive.”

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Follow Mead Gruver at https://twitter.com/meadgruver

ANOTHER TRUMP FALL GUY
Trump Org. CFO expected to plead guilty in NY tax case
By MICHAEL R. SISAK

Law enforcement personnel escort the Trump Organization's former Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg, center, as he departs court, Friday, Aug. 12, 2022, in New York. Former President Donald Trump’s longtime finance chief is expected to plead guilty as soon as Thursday, Aug. 18 in a tax evasion case that is the only criminal prosecution to arise from a long-running investigation into the former president’s company, three people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press. 

(AP Photo/John Minchillo, 

NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump’s longtime finance chief is expected to plead guilty as soon as Thursday in a tax evasion case that is the only criminal prosecution to arise from a long-running investigation into the former president’s company, three people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.

Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg was scheduled to be tried in October on allegations he took more than $1.7 million in off-the-books compensation from the company, including rent, car payments and school tuition.

Prosecutors in the Manhattan district attorney’s office and Weisselberg’s lawyers met Monday with the judge overseeing the case, Juan Manuel Merchan, according to court records. The judge then scheduled a hearing in the matter for 9 a.m. Thursday but did not specify the reason.

The people who spoke to the AP did so on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the case. They said the purpose of Thursday’s hearing was for Weisselberg to enter a guilty plea, but cautioned that plea deals sometimes fall apart before they are finalized in court.

Weisselberg’s lawyer, Nicholas Gravante Jr., told The New York Times on Monday that Weisselberg has been engaged in plea negotiations to resolve the case, but did not specify terms of a potential plea deal. Reached by the AP, Gravante declined to comment.

The Times, citing two people with knowledge of the matter, said Weisselberg was expected to receive a five-month jail sentence, which would make him eligible for release after about 100 days. The deal would not require Weisselberg to testify or cooperate in any way with an ongoing criminal investigation into Trump’s business practices.

Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, is also charged in the case but did not appear to be involved in the plea agreement talks. Weisselberg and the Trump Organization have pleaded not guilty.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office declined comment. A message seeking comment was left with a lawyer for the Trump Organization.

News of Weisselberg’s plea negotiations came days after the judge denied requests by his lawyers and the Trump Organization to throw out the case. The judge did drop one criminal tax fraud count against the company citing the statute of limitations, but more than a dozen other counts remain.

In seeking dismissal of the case, Weisselberg’s lawyers argued prosecutors in the Democrat-led district attorney’s office were punishing him because he wouldn’t offer up damaging information against the former president.

The judge rejected that argument, saying that evidence presented to the grand jury was legally sufficient to support the charges.

Weisselberg, who turned 75 on Monday, is the only Trump executive charged in the yearslong criminal investigation started by former Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., who went to the Supreme Court to secure Trump’s tax records. Vance’s successor, Alvin Bragg, is now overseeing the investigation. Several other Trump executives have been granted immunity to testify before a grand jury in the case.

Prosecutors alleged that Weisselberg and the Trump Organization schemed to give off-the-books compensation to senior executives, including Weisselberg, for 15 years. Weisselberg alone was accused of defrauding the federal government, state and city out of more than $900,000 in unpaid taxes and undeserved tax refunds.

The most serious charge against Weisselberg, grand larceny, carried a potential penalty of five to 15 years in prison. The tax fraud charges against the company are punishable by a fine of double the amount of unpaid taxes, or $250,000, whichever is larger.

Trump has not been charged in the criminal probe, but prosecutors have noted that he signed some of the checks at the center of the case. Trump, who has decried the New York investigations as a “political witch hunt,” has said his company’s actions were standard practice in the real estate business and in no way a crime.

Last week, Trump sat for a deposition in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ parallel civil investigation into allegations Trump’s company misled lenders and tax authorities about asset values. Trump invoked his Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination more than 400 times.

In the months after Weisselberg’s arrest, the criminal probe appeared to be progressing toward a possible criminal indictment of Trump himself, but the investigation slowed, a grand jury was disbanded and a top prosecutor left after Bragg took office in January — although he insists it is continuing.

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Follow Michael Sisak on Twitter at twitter.com/mikesisak. Send confidential tips by visiting https://www.ap.org/tips/.