CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
'Predatory' payday loan scammers thrive with stolen data, BBB says. What to watch out for.


Katie Wedell, USA TODAY
Sun, September 4, 2022 

A new report from the Better Business Bureau warns consumers of numerous ways scammers have found a home within the shadows of the payday loan industry.

The report issued this week said that new frauds are often leveraging information stolen from legitimate lenders in order to defraud people.

Due to a boom in online payday lending companies in recent years, hackers are able to steal data and more easily imitate real lenders.

That makes it easier for them to offer fake loans, pressure people into believing they still owe money, pose as debt collectors or demand upfront payment for loans, said Josh Planos, vice president of communications and public relations for the BBB.

The study also highlights how uneven state laws have allowed predatory payday loan companies to continue to thrive.

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Payday loan scams to watch out for

The BBB report lists a few different scenarios that make up more 3,000 payday lender-related scam complaints received since 2019. Consumers have collectively lost millions to these scams, with the median amount lost per person in 2022 reaching $1,000.

Stolen information: If you've taken out a loan from a legitimate lender in the past, hackers could access your information and contact you posing as a representative of that company. Scammers will then try to convince people that they still owe money that in reality was already paid off.

Consumers should also watch for some signs that the company is an imposter, such as emails coming from gmail.com or yahoo.com addresses instead of the company name, or slight misspellings.

"If you get an email about a payday loan, check the info after the @ sign," the BBB report says. "Legitimate companies usually don’t send messages from a Gmail or Yahoo account. This is not a foolproof method, though, as scammers can spoof emails or even steal passwords to gain access to legitimate ones."

Posing as debt collectors: Fraudsters will use names that sound like law firms to convince consumers they are collecting a debt.

"A BBB investigation into BlackRock Legal Group found the supposed company sending mailers to people, saying they owed on a debt from Advance America, a real payday lending company. Advance America told the BBB that (it) has no dealings with BlackRock," the report says.

A red flag for consumers in debt collection scams is the failure or inability to provide written confirmation of the debt.

Under the Fair Debt Collection Protections Act enforced by the Federal Trade Commission, debt collectors are required to provide, in writing, the creditor’s name, the amount owed, how to get the name of the original creditor, and how to dispute the debt within 30 days of receiving the confirmation documents.

Asking for this information "really stops scammers in their tracks," Planos said.

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Asking for payment through apps or gift cards: Whether asking for an upfront fee or demanding a debt be repaid, scammers may request payment in a form that is nearly impossible to recoup, like gift cards, apps like Venmo or wire transfers from places like Western Union.

"Most legitimate operations are still on the cash, check and credit card plan for a reason," Planos said.

Asking for money to be returned immediately: A scammer might say they need to test your banking info by sending you a mobile deposit that you then need to send back immediately.

"The scammer is actually taking advantage of the payment approval system and there may not have been any money sent," the report says. "Eventually, the bank or service will reclaim that money, and the victim will have sent their own money to the fraudsters."

Some purchases or financial transactions may trigger a preauthorization hold on your account, but those are typically in the amount of $1 and will disappear automatically.

Consumers should not "return" deposited money to a sender, the BBB report says.

Any request for money upfront: Legitimate lenders will not ask for a fee or sum of money upfront to “guarantee” the loan, the BBB said.

The report includes the story of a BBB complainant named Shirley in San Jose, California:

"Shirley received a call from a woman who said her name was Lauren Green. Shirley had qualified for a $5,000 loan from the West Point Lenders. To get her loan, all she needed to do was pay $535 as a fee. After doing so, Shirley was told by Green that another $535 was needed because her credit was not good enough.

"Now out $1,070, Shirley began to get suspicious. It turns out that West Point Lenders is similarly named to other financial institutions, but is a fake company. Green attempted to get more money from Shirley, but she realized she had been scammed. The phone number the scammer called from is no longer working."

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No company will require an advance fee for a loan, according to the BBB.

Any fees and interest will either be taken out of the sum of the loan or charged to be repaid with the loan.

"If they ask for money to 'release the loan' or 'for bad credit' or 'for insurance' that’s a scam," according to the BBB report.

They call you with an offer: Shirley's story is also an example of scammers calling up out of the blue and offering a loan. Even if you've been searching for or applying for loans online, be wary of someone calling you.

If a company does make a loan offer via phone of online, do some research.

"Don’t succumb to high-pressure tactics, because any legitimate company will want your business, whether it is today or tomorrow," the BBB report warns. "If you can’t find any information, that is a red flag. Sometimes scammers have fake websites, so the presence of one is not a guarantee that you are safe."

The BBB's Scam Tracker website is a searchable database of reported scams, so running a company's name there is a good first step, Planos said.

The Better Business Bureau's Scam Tracker can help consumers search for company names that may be imposter payday lenders.

Predatory payday loan practices to watch out for

Companies that actually do offer payday loans aren't impervious to predatory or unscrupulous practices, despite an attempted crackdown by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau under the Obama administration.

For the most part, states are left to regulate the industry and more than a dozen states introduced some type of payday lending legislation last year.

But payday loans are still available in 32 states, some of which do not have any cap on how high the interest rates can go. In fact, annual percentage rates in eight states can be above 400%, according to Pew Charitable Trusts.

The BBB warns some payday lenders will advertise their interest rates calculated on a weekly or biweekly bases, rather than giving the annual percentage rate typically advertised for credit card interest.

The report shows the math in which someone taking out a $375 loan with an advertised finance charge of 15%, is actually paying an APR of 391.07%.
How to report a scam

If you are the subject of fraud, there are avenues to report your case in addition to BBB.org/ScamTracker.

