Conserving cultural heritage is vital for climate adaptation

BY MARCY ROCKMAN, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 10/15/22 
THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY CONTRIBUTORS ARE THEIR OWN AND NOT THE VIEW OF THE HILL

A Yellowstone National Park ranger is seen standing near a road wiped out by flooding along the Gardner River the week before, near Gardiner, Mont., June 19, 2022. Park officials said they hope to open most of the park within two weeks after it was shuttered in the wake of the floods. (AP Photo/Matthew Brown)

Cultural heritage is strangely invisible in U.S. attention to climate change.

I say strangely because every community holds history and heritage. Every community has ties to places and stories that shape our senses of who we are. Heritage is part of human behavior. It’s part of the social sciences that help us understand society and how we live in the world. But somehow, climate change has come to be defined as atmospheric models, ecosystems and economic impacts — and parks that conserve heritage at the national scale as nature alone. We’ve developed a blind spot for the climate connections of deep human connections.

This summer’s stories about flood damage at Yellowstone National Park show this clearly. Damage to cultural heritage of the park was limited to a few sentences at the end of one of many articles about infrastructure and tourism. A story about planning for climate change in national parks last year was even more direct, beginning “For more than a century, the core mission of the National Park Service has been preserving the natural heritage of the United States.” It goes on to describe climate issues facing national parks using only examples of natural resources.

Therein lies part of our problem. The National Park Service is the lead U.S. federal agency for cultural heritage. Two-thirds of all national park units, of which currently there are 423, were founded explicitly to conserve cultural heritage. And all places that are now parks, including Yellowstone, hold the history and connections of people who have lived there. So, it is important to ask — if we don’t see and talk about culture, history and heritage in parks we have set aside as most important, how well are we taking care of it anywhere?

This is a key question because conservation of cultural heritage is different from that of natural resources. It requires different information and skills and, for our efforts to address climate change, gives us different things in return.

In the U.S. we are used to defining cultural heritage as things: buildings, sites, landscapes and artifacts. Indeed, heritage is all of these, but it is also far more. Heritage is both place and the values we ascribe to it, held in a web of stories, practices, ideas, knowledge and languages. Caring well for any part of heritage requires understanding its part in that web and all the connections it holds.

Climate provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) passed in August direct $500 million to the National Park Service and Bureau of Land Management for conservation and an additional $500 million to the National Park Service for staffing. The new law does not specify that any of this funding be used for cultural heritage. It is essential for our climate future that it is.

In my time with the National Park Service, as part of my work with cultural heritage and climate change, I was asked, by superintendents and resource managers across the country, questions such as: What can I change? How do I choose? Where should I start? How do I walk into that room and tell them we can’t save it?


Just as the stories written about parks so often remove the time-depth of people in them, the overarching narrative we tell about climate change is one of science, numbers and technology. And to be clear, I stand in awe of my physical science colleagues and all the data they have and are continuing to build — we would not and will not know the challenges we face without them.

But to do the adaptation and mitigation they have shown us we need to do over the years and decades ahead, we must also work through questions of what we do and don’t hold on to, what we choose and who makes those choices, where we start and where we go, and how we face experiences of loss and change. These are deeply human questions and science alone cannot answer them for us.

As the scope of recovery from Hurricane Ian comes into focus, what is also clear is that addressing climate change well is and will be an ongoing process. As we experience the range of impacts of climate change and move into energy transitions, we will have to ask and answer these questions over and over again. Working with cultural heritage is one of the ways we have to build our adaptive muscle.


In my time with the National Park Service, I was effectively a program of one. Even so, my program drafted policy, supported park interpreters with training in climate and story, as well as providing advice to the State Department team negotiating the 2015 Paris Agreement. By the release of a major strategy document in early 2017 the National Park Service was recognized as a voice on the world stage for climate change and heritage.

This voice was then silenced. And from all I can see from the outside, it has not been regained. Nor have other agencies or institutions taken up the call. Will Russia rejoin the international community through space, post-Putin?Ten Commandments of DC

What I have seen in my work since is that cultural heritage has many roles in climate change, and these extend far beyond parks. They include supporting environmental justice communities in valuing places they have long known to be important. Working with international partners on heritage as part of non-economic loss and damage. And exploring how heritage is interwoven with fossil-fueled conflicts, such as in Ukraine and sustainable peace-building.

The IRA is a chance to write a new story for how the U.S. responds to climate change. We have much to gain from recognizing cultural heritage as an essential character in that story. We should ensure that programs and capacity to manage and engage heritage well are built anew to carry it forward.

Marcy Rockman

formerly served with the National Park Service (NPS) as climate change adaptation coordinator for cultural resources and has held lead roles in recent major international climate heritage projects, including collaboration with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Currently she is associate research professor with the University of Maryland, College Park and founder/director of Lifting Rocks, LLC. Her major publications include “Colonization of Unfamiliar Landscapes: The Archaeology of Adaptation, Archaeology in Society: Its Relevance in the Modern World,” and the NPS “Cultural Resources Climate Change Strategy.”

CRT IS NOT ABOUT WHITE PEOPLE

What My Students Don’t Know About Their Own History
Oct. 15, 2022

Credit...Dominic Bodden


OPINION
GUEST ESSAY
By Arlene Dávila
Ms. Dávila is the founding director of New York University’s Latinx Project.

For the last 20 years, I have taught Latinx studies at New York University. My classes often provide my students, many of whom are seniors and Latinx themselves, with their first opportunity to examine their own identity and political histories. Recently, one student was shocked to learn that California schools segregated children of Mexican descent until a case legally struck down segregation for Latino students in 1946, paving the way for Brown v. Board of Education. Another student was surprised to learn that the pioneering feminist artist Ana Mendieta was not just a Latina but also Cuban American, like her. This is a reminder of how little information about the ways Latinos have enriched the country’s history have made their way into K-12 curriculums, let alone higher education.

Seeing my students’ reactions takes me back to when I was a student, decades ago. Most of the classes I took focused on Europeans, but there was little to no mention of Latino or African American history in the United States. I learned about Latinx art, culture and history on my own, and mostly during graduate school. My peers and I worked to carve spaces for Latinx studies across the nation’s universities in an effort to address these glaring gaps in education, and we often did so with limited support from our mentors and institutions.

Latinos, who make up 19 percent of the U.S. population, are vastly underrepresented in academia, newsrooms, publishing, Hollywood films, TV and more. If we’re serious about correcting this wrong, we can start with investing in Latinx studies programs, which remain siloed, underfunded and marginalized in most major universities. These courses are foundational to students’ ability to see themselves represented in all sectors of society. They also help educate and ensure that no publisher, museum director, news editor or head of any company can continue to dismiss this demographic out of ignorance. They teach all of us that Latinx history is American history.

It’s worth noting that people of Latin American backgrounds living in the United States have a long history of chafing against the various terms used to categorize them. The label “Latinx” signals an openness to gender inclusivity and more tacit recognition of our racial and ethnic diversity. Some object to the term, but whatever word we choose to describe ourselves, our students deserve to see themselves represented in their studies.

This desire for representation is exactly what fueled the development of a handful of Chicano and Puerto Rican studies programs at schools like Cal State and Brooklyn College. Those programs grew out of the civil rights movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In the years since, they have changed focus to recognize the diversification of the Latinx population.

Today, Latinx studies is a vibrant interdisciplinary field with its own scholarly organizations and peer-reviewed journals, spanning Afro-Latinx studies and Central American studies, among other fields where young scholars are innovating disciplines from art history to urban studies. These achievements are the product of hard work and activism on the part of students clamoring for Latinx studies, as well as faculty organizing to create conferences and programming to fill the voids within their universities.

Yet these efforts have done little to challenge our marginalization. Over the past year, the U.C. Berkeley professors Cristina Mora and Nicholas Vargas have been tracking the state of Latinx studies programs and departments. They found fewer than 90 programs providing majors in Latinx studies out of the close to 3,000 institutions of higher learning across the nation.

What’s more, these programs are often subsumed within Latin American or ethnic studies umbrella programs. But while related, they represent vastly different fields. Latin American studies focus on people living in that region, and not on Latinos who live in the United States. The category has also been historically recognized and supported as part of U.S. geopolitical interests in international studies. As a result, these programs have benefited from decades of financial support.

The invisibility of Latinx studies is especially harmful to Latinx students — the fastest-growing demographic in American universities. According to a study on race and ethnicity in higher education by the American Council of Higher Education, Hispanic undergraduate enrollment has almost doubled over the last 20 years. The study also found that these students are typically joining institutions where nearly three-quarters of all full-time faculty are white. Latinx faculty are concentrated in lower-ranked positions, such as instructor, lecturer or assistant professor. Students of color are more likely to see people who look like them in the ranks of clerical and service positions than in the upper echelons of academia.

Even in public institutions where Latinx people make up more than a third of the student body, the average Latinx-student-to-Latinx-faculty ratio is 146 to 1; it’s 264 to 1 in private institutions. Latinx studies scholars are also siloed from traditional disciplines. For example, few are joining graduate programs where they can teach and train the new professionals who will diversify all academic and professional fields.

Research has shown that when underrepresented students learn about their history and culture, they perform better academically and graduate at higher rates. When my own students see themselves represented in readings it leaves them empowered and curious to learn more.

Higher education must recognize the centrality of Latinx studies in all disciplines and fields. We can start by hiring Latinx scholars in schools and departments, with a special focus on Black and Indigenous Latinx scholars. We must invest in curriculums and programs that help mentor and support the next generation of Latinx professors. We must challenge traditional disciplines that remain stubborn to change, and we must nourish the interdisciplinary spaces, such as ethnic studies, that have been at the vanguard of innovation in American universities.

We can do better than to celebrate our heritage once a year, during Hispanic Heritage Month. Our students deserve to learn that their history is expansive and that our cultures have shaped this country since even before its inception.

Arlene Dávila (@arlenedavila1), the founding director of New York University’s Latinx Project, is the author of “Latinx Art: Artists, Markets and Politics.”

More on Latinos

Opinion | Elizabeth Méndez Berry and Mónica Ramírez
How Latinos Can Win the Culture War
Sept. 2, 2020

Opinion | Arlene Dávila
A National Museum for Latinos
Dec. 22, 2020

Opinion | Natalia Sylvester
The Beauty of Being Bilingual
Sept. 20, 2019

CLIMATE CRI$I$
Most of the United States is experiencing drought conditions

By Karen Graham
Published October 15, 2022

Nearly 55 Percent of the U.S. is experiencing drought. Credit - USGS/Joe Leineweber. Public Domain

Drought covers 55 percent of the U.S. – the highest percentage since the Drought Monitor launched in 2000.

According to the Drought Monitor, following a drier-than-normal September for a majority of the contiguous U.S., dry conditions continued into early October for many areas, and now covers more of the nation than it has since April

.

U.S. Drought Monitor

More than 133 million people live in drought areas, which is the highest number since 2016. That’s primarily because highly populated regions like the Southeast and Midwest are now experiencing droughts.

The ongoing drought conditions have been particularly bad for farmers in parts of Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas. This has taken a serious toll on farmers and livestock producers. The record-setting hot temperatures this summer did not help production either, reports ABC affiliate KTBS.com.

The hot and dry conditions caused livestock producers to lose 50 percent of their hay yield. Their hay yield period goes as late as November and the winter forage begins.

The winter months are the prime growing season for grass and clover. With dry conditions, the soil cannot produce that grass. This means ranchers will have to either sell their cattle or use alternatives, like protein or lick buckets.

This situation creates a never-ending spiral. Using alternatives means they have to pay to feed their cattle, which eventually raises beef prices for consumers.

The Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado River in Arizona has suffered a multi-year drought amid fears of the effect on local water supply – Copyright AFP Dimitar DILKOFF

California is ground zero for the drought in the West, reports the Washington Post. The entire state is experiencing at least moderate drought conditions, while a little over 40 percent of the state is seeing extreme drought conditions.

These conditions stretch from the Los Angeles area to the Central Valley all the way up into the Shasta Cascades and southern Oregon. The last three water years have been the driest in the history of the state.

Additionally, Arizona, Nevada, Washington, Idaho, and Utah are experiencing extreme drought conditions, and any sort of relief is not likely any time soon, though some rainfall is expected in parts of Southern California, Arizona, and New Mexico over the weekend.

Only 10 percent of the High Plains – that include the states of Colorado, Wyoming, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas – are drought-free.

Firefighters and farmers in Nebraska have been battling wildfires, including the Bovee Fire, which has burned more than 18,900 acres — torching a campground and killing at least one person, according to reporting from NPR.

Barges float down the Ohio River in October 2021, near the confluence with the Mississippi River at Cairo, Illinois – 

Copyright GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File SPENCER PLATT

The south, which includes Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee has seen worsening drought conditions over the past year. A year ago, less than half of this region was under drought conditions, and now, only 6 percent is drought-free.

Most people don’t associate Hawaii with drought conditions, but 90 percent of this state is abnormally dry. The U.S. Monthly Drought Outlook expects drought conditions to persist and worsen this month.

Generally, the rest of the country is experiencing pockets of drought but nothing as regionally widespread. In the Southeast, nearly all of Alabama, Georgia and parts of the Florida Panhandle are seeing abnormal dryness

And drought conditions in Missouri and Minnesota, as well as in parts of the High Plains and South, have lowered the Mississippi River to its lowest level in at least a decade. Little drought relief is expected in the coming weeks anywhere in the Mississippi River basin.

DECRIMINALIZE DRUGS UNTIL THEN...
As drug deaths surge, one answer might be helping people get high more safely

Brian Mann
Ottawa, Ont.
October 15, 2022

MPR/NPR

Max, last name withheld, is shown at a Recovery Care clinic where he is a client, in Ottawa, Ontario, on Wednesday, June 29, 2022.
Justin Tang for NPR

On a weekday afternoon, Max — who didn't want his last name used — sat on a plastic chair in a private clinic in downtown Ottawa waiting to get a supply of the drug he uses to get high.

"I used to be a complete mess before I got on this program," he said. "I used to inject a gram of meth every day three times a day."

Max is a fragile-looking man, 26 years old, who has been injecting methamphetamines for more than a decade. He doesn't have a permanent home and still gets high on the streets.

But instead of buying high-risk drugs, often laced with fentanyl and other chemicals by dealers, he injects stable doses of Ritalin prescribed by a doctor and dispensed by a pharmacist.

He receives this controversial form of addiction care, known as "safe supply," every week. The program is funded in large part by government insurance programs and closely monitored by Canadian health officials.

Max says with this kind of medical supervision, his overall drug use has declined sharply: "I've gone dramatically down. I've made big progress since last year."

This program, operated by a private company called Recovery Care, is part of a growing network of healthcare services across Canada pushing the boundaries of the public health response to an overdose crisis killing record numbers of people.

The goal of this kind of treatment, often described as harm reduction, is to reduce the catastrophic surge of drug deaths — not by ending illicit drug use but by helping people get high more safely.

Max joined the program in Ottawa after an overdose nearly killed him.

"I got on safe supply after I came out of the ICU, and I'm pretty sure it saved my life," he told NPR.

Equipment for clients, including syringes and elastic bands, on a cabinet in the staff station at the Trailer.
Justin Tang for NPR
Physician assistant Saskia Knol touches a patient's hand as they talk in the Recovery Care mobile health unit van, outside an Ottawa Community Housing residence.
Justin Tang for NPR
A tsunami of drug deaths prompts a shift in addiction care

For decades, the overwhelming majority of addiction treatment, in the United States and Canada, focused on urging people toward abstinence and long-term recovery.

But research shows tens of millions of people in both countries actively use drugs. At any given time, most of those active users, like Max, aren't ready or able to quit.

Meanwhile, the supply of street drugs has grown far more treacherous.

Most illicit opioids and stimulants are now heavily laced with fentanyl, benzodiazepines and other deadly chemicals.

As a consequence, drug deaths across North America have roughly doubled over the last five years. In the U.S., a record 107,000 people died from overdoses in 2021.

Canada's per capita death rate was lower, but a record 7,560 people suffered fatal overdoses the same year.

Critics say focusing healthcare on those willing or able to stop getting high leaves huge numbers of active drug-users profoundly vulnerable.

"We've seen abstinence being forced on people, and it just doesn't work," said Dr. Charles Breau, a physician who helped pioneer Ottawa's safe supply program.

Breau now writes prescriptions every month for hundreds of patients.

People like Max use his medications, paid for by Canada's public health system, to achieve the euphoric high they crave without purchasing toxic drugs from street dealers.

"It's about survival," Breau said. "I feel like we're helping a lot more people by keeping them alive so we can offer care. This should have happened at the start, when the overdose epidemic started."

The Canadian government has concluded these programs are helping keep people alive.
Dr. Charles Breau, substance use lead at Ottawa Inner City Health, Monfort Hospital, and Recovery Care.
Justin Tang for NPR
Pushing the boundaries of "harm reduction"

In the U.S., less ambitious forms of harm reduction are now fairly common.

Needle exchange programs are widespread, helping people avoid diseases such as HIV/AIDS and hepatitis. Many communities have begun dispensing Naloxone, a medication that reverses opioid overdoses.

Acceptance of these programs has been driven in part by the grim scale of the public health crisis.

"We have an American perishing every five minutes around the clock and that is unacceptable," said Dr. Rahul Gupta, head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy in an interview with NPR.

"We know there is so much we need to do, making sure we save lives with harm reduction such as Naloxone," Gupta said.

The Canadian experiment in harm reduction goes much further.

With support and oversight from the Canadian government, most major cities, from Vancouver to Montreal, now offer a safety-net for people actively using high-risk drugs.

That includes ready access to Naloxone. People can also receive prescription drugs to get high. They can also use street drugs in supervised consumption sites.

Outreach programs bring safe "gear" — syringes, smoking pipes and other drug paraphernalia — into the community, so people can use drugs without spreading disease.

Physician assistant Saskia Knol prepares to work in the Recovery Care mobile health unit van, outside an Ottawa Community Housing residence.
Justin Tang for NPR
Physician assistant Saskia Knol and addictions counselor Jimmy Massey in front of the Recovery Care mobile health unit van in Ottawa, Ontario.
Justin Tang for NPR

While receiving these services, patients are offered other healthcare, along with access to housing and counseling.

Those ready to enter full recovery are guided toward rehabilitation clinics and offered medical treatments that can ease withdrawal.

"We see people in a vulnerable state. We see people who are just raw," said physician assistant Saskia Knol, part of a mobile outreach team that operates an addiction care clinic in a van.

Knol said her goal isn't to get the people she cares for off street drugs in the short term. "That's not going to happen," she said.

But she believes this kind of front-line addiction care is helping; and she rejects criticism that harm reduction might encourage illicit drug use.

"Giving someone a clean needle is not going to kill an active user. In fact, it's going to do the opposite," she said.
"There is no recovery if you're dead"

Anne Marie Hopkins, who runs an addiction program called Ottawa Inner City Health, said the basic philosophy of this harm reduction approach is simple: "There is no recovery if you're dead."
Anne Marie Hopkins, director of Operations at Ottawa Inner City Health, stands behind the staff desks at the supervised consumption and treatment facility.
Justin Tang for NPR

Ottawa Inner City Health operates a clinic where people come daily to inject street drugs under medical supervision.

On a recent day, a half-dozen people sat in small booths — like the study desks in a library — getting high. A team of nurses and other care workers watched closely for signs of overdose.

"The individual in that booth is under a very mild overdose," Hopkins said, pointing to a woman slumped forward in a chair.

"We're just going to pop her on just a little bit of oxygen, probably a very low level, to make sure she doesn't dip down further."

This kind of addiction care can appear jarring. Hopkins pointed to a booth where a nurse knelt, helping a man find a vein in his arm so he could successfully inject and get high.

"For us that's harm reduction," Hopkins said. "If we don't assist that, what we were seeing over and over again was people injecting in veins that were much more dangerous — like for example the jugular."

This kind of medical care is unavailable for the overwhelming majority of people using drugs in the U.S. and would be illegal in most states.

But in interviews with NPR, people getting high at the Ottawa clinic described the program as a lifeline.

"The staff here are very special people, to come and be here with us and for us," said a middle-aged woman named Shelly, who also asked her last name not be used.

Shelly has battled addiction for decades and now comes to Ottawa's supervised injection site regularly to take opioids. She said getting high on the street has grown far more deadly.

"I see it every day, I see overdoses. Many, many friends have lost their lives," Shelly said.
A woman prepares a syringe before getting high at the Trailer, a supervised consumption and treatment facility operated by Ottawa Inner City Health.
Justin Tang for NPR
A woman puts on makeup after injecting street drugs at the Trailer, a supervised consumption and treatment facility operated by Ottawa Inner City Health.
Justin Tang for NPR
Addiction experts and policy makers in the US are watching

Preliminary data suggests Canada's harm-reduction programs are working, helping reduce overdose deaths.

But even many advocates for safe supply and supervised consumption sites say more research is needed to determine the long-term effectiveness of these strategies.

Meanwhile, as drugs deaths surge, policy experts in the U.S. are watching the Canadian experiment with a mix of hope and skepticism.

"There is a tremendous number of Americans at risk for an overdose who will not go into treatment, or at least they're not going to go into treatment right now," said Dr. Brian Hurley, an addiction physician with the Los Angeles County Public Health Department.

"If we say, 'Let's wait until they're ready [for abstinence-focused treatment],' they might be dead."

Hurley, who is slated to take over next year as head of the influential American Society of Addiction Medicine, said he's not yet convinced it makes sense to prescribe drugs so people can get high more safely.

But ASAM has endorsed the idea of supervised consumption sites, like the ones in Canada, opening across the U.S.

"I think we should see more communities start and test safe consumption sites, see what works and what doesn't, and make modifications, in order to bring these to scale," Hurley said.

Keith Humphreys, a leading addiction researcher at Stanford University, is more critical of the Canadian approach.

According to Humphreys, opening enough supervised drug-use sites in the U.S. to help large numbers of people would be costly and controversial, diverting funds from other, more well-established forms of treatment.

He also believes safe supply drugs programs are likely to be abused, with prescription medications sold on the black market.
The Shepherds of Good Hope, which provides services to people experiencing homelessness and is the site of the Trailer, a supervised consumption and treatment facility operated by Ottawa Inner City Health.
Justin Tang for NPR

"When you start distributing opioids in the community, [people] will in some cases sell them and initiate new people onto drugs and those people will overdose," Humphreys said.

Despite these concerns, efforts are under way to provide more medical support to people using drugs in the U.S.:

Two supervised injection sites opened last year in New York City, with approval from local officials. State and federal agencies have allowed the clinics to operate, and care providers say they've already helped reverse hundreds of potentially lethal overdoses.

California's legislature approved a pilot program this year that would have opened similar clinics in Los Angeles, San Francisco and other major cities. The plan was vetoed in August by the state's Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The U.S. Justice Department is negotiating with a group that hopes to open a supervised injection clinic in Philadelphia. If such a program were to win approval from the federal government's top law enforcement agency, it would signal a major policy shift.
"We're chasing a crisis"

Canada's embrace of harm reduction is more ambitious than in the U.S., but the debate over how to help people actively using drugs remains volatile in both countries.

"There's a division and sometimes a really harsh division," said Donna Sarrazin, head of an Ottawa-based program called Recovery Care, which provides a wide variety of medical care to people using street drugs.

In part, this divide reflects a grudging shift in how substance use disorder is viewed. For decades, drug-users in Canada and the U.S. have been criminalized, often sent to prison rather than offered treatment.
A staff member speaks with a client as they sit in a booth at the Trailer.
Justin Tang for NPR
Donna Sarrazin, the managing partner at Recovery Care, sits in the doorway of the clinic's mobile health unit.
Justin Tang for NPR

While addiction is now widely recognized as a treatable illness, experts say stigma remains, complicating the public health response.

Here in Canada, front-line addiction workers offering services like supervised injection sites and prescription narcotics say they face a backlash from the community and others in healthcare — who sometimes compare them to drug dealers.

In interviews with NPR, those same care providers suggested the rest of the healthcare system will have to join them quickly, offering more medical care to active drug users, if the two countries hope to stem the epidemic of overdose deaths.

"We're chasing a crisis," Sarrazin said. "I don't see an end in sight. No matter how progressive we are or cutting edge or how much we're doing, it doesn't feel like enough."

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Former WSJ reporter says law firm used Indian hackers to sabotage his career

By Raphael Satter

October 15, 2022


Former Wall Street Journal reporter Jay Solomon poses for a photograph in front of a building in Bethesda, Maryland, U.S., September 28, 2022. REUTERS/Raphael Satter


WASHINGTON, Oct 15 (Reuters) - A former Wall Street Journal reporter is accusing a major U.S. law firm of having used mercenary hackers to oust him from his job and ruin his reputation.

In a lawsuit filed late Friday, Jay Solomon, the Journal’s former chief foreign correspondent, said Philadelphia-based Dechert LLP worked with hackers from India to steal emails between him and one of his key sources, Iranian American aviation executive Farhad Azima.

Solomon said the messages, which showed Azima floating the idea of the two of them going into business together, were put into a dossier and circulated in a successful effort to get him fired.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington, said Dechert “wrongfully disclosed this dossier first to Mr. Solomon’s employer, the Wall Street Journal, at its Washington DC bureau, and then to other media outlets in an attempt to malign and discredit him." It said the campaign “effectively caused Mr. Solomon to be blackballed by the journalistic and publishing community.”

Dechert said in an email that it disputed the claim and would fight it in court. Azima - who filed his own lawsuit against Dechert on Thursday in New York - had no immediate comment. read more

Solomon’s suit is the latest in a series of legal actions that follows Reuters’ reporting about hired hackers operating out of India. In June, Reuters reported on the activities of several hack-for-hire shops, including Delhi area-companies BellTroX and CyberRoot, that were involved in a decade-long series of espionage campaigns targeting thousands of people, including more than 1,000 lawyers at 108 different law firms.

At the time, Reuters reported that people who had become hacking targets while involved in at least seven different lawsuits had each launched their own inquiries into the cyberespionage campaign.

That number has since grown.

Azima, Solomon’s former source, is among those who have gone to court over the alleged hacking. His lawyers, like Solomon’s, allege that Dechert worked with BellTroX, CyberRoot and a slew of private investigators to steal his emails and publish them to the web.

BellTroX and CyberRoot are not parties to the suit and could not immediately be reached. Executives at both firms have previously denied wrongdoing.

Solomon and Azima allege that Dechert undertook the hack-and-leak operation in the interest of its client, Sheikh Saud bin Saqr al-Qasimi, ruler of the Middle Eastern emirate of Ras Al Khaimah. Reuters has reported that lawyers for Ras Al Khaimah’s investment agency – RAKIA – used the emails to help win a fraud lawsuit filed against Azima in London in 2016.

Azima, who denies RAKIA’s fraud allegations, is trying to have the judgment thrown out.

In addition to being deployed in court, the leaked emails also made their way to The Associated Press, which published two articles about Azima in June of 2017, including one that revealed the airline mogul had offered reporter Solomon a minority stake in a company he was setting up. The Journal fired Solomon shortly before the AP’s story was published, citing ethical violations.

Solomon says he never took Azima up on his proposal or benefited financially from their relationship. In a first-person account of the scandal published in the Columbia Journalism Review in 2018, the ex-journalist said he never pushed back on Azima’s talk of business opportunities because he was trying to humor a man who had been crucial to his reporting on the Middle East. Solomon acknowledged “serious mistakes in managing my source relationship with Azima” including accepting stays on the businessman's yacht. But he said he had been the target of an “incredibly effective” information operation.

The Journal, which is not a party to suit, declined comment. The AP did not immediately return a message.

Solomon said in a statement Saturday that the hack-and-leak he suffered was an example of "a trend that's becoming a great threat to journalism and media, as digital surveillance and hacking technologies become more sophisticated and pervasive. This is a major threat to the freedom of the press."

China's Party Congress: Xi vows victory in tech battle after US chip curbs

Chinese President Xi Jinping said China will speed up innovation in areas that are vital to "technology self-reliance". PHOTO: REUTERS


BEIJING - Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged his nation will prevail in its fight to develop strategically important tech, underscoring Beijing's concern over a US campaign to separate it from cutting-edge chip capabilities.

"We will focus on national strategic needs, gather strength to carry out indigenous and leading scientific and technological research, and resolutely win the battle in key core technologies," Xi said in a speech on Sunday at the opening of the ruling Communist Party's twice-a-decade congress in Beijing.

Xi said the world's No. 2 economy will speed up innovation in areas that are vital to "technology self-reliance", adding that "China will move faster to launch a number of major national projects that are of strategic, big-picture and long-term importance". He did not give details on those efforts.

The comments illustrate how China plans to deal with the US placing new restrictions on tech exports that could undercut its ability to develop broad sections of its economy such as semiconductors, supercomputers, surveillance systems and advanced weapons.

Earlier this month, the US Commerce Department unveiled sweeping regulations that limit the sale of semiconductors and chip-making equipment to Chinese customers, striking at the foundation of the country's efforts to build its own chip industry.

The United States also added 31 organisations to its unverified list, including Yangtze Memory Technologies Co and a subsidiary of leading chip equipment maker Naura Technology Group Co, severely limiting their ability to buy hardware from abroad.

Those moves were the Biden administration's most aggressive yet as it tries to stop China from developing capabilities it sees as threatening. The US is seeking to ensure that Chinese companies do not transfer technology to the People's Liberation Army, and that chipmakers in China don't develop the capability to make advanced semiconductors themselves.

The focus on science was "a reflection on just how much Xi Jinping is betting on innovation as a solution to China's economic problems and to its reliance on Western technology", said Neil Thomas, a China analyst at Eurasia Group Ltd, a political risk advisory firm.

"That's super significant. It really shows his increasing priority that this is his big bet basically for the future of China."

Beijing has criticised the expanded US curbs on its access to semiconductor technology, saying they will harm supply chains and the global economy. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said the measures - which start to go into force this month - are unfair and will "also hurt the interests of US companies".

In his speech to the party congress, Xi said China was now one of the world's great innovating nations, lauding its capabilities in areas such as space exploration and biomedicine.

China and the US are in an increasingly fierce competition over space as Beijing sends probes to the moon, builds its own space station and sets its sights on Mars. Nasa Administrator Bill Nelson has accused China of stealing space technology, and the country has been criticised over its handling of debris falling back to earth.

Last month, China said it plans to launch three unmanned missions to the moon over the next decade, an announcement that came a day after saying it discovered a new lunar mineral via samples retrieved by its Chang'e-5 mission.

 BLOOMBERG

How To Get Away With Torture, Insurrection, You Name It: The Techniques of Denial and Distraction That Politicians Use To Manage Scandal


Through earlier hearings this past summer, the committee has shown how former President Donald Trump and close associates spread the “big lie” of a stolen election.

October 16, 2022 by The Conversation US

By Jared Del Rosso, University of Denver

The U.S. House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection intends to hold another public hearing, likely the last before it releases its official report. The hearing had been scheduled for Sept. 28, 2022 but was postponed because of Hurricane Ian.

Through earlier hearings this past summer, the committee has shown how former President Donald Trump and close associates spread the “big lie” of a stolen election. The hearings have also shown how Trump stoked the rage of protesters who marched to the U.S. Capitol and then refused to act when they breached the building.

The hearings have aired in prime time and dominated news cycles. Still, polling conducted in August by Monmouth University found that around 3 in 10 Americans still believe that Trump “did nothing wrong regarding January 6.”

As a sociologist who studies denial, I analyze how people ignore clear truths and use rhetoric to convince others to deny them, too. Politicians and their media allies have long used this rhetoric to manage scandals. Trump and his supporters’ responses to the Jan. 6 investigation are no exception.
Stages of denial

Commonly, people think of denial as a state of being: Someone is “in denial” when they reject obvious truths. However, denial also consists of linguistic strategies that people use to downplay their misconduct and avoid responsibility for it.

These strategies are remarkably adaptable. They’ve been used by both political parties to manage wildly different scandals. Even so, the strategies tend to be used in fairly predictable ways. Because of this, we can often see scandals unfold through clear stages of denial.

In my previous research on denial and U.S. torture, I analyzed how the George W. Bush administration and supporters in Congress adjusted the forms of denial they used as new allegations and evidence of abuses in the global “war on terror” became public.

For instance, after photographs of torture at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq were released in the spring of 2004, Abu Ghraib was described as a deplorable but isolated incident. At the time, there wasn’t serious public evidence of detainee abuse at other U.S. facilities.

Later revelations about the use of torture at Guantánamo Bay and secret CIA black sites changed things. The Bush administration could no longer claim that torture was an isolated incident. Officials also faced allegations that they had directly and knowingly authorized torture.

Facing these allegations, Bush and his supporters began justifying and downplaying torture. To many Americans, torture, once deplorable, was rebranded as an acceptable national security tool: “enhanced interrogation.”

As the debate about torture shows, political responses to scandal often begin with outright denials. But rarely do they end there. When politicians face credible evidence of political misconduct, they often try other forms of denial. Instead of saying allegations are untrue, they may downplay the seriousness of allegations, justify their behavior or try to distract from it.

It’s not just Republican administrations that use denial in this way. When the Obama administration could no longer outright deny civilian casualties caused by drone strikes, it downplayed them. In a 2013 national security speech, President Barack Obama contrasted drone strikes with the use of “conventional air power or missiles,” which he described as “far less precise.” He also justified drone strikes, arguing that “to do nothing in the face of terrorist networks would invite far more civilian casualties.”

Scandal strategies in play

Americans watched the Jan. 6 insurrection on TV and social media as it happened. Given the vividness of the day, outright denials of the insurrection are particularly far-fetched and marginal – though they do exist. For example, some Trump supporters have claimed that left-wing “antifa” groups breached the Capitol – a claim many rioters themselves have rejected.

Some of Trump’s supporters in Congress and the media have repeated the claim that the insurrection was staged to discredit Trump. But given Trump’s own vocal support for the insurrectionists, supporters usually deploy more nuanced denials to downplay the day’s events.

So what happens when outright denial fails? From ordinary citizens to political elites, people often respond to allegations by “condemning the condemners,” accusing their accusers of exaggerating – or of doing worse things themselves, a strategy called “advantageous comparisons.”

Together, these two strategies paint those making accusations as untrustworthy or hypocritical. As I show in my new book on denial , these are standard denials of those managing scandals.

“Condemning the condemners” and “advantageous comparisons” have been central to efforts to minimize the Jan. 6 insurrection, as well. Some critics of the committee downplay the insurrection by likening it to the Black Lives Matter protests, despite the fact that the vast majority were peaceful.

“For months, our cities burned, police stations burned, our businesses were shattered. And they said nothing. Or they cheer-led for it. And they fund-raised for it. And they allowed it to happen in the greatest country in the world,” Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz said during Trump’s second impeachment. “Now, some have cited the metaphor that the president lit the flames. Well, they lit actual flames, actual fires!”

Similar comparisons reappeared amid the House select committee’s hearings. One NFL coach called Jan. 6 a “dust-up” by comparison to the Black Lives Matter protests.

These forms of denial do several things at once. They direct attention away from the original focus of the scandal. They minimize Trump’s role in inciting the violence of Jan. 6 by making the claim that Democrats incite even more destructive forms of violence. And they discredit the investigation by suggesting that those leading it are hypocrites, more interested in scoring political points than in curtailing political violence.

Trickle-down denial

These denials may not sway a majority of Americans. Still, they’re consequential. Denial trickles down by providing ordinary citizens with scripts for talking about political scandals. Denials also reaffirm beliefs, allowing people to filter out information that contradicts what they hold to be true. Indeed, ordinary Americans have adapted “advantageous comparisons” to justify the insurrection.

This has happened before. For example, in a study of politically active Americans, sociologists Barbara Sutton and Kari Marie Norgaard found that some Americans adopted pro-torture politicians’ rhetoric – such as supporting “enhanced interrogation” and defending practices like waterboarding as a way to gather intelligence, even as they condemned “torture.”

For this reason, it’s important to recognize when politicians and the media draw from the denial’s playbook. By doing so, observers can better distinguish between genuine political disagreements and the predictable denials, which protect the most powerful by excusing their misconduct.

Jared Del Rosso, Associate Professor of Sociology and Criminology, University of Denver

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

ICYMI

Solar-Powered US Town Successfully Weathers Hurricane Ian

October 16, 2022 
Deborah Block

A view of Babcock Ranch's town center which includes a general store, fitness center, doctors’ offices, and day care center. (Courtesy Babcock Ranch)

WASHINGTON —

Sitting on a 7,000-hectare stretch of land in southwest Florida, Babcock Ranch has made a name for itself as the first solar-powered town in the United States. Its power comes from nearly 700,000 solar panels that supply energy to more than 2,000 homes and other buildings, including a health center and schools.

Syd Kitson, founder of the planned community, envisioned an environmentally friendly energy-efficient city. His dream became a reality in 2018.

"I believe deeply in respecting the environment and wanted to prove that you could build this new city and work hand-in-hand with the environment," said Kitson, CEO of the real estate firm Kitson & Partners. "Our water management system is based around natural floodways. We also have 7,000 hectares we are preserving."

The preserve protects natural habitats, scenic landscapes and water resources.

"It was just the kind of community my husband and I were looking for," Shannon Treece told VOA. "We liked that the town was built for sustainability, including solar energy."

An array of more than 700,000 solar panels provides power to the town.

 (Courtesy Babcock Ranch)

Today, Babcock Ranch is also known as the town that came out practically unscathed Sept. 28, when Hurricane Ian came roaring through the area bringing record-breaking storm surges and winds over 160 kph.

Nearby Fort Myers by the Gulf of Mexico was devastated.

Babcock Ranch was built on a higher elevation to be above the storm surge. And the buildings were constructed to withstand hurricane-force winds.

Because of that, Shannon Treece and her family are among the 4,600 residents who decided to ride out the storm.

"It was a little scary," she said of being in a hurricane for the first time. "We couldn't see anything since we had blocked all the windows with storm shutters, but we could hear debris hitting the house. I am glad our house held up."

Nancy Chorpenning and her husband also decided to stay put.

"The hurricane sounded like a locomotive coming through. But we never lost our electricity, access to the internet or our water,” she told VOA.

That's because power lines from Babcock Ranch's solar array and utility plants are underground, which shields them from high winds and bad weather, Kitson said.

Huge retaining ponds protect the homes from flooding, and the streets are designed to soak up floodwaters.

When building the town, "we spent a lot of time making sure Babcock Ranch was storm ready," Kitson said. "We had minor damage from Hurricane Ian, like some downed small trees and torn roof shingles, but within a day, we were almost back to normal."

The homes at Babcock Ranch were designed to withstand hurricane-force winds. They sustained practically no damage during Hurricane Ian on Sept. 28, 2022, which brought winds over 160 kph. At right, a few shingles were torn off the roof of a garage. (Courtesy Babcock Ranch)

Chorpenning thinks there are lessons to be learned from Babcock Ranch.

"We can be a model for other communities, showing the importance of water management and using solar energy," she said. “We're also showing how neighborhoods can live in concert with nature, partly by requiring that native plant species be planted in the community."

The blueprint for the town is to grow into a much larger city. The developers have their sights set on constructing thousands more of the environmentally friendly homes, which would increase the population to 50,000 residents.

"I hope we are setting a good example for others to follow as we continue to protect the natural environment at the same time," Kitson said.

EXCLUSIVE IN-DEPTH

Post-War Challenges: Historian Yaroslav Hrytsak Ponders Over Ukraine Future

By Anna Neplii. 

Published Oct. 15,2022

Kyiv Post.

Image by Kyiv Post.

Currently, Ukraine’s agenda should include not only a military victory over the Russian occupiers, but also a fresh look at its own interests, both in the international arena and in domestic politics. Yaroslav Hrytsak, a Ukrainian historian and professor at the Ukrainian Catholic University expressed these and other ideas in an interview with Kyiv Post.

“I believe that we should actively develop a plan for our victory and convey it to the West, so that when the time comes for Russia to surrender, the terms of capitulation can be delivered. And then a strong Ukrainian voice must be heard,” Hrytsak says.

With each passing day the voice of the Kremlin in the West is becoming less and less audible. The huge funds invested in Russian propaganda abroad, particularly in Russia Today, have been almost completely and irretrievably lost. In addition, the agenda has changed drastically. Propaganda works when it is accompanied and supported by real actions. And the reality at the moment is that Russia has carried out a bloody invasion of Ukraine.

“If there are still people who believe in Russian propaganda, it is impossible to convince them. But nowadays, being pro-Russian is almost the same as not brushing your teeth in the morning. Today, Russian propaganda still works in the territory of the Russian Federation. Another question is whether it works in the territory of the recently occupied Ukrainian regions? This cannot be known for sure at the moment. However, I assume that Russian propaganda has completely stopped working in Ukraine. Putin has destroyed its fruits with Russian missiles,” the historian adds.

However, eight years ago, when Russia occupied the eastern territories of Ukraine and Crimea, it began conducting an aggressive pro-Russian propaganda campaign there. It gradually erased the national identity of Ukrainian citizens who remained living in the occupied areas.

Nevertheless, the restoration of this identity after the de-occupation of the territories is not a priority. After all, it cannot be solved quickly, the process of returning Ukrainian identity will take place gradually, mostly with the passing of generations.

Catharsis: the judicial system and the truth commission in the liberated territories

According to Hrytsak, first it is necessary to create a “court of justice” in the liberated territories, which will represent the national judicial system. This institution must identify criminals and bring them to justice. In addition, the rights of those who collaborated with the occupation authorities should be restricted. For example, they should be prohibited from holding positions in any government bodies and participating in elections or being elected for at least ten years.

The second step should be the establishment of a “truth and reconciliation commission,” as was the case in South Africa in 1996. This commission investigated politically motivated crimes during apartheid. Hrytsak believes that this will be a separate type of litigation. It does not necessarily have to result in imprisonment: the criminal is given a choice – an ordinary trial or an investigation by the commission. If he chooses the latter, he must confess to all his crimes in front of the victims and the media.

“There has to be something called catharsis. That is, something must happen so that all the guilty parties realize what actually happened. And justice should be exclusively within the framework of the law,” Hrytsak emphasizes.

The importance of forestalling an authoritarian regime and civil war after victory

It is necessary now to deal with the formation of a “victory package” – a list of measures that will ensure the prosperity of Ukraine in the future and reduce the risks of internal conflicts, as well as the formation of an authoritarian regime.

“We need a government capable of implementing political and economic reforms,” the publicist emphasizes. “I assume that huge investments will be directed to the de-occupied regions for their recovery. And where there are investments, there are not only opportunities, but also huge temptations. The West is already discussing the conditions under which money will be given to Ukraine. After all, Western officials see the danger from long-standing corruption and oligarchs,”

Hrytsak is concerned about the state of Ukrainian society after the war ends. “I’m afraid that after the victory we will have heated arguments about who did more for the victory. After all, everyone knows that victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan.”

A vivid historical example of such an internal conflict is the outcome of the Greco-Persian wars, when small Greek settlements united and defeated the huge Persian empire and were very proud of it. However, 20 years after the joint victory, a war between Athens and Sparta began, which lasted even longer and was more brutal than the war with the Persians.

“Victory in the war does not mean the end of the war at all. And victory could lead to a war over how we see our future. Therefore, I believe that it is necessary to work on it,” Hrytsak says.

So at the moment it is important that new political projects (movements or parties) be formed, which could become a real counterweight to Zelensky’s power and influence. He deserves respect as the country’s leader and commander-in-chief, but there must be a counterbalance, otherwise there will be a threat of an authoritarian regime.

It is possible to create such a system of counterbalances in the political system of the country, first of all, by reforming the judicial system. It should become truly independent both from other branches of power and the oligarchs.

“Until this happens, I do not understand where the energy necessary for the recovery and transformation of Ukraine will come from. As economists told me, 75% of investments in Ukraine come from people who are just starting to do business. But the state needs to create favorable conditions for entrepreneurs. It should be harmless, safe – useful both for the country and for the entrepreneur himself. Despite this, we see that the authorities have done a lot to make doing business in our country difficult or even dangerous,” Hrytsak concludes.

War vs. African Elephants

By Irene Fowler. 

Published Oct. 16, 2022

At an air base in India in early 1945, an elephant loads a gasoline drum into a military supply plane with the Air Transport Command’s Indo-China Division, bound for China via Burma. 

PHOTOGRAPH BY THOMAS BARBOUR, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY/CORBIS

The increasing reckless and diabolical nuclear sabre-rattling of Russia’s Vladimir Putin recently elicited an ominous warning to the world from Joe Biden, the U.S. president and de facto leader of the free world. Biden stated the following:

“I don’t think there’s any such thing as an ability to easily use a tactical nuclear weapon and not end up with Armageddon.”

Biden’s alarming announcement, coupled with Putin’s slippery-slope, embarrassing routing on the battlefield by Ukraine, has sent world leaders, military experts and political pundits, into non-stop paralyzing paroxysms of fear, confusion and edginess.

I have opined in the past, in the Kyiv Post, concerning my perceptions of the snowball effect on Africa of Putin’s demented war on Ukraine. My reaction to Putin’s beyond-the-pale, nuclear-threat insanity, is to look at his actions, yet again, through an African lens with poetry.

Here is the result.

Elephants Trumpeting Peace

by Irene Fowler

Beloved and revered, gentle, peaceable giants


Tons of pleasing, amiable, grey hulk and bulk


Great wonders of the natural world

Magnificent, serene, unique, terrestrial ones.

**

The dignified, dutiful matriarch marshals her clan


Uplifted trunks smell the hot, arid, wilderness air

Prized, life-saving, waterholes sourced by impressive muscular snouts

Strong, confident, and loving, the ruler leads her parched kindred.

**

Africa’s blood-orange, fiery sunset, ablaze

The stomping elephants raise high castles of red dust-clouds

Trekking as one, from grassy, rolling hills, descending

The dowager elephant ever protective, brooks no folly or dissent.


**

Arriving at their journey’s end to stake a place, at the refreshing oasis

A vital resource shared with zebras, hippos, warthogs, giraffes, monkeys, big cats et al.,

The gentle behemoths are no thuggish gangster-bullies

Thirst sated, bodies cooled, backsides turned politely; they take their leave.

**

Elephants; alert, loyal, guardian angels of the savannah

Mammoth, fan-shaped ears attuned to danger


Whilst trunks are quick to trumpet warnings

Wise, intelligent, gifted with retentive memories and alive to threats and consequences.

**

Gargantuan, sculpted and precious animate jewels

Exemplars of the potency of power, strength and peace

Elephants; giant, blessed tokens and heavenly sights

Message humanity

Might maketh not right!




©2022 by Irene Fowler