WHERE DID IAN GET ALL THAT H2O

Woman's Video of the Water Completely Sucked Out of Tampa Bay Before the Hurricane Is Going Viral

KATHLEEN JOYCE

Hurricane season is off to a terrifying start, with brutal hurricanes hitting back-to-back: first Fiona, which ran its destructive course from Puerto Rico all the way up to Canada, and now Hurricane Ian, which is battering Florida. Currently, the scenes coming from South and Central Florida are nightmarish.

Take Tampa right now- because the impending storm is so massive, it's literally sucked out all the water in Tampa Bay. Tampa resident @ohnoitsco shows us an up-close view of the bay and it's so ominous.



Uh-oh. That is a very, very bad sign. Tampa Bay has a pretty large volume normally, so the fact that it has been drained and receded that far out mean that there's literally millions of gallons of it suspended in the storm, waiting to be dropped down over Florida. This is going to be a rough one. Or, as a worried @kerrie_anne1973 put it, "WHAT GOES UP MUST COME DOWN…..😳."

"That’s the universal sign for RUN," exclaimed @darkxprincesssx. "Then that water arrives as a rushing storm surge. During Hurricane Sandy in NY, it sometimes reached 50 feet," @x.y.z_1.2.3 stated. They're right- when that water comes back, it's going to return with a vengeance.

Despite the clear danger, some hobbyists saw a great opportunity to explore the drained bay. "Is it terrible of me to immediately think about all of the amazing shells that could be found right now? Once a shell hound always a shell hound 😉😁," said @tishwydick. "I totally would be out there collecting treasures 😂," echoed @xobreeoxo. "If anyone dropped their phone in the bay or lost their wedding ring nows the time to go get it," quipped @ukejuke100.

While we ourselves admit that the idea of looking around and seeing what's normally at the bottom of a bay is a really intriguing idea, we hope that other curious minds put their safety over their curiosity. A Category 4 hurricane is nothing to mess around with in the best of circumstances. We hope that everybody going through Hurricane Ian right now will make it out safe, and our thoughts are with them.

Hurricane Ian Sucks Tampa Bay Dry Ahead Of Landfall

Nina Golgowski

Wed, September 28, 2022 

Stunning video and photos taken along Florida’s western coast show Tampa Bay waterways sucked completely dry ahead of Hurricane Ian’s arrival Wednesday.

Ian’s powerful winds pushed water away from the shore and into the gulf, similar to what happened just before Hurricane Irma’s arrival in 2017.

But experts warned that the receding tide, called a negative storm surge, is only temporary and that water will return, likely at much higher levels.

“Don’t go out there. It’s so dangerous to go out there,” National Weather Service Director Ken Graham said at a news conference Wednesday morning. “Even if you see the water receding, it’s not the time to go out there and look at it and collect shells or whatever it is. We’ve seen this, and these types of storms, when the winds come down, when the winds decrease, that water comes back in and can be incredibly dangerous.”

Florida’s Division of Emergency Management echoed that message on Twitter, warning that the returning water could be life-threatening.

The massive Category 4 storm made landfall near Cayo Costa, roughly 90 miles south of Tampa, later Wednesday afternoon.

The low-lying Tampa Bay area is predicted to see a storm surge of four to six feet, with extreme beach erosion and water that may extend several miles inland, according to the National Weather Service.

The storm surge will be greater farther south along the coast, with some areas at risk of a surge of up to 18 feet. In addition, hurricane will dump up to five inches of rainfall per hour as it crosses the state while losing speed and prolonging the deluge, said Graham.

“This is going to be a storm that we talk about for many years to come,” Graham said.

A man walks through the mudflats as the tide recedes from Tampa Bay as Hurricane Ian approaches Wednesday in Tampa, Florida. Ian intensified to just shy of catastrophic Category 5 strength. (Photo: BRYAN R. SMITH via Getty Images)

A man walks through the mudflats as the tide recedes from Tampa Bay as Hurricane Ian approaches Wednesday in Tampa, Florida. Ian intensified to just shy of catastrophic Category 5 strength. (Photo: BRYAN R. SMITH via Getty Images)

Water from the storm, not its wind, creates the highest risk to human life, Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell noted. She cautioned that flood dangers don’t end with the storm’s passing.

Only a few inches of rushing water can carry away a moving vehicle, Criswell said. She urged people to move to higher ground if water is rising around them, and cautioned against using a generator indoors due to possible carbon monoxide poisoning.

“Hurricane Ian is and will continue to be a very dangerous and life-threatening storm and this is going to be for the days ahead,” Criswell said.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.

Lebanon's dwindling rain leaves farmers struggling for water

Lebanon Struggling off the Grid

A farmer prepares to plant potatoes in Harf Beit Hasna village, in Dinnieh province, north Lebanon, Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2022. Farmers in a small mountainous town in Lebanon's northern Dinnieh province once could rely on rain to irrigate their crops and sustain a living. But climate change and the country's crippling economic crisis has left their soil dry and their produce left to rot. They rely on the little rain they can collect in their innovative artificial ponds to make enough money to feed themselves, as they live without government electricity, water, and services. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)More

KAREEM CHEHAYEB
Fri, September 30, 2022 

HARF BEIT HASNA, Lebanon (AP) — Farmers in a small town perched on a northern Lebanese mountain have long refused to accept defeat even as the government abandoned them to a life off the grid.

Harf Beit Hasna receives almost no basic services. No water or sewage system, no streetlight or garbage collection. The only public school is closed. The nearest pharmacy is a long drive down a winding mountain road.

“We live on another planet,” said Nazih Sabra, a local farmer. “The state has completely forgotten us, and so have the politicians and municipalities.”

Its around 2,500 residents have gotten by because of an ingenious solution: They dug trenches, lined them with plastic and use them to collect rainwater. For decades, the rainwater enabled them to grow enough crops for themselves, with a surplus to sell.

But where government neglect didn’t kill Harf Beit Hasna, the combination of climate change and economic disaster now threatens to.

In recent years, rainfall in Lebanon has decreased, straining even the most water-rich country in the Middle East. At the same time, the country’s economy has fallen apart the past two and a half years; families whose livelihoods have been wrecked struggle to afford basics as prices spiral.

Harf Beit Hasna, on a remote mountain plateau above steep valleys, has taken pride in making it on its own with its rain-water pools. The town is dotted with them, most of them the size of a backyard swimming pool.

Sabra said he remembers in his childhood how his grandfather and other farmers could raise livestock and sustain a decent living.

But recent years have gotten harder. As rain declined and temperatures warmed, farmers adapted. They grew less of water-demanding produce like tomatoes and cucumbers and planted tobacco, a more drought-resistant plant.

Now they can barely grow enough to get by.

“If there isn’t rain, you use whatever you have left stored and work with a deficit,” Sabra said. “You can’t even afford to farm anymore.”

Sabra’s field is barren and dry, save some tobacco plants and potatoes. He tried to plant a small patch of tomatoes for his family’s use. But to save water, he had to let them die. The rotting tomatoes swarm with pests.

“There’s nothing we can do with them”, Sabra said, before taking a long drag off his cigarette.

He has a small patch of eggplants surrounded by barren, cracking soil. He hopes he can sell them in the nearby city of Tripoli to buy more potable water for his family this month.

“Those eggplants wouldn’t have been there without the ponds,” he says with a smile. His pool, which can hold around 200 cubic meters of water, was only about a quarter full. The water was green, because he's been drawing on it slowly, trying to ration out what's left.

From his field, Sabra can see the Mediterranean Sea on the horizon and, below him, a valley where there are freshwater springs. But gasoline is too expensive for him to drive daily to get water from there. He struggles to afford school for his children. His home hasn’t had electricity for weeks because no power comes from the state network, and he can’t afford fuel for his personal generator.

Government services and infrastructure across Lebanon are decrepit and faltering. But Harf Bait Hasna’s situation is particularly bad.

It’s remote and hard to reach. Administratively, it’s caught between two different municipalities, neither of which wants to deal with it. And, residents say, it has no political patron — a crucial need for any community to get anything in Lebanon’s factionalized politics. Sabra and other farmers say politicians for years have ignored their requests for a well or a connection to the state’s water network.

At Harf Beit Hasna, government neglect and climate change have combined to leave “an area very challenged with water security,” said Sammy Kayed, at the American University of Beirut’s Nature Conservation Center.

The disaster in the town is “much more profound (because) you have an entire community that is reliant on rain-fed agriculture” but can no longer rely on rain, he said.

Kayed, the co-founder and managing director of the Conservation Center’s Environment Academy, is trying to find donors to fund a solar-powered well for the town and to draw officials’ attention to get it connected to the state water network.

Across Lebanon, periods of rainfall have shrunk and the number of consecutive days of high temperatures have increased, said Vahakn Kabakian, the U.N. Development Program’s Lebanon climate change adviser.

A recent report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization said water scarcity, pollution, and inequitable water usage add to the difficulties of Lebanon’s agricultural communities. The agriculture sector amounts only to a tiny fraction of the country’s economy and so is often overlooked, and it like the rest of Lebanon’s producers and consumers are struggling with skyrocketing costs.

In Lebanon’s breadbasket in the eastern Bekaa Valley, farmers say their work is disrupted by strange weather patterns because of climate change.

“Rain has declined in its usual period, and we’re seeing our soil dry up and crack. But then we somehow got more rain than usual in June,” Ibrahim Tarchichi, head of the Bekaa Farmers Association told the AP. “We haven’t seen anything like this before in the Bekaa.”

He doesn’t expect anything from Lebanon’s politicians. “Here, you can only expect help from God.”

The government for years has pledged to diversify its economy and invest more in the ailing agriculture sector. But since the economy fell out, the divided ruling clique has hardly been able to formulate any policies, failing to pass a 2022 budget so far and resisting reforms demanded for an International Monetary Fund bailout.

In the meantime, Sabra takes some water from one of his ponds and sighs. He has almost run out of water from the last rainy season in the winter. This is his only lifeline to last until the rains come again.

“There is nothing left for us but the ponds,” he said.

 

Larry Summers warns that the risks building in the market look similar to the onset of the Great Financial Crisis as volatility in the UK threatens to spread globally


Matthew Fox
Thu, September 29, 2022 

Former US Treasury secretary Larry Summers.AP Photo/Michel Euler

Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers sees today's market risks as similar to those seen right before the 2008 Great Financial Crisis.


A series of inflation, interest rate, and currency shocks have led to increased market volatility around the world.


"In the same way that people became anxious in August of 2007, I think this is a moment when there should be increased anxiety," Summers told Bloomberg.

Former US Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers thinks today's market risks are looking eerily similar to those that surfaced just before the Great Financial Crisis.

"We're living through a period of elevated risk," Summers told Bloomberg Television on Thursday, later adding, "In the same way that people became anxious in August of 2007, I think this is a moment when there should be increased anxiety."

The summer of 2007 is when red flags became apparent regarding the stability of the global financial system, as big hedge fund wipeouts and mounting subprime mortgage losses became more and more apparent. That led to a complete freeze of the interbank foreign exchange market in August of that year.

Today, various shocks in inflation, interest rates, and currencies over the past few weeks have rocked both stock and bond markets, leading to a surge in volatility. The most recent shock occurred Wednesday morning when the Bank of England launched an emergency purchase program of long-dated bonds to prevent a UK pension crisis.

Days before that, the British pound plunged to record lows against the US dollar following Prime Minister Liz Truss' plan to cut tax rates at a time when inflation is at multi-decade highs. She doubled down on her plan and resisted calls for scaling back the new fiscal policy in an interview with the BBC on Thursday.

"This is a global financial situation. Currencies are under pressure around the world," Truss said, arguing that her tax plan is not to blame for the recent volatility.

Summers called the ongoing situation in the UK "very complex and uncharted territory," and said the Bank of England's emergency bond purchasing program is unsustainable.

While he admitted there aren't many signs that other markets around the world are acting "disorderly," that can change in the blink of an eye given ongoing geopolitical tensions with Russia and a reduced outlook for global economic growth.

"We know that when you have extreme volatility, that's when these situations are more likely to arise," Summers said. "When a country as major as Britain is going through something like this, that is something that can have consequences that go beyond."

SEDITIOUS TRAITOR

Michael Flynn Ominously Warns Governors May Soon 'Declare War'



Mary Papenfuss

HUFFPOST
Thu, September 29, 2022

Donald Trump’s onetime national security adviser Michael Flynn warned at an Arizona campaign event that governors may soon “declare war.”

He also said that “90% of federal agencies” should be eliminated.

The far-right extremist pushed his theories in a speech earlier this week at a campaign event for Trump-endorsed, QAnon-supporting election denier Mark Finchem, who’s running for Arizona secretary of state.

“Just lock ’em up,” Flynn exclaimed, apparently referring to federal agencies he wants shuttered.

“States’ rights,” he added. “Did you know that a governor can declare war? A governor can declare war. And we’re going to probably see that,” Flynn warned.



It wasn’t clear what situations might convince governors to “declare war” in Flynn’s scenario — possibly if they’re unhappy with the result of presidential elections in a democracy. The last time governors tried that, it launched a civil war they didn’t win.

Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 of the Constitution states that it is Congress that has the power to “declare war,” to “raise and support armies.” For the U.S. to wage war, Congress has to pass a resolution in both chambers, then present it to the president, who shall then direct the military as “commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States,” according to Article II, Section 2.

Flynn left the Trump administration within weeks after he was named national security adviser because of his lies about connections to Russia amid the investigation into Kremlin interference into the 2016 presidential election.

He later pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his Russian ties during Trump’s campaign and transition into the White House. He was sentenced to prison, but Trump pardoned him in 2020.

Flynn, who earlier this month claimed “Israelis” are attempting to inject robotics into Americans to turn them into cyborgs, has been appointed a “poll watcher” for midterm elections by the Republican Party in Sarasota, Florida. He’ll be joined by a leader of the local Proud Boys militia, which aims to overthrow the U.S. government. (Flynn last week said he heard salad dressings were being laced with COVID vaccines.)

Critics are furious that Trump pardoned Flynn — and that he continues to collect a military pension while he appears to oppose everything the military is sworn to protect.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.

Related...

• New Hearing To Expose Trump Meet With 'Team Crazy' Triggering Jan. 6 Riot: Jamie Raskin

• Army Reportedly Seeks To Recoup Money From Michael Flynn For His Pay From Russia, Turkey

• Michael Flynn Takes 5th When Asked If He Believes In A Peaceful Transfer Of Power

• University Strips Michael Flynn, Rudy Giuliani Of Honorary Degrees

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

In blow to NRA, judge allows New York attorney general to seek court-imposed monitor and to demand Wayne LaPierre forfeit millions



Laura Italiano
Thu, September 29, 2022

A court ruling Thursday lets New York's attorney general continue to seek stiff penalties from the NRA.


AG Letitia James is suing CEO Wayne LaPierre for millions in back salary; she also wants the NRA subjected to financial monitoring.


LaPierre's lawyer likened James' push for a monitor to Alabama's AG monitoring the NAACP in the '50s.

In a blow to the NRA, a Manhattan judge has given New York Attorney General Letitia James the green light to continue seeking two hefty penalties — an independent monitor who would oversee the gun lobby's finances, and millions in back-salary from CEO Wayne LaPierre.

The ruling from the bench by New York Supreme Court Justice Joel Cohen on Thursday allows the New York AG to pursue the financial monitor and significant cash penalties when her two-year-old lawsuit against the NRA eventually goes to trial.

Those salary-based penalties, if approved by a judge or jury, could add up to a small fortune.


LaPierre has made in excess of $1 million a year since 2014; he was under contract to earn $1.5 million for the years 2020 through 2025, according to court filings.

A trial date has yet to be set for the lawsuit, which accuses LaPierre and three other executives at the New York-chartered non-profit of lining their pockets with member donations.

LaPierre was reinstated as the NRA's executive vice president at the gun lobby's annual convention in Houston in May, despite the New York AG's allegations that he and his cronies used "millions upon millions" in NRA cash for private jet travel, Bahamas vacations, and pricey meals.

Lawyers for the NRA and for LaPierre had fought hard against the New York AG's proposed penalties in lengthy legal papers and in arguments before Cohen on Thursday.

The lawyers fought especially hard against the threat of a court-imposed financial monitor, something they derided as "a de facto takeover" in legal papers in June and as "dangerous," and "unconstitutional" in arguments before Cohen on Thursday.

"It's really just interference with his ability to do his job the way his members want him to do it, in the way his board wants him to do it," LaPierre attorney P. Kent Correll said.

In a moment of what might be called legal calisthenics, Correll went on to compare James' demands for an NRA monitorship to Alabama's assault on the NAACP in the 1950s.

"You have the attorney general of a state trying to interfere with the operation of a not-for-profit organization — that happened in the '50s," Correll told the judge.

"The attorney general of the state of Alabama wanted to do what he could to disrupt the NAACP" and demanded the group turn over its membership list as a condition of continuing to operate in Alabama, Correll said.

"It went to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court said, 'No, you can't do that. You can't interfere with an organization like this because they're engaged in free speech.'"

The judge countered that in a hypothetical case where a non-profit had been looted by its executives, a court would need to be able to do more than just "hope for the best with the next person."

He also disagreed with the NRA's claim that a monitorship is off the table because it is not mentioned by name in New York's Estate, Powers, and Trusts Law.

The NRA is attempting to read the law "so narrowly" that no attorney general would ever be able to monitor "how funds are used by an organization such as this," the judge said.

The judge also said it was premature to assess the appropriateness of a monitor, or of financial penalties, or of any other possible remedies, "without knowing what the fact findings are that give rise to the remedy."

As for next steps in the massive case, lawyers for the New York AG said they may request one last round of depositions based on recently submitted discovery from the NRA's side.

"I'd like to set a trial date as soon as I can, subject to one party or another winning on summary judgment," Cohen said.

"Everybody's been working very hard," he added. "My understanding was that things were near the end, which it sounds like is true."

Read the original article on Business Insider

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Wall Street banks including Bank of America and Goldman Sachs fined $1.8 billion over failures in monitoring how staff used personal phones to talk about work


Grace Dean
Wed, September 28, 2022 

A Bank of America storefront.

Wall Street banks have been fined for not monitoring how staff use their phones to talk about work.

The offences involved employees ranging from senior executives to debt and equity traders.

The SEC issued $1.1 billion in fines while the CFTC issued $710 million, both on Wednesday.

Several Wall Street banks have been fined a combined $1.1 billion by the US Securities and Exchange Commission and $710 million by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission for not monitoring or keeping records about how staff use their personal phones to message about work.

The SEC fines were imposed on 10 large broker-dealers, five of their affiliates, and one affiliated investment adviser, including Bank of America, Citigroup Global Markets, Credit Suisse Securities, Deutsche Bank Securities, Barclays Capital, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and UBS Securities.

The SEC said Wednesday that the fines covered "widespread and longstanding failures by the firms and their employees to maintain and preserve electronic communications."

It said that between January 2018 and September 2021, employees "routinely" used personal devices to communicate about business matters. The firms violated federal securities laws by failing to preserve the vast majority of these communications, the SEC said.

The offences involved employees ranging from supervisors and senior executives to junior investment bankers and debt and equity traders.

The SEC said it had requested information about off-channel communications from around 30 senior broker-dealer personnel at Goldman Sachs and found that every one of them had taken part in "at least some level" of off-channel communications.

This included one senior investment banker who had sent and received "tens of thousands" of off-channel text messages, concerning things including investment strategy and client meetings, the SEC said.

It added that the firms cooperated with the investigation and admitted to their wrongdoing. The companies have agreed to pay penalties ranging from $10 million to $125 million each.

They also agreed to have compliance consultants review their policies relating to keeping records of electronic communications found on personal devices.

The CFTC also announced settlements with the firms for related conduct on Wednesday.

The regulator said its investigation found that the companies had failed to stop their employees, including those at senior levels, "from communicating both internally and externally using unapproved communication methods," including text, WhatsApp, and Signal messages.

Each company had failed to retain "hundreds if not thousands of business-related communications," including some connected to their commodities and swaps businesses, the CFTC said.

It said that each firm acknowledged that they were aware of their employees' "widespread and longstanding use" of unapproved methods for business-related communications.

"We fully cooperated with our regulators on this industry-wide matter," a Deutsche Bank spokesperson told Insider. "We have proactively deployed fully compliant and convenient text and chat platforms and will continue to scale these technologies to meet the expectations of our regulators and our clients."

Credit Suisse and Barclays declined to comment on the investigations and the settlements. The other companies mentioned in this article did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

A Citi spokesperson told The New York Times that officials at the bank were pleased to put the matter to rest.

SEC, CFTC Fine Wall Street Banks for Record-Keeping Failures



Swayta Shah
Wed, September 28, 2022 at 7:34 AM·2 min read

The U.S. regulators – Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”) – have penalized several major Wall Street banks over “widespread and longstanding failures” to maintain and preserve records of electronic communications between traders and their clients.

Some of the big names are Barclays BCS, Bank of America BAC, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs GS, Morgan Stanley MS and UBS Group AG. The firms (in aggregate) will be paying more than $1.8 billion to the SEC and the CFTC combined to resolve the matter.

Among the Wall Street banks, Bank of America is facing the largest fine of $225 million, while others, including BCS, MS and GS, will be paying $200 million each. The BAC’s penalty dwarfs the prior fines for similar allegations. In December 2021, JPMorgan JPM agreed to pay $200 million penalty for its failure to monitor business-related communications on platforms like WhatsApp. Of the total amount to be paid by JPM, $125 million will go to the SEC and $75 million to the CFTC.
Case Backdrop

The industry-wide investigations conducted by the SEC and the CFTC laid bare “pervasive off-channel communications” from the personal electronic devices between banks’ personnel and their clients between January 2018 and September 2021. Also, these “off-channel communications” were not maintained or preserved in clear violation of the federal securities provisions.

The firms need to retain “certain of these written communications because they related to the firms’ businesses.” By not following these regulations, the regulators’ capability to supervise financial markets, guarantee compliance with vital rules, “and gather evidence in other, unrelated investigations” was hampered.

While Wall Street has always struggled not to communicate about business matters using text messages and WhatsApp on their personal devices, the problem became more severe during the pandemic as employees worked from home. The bank employees, including “senior and junior investment bankers and debt and equity traders,” were found to be violating the securities laws.
Conclusion

The SEC chairman, Gary Gensler, said, “Finance, ultimately, depends on trust. By failing to honor their recordkeeping and books-and-records obligations, the market participants we have charged today have failed to maintain that trust.”

The Wall Street banks admitted to the facts in their respective settlement orders with the regulators. However, BAC and a Japan-based investment bank neither admitted nor denied certain findings of the CFTC. The companies have also started “implementing improvements to their compliance policies and procedures to settle these matters.”

END SLAVE LABOUR IN U$ PRISONS
Alabama prisons reduce meals, nix visits amid inmate strike


A fence stands at Elmore Correctional Facility in Elmore, Ala

Alabama inmates were in their second day of a work strike Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2022, refusing to labor in prison kitchens, laundries and factories to protest conditions in the state’s overcrowded, understaffed lock-ups. 

AP Photo/Brynn Anderson


Thu, September 29, 2022 at 11:50 AM·2 min read

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Thousands of inmates in Alabama's overcrowded prison system are receiving only two meals a day during a prisoner work stoppage that was in its fourth day Thursday, and the agency said weekend visitation also was being canceled.

While inmates and activists have accused the Department of Corrections of using pressure tactics in an attempt to end the demonstration, officials said the reduced rations and the lack of visits were the result of a prisoner labor shortage.

Inmates provide much of the labor force inside prisons, the department said, so the lockups eliminated one of the three meals that normally are served to compensate for the lack of workers.

“This is not a retaliatory measure but logistically necessary to ensure that other critical services are being provided,” the department said in a statement.

Photos posted on social media showed brown bag meals consisting of a corn dog or peanut butter sandwich. The prison system said it would return to regular meal service once the strike ends, but it wasn’t clear how long that might take.

The department said most its large mens prisons were still affected by the strike on Thursday, and visitation was being canceled this weekend because of the stoppages and their impact on prison staff.

“Inmates have been notified and encouraged to notify any visitors,” the agency said.

Activist Diyawn Caldwell, whose husband is incarcerated in Alabama, said canceling visitation was “just another mechanism for retaliation” by the state on inmates. She said prison officials also are threatening striking inmates with loss of living space in honor dorms, where conditions often are better than in other areas.

“That’s huge in there because you’re taking merits they have earned away from them because they don’t want to perform free labor,” said Caldwell, who founded Both Sides of the Wall, which desribes itself as a grassroots organization.

Gov. Kay Ivey has rejected demands for criminal justice reforms including changes to sentencing laws for habitual offenders, calling them unreasonable.

Alabama prisons held more than 20,000 inmates in July, when the Department of Corrections issued its latest statistical report, despite being designed for only 12,115 people. The department runs 13 major prisons for men, the largest of which holds more than 2,200 men, and one for women.

The Department of Justice is suing Alabama over the conditions in its prisons, saying the state is failing to protect male inmates from inmate-on-inmate violence and excessive force at the hands of prison staff.

The 2020 lawsuit alleges that conditions in the prison system are so poor that they violate the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment and that state officials are “deliberately indifferent” to the problems. Alabama officials have acknowledged problems but deny that the living conditions violate constitutional standards.

Colombia says 10 armed groups agree to unilateral ceasefire


Gustavo Petro President of Colombia

Wed, September 28, 2022 
By Luis Jaime Acosta

BOGOTA (Reuters) -At least 10 armed groups in Colombia, including former members of the FARC rebels who reject a peace deal and the Clan del Golfo crime gang, have agreed to participate in unilateral ceasefires, the government said on Wednesday.

President Gustavo Petro, who took office in August, has promised to seek "total peace" with armed groups, fully implementing a 2016 peace accord with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and meeting with dissidents and gangs.

"Each group with its own identity, nature and motivation is expressing its disposition to be part of a total peace, in this exploration phase we've asked them not to kill, not to disappear people and not to torture," Danilo Rueda, the government's high peace commissioner, told journalists at an impromptu press conference. "We are moving ahead."

Among the groups are two FARC dissident groups - the Estado Mayor Central and Segunda Marquetalia - as well as the Clan del Golfo, the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta Auto-Defenses and others Rueda did not name.

Illegal armed groups in Colombia - whose six-decade conflict has killed at least 450,000 people - count some 6,000 fighters in their ranks, according to security sources.

Leftist rebels and crime gangs both participate in extortion, murder, drug trafficking and illegal gold mining.

Petro - himself a former member of the urban M-19 guerrilla - has said his government could offer reduced sentences to gang members who hand over ill-gotten assets and give information about drug trafficking.

"The office of peace is exploring the judicial mechanisms to permit the transition of armed groups to rule of law," said Rueda, who previously met with FARC dissidents.

Petro also wants to restart Havana-based peace talks with largest active rebel group the National Liberation Army (ELN), which were called off by his predecessor, and Rueda traveled there soon after the inauguration.

The ELN favors a bilateral ceasefire to pave the way for renewed talks, its top negotiator told Reuters this month.

The government has said it will suspend aerial bombings of armed groups in a bid to avoid collateral damage to civilians and deaths of forcibly-recruited minors.

(Reporting by Luis Jaime Acosta; Writing by Julia Symmes Cobb; Editing by Paul Simao and Nick Zieminski)

Colombia peace process must solve causes of conflict - ELN rebel commander


Antonio Garcia, head of the delegation of National Liberation Army (ELN) for formal peace talks with Colombian government, talks to the media during a news conference in Caracas

Thu, September 29, 2022 
By Luis Jaime Acosta

BOGOTA (Reuters) - The top commander of Colombia's National Liberation Army (ELN) rebel group, which is exploring a resumption of peace talks with the leftist government, told Reuters any process must seek profound change for all of society and not political power for a few guerrilla commanders.

New President Gustavo Petro, a former member of the M-19 urban guerrillas, has promised to seek "total peace" by fully implementing a 2016 peace deal with the now-demobilized FARC rebels, restarting ELN talks and dialoguing with crime gangs.

"What is essential for a peace process is to overcome the causes which originated the armed conflict, to even think they are overcome with a few (congressional) seats for a handful of rebels would be miserly," said Eliecer Herlinto Chamorro, better known by his nom de guerre, Antonio Garcia.

He was answering questions sent by Reuters about whether the ELN will become a political party after a peace deal.

The FARC deal saw the demobilization of its 13,000 members and the creation of political party Comunes, which has 10 seats in congress guaranteed until 2026 which have been assigned to former guerrilla leaders.

"It's about achieving real change for the good of all society, real and participative democracy for communities and social organizations, making Colombian society more equitable, with social justice, respect for human rights, that political persecution of those who protest for just rights and the murders of leaders end definitively," said Garcia.

Lack of land access, deep economic inequality, historic persecution of leftists and lack of democratic participation are considered the principal causes of Colombia's six-decade conflict between the government, leftist rebels, right-wing paramilitaries and drug gangs, which has killed at least 450,000 people.

UNITED FRONT

Garcia, 66, said the demobilization of the ELN - accused of forcibly recruiting minors, drug trafficking, murders, kidnappings and bombing attacks - will be resolved at the negotiating table.

Though Petro has said talks should be carried out quickly, the quality of any agreements will be a variable when determining the negotiations' timeline, Garcia said.

The most recent talks with the ELN collapsed under Petro's predecessor, after the group refused to suspend armed action and killed 22 police cadets in an early 2019 bombing.

Other attempts at dialogue have failed to bear fruit because of a diffuse chain of command and dissent within the ranks of the ELN, which was founded by radical Catholic priests in 1964 and counts some 2,400 fighters.

There is precedent for rebel resistance to peace deals - several top FARC commanders reject that deal and remain armed in dissident groups, with whom Petro also wants to dialogue.

But Garcia said the eight ELN units operating in the jungles and mountains of Colombia are united with their negotiators - many of them elderly, unlike most fighters - who remained in Cuba after the collapse of previous talks.

"The ELN remains united by political identity and its democratic methods to construct policy in a constructive way and try to solve differences," he said, echoing recent comments by the group's head negotiator in Havana. "We will stay united, that is the decision of the last (rebel) congress, and we will face any challenge united."

Garcia said profound changes are needed in Colombia - where about half the population lives in some degree of poverty - but those in power must first be held to account.

"Even though the country requires adjustments to its fundamental laws, what most affects us is the lack of compliance with laws by those who hold power," he said.

(This story adds dropped word 'be' in third paragraph)

(Reporting by Luis Jaime Acosta; Writing by Julia Symmes Cobb; Editing by Alistair Bell)

Widerimage: As grocery bills soar, hungry Brazilians may seal Bolsonaro’s fate



Thu, September 29, 2022
By Lisandra Paraguassu

BRASILIA (Reuters) - The specter of hunger hangs over Brazil's presidential race this year like few before it.

Rampant inflation and fallout from the pandemic have pushed food insecurity here to levels nearly unrecognizable a decade ago. One in three Brazilians say they have struggled recently to feed their families.

Trailing in the polls and eager to offer relief, President Jair Bolsonaro dribbled budget rules to boost Brazil's main welfare program by 50% through the end of the year.

But that has failed to move the needle so far. Opinion surveys show his support among the poorest Brazilians flat or flagging since the more generous payouts started.

Welfare recipients interviewed by Reuters in a half dozen states were reluctant to give Bolsonaro credit for the expiring election-year benefits. Most said they are pulling for his left-wing rival, former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who slashed hunger and extreme poverty with the help of a commodity boom during his 2003-2010 presidency.

In the slums of Brazilian cities, families are struggling to feed themselves as hunger rises in the powerhouse food exporter.

"We're the forgotten ones. There is no lunch today," says Dona Monica in a "favela" called Arco Iris (Rainbow) on a river smelling of sewers and urine in the northeastern city of Recife where dengue is rife.

In the center of Sao Paulo, Brazil's largest city, Carla Marquez lives in a room paid for by a church with her husband Carlos Henrique Mendes, 25, and 5-year-old daughter. "We haven't bought food in ages. Prices are absurdly high. I've nothing to give her," the 36-year old mother said in tears.

U.N. HUNGER MAP

Brazil's election looks to be yet another case of soaring global food inflation unsettling incumbents, but hunger has been mounting a comeback in Latin America's largest economy for the better part of a decade.

Just eight years ago, Brazil hit its U.N. target for eliminating widespread malnourishment ahead of schedule. Since then, the share of Brazilians who say they cannot feed their families in the past 12 months has more than doubled to 36%, according to the Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV) think tank.

The result is a consensus across Brazil's political establishment that the country needs a stronger social safety net. Almost every major party and candidate has backed 'emergency' cash stipends to 20 million families, which benefit roughly one in four Brazilians – making it one of the world's most far-reaching welfare programs.

FGV's Marcelo Neri says he has never seen hunger so central to the electoral debate.

"The whole political spectrum is talking about food insecurity, the emphasis is everywhere," he said.

Bolsonaro and Lula both promise they will work to extend this year's more generous welfare program or even expand it. Neither has explained how they would fund this – but analysts reckon it will mean the end of a constitutional spending limit that has defined fiscal policy for the past six years.

LULA LEADING RACE

Voter opinion polls show that Bolsonaro did manage to narrow Lula's advantage earlier this year by increasing Auxilio Brasil and working to lower fuel costs, but Lula has begun to pull away again in the last two weeks.

Lula's polling lead widened to 17 percentage points in a survey by pollster IPEC published on Monday, ahead of Sunday's first-round vote, with 48% of voter support to 31% for Bolsonaro. The poll showed Lula could win outright, with 52% of voter intentions excluding abstentions and null votes.

If the race goes to a second-round runoff, Lula would win by 54% of the votes versus Bolsonaro's 35%, according to the IPEC poll, which had a margin of error of 2 percentage points.

"The aid has not generated the effect the government had expected. The increase was seen by people as an electoral maneuver and they are rejecting the ploy," pollster Felipe Nunes, of Quaest Pesquisa e Consultoria, told Reuters.

FGV economist Neri agreed Lula's credibility is higher among Brazil's poor, because Bolsonaro's social welfare measures have been erratic. The government reduced and then suspended emergency aid after the COVID-19 pandemic, and when welfare was restored it was at a lower value, he said.

Meanwhile, food prices have continued to go up, driven up by fuel and transport costs, and have risen 9.83% in the year.

"People say Bolsonaro is helping. But he gives and then takes it away. It was much better with Lula," said Luciana Messias dos Santos, 29.

In her wooden shack in Estrutural, Brasilia's largest favela, she had to adapt her stove to cook with wood as fuel because gas is too expensive.

Bolsonaro has denied hunger has become critical in Brazil, irritated by the importance given to the hunger issue has taken on in the election campaign.

"Hunger in Brazil? It does not exist the way it is being reported," he said in August. Last week, his Economy Minister, Paulo Guedes, took on a survey by the Penssan Network that said 33 million people face starvation. "It's a lie. That is false. These are not the numbers," he said.

In Rio de Janeiro, welfare recipient Carla Feliciano, 38, says she survives picking fruit and vegetables from dumpsters outside the municipal market. She said life has gotten very difficult after the pandemic under the Bolsonaro government.

"Welfare or no welfare makes no difference. I vote for Lula. I will die a Lula supporter," she said.

WELFARE AS ELECTION PLOY

Average income of poor Brazilians has fallen to levels of 10 years ago, widening the country's stark social inequality.

Bolsonaro has focused on winning their votes he needs to be re-elected, an uphill task running against Lula, whose conditional cash-transfer welfare program called Bolsa Familia lifted millions from poverty when he was in office.

Bolsonaro renamed the program Auxilio Brasil to end the association of social welfare with Lula, but this has not brought the electoral dividends he had hoped for.

"Bolsonaro has tried to play this card, but it won't help him," said Carla's husband Carlos, who scrapes by collecting scrap cardboard in the streets of Sao Paulo. He said he will vote for Lula and his Workers Party. His wife is not so sure.

Living in a tent with her children and grandchildren just half a mile from the presidential place in Brasilia, Edilene Alves, says she sees through Bolsonaro's ploy.

The distrust of Bolsonaro's motives held by Carlos and Edilene was echoed by low-income Brazilians from Porto Alegre in the deep south to Salvador and Recife in the northeast.

"They think we are dumb. Increasing welfare from 400 reais ($76.05) to 600 reais does not help when supermarket prices have risen so much," said Edilene, a migrant from Brazil's poor Northeast. "People are going to die of hunger."

($1 = 5.2599 reais)

(Reporting by Lisandra Paraguassu; Additional reporting by Ueslei Marcelino in Recife and Pilar Olivares in Rio de Janeiro; Writing by Anthony Boadle; editing by Diane Craft)

If Lula wins Brazil’s presidency, seven of Latin America’s largest economies will be ruled by the left | Opinion


Andres Oppenheimer
Wed, September 28, 2022 

Virtually all polls agree that leftist former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is likely to win Brazil’s elections on Sunday, which would turn most of Latin America into a leftist-ruled region.

If Lula defeats Brazil’s far-right incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro, Latin America’s seven biggest economies — Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Venezuela, Chile and Peru — will soon be run by leftist and ultra-leftist leaders. In addition, several smaller economies, such as Bolivia, Nicaragua and Honduras, are also led by leftist or far-left presidents.

An average of recent polls suggests that Lula will win Sunday’s election with at least 45% of the vote, followed by Bolsonaro with 33%. If no candidate reaches 50% of the vote in this first-round election, polls show that Lula will most likely win a runoff held Oct. 30. Bolsonaro is centering his campaign on Lula’s conviction on corruption charges in 2017. He received a 12-year sentence, but had served only 19 months in prison when a federal judge ordered his release.

There are three main reasons why a Lula victory is not likely to mark a return of a powerful leftist regional bloc like the one that dominated Latin America’s politics in the early 2000s.

First, most of the region’s leftist-ruled countries are in deep financial trouble. And with China’s economy falling fast, they can no longer expect it to give them huge rescue loans in exchange for political influence.

Unlike the early 2000s, when Latin American commodity prices were at record highs and former Venezuelan populist leader Hugo Chávez crisscrossed the region promising to build massive infrastructure projects, most of the region’s current leftist leaders have no funds to help their political allies abroad.

Oil-rich Venezuela, which before the Chávez regime was one of Latin America’s richest countries, has become one of the region’s poorest. And most countries in the region are facing rising U.S. interest rates, making their debts more expensive to pay, and a weakening global economy that depresses their commodity exports.

Luiza Duarte, an analyst with the Washington-based Wilson Center’s Brazil Institute, says the region’s latest “pink tide” is very different to the previous ones. “Their international context is different, and the current leftist leaders have many more differences between them than they had in the 2000s,” she told me.

Indeed, Chile’s new president, Gabriel Boric, has publicly denounced Venezuela’s human-rights abuses. And several Latin American leftist leaders, in addition to Boric, have voted to condemn Nicaragua’s dictatorship at the United Nations Human Rights Council.

Second, most of the region’s leftist leaders have low popularity rates and growing domestic problems that will demand their near full attention.

Chile’s Boric has seen his popularity rate drop from 56% when he was elected in December to 33% now. He recently lost a key national referendum on a new constitution.

Peru’s president, Pedro Castillo, is facing several corruption investigations, and his popularity rate is below 25%. Argentina’s populist-leftist President Alberto Fernandez’s popularity is below 20%.

Third, there will be presidential elections in Argentina in 2023, and the right-of-center opposition has a good chance of winning. And while Mexico’s populist-leftist President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and his Morena Party are still popular, the currently fractured Mexican opposition could still unite behind a common candidate with a chance to win the 2024 elections.

To be sure, if Lula wins in Brazil, he most likely would try to revive UNASUR, the bloc of South America’s leftist countries that emerged in the 2000s to replace the Washington-based Organization of American States (OAS). Unlike the OAS, UNASUR does not include the United States or Canada.

Lula would probably pick his former foreign minister, Celso Amorim, as his top foreign-policy adviser and would take a more proactive foreign-policy approach than Bolsonaro has. Still, a new Lula government would have a more centrist congress than during his 2003-2010 presidency, which could affect his policies.

“Bolsonaro doesn’t care that much about foreign policy,” Thiago de Aragao, a political risk analyst with Arko Advice, told me. “Lula would be more of an activist.”

If the polls are right, and Lula wins, we can expect the region to shift further to the left. But we probably would not see a strong, united and powerful leftist bloc.

Don’t miss the “Oppenheimer Presenta” TV show on Sundays at 7 pm E.T. on CNN en Español. Twitter: @oppenheimera