Federal Trade Commission (FTC): ReportFraud.ftc.gov

State attorneys general: Find your state attorney general’s website to see if you can file online.

Follow Katie Wedell on Twitter: @KatieWedell and Facebook: facebook.com/ByKatieWedell

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Payday loan scams to watch out for and how to protect yourself

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Toyota unit Hino to freeze truck production for two models for a year - Nikkei
Sat, September 3, 2022 

Hino Motors' logo is pictured at the 45th Tokyo Motor Show in Tokyo

(Reuters) -Japan's Toyota Motor Corp's truck and bus unit Hino Motors will halt production of some medium and heavy-duty trucks for at least another year after a widespread data falsification scandal, Nikkei Asia reported on Sunday.

The medium-duty Ranger and the heavy-duty Profia truck will not be produced until August 2023, the report added https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Automobiles/Toyota-unit-Hino-to-freeze-truck-production-for-some-models-for-a-year.

Halting production of some truck models is the latest sign of the scandal worsening for Hino since it first announced the data falsification affecting some of its bigger trucks in March.

Since then, it has said it falsified data on some engines going back as far as 2003, at least a decade earlier than originally indicated. All told, about 640,000 vehicles have been affected, or more than five times the figure initially revealed.

Hino said last month it would suspend shipments of small trucks after a transport ministry investigation revealed that some 76,000 of its small trucks sold since 2019 had not been subject to the required number of engine tests.

Toyota and others involved in a commercial vehicle partnership have since expelled Hino from the group over falsification of engine data by the truckmaker.

The widening scandal at Japan's Hino Motors over falsification of engine data has become a headache that will not go away for parent Toyota which has a controlling 50.1% stake in Hino.

Hino became Toyota's subsidiary in 2001 and nearly all Hino presidents since then previously worked for Toyota.

Toyota did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and Hino could not immediately be reached.

(Reporting by Mrinmay Dey in Bengaluru; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Anonymous claims responsibility for Moscow traffic jam tied to app exploit

KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV via Getty Images

Igor Bonifacic

·Weekend Editor

Sat, September 3, 2022 

On Thursday morning, Moscow’s busy Fili district became the site of a traffic jam unlike any before it. Motherboard (via The Verge) reports hackers used Russia’s Yandex Taxi ride-hailing app to order dozens of drivers to converge on Kutuzovsky Prospekt, one of the city’s main thoroughfares. The act caused traffic on part of the already congested street to come to a standstill for about 40 minutes while Yandex worked to address the situation.

“On the morning of September 1st, Yandex Taxi encountered an attempt by attackers to disrupt the service — several dozen drivers received bulk orders to the Fili district of Moscow,” a Yandex spokesperson told Motherboard. In a separate statement shared with Russia’s state-owned TASS news agency, Yandex said it reworked its routing algorithm following the attack to prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future. The event is one of the first known instances of hackers exploiting a ride-hailing app to create a traffic jam.

Several Twitter accounts claiming affiliation with Anonymous say the hacktivist collective is behind the incident. On Friday, one Anonymous account said the group worked with the IT Army of Ukraine, a volunteer organization formed at the start of the war, to carry out the attack.

Anonymous previously claimed responsibility for a cyberattack that took down multiple Russian government websites, including those belonging to the Kremlin and the Ministry of Defence. “Faced with this series of attacks that Ukraine has been suffering from the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, we could not help but support the Ukrainian people,” the group said at the time.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
Bed Bath & Beyond CFO who died after falling from NYC high rise was subject of insider trading and fraud lawsuit just before death, documents show

Bethany Biron
Sun, September 4, 2022 


Bed Bath & Beyond Chief Financial Officer Gustavo Arnal was found dead on Friday after falling from a NYC building.


His death came less that two weeks after he was named in a federal class-action lawsuit for insider trading.


The lawsuit claims Arnal and activist investor Ryan Cohen collaborated in a "pump and dump" scheme to artificially inflate the company's stock.

The Bed Bath & Beyond Chief Financial Officer Gustavo Arnal, who was found dead on Friday after falling from the 18th floor of a New York City apartment building, recently was named in a lawsuit accusing him of fraud.

The incident occurred less than two weeks after the executive, 52, was named in a federal class-action lawsuit on allegations of federal securities fraud, insider trading, and breach of fiduciary duty, according to court documents.

His death also comes just days after Bed Bath & Beyond announced it is shuttering 150 stores and slashing 20% of its corporate staff.

Arnal is cited in the suit along with activist investor and GameStop chairman Ryan Cohen, who the lawsuit claims collaborated with the CFO in a "fraudulent scheme to artificially inflate the price of Bed Bath & Beyond's publicly traded stock."

The suit, filed in United States District Court for the District of Columbia on August 23, claims that Cohen and Arnal provided "materially false statements regarding the financial condition and holding situation" of Bed Bath & Beyond for their financial benefit. The lead plaintiff is investor Pengcheng Si.

"The defendants, knowing that the information they disclosed was false, took advantage of the inflated stock price and used fraudulent and misleading SEC filings to sell all their [Bed Bath & Beyond] shares and options at artificially inflated prices to unsuspecting and innocent public investors and then retained control of the profits," the suit states.

On August 18, both Arnal and Cohen sold shares of the company, with Arnal selling more than 42,000 shares for an estimated $1 million, and Cohen selling the entirety of his 9.8% stake through his firm, RC Ventures, causing shares to plummet.

The lawsuit claims Cohen — who is also the co-founder of Chewy and chairman of GameStop — approached the CFO about his "pump and dump" scheme in March 2022, and "convinced Gustavo that their plan would be a mutually beneficial one."

"Under this arrangement, defendants would profit handsomely from the rise in price and could coordinate their selling of shares to optimize their returns," the lawsuit states.

Arnal allegedly worked with JPMorgan, which is listed as a defendant in the suit on claims the bank "aided and abetted" the plan by "enabling Cohen to use JPM's accounts to effectuate such transactions and otherwise launder the proceeds of their criminal conduct."

The lawsuit further notes Cohen's involvement in similar plans, such as elevating GameStop to "meme stock" status.

"Cohen has historically employed pump and dump schemes to raise much needed capital and has ignited several meme stocks to jaw-dropping heights," the lawsuit states.

Spokespeople for Bed Bath & Beyond and RC Ventures did not immediately respond to Insider's request to comment.

IT'S RAINING CEO'S

Bed Bath & Beyond executive jumped to his death from high-rise apartment balcony, law enforcement source tells CNN

Brynn Gingras -

A man who jumped to his death from a high-rise apartment in Manhattan has been identified by the New York City Police Department as Gustavo Arnal. A law enforcement source told CNN Arnal is the chief financial officer of Bed Bath & Beyond. They said he died after jumping from the 18th floor balcony of his high-rise apartment.

The NYPD said in a statement Sunday that Arnal, 52, was found unconscious and unresponsive outside his luxury 57-story skyscraper in the neighborhood of Tribeca around 12:30 p.m. Friday. Police said the man “appeared to suffer from injuries indicative from a fall from an elevated position.” EMS responded and pronounced the man dead, police said.

The law enforcement source told CNN Sunday that Arnal’s wife witnessed him jump. The source said while no suicide note was found, no criminality is suspected.

The NYPD said the New York City Medical Examiner’s Office will determine the cause of death and the investigation remains ongoing. CNN has reached out to the medical examiner’s office but did not receive an immediate response.

CNN has also reached out to Bed Bath & Beyond for comment.

CNN reported this week that Bed Bath & Beyond is in deep turmoil. The company is trying to rescue itself and stay out of bankruptcy by shrinking. The chain said Wednesday that it will lay off approximately 20% of corporate employees, close around 150 stores and slash several of its in-house home goods brands. The company also said it secured more than $500 million in financing to shore up its ailing financial straits.

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Wildfire in Jasper National Park grew nearly 4 times in size since Saturday morning: Parks Canada

Nicholas Frew - 

A wildfire burning in Jasper National Park has grown nearly four times in size since Saturday morning, according to Parks Canada.

A wildfire burning north of Jasper, Alta., has grown to about 1,500

 hectares as of Sunday morning, according to Parks Canada.

© Submitted by Hugo Sanchez

The fire on Chetamon Mountain, which ignited after a lightning strike on Sept. 1, has expanded to about 1,500 hectares as of Sunday morning, Parks Canada said on its Jasper National Park social media pages.

The fire was roughly 400 hectares yesterday.

Firefighters on the ground cannot access the fire, which is burning on the mountain's upper slopes. Parks Canada says wind pushed flames into the upper slopes of the Vine Creek valley Saturday.

As of Sunday morning, eight helicopters are flying over the fire to drop water on the flames; 77 Parks Canada firefighters and personnel, as well as other pilots and contractors, are working to prevent the fire from spreading to high-risk areas, the agency said.

Parks Canada said Saturday that it would have a national incident management team in place Sunday to assist with the response.

Chetamon Mountain wildfire

The agency's top priority Sunday is further protecting critical infrastructure and adding more helicopters to the suppression efforts. That includes protecting culturally significant sites, such as the Moberly Homestead, which is part of Métis history, it added.


Evacuations continue with the spread of wildfires in B.C.
View on Watch

Duration 0:48

The homestead, among other sites, is equipped with hose lines and sprinklers that will draw water from nearby sources if the fire gets closer to them.

The wildfire is burning north of Jasper, Alta., a municipality about 315 kilometres southwest of Edmonton.

Parks Canada says no communities are at risk, but it is advising Jasper residents to be prepared for a power outage, in case the community's power supply is damaged.

On Saturday, "specialized fire crews" had started making fire control lines to protect the community's electric power line. As of Sunday morning, the fire was about 400 metres from the power line, according to Parks Canada.

The Municipality of Jasper worked with ATCO and Parks Canada to prepare for the possibility of an outage, the municipality said in a wildfire update on its website Saturday evening.

That work included gathering equipment to ensure infrastructure, such as the wastewater treatment plant, hospital and water wells, could still operate, the update said.

No evacuation orders are in place, but Parks Canada closed Snaring and Celestine Lake Roads, as well as the surrounding areas, including nearby campgrounds, to ensure public safety during fire operations.

The agency also restricted aircraft take off and landing at the Jasper air strip, citing public safety.

Anyone who violates those orders could be fined up to $25,000 under the Canada National Parks Act.

Environment Canada issued another special air quality statement for the Jasper National Park area Sunday morning, because wildfire smoke continues to cause poor air quality and reduced visibility.

People may experience increased coughing, throat irritation, headaches or shortness of breath, the statement says, adding that children, seniors and those with heart or lung disease are particularly at-risk.

Environment Canada advises people in the area to consider taking precautions to reduce their exposure to wildfire smoke.

Most of Alberta is under fire advisories, restrictions or bans.

THIRD WORLD U$A

FEMA chief: Too early to say when Jackson will have clean running water


FEMA Administrator Deanna Criswell on Sunday said it was too early to tell when Jackson, Miss., would once again have clean water following a failure at the state's main treatment facility.

 Photo by Ken Cedeno/UPI | License Photo

Sept. 4 (UPI) -- The head of the Federal Emergency Management Administration said Sunday that it was too early to tell when residents of Jackson, Miss., will have safe, running drinking water.

FEMA Administrator Deanna Criswell told CNN's State of the Union that the agency was placing a focus on ensuring that residents have access to bottled water in the wake of a mechanical collapse at the O.B. Curtis Water Treatment Facility that has kept the approximately 150,000 residents of Jackson without reliable running water for nearly a week.

"Right now, we're providing temporary measures to increase the water pressure so people can at least flush their toilets and use the faucets," Criswell said.

Jackson, the state's largest city, has been under a boil-water advisory since July 30 due to a high "level of manganese combined with the use of lime at the O.B. Curtis Water Treatment Plant in nearby Ridgeland.

The plant's main pumps were also severely damaged in late July with heavy rain and flooding in late August causing a chemical imbalance at the facility, which is the main water plant servicing Jackson.

"There has been a lot of infrastructure damage that has been present of many years," Criswell said Sunday.

Many households in Jackson were seeing at least some water pressure again Saturday after crews redirected water storage to the Suncrest tank and away from O.B. Curtis.

In an appearance on ABC News' This Week, Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba estimated that drinkable water approved by the health department is "days, not weeks, away," but an "equitable water treatment facility is a much longer road ahead."

"As I have always warned, even when the pressure's restored, even when we are not under a boil water notice, it's not a matter of if these systems will fail but when theses systems will fail," Lumumba said.

He added that the crisis would not actually end until officials "can look the residents of Jackson in the face and say we have a greater sense of reliability -- that we believe in this system, that we believe in the equity of this system and that certain portions of our city won't be disproportionately affected by this."

Rich nations owe reparations to countries facing climate disaster, says Pakistan minister

Nina Lakhani climate justice reporter and Shah Meer Baloch in Islamabad - 

THE GUARDIAN, SEPT 3,2022

Rich polluting countries which are predominantly to blame for the “dystopian” climate breakdown have broken their promises to reduce emissions and help developing countries adapt to global heating, according to Pakistan’s minister for climate change, who said reparations were long overdue.


Photograph: Reuters© Provided by The Guardian

More than 1,200 people are dead and a third of Pakistan is under floodwater after weeks of unprecedented monsoon rains battered the country – which only weeks earlier had been suffering serious drought.


Sherry Rehman. 

Photograph: Farooq Naeem/AFP/Getty Images

In an interview with the Guardian, the climate minister, Sherry Rehman, said global emission targets and reparations must be reconsidered, given the accelerated and relentless nature of climate catastrophes hitting countries such as Pakistan.

“Global warming is the existential crisis facing the world and Pakistan is ground zero – yet we have contributed less than 1% to [greenhouse gas] emissions. We all know that the pledges made in multilateral forums have not been fulfilled,” said Rehman, 61, a former journalist, senator and diplomat who previously served as Pakistan’s ambassador to the US.

“There is so much loss and damage with so little reparations to countries that contributed so little to the world’s carbon footprint that obviously the bargain made between the global north and global south is not working. We need to be pressing very hard for a reset of the targets because climate change is accelerating much faster than predicted, on the ground, that is very clear.”



Residents wade through flood waters near their homes following heavy monsoon rains. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images© Provided by The Guardian

The extent of Pakistan’s flood damage is unprecedented.

An area the size of the state of Colorado is inundated, with more than 200 bridges and 3,000 miles of telecom lines collapsed or damaged, Rehman said. At least 33 million people have been affected – a figure expected to rise after authorities complete damage surveys next week. In the Sindh district, which produces half the country’s food, 90% of crops are ruined. Entire villages and agricultural fields have been swept away.

Related: Urgent aid appeal launched as satellite images show a third of Pakistan underwater

The main culprit is unprecedented relentless torrential rain, with some towns receiving 500 to 700% more rainfall than normal in August. Large swaths of land are still under eight to 10 ft of water, making it extremely difficult to drop rations or put up tents. The navy is carrying out rescue missions in normally arid areas where boats have never been seen, according to Rehman.

“The whole area looks like an ocean with no horizon – nothing like this has been seen before,” said Rehman. “I wince when I hear people say these are natural disasters. This is very much the age of the anthropocene: these are man-made disasters.”

Many have fled inundated rural areas looking for food and shelter in nearby cities which are ill-equipped to cope, and it is unclear when – or if – they will ever be able to go back. The total number of people remain stranded in remote areas, waiting to be rescued, remains unknown.

The water will take months to drain, and – despite a brief pause in the downfall – more heavy rain is forecast for mid-September.

You can’t walk away from the reality that big corporations that have net profits bigger than the GDP of many countries need to take responsibility Sherry Rehman

Rehman, who was named minister for climate change in April amid a political and economic crisis that saw the ousting of the prime minister, Imran Khan, has said the government was doing everything possible but rescue and aid missions had been hampered by ongoing rain and the sheer scale of need.

While sympathetic to the global economic challenges caused by the Covid pandemic and war in Ukraine, she was adamant that “richer countries must do more”.

“Historic injustices have to be heard and there must be some level of climate equation so that the brunt of the irresponsible carbon consumption is not being laid on nations near the equator which are obviously unable to create resilient infrastructure on their own,” she said.



A youth crosses a flooded field carrying tree branches in Mirpur Khas in Pakistan’s Sindh province. Photograph: Muhammed Muheisen/AP

Related: ‘Just a pile of mud’: Pakistani floods force family to rebuild home again

There are also growing calls for fossil fuel companies – making record profits as a result of Russia’s war in Ukraine – to pay for the damage caused by global heating to developing countries.

Rehman said: “Big polluters often try to greenwash their emissions but you can’t walk away from the reality that big corporations that have net profits bigger than the GDP of many countries need to take responsibility.”

The annual UN climate talks take place in Egypt in November, where the group of 77 developing countries plus China, which Pakistan currently chairs, will be pushing hard for the polluters to pay up after a year of devastating drought, floods, heatwaves and forest fires.

Pakistan is one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to global heating, and the current catastrophic floods come after four consecutive heatwaves with temperatures topping 53C earlier this year.

It has more than 7,200 glaciers – more than anywhere outside the poles – which are melting much faster and earlier due to rising temperatures, adding water to rivers already swollen by rainfall.


A view of makeshift tents of flood victims taking refuge on a higher ground.

 Photograph: Reuters

“We’re going to be very clear and unequivocal about what we see as our needs and due, as well as where we see the series of larger global targets going. But loss and danger to the south which is already in the throes of an accelerated climate dystopia will have to be part of the bargain driven at Cop27,” she said.

Richer polluting countries have so far been slow to cough up pledged money to help developing countries adapt to climate shocks, and even more reluctant to engage in meaningful negotiations about financing loss and damage suffered by poorer nations like Pakistan which have contributed negligibly to greenhouse gas emissions.

Related: Flooding has devastated Pakistan – and Britain’s imperial legacy has made it worse | Shozab Raza

Discussion about reparations has been mostly blocked, leaving vulnerable countries like Pakistan “facing the brunt of other people’s reckless carbon consumption”.

“As you can see, global warming hasn’t gone down – quite the opposite. And there is only so much adaptation we can do. The melting of glaciers, the floods, drought, forest fires, none will stop without very serious pledges being honoured,” said Rahman.

“We are on the frontline and intend to keep loss and damage and adapting to climate catastrophes at the core of our arguments and negotiations. There will be no moving away from that.”

Pakistan’s hope as lake fills: Flood villages to save a city

By ZARAR KHAN

1 of 25

Local residents cross a portion of road destroyed by floodwaters in Kalam Valley in northern Pakistan, Sunday, Sept. 4, 2022. Officials warned Sunday that more flooding was expected as Lake Manchar in southern Pakistan swelled from monsoon rains that began in mid-June and have killed nearly 1,300 people. (AP Photo/Sherin Zada)

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistani engineers cut into an embankment for one of the country’s largest lakes on Sunday to release rising waters in the hopes of saving a nearby city and town from flooding as officials predicted more monsoon rain was on the way for the country’s already devastated south.

While officials hope the cut in the sides of Lake Manchar will protect about half a million people who live in the city of Sehwan and the town of Bhan Saeedabad, villages that are home to 150,000 people are in the path of the diverted waters. The hometown of Sindh province’s chief minister was among the affected villages, whose residents were warned to evacuate ahead of time, according to the provincial information minister.

More than 1,300 people have died and millions have lost their homes in flooding caused by unusually heavy monsoon rains in Pakistan this year that many experts have blamed on climate change. In response to the unfolding disaster, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres last week called on the world to stop “sleepwalking” through the crisis. He plans to visit flood-hit areas on Sept. 9.

Several countries have flown in supplies, but the Pakistani government has pleaded for even more help, faced with the enormous task of feeding and housing those affected, as well as protecting them from waterborne diseases.

While floods have touched much of the country, Sindh province has been the most affected.

With meteorologists predicting more rain in the coming days, including around Sindh’s Lake Manchar, and its level already rising, authorities ordered that water be released from it. Sindh’s chief minister, Murad Ali Shah, made the call even though his own village could be flooded, said Sharjil Inam Memon, the provincial information minister. The government helped residents of the villages in the waters’ path to evacuate ahead of time, said Memon.

The hope was that the water, once released, would flow into the nearby Indus River, but the lake’s level continued to rise even after the cut was made, according to Fariduddin Mustafa, administrator for Jamshoro district, where the affected villages are located. Authorities have also warned residents of neighboring Dadu district that they might be at risk of more flooding in coming days.

While the release valve was created in one area, army engineers worked elsewhere to reinforce the banks of Lake Manchar, which is the largest natural freshwater lake in Pakistan and one of the largest in Asia.

In its latest report, Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority put the death toll since mid-June — when monsoon rains started weeks earlier than is typical — at 1,314, as more fatalities were reported from flood-affected areas of Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Baluchistan provinces. The report said 458 children were among the dead.

Rescue operations continued Sunday with troops and volunteers using helicopters and boats to get people stranded out of flooded areas to relief camps, the authority said. Tens of thousands of people are already living in such camps, and thousands more have taken shelter on roadsides on higher ground.

Hira Ikram, a physician at a camp established by Britain’s Islamic Mission in Sukkur charity, said many people had scabies, gastrointestinal infections and fevers.

Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, who is visiting flood-affected areas and relief camps daily, called for more international help Sunday.

“With over 400 (children) dead they make up one third of overall death toll. Now they are at even greater risk of water borne diseases, UNICEF and other global agencies should help,” he tweeted.

UNICEF, in fact, delivered tons of medicine, medical supplies, water purifying tablets and nutritional supplements to Pakistan on Sunday.

Alkidmat Foundation, a welfare organization, said its volunteers used boats to deliver ready-to-eat meals and other help for residents as well as animal feed on a small island in the Indus. The group also distributed food and items needed by those living by the roadside.

In the country’s northwest, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the provincial disaster management authority warned of more rains, possible flash floods and landslides in the coming week in Malakand and Hazara districts. Taimur Khan, spokesman for the authority, urged residents Sunday not to go to any of the areas already flooded in recent weeks.

According to initial government estimates, the devastation has caused $10 billion in damage, but Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal said Saturday “the scale of devastation is massive and requires an immense humanitarian response for 33 million people.”

___

Associated Press journalists Mohammad Farooq in Sukkur, Pakistan; Asim Tanveer in Multan, Pakistan, and Riaz Khan in Peshawar, Pakistan, contributed to this report.

Pakistan floods wash away a family's marriage hopes

Kaneez FATIMA
Sun, September 4, 2022


Truck driver and father-of-seven Mureed Hussain was planning for his daughter's October wedding when floodwater inundated his home, taking away the entire back wall and, with it, her hard-earned dowry.

"I had been collecting her dowry for almost three years," Hussain told AFP from the courtyard of his four-room house, which he shares with his brother's family.

"I would provide for the house and also spend a little on her dowry."

Record monsoon rains have caused devastating floods across Pakistan since June, killing more than 1,200 people and leaving almost a third of the country under water, affecting the lives of 33 million.


The hardest hit are the poor in rural parts of the country, who have seen their homes, belongings, life savings, and crops washed away.

Hussain's village in Punjab province was badly affected, with floodwater destroying or damaging scores of buildings.

Also washed away are marriage plans for Hussain's daughter, Nousheen.

Each month Hussain would put away a couple of thousand rupees for her dowry from the 17,000 rupee salary ($80) he makes driving trucks.

It is customary for families in patriarchal Pakistan to provide extravagant dowries when a daughter is married.


In many areas, parents are expected to start saving up for their daughters' dowries from the day they are born.

While demanding a large dowry is officially banned by law, it is still a practice observed by many.

The families of grooms frequently present the parents of their future daughter-in-law with an extensive list of demands -- including furniture, household goods and clothing.

In the case of wealthy families, it can even include cars and homes.

Failing to come up with the goods is considered shameful, and the bride-to-be often faces ill-treatment by her in-laws if a decent dowry is not provided.
- Shock and tears -

"I wanted to marry off my other two daughters after her and one remaining son," Hussain said.

"I had thought I would be able to do it gradually."

When the floods reached his home, Hussain fled with his wife and family to a nearby railway station on elevated land.

When the waters receded, Hussain trudged through mud two days ago and returned to his home with his wife and daughters.


"They started crying when they saw the damage," he said.

His wife, Sughra Bibi, teared up again as she recalled her shock at the condition of the home -- and her daughter's dowry.

Over the years, Sughra had bought a custom-made bed set and dressing table, as well as a juicer, washing machine, iron, bedsheets, and quilts.

Everything was badly damaged by the floodwater.

"It's blackened, so whoever sees it will say we have given her old things," Sughra said.

With the wedding called off, Nousheen is putting on a brave face.

"It was supposed to be a happy time for my family, and I was very excited," the 25-year-old told AFP.

"I have seen how difficult it was for my parents to put this dowry together for me. Now they have to do it all over again."

"It's such a big problem for us now," father Hussain said.

"Should we rebuild our house, sow wheat or get our children married? All three things are so important for us."

kf-fox/dhc

Will the summer of 2022 hasten France’s efforts to fight climate change?

Pauline ROUQUETTE - 

The summer of 2022 was a record-breaking season, marked by several heatwaves, forest fires and severe drought. These extreme weather events seem to have increased awareness of climate change among the French. But will it be followed by concrete action?

© Philippe Lopez, AFP

Heatwaves, fires, drought, violent storms... The summer of 2022 broke all records. With temperatures 2.3 degrees higher than normal for the season, it was the second hottest summer recorded in mainland France since 2003, according to Météo France on 30 August. The French national weather service also warned that these summers could become the norm in the coming decades.

That same day, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, the minister of energy transition, appeared on France Inter and pointed the finger at "major meteorological hazards", droughts and mega-fires, as well as the "health consequences" that they cause.

"The experts are very clear on the subject, (...) the summer of 2022 is probably the coolest you have experienced or will experience in the next 20 years," she said.

In recent days, several polls have revealed that more French people are making the link between this summer's extreme events and global warming, that they fear being personally affected and that they are ready to adapt their behaviour.

According to a YouGov poll for HuffPost, nearly 9 out of 10 French people see the link between extreme weather events and global warming, and are ready to adapt their behaviour. The Odoxa Institute conducted a poll for France Bleu which reveals that more than 7 out of 10 French people (71%) fear being personally affected by climatic events.

2003 Déjà vu?

This past summmer, global warming became a reality for the French, who are increasingly expressing their anxiety about extreme weather changes.

They have certainly not been spared. This summer, France experienced three heatwaves, one of which was at the start of June; the drought was aggravated by the heat and lack of rain; violent storms and forest fires ravaged several regions throughout France.

Jean Jouzel, a climatologist and former vice-president of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), notes that public awareness is growing, as he is receiving more requests from companies and associations to hold conferences and media inquiries. The climate scientist, author of more than 250 scientific publications, says he now receives up to 10 requests a week. "This was not the case before," he continues.

However, he remains cautious saying “the problem is not awareness but action”.

"After the summer of 2003, we also said that there was an awareness. That summer was followed by a normal summer, and then everything went back to the way it was,” Jouzel says, fearing that the effect of this past summer will also be short-lived. "We’ll have another one or two normal summers and inaction will be the order of the day again."

Are the French climate sceptics?

Is this a sign that the French are denying the reality of global warming? Several media outlets recently caused some confusion when they shared an OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) study, conducted in 20 countries and published in July, which revealed that 57% of French people believe that "climate change exists and is caused by humans". According to these figures, 43% of French people don’t believe this statement, despite the scientific consensus on the subject.

But does this really mean that almost one in two French people are climate change sceptics?

No, says the study's lead author, Antoine Dechezleprêtre, pointing out that the study is more interested in finding out whether the population supports the public policies that have been enacted to combat climate change.

In this case, the 43% of French people who do not believe that humanity has anything to do with global warming, are simply misinformed.

However, Jouzel maintains that the French are still a little slow to accept that humans cause global warming.

In April 2021, an Opinion Way survey revealed that "one in five French people (21%) did not believe in global warming".

"Some accept the reality of global warming but do not accept the reality of there being a link between global warming and human activities; while others accept it but think that technology will solve everything, which is extremely dangerous," says the climatologist, adding that climate sceptics are less visible than they were a decade ago.

The fact remains that the French now seem to be worrying more about this phenomenon. According to an Ipsos poll published on 25 August, global warming has become the second biggest concern of the French (32%), behind inflation (33%). "It is the highest level ever measured," said Mathieu Gallard, director of the polling institute, on Twitter.

'Not 'adapt', but 'change' one's behaviour'

When Météo France presented the summer 2022 report, Samuel Morin, director of the National Meteorological Research Centre, stated that this past summer was "a prefiguration" of the future.

By 2050, "we expect about half of the summers to be of comparable or even higher temperatures". This will be the case even if the world manages to contain the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming.

Although more and more French people are saying they are ready to "adapt their behaviour", Jouzel feels that this will not be enough. "We must no longer simply adapt our behaviour, but change our behaviour, and that is what the French do not understand," he says.

Evoking "energy sobriety", which, according to him, is a vague expression proposing no real concrete measures, the climatologist finds it "regrettable" that this subject has only been brought up while the Ukraine conflict is under way. "It's pretty pathetic that we're only talking about it now when we've known it all along: the need to place sobriety at the heart of a climate policy was written in the latest IPCC reports and in the recommendations of 150 citizens," he recalls. "It is not just things at the margin that need to be done; not just small gestures."

This article is a translation of the original in French.

Floods, other water-related disasters could cost economy $7.8 trillion by 2050: Report

AUGUST 29, 2022

A residential cul-de-sac is covered in floodwaters after heavy rain

 in Chehalis, Washington, US, on Jan 7, 2022. Picture taken with a drone.
Reuters

LONDON – Worsening droughts, storms and torrential rain in some of the world's largest economies could cause $5.6 trillion (S$7.8 trillion) in losses to the global economy by 2050, according to a report released on Monday (Aug 29).More from AsiaOneRead the condensed version of this story, and other top stories with NewsLite.

This year heavy rains have triggered floods that inundated cities in China and South Korea and disrupted water and electricity supply in India, while drought has put farmers' harvests at risk across Europe.

Such disasters are costing economies hundreds of billions of dollars.

Last year's extreme droughts, floods and storms led to global losses of more than $224 billion, according to the Emergency Events Database maintained by the Brussels-based Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters.

But as climate change fuels more intense rainfall, flooding and drought in coming decades, these costs are set to soar, warns the report by engineering and environmental consultancy firm GHD.


Water – when there's too much or too little – can "be the most destructive force that a community can experience," said Don Holland, who leads GHD's Canadian water market programme.

GHD assessed the water risks in seven countries representing varied economic and climatic conditions: the US, China, Canada, the UK, the Philippines, the United Arab Emirates and Australia.


Read Also Heat-weary Chongqing, Sichuan now on flood alert amid torrential rain


Using global insurance data and scientific studies on how extreme events can affect different sectors, the team estimated the amount of losses countries face in terms of immediate costs as well as to the overall economy.

In the US, the world's biggest economy, losses could total $3.7 trillion by 2050, with US gross domestic product shrinking by about 0.5 per cent each year up until then.

China, the world's No. Two economy, faces cumulative losses of around $1.1 trillion by mid-century.

Of the five business sectors most vital to the global economy, manufacturing and distribution would be hit hardest by disasters costing $4.2 trillion as water scarcity disrupts production while storms and floods destroy infrastructure and inventory.

The agricultural sector, vulnerable to both drought and extreme rainfall, could see $332 billion in losses by 2050. Other sectors facing major challenges are retail, banking and energy.

At this year's World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, a global group of experts launched a new commission to research the economics of water that aims to advise policymakers on water management.

We must "transform how we govern water and the climate together," said commission co-chair Tharman Shanmugaratnam.

"The costs of doing so are not trivial, but they are dwarfed by the costs of letting extreme weather wreak havoc."

America’s secrets: Trump’s unprecedented disregard of norms

By AAMER MADHANI

today

1 of 11

Former President Donald Trump speaks at a rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., 

Saturday, Sept. 3, 2022. 

(AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump isn’t the first to face criticism for flouting rules and traditions around the safeguarding of sensitive government records, but national security experts say recent revelations point to an unprecedented disregard of post-presidency norms established after the Watergate era.

Document dramas have cropped up from time to time over the years.

Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson’s national security adviser held onto explosive records for years before turning them over to the Johnson presidential library. The records showed that the campaign of his successor, Richard Nixon, was secretly communicating in the final days of the 1968 presidential race with the South Vietnamese government in an effort to delay the opening of peace talks to end the Vietnam War.

A secretary in Ronald Reagan’s administration, Fawn Hall, testified that she altered and helped shred documents related to the Iran-Contra affair to protect Oliver North, her boss at the White House National Security Council.

Barack Obama’s CIA director, David Petraeus, was forced to resign and pleaded guilty to a federal misdemeanor for sharing classified material with a biographer with whom he was having an affair. Hillary Clinton, while Obama’s secretary of state, faced FBI scrutiny that extended into her 2016 presidential campaign against Trump for her handling of highly classified material in a private email account. The FBI director recommended no criminal charges but criticized Clinton for her “extremely careless” behavior.

As more details emerge from last month’s FBI search of Trump’s Florida home, the Justice Department has painted a portrait of an indifference for the rules on a scale that some thought inconceivable after establishment of the Presidential Records Act in 1978.

“I cannot think of a historical precedent in which there was even the suspicion that a president or even a high-ranking officer in the administration, with the exception of the Nixon administration, purposely and consciously or even accidentally removing such a sizable volume of papers,” said Richard Immerman, who served as assistant deputy director of national intelligence from 2007 to 2009.

FBI agents who searched Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort on Aug. 8 found more than 100 documents with classification markings, including 18 marked top secret, 54 secret and 31 confidential, according to court filings. The FBI also identified 184 documents marked as classified in 15 boxes recovered by the National Archives in January, and it received additional classified documents during a June visit to Mar-a-Lago. An additional 10,000 other government records with no classification markings were also found.

That could violate the Presidential Records Act, which says that such records are government property and must be preserved.

That law was enacted after Nixon resigned from office in the midst of the Watergate scandal and sought to destroy hundreds of hours of secretly recorded White House tapes. It established government ownership of presidential records starting with Ronald Reagan.

The act specifies that immediately after a president leaves office, the National Archives and Records Administration takes legal and physical custody of the outgoing administration’s records and begins to work with the incoming White House staff on appropriate records management.

According to the National Archives, records that have no “administrative, historical, informational, or evidentiary value” can be disposed of before obtaining the archivist’s written permission.

Documents have been recovered from Trump’s bedroom, closet, bathroom and storage areas at his Florida resort, which doubles as his home. In June, when Justice Department officials met a Trump lawyer to retrieve records in response to a subpoena, the lawyer handed them documents in a “Redweld envelope, double-wrapped in tape.”

Trump has claimed he declassified all the documents in his possession and had been working in earnest with department officials on returning documents when they conducted the Mar-a-Lago search. During the 2016 campaign, Trump asserted that Clinton’s use of her private email server for sensitive State Department material was disqualifying for her candidacy; chants from his supporters to “lock her up” became a mainstay at his political rallies.

James Trusty, a lawyer for Trump in the records matter, said on Fox News that Trump’s possession of the sensitive government material was equivalent to hanging on to an “overdue library book.”

But Trump’s former attorney general, Bill Barr, said in a separate Fox News interview that he was “skeptical” of Trump’s claim that he declassified everything. “People say this (raid) was unprecedented -- well, it’s also unprecedented for a president to take all this classified information and put them in a country club, OK,” Barr said.

Trump’s attitude about White House records is not so surprising to some who worked for him.

One of Trump’s national security advisers, John Bolton, said briefers quickly learned that Trump often tried to hang onto sensitive documents, and they took steps to make sure documents didn’t go missing. Classified information was tweeted, shared with reporters and adversaries — even found in a White House complex bathroom.

That approach is out of step with how modern-day presidents have operated.

Obama, while writing his White House memoir after leaving office, had paper records he used in his research delivered to him in locked bags from a secure National Archives storage facility and returned them in similar fashion.

Dwight Eisenhower, who left office years before the Presidential Records Act was passed, kept official records secure at Fort Ritchie, Maryland, even though there was no requirement for him to do so.

Neil Eggleston, who served as White House counsel during the final years of the Obama administration, recalled that Fred Fielding, who held the same position in the George W. Bush administration, advised him as he started his new job to hammer home to staff the requirements set in the records act.

Similarly, Trump’s White House counsel, Donald McGahn, sent a staff-wide memo in the first weeks of the administration underscoring “that presidential records are the property of the United States.”

“It’s not a hard concept that documents prepared during the course of our presidential administration are not your personal property or the president’s personal properties,” Eggleston said.

Presidents are not required to obtain security clearances to access intelligence or formally instructed on their responsibilities to safeguard secrets when they leave office, said Larry Pfeiffer, a former CIA officer and senior director of the White House Situation Room.

But guidelines issued by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees the intelligence agencies, require that any “sensitive compartmented information” –- some of the highest-value intelligence the U.S. possesses –- be viewed only in secure rooms known as “SCIFs.”

The FBI, in a court filing, this past week included a photo of some of the records that agents discovered in the search of Trump’s estate. The photo showed cover sheets on at least five sets of papers that are marked “TOP SECRET/SCI,” a reference to sensitive compartmented information, as well as a cover sheet labeled “SECRET/SCI” and “Contains sensitive compartmented information.” The FBI also found dozens of empty folders marked classified, with nothing inside and no explanation of what might have been there.

A president can keep reports presented during a briefing for later review. And presidents –- or nominees for president during an election year -– aren’t always briefed in a SCIF, depending on their schedules and locations, Pfeiffer said.

“There’s no intelligence community directive that says how presidents should or shouldn’t be briefed on the materials,” said Pfeiffer, now director of the Michael V. Hayden Center for Intelligence, Policy, and International Security. “We’ve never had to worry about it before.”

People around the president with access to intelligence are trained on intelligence rules on handling classified information and required to follow them. But imposing restrictions on the president would be difficult for intelligence agencies, Pfeiffer said, because “by virtue of being the executive of the executive branch, he sets all the rules with regard to secrecy and classification.”

President Joe Biden told reporters recently that he often reads his top secret Presidential Daily Briefing at his home in Delaware, where he frequently spends his weekends and holidays. But Biden said he takes precautions to make certain the document stays secure.

“I have in my home a cabined-off space that is completely secure,” Biden said.

He added: “I read it. I lock it back up and give it to the military.”

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Associated Press reporter Nomaan Merchant contributed to this report.

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Follow AP’s coverage of Donald Trump at https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump