CRIMINAL CAPITALISM WAR PROFITEERING
Ukrainian Defense Ministry overpays for food, reports Ukrainian media

Sat, January 21, 2023 

According to the media, the Ministry of Defense purchases products for the military at inflated prices

The newspaper obtained a copy of a Defense Ministry's agreement worth UAH 13.16 billion (about $360 million) for catering services for military units located far away from the front line, in particular in Poltava, Sumy, Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Chernihiv and Cherkasy oblasts.

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The agreement was signed on Dec. 23.

Zerkalo Tuzhnia compared the prices stated in the contract with the prices in Ukraine's Silpo supermarket chain. They discovered that the most common items were overpriced by two to three times.

For example, the MoD purchases eggs at the price of UAH 17 ($0.46) per egg, while retail prices in Kyiv's supermarkets is about UAH 7 ($0.2) per egg.

Potatoes are bought for UAH 22 ($0.6) per kilogram, while it can be bought at a price of UAH 8-9 ($0.25) per kilogram at a regular shop.

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Meanwhile, chicken thighs were purchased at UAH 120 ($3.27) per kilogram, while average retail prices cost about UAH 80 ($2.18).

The newspaper noted that these price comparisons were only for retail – wholesale prices would be even lower.

The Ministry of Defense is yet to respond to the newspaper's request on the matter. The agreement on catering is much wider than just food purchase, but those costs are described separately.

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"If one wades through the document, they will see that catering service is specified separately with the cost of UAH 30 million ($820,000) that is about 0.2% of the total contract value, not even 2%," the newspaper emphasized.

The MoD signed the contract worth UAH 13 billion with Active Company LLC, a company with registered assets worth UAH 1,000 ($27).

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In 2021, the tax service revoked this company's VAT payer certificate due to lack of deliveries and failure to report taxes.

In 2019, Active Company LLC was involved in a criminal investigation where the National Police suspected the firm of submitting a fake certificate for a tender for the supply of beef for prisons and pre-trial detention centers in Ukraine.

The government’s response to the scandalous news

The Ukrainian parliament has already responded to the investigation. Mariana Bezuhla, a Ukrainian MP and deputy chairwoman of the Committee on National Security, Defense, and Intelligence, wrote on Facebook that the "problem isn't limited with the food purchase alone".

"An inspection of the Ministry of Defense is currently being conducted by the State Audit Service of Ukraine, as well as by the police,” she said.

“We are expecting their conclusions. Our MoD has done a lot during the war time of 2022. But there are also some omissions, and even more so the risk of corruption has to be addressed.”

Later, she reported that the leadership of the Ministry of Defense is expected to provide an explanation to the committee for this contract.

ZN.ua

Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine

Can Bolsonaro's insurrectionists be deterred?

David Faris, Contributing Writer
Sun, January 22, 2023 

The aftermath of the Brazil riots. Illustrated | Getty Images

In early January, supporters of defeated Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro invaded the country's seat of government in Brasília, in a challenge to the peaceful transfer of power modeled explicitly on the U.S. Capitol insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021. While the rioters were eventually cleared, the incident raised troubling questions about the loyalty of the country's security and military services, as well as the future and health of Brazil's democracy. Will efforts to arrest and prosecute the insurrectionists deter future attempts to overthrow the government? Here's everything you need to know about Brazil's troubled democracy:

What brought us to this point?

For a time after former President Jair Bolsanaro was defeated in Brazil's October 2022 runoff election, it appeared that the country had narrowly averted disaster. Despite ominous signals from Bolsanaro in the year leading up to the election that he would attempt to enlist his allies in the military to thwart the popular will, this didn't happen, at least not immediately. Challenger Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, commonly known as Lula, was inaugurated on New Year's Day — a ceremony that Bolsonaro petulantly skipped, just like former U.S. President Donald Trump did in 2021.

Lula's speech promised a return to democratic values. "The great edifice of rights, sovereignty, and development that this nation built has been systematically demolished in recent years," he told the gathered throngs. "And to re-erect this edifice, we are going to direct all our efforts." Those efforts, unfortunately, had to commence almost immediately, when mobs of Bolsonaro's supporters swarmed into the Congress, Supreme Court, and presidential palace buildings in the capital city of Brasília a week later on Jan 8. Security forces appeared to act in concert with the rioters, increasing fears that Lula's term would be cut short by a military coup dressed up as a street uprising.

How did Bolsonaro handle the situation?

While he didn't try to seize power immediately, Bolsonaro refused to concede his defeat to Lula. It was in keeping with his style of rule, which included escalating attacks on journalists, attempts to shield himself and his family from public scrutiny, and staffing his administration with former military officials. Throughout the campaign, he had hurled baseless accusations against the country's voting machines, attacked the Supreme Court, and argued that the military should conduct its own audit of the results. Bolsonaro consistently trailed Lula in public opinion polling, but the actual results were far closer than expected. That may have emboldened Bolsonaro, since a narrow loss is easier to undermine with charges of fraud than an overwhelming thumping.

As Lula's inauguration approached, Bolsonaro supporters set up camp outside of Brasília's main military compound, urging the armed forces to restore Bolsonaro to power. Bolsonaro left the country for Florida on Dec. 31, leaving Vice President Hamilton Mourão in charge of the country for a day before Lula's swearing-in. Bolsonaro denied involvement in escalating tensions in the capital and denounced a bomb plot that was foiled by authorities. "I did not encourage anyone to enter confrontation," Bolsonaro said on social media.

What did his supporters achieve?

A week after Lula's inauguration, everything boiled over in the capital. More Bolsonaro supporters arrived in Brasília by bus and began marching toward the governing complex. Unlike the Jan. 6 attack in the U.S., the riot was not intended to disrupt the transfer of power, which had already happened, but seemingly to invite the military to seize power and depose Lula.

Critics charged that security forces deliberately allowed rioters to gain access to the buildings, a sentiment later echoed by Lula himself. "There was an explicit connivance of the police with the demonstrators," he said. The lack of preparation was particularly suspicious given the open planning of the riot by far-right supporters of Bolsonaro on social media. Bolsonaro, though, refused to openly support the violence from Florida, stating "Peaceful protests, in the form of the law, are part of democracy. However, depredations and invasions of public buildings are not the norm."

Military leaders, whatever their private sympathies might be, declined to join the insurrection or to move against Lula, so far preserving the continuity of democracy that has held since the end of a 21-year military dictatorship in 1985. The army, instead, cleared the insurrectionists out of their redoubts in a sign that, as The New York Times' German Lopez argues, Bolsonaro lacked the necessary support inside the military to pull off a coup. The Supreme Court suspended the capital region's governor for 90 days for negligence. That same justice, Alexandre de Moraes, approved arrest warrants for security officials responsible for the Federal District. Roughly 1,500 people were detained for participating in the riot, and many were subsequently arrested, a much swifter crackdown than was seen in the U.S. after Jan. 6.

Is democracy safe?

Whether the crackdown will suffice to deter future plots against democracy remains to be seen. For Time, Ian Bremmer argues that "there is no evidence that the events of Jan. 8, dramatic and ugly though they were, have changed many minds." While the insurrection itself was unpopular with a majority of Brazilians, a staggering 37 percent support the military stepping in to remove Lula, a figure that will surely go up if his administration stumbles.

In Foreign Affairs, Benjamin H. Bradlow and Mohammad Ali Kadivar write that Brazil's institutions won't avert a slide into autocracy — instead, Lula "will have to rely on this wide, organized social base of support to again strengthen the institutional basis of Brazilian democracy." That is especially true because Lula's allies lack effective majorities in Congress to implement any reforms that might alleviate the threat of far-right authoritarianism. According to Maria Laura Canineu, Brazil director at Human Rights Watch, "authorities should strengthen the democratic system and defend the rule of law by holding to account all those responsible for carrying out or enabling the violence."

It is not yet known when Bolsonaro plans to return to Brazil from Florida, if he would be prosecuted for his role in the events of Jan. 8, or if he would run again for president. Authorities have not yet made a request to the U.S. for Bolsonaro's extradition. But Brazil has surely not seen the last of him, and ongoing vigilance will be required to maintain the integrity and effectiveness of the country's democratic institutions.

Brazil's new president works to reverse Amazon deforestation
 

FABIANO MAISONNAVE and DIANE JEANTET
Sun, January 22, 2023 

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Shaking a traditional rattle, Brazil’s incoming head of Indigenous affairs recently walked through every corner of the agency’s headquarters — even its coffee room — as she invoked help from ancestors during a ritual cleansing.

The ritual carried extra meaning for Joenia Wapichana, Brazil’s first Indigenous woman to command the agency charged with protecting the Amazon rainforest and its people. Once she is sworn in next month under newly inaugurated President Luiz Inácio da Silva, Wapichana promises to clean house at an agency that critics say has allowed the Amazon's resources to be exploited at the expense of the environment.

As Wapichana performed the ritual, Indigenous people and government officials enthusiastically chanted “Yoohoo! Funai is ours!’’ — a reference to the agency she will lead.

Environmentalists, Indigenous people and voters sympathetic to their causes were important to Lula's narrow victory over former President Jair Bolsonaro. Now Lula is seeking to fulfill campaign pledges he made to them on a wide range of issues, from expanding Indigenous territories to halting a surge in illegal deforestation.

To carry out these goals, Lula is appointing well-known environmentalists and Indigenous people to key positions at Funai and other agencies that Bolsonaro had filled with allies of agribusiness and military officers.

In Lula's previous two terms as president, he had a mixed record on environmental and Indigenous issues. And he is certain to face obstacles from pro-Bolsonaro state governors who still control swaths of the Amazon. But experts say Lula is taking the right first steps.

The federal officials Lula has already named to key posts “have the national and international prestige to reverse all the environmental destruction that we have suffered over these four years of the Bolsonaro government,” said George Porto Ferreira, an analyst at Ibama, Brazil’s environmental law-enforcement agency.

Bolsonaro's supporters, meanwhile, fear that Lula's promise of stronger environmental protections will hurt the economy by reducing the amount of land open for development, and punish people for activities that had previously been allowed. Some supporters with ties to agribusiness have been accused of providing financial and logistical assistance to rioters who earlier this month stormed Brazil's presidential palace, Congress and Supreme Court.

When Bolsonaro was president, he defanged Funai and other agencies responsible for environmental oversight. This enabled deforestation to soar to its highest level since 2006, as developers and miners who took land from Indigenous people faced few consequences.

Between 2019 and 2022, the number of fines handed out for illegal activities in the Amazon declined by 38% compared with the previous four years, according an analysis of Brazilian government data by the Climate Observatory, a network of environmental nonprofit groups.

One of the strongest signs yet of Lula's intentions to reverse these trends was his decision to return Marina Silva to lead the country's environmental ministry. Silva formerly held the job between 2003 and 2008, a period when deforestation declined by 53%. A former rubber-tapper from Acre state, Silva resigned after clashing with government and agribusiness leaders over environmental policies she deemed to be too lenient.

Silva strikes a strong contrast with Bolsonaro’s first environment minister, Ricardo Salles, who had never set foot in the Amazon when he took office in 2019 and resigned two years later following allegations that he had facilitated the export of illegally felled timber.

Other measures Lula has taken in support of the Amazon and its people include:

— Signing a decree that would rejuvenate the most significant international effort to preserve the rainforest — the Amazon Fund. The fund, which Bolsonaro had gutted, has received more than $1.2 billion, mostly from Norway, to help pay for sustainable development of the Amazon.

— Revoking a Bolsonaro decree that allowed mining in Indigenous and environmental protection areas.

— Creating a Ministry of Indigenous Peoples, which will oversee everything from land boundaries to education. This ministry will be led by Sônia Guajajara, the country's first Indigenous woman in such a high government post.

“It won't be easy to overcome 504 years in only four years. But we are willing to use this moment to promote a take-back of Brazil's spiritual force," Guajajara said during her induction ceremony, which was delayed by the damage pro-Bolsonaro rioters caused to the presidential palace.

The Amazon rainforest, which covers an area twice the size of India, acts as a buffer against climate change by absorbing large amounts of carbon dioxide. But Bolsonaro viewed management of the Amazon as an internal affair, causing Brazil's global reputation to take a hit. Lula is trying to undo that damage.

During the UN’s climate summit in Egypt in November, Lula pledged to end all deforestation by 2030 and announced his country’s intention to host the COP30 climate conference in 2025. Brazil had been scheduled to host the event in 2019, but Bolsonaro canceled it in 2018 right after he was elected.

While Lula has ambitious environmental goals, the fight to protect the Amazon faces complex hurdles. For example, getting cooperation from local officials won't be easy.

Six out of nine Amazonian states are run by Bolsonaro allies. Those include Rondonia, where settlers of European descent control local power and have dismantled environmental legislation through the state assembly; and Acre, where a lack of economic opportunities is driving rubber-tappers who had long fought to preserve the rainforest to take up cattle grazing instead.

The Amazon has also been plagued for decades by illegal gold mining, which employs tens of thousands of people in Brazil and other countries, such as Peru and Venezuela. The illegal mining causes mercury contamination of rivers that Indigenous peoples rely upon for fishing and drinking.

“Its main cause is the state's absence,” says Gustavo Geiser, a forensics expert with the Federal Police who has worked in the Amazon for over 15 years.

One area where Lula has more control is in designating Indigenous territories, which are the best preserved regions in the Amazon.

Lula is under pressure to create 13 new Indigenous territories — a process that had stalled under Bolsonaro, who kept his promise not to grant “one more inch” of land to Indigenous peoples.

A major step will be to expand the size of Uneiuxi, part of one of the most remote and culturally diverse regions of the world that is home to 23 peoples. The process of expanding the boundaries of Uneiuxi started four decades ago, and the only remaining step is a presidential signature, which will increase its size by 37% to 551,000 hectares (2,100 square miles).

“Lula already indicated that he would not have any problem doing that,” said Kleber Karipuna, a close aide of Guajajara.

___

Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, right, and congressional candidate Marina Silva, campaign in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Monday, Sept. 12, 2022. Environmentalists, Indigenous people and voters sympathetic to their causes were important to Lula's narrow victory over former President Jair Bolsonaro. Now Lula is seeking to fulfill campaign pledges he made to them on a wide range of issues, from expanding Indigenous territories to halting a surge in illegal deforestation. (AP Photo/Andre Penner, file)

Gov. Sarah Huckabee- Sanders' Latinx Ban wades into community's generational rift


Sarah Huckabee Sanders Latinx Ban

This image provided by Makhi Brasfield, shows Angel Castillo Reyes. Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders is tapping into a debate that's sharply divided Latinos with her decision to ban most state agencies from using the gender neutral term Latinx. Sanders this month signed an order banning the term by agencies. It was one of her first acts as governor.

 (Makhi Brasfield via AP


ANDREW DeMILLO and CLAIRE SAVAGE
Sun, January 22, 2023 

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — One of Sarah Huckabee Sanders' first acts as Arkansas governor was to ban most state agencies from using the gender-neutral term Latinx, tapping into a debate that's divided Hispanics along generational lines.

Sanders called the word “culturally insensitive” in an order that's prompted complaints from some critics who view it as yet another attack by Republicans on the LGBTQ community. Yet her move may have limited impact, given that the word does not appear to be widely used in Arkansas government.

It was among several orders the 40-year-old former White House press secretary signed within hours of taking office office that were cheered by conservatives, including restrictions on teaching critical race theory in public schools and banning TikTok on state devices. The Latinx prohibition gives agencies 60 days to revise written materials to comply.

“One of the things as governor that I will not permit is the government using culturally insensitive words," Sanders said as she signed the order.

Sanders' order adds to the debate over a word that's found little widespread support among Latinos and even prompted backlash from some Democrats. It comes as Republicans have sought to rally around culture war issues. They also are seeking to make inroads with Latino voters, but fell short of the major shifts some in the party were hoping for in last year’s elections.

The term Latinx was coined in recent years as a gender-neutral alternative to Latino and Latina, since all nouns in the Spanish language are gendered. Many in the LGBTQ Latino community have embraced the word, but it has been slow to catch on more widely, with some Latino figures calling the term unnecessary.

The League of United Latin American Citizens, the oldest Latino civil rights group in the U.S., announced in 2021 that it would no longer use the term Latinx. The group declined to comment on Sanders' order.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego from Arizona also said that year his staff was not allowed to use the term in official communications.

“When Latino politicos use the term it is largely to appease white rich progressives who think that is the term we use," Gallego tweeted in 2021.

The Log Cabin Republicans, which represents LGBT members of the party, praised Sanders' order.

“The term Latinx is just another misguided product of the modern left’s relentless obsession with stripping gender from American life, an obsession that LGBT conservatives fight back against daily," Charles Moran, the group's president, said in a statement.

Sanders' order doesn’t apply to the state’s institutes of higher education or other state agencies considered constitutionally independent, such as the Arkansas Department of Transportation. It also allows the governor to grant exemptions for the word’s use.

Several state agencies said they were reviewing their forms to make sure they would comply. Health Department spokeswoman Meg Mirivel said two jobs that had been unofficially called the Latinx public information coordinator and the Latinx outreach coordinator will continue to work with the Latino community but will no longer include Latinx in their titles.

Sanders isn't the first governor to ban or restrict the use of certain words. Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul last year signed a bill in New York removing from state education law the word “incorrigible," a term that critics had called sexist and racist.

In 2015, then-Florida Gov. Rick Scott was criticized after former officials said they were instructed to not use the terms “climate change” and “global warming." Scott, a Republican who now serves in the Senate, denied he banned the terms.

Critics of Sanders' order have said that just because the term isn't universal among Spanish speakers, that doesn't mean it's insensitive to use.

“Language is constantly evolving,” said Manuel Hernandez, head of the Latino LGBTQ group Association of Latinos/as/xs Motivating Action. “We don’t speak Old English. I’ve never met someone who says ‘thy.’”

Hernandez called Sanders' order “an attempt to erase" the LGBTQ Latino community.

Sanders signed the order the day after Arkansas lawmakers kicked off a session that's already included newly proposed restrictions on the LGBTQ community. One bill would classify drag shows as adult-oriented businesses, and another would ban transgender people from using bathrooms at K-12 schools that align with their gender identity.

Sanders has also said she would support legislation similar to Florida's law that forbids instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade. Critics have dubbed it the “Don't Say Gay” law.

Sanders’ executive order banning Latinx cites a 2020 report from Pew Research Center, which found that 1 in 4 U.S. Hispanics have heard the term “Latinx,” but just 3% use it.

Age is an important factor. Hispanics ages 18-29 are six times more likely than older generations to have heard of the term — 42% compared with 7% of those ages 65 or older, Pew found.

Its popularity has risen since 2016, but remains below Latina, Latino and Hispanic, according to the report.

“If you’re trying to categorize a community with the term that they seemingly are rejecting or in some cases are even openly hostile against, it makes sense that that term would in essence, go the way of the dodo, which Latinx seems to have done," said Fernand Amandi, president of Bendixen & Amandi, a multilingual public opinion research firm.

Among those using the term is Angel Castillo Reyes, a 21-year-old nonbinary student at the University of Arkansas who uses the pronouns they/them. Castillo Reyes uses both Latinx and “Latine," another gender-neutral term that's been used by some in the Latino community to describe their ethnic identity.

“I appreciate those terms because I know it doesn’t come from a sense of wanting to divide," Castillo Reyes said. “It comes from the sense of wanting to unite."

Conversations with older Latino people about gender neutrality can be difficult, Castillo Reyes said. Their parents, who are evangelical Pentecostal Christians, find the terms “ridiculous.”

Castillo Reyes criticized Sanders' order as unnecessary, but said they think it will offer an opportunity to discuss the need for gender-neutral terms with a wider community.

“Now that I know Spanish can be used in a way that is inclusive, it’s like, ‘Wow, I never thought this was possible,’” they said.

___

Savage reported from Chicago and is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

NEXT; BIBLE BURNING!

Protests in Stockholm, including Koran-burning, draw strong condemnation from Turkey

Sat, January 21, 2023 

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) -Protests in Stockholm on Saturday against Turkey and Sweden's bid to join NATO, including the burning of a copy of the Koran, sharply heightened tensions with Turkey at a time when the Nordic country needs Ankara's backing to gain entry to the military alliance.

"We condemn in the strongest possible terms the vile attack on our holy book ... Permitting this anti-Islam act, which targets Muslims and insults our sacred values, under the guise of freedom of expression is completely unacceptable," the Turkish Foreign Ministry said.

Its statement was issued after an anti-immigrant politician from the far-right fringe burned a copy of the Koran near the Turkish Embassy. The Turkish ministry urged Sweden to take necessary actions against the perpetrators and invited all countries to take concrete steps against Islamophobia.

A separate protest took place in the city supporting Kurds and against Sweden's bid to join NATO. A group of pro-Turkish demonstrators also held a rally outside the embassy. All three events had police permits.

Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom said that Islamophobic provocations were appalling.

"Sweden has a far-reaching freedom of expression, but it does not imply that the Swedish Government, or myself, support the opinions expressed," Billstrom said on Twitter.

The Koran-burning was carried out by Rasmus Paludan, leader of Danish far-right political party Hard Line. Paludan, who also has Swedish citizenship, has held a number of demonstrations in the past where he has burned the Koran.

Paludan could not immediately be reached by email for a comment. In the permit he obtained from police, it says his protest was held against Islam and what it called Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan's attempt to influence freedom of expression in Sweden.

Several Arab countries including Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Kuwait denounced the Koran-burning. "Saudi Arabia calls for spreading the values of dialogue, tolerance, and coexistence, and rejects hatred and extremism," the Saudi Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Sweden and Finland applied last year to join NATO following Russia's invasion of Ukraine but all 30 member states must approve their bids. Turkey has said Sweden in particular must first take a clearer stance against what it sees as terrorists, mainly Kurdish militants and a group it blames for a 2016 coup attempt.

At the demonstration to protest Sweden's NATO bid and to show support for Kurds, speakers stood in front of a large red banner reading "We are all PKK", referring to the Kurdistan Workers Party that is outlawed in Turkey, Sweden, and the United States among other countries, and addressed several hundred pro-Kurdish and left-wing supporters.

"We will continue our opposition to the Swedish NATO application," Thomas Pettersson, spokesperson for Alliance Against NATO and one of organizers of the demonstration, told Reuters.

Police said the situation was calm at all three demonstrations.

In Istanbul, people in a group of around 200 protesters set fire to a Swedish flag in front of the Swedish consulate in response to the burning of the Koran.

SWEDISH MINISTER'S VISIT CANCELLED

Earlier on Saturday, Turkey said that due to lack of measures to restrict protests, it had cancelled a planned visit to Ankara by the Swedish defence minister.

Jonson said separately that he and Akar had met on Friday during a gathering of Western allies in Germany and had decided to postpone the planned meeting.

Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar said he had discussed with Erdogan the lack of measures to restrict protests in Sweden against Turkey and had conveyed Ankara's reaction to Jonson on the sidelines of a meeting of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group.

"It is unacceptable not to make a move or react to these (protests). The necessary things needed to be done, measures should have been taken," Akar said, according to a statement by Turkish Defence Ministry.

Turkey's Foreign Ministry had already summoned Sweden's ambassador on Friday over the planned protests.

Finland and Sweden signed a three-way agreement with Turkey in 2022 aimed at overcoming Ankara's objections to their membership of NATO. Sweden says it has fulfilled its part of the memorandum but Turkey is demanding more, including the extradition of 130 people it deems to be terrorists.

(Reporting by Omer Berberoglu, Ezgi Erkoyun and Bulent Usta in Istanbul and Niklas Pollard and Simon Johnson in StockholmAdditional reporting by Moaz Abd-Alaziz in CairoWriting by Ezgi Erkoyun and Niklas PollardEditing by Toby Chopra and Frances Kerry)

THE ORIGINS OF ANTIFA

Vintage Chicago Tribune: In 1977, Skokie was a refuge for thousands of Holocaust survivors. Then a group of self-styled Nazis planned a march.

Ron Grossman, Chicago Tribune
Sun, January 22, 2023 

Decades after the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp on Jan. 27, 1945, revealed the magnitude of the Holocaust, an epilogue was witnessed halfway around the world.

“It has come to my attention that on May 1 there is going to be a Nazi parade held in front of the village hall,” a member of the public said at a 1977 meeting of Skokie’s village trustees. “As a Nazi survivor during the Second World War, I’d like to know what you gentlemen are going to do about it.”

By an unlikely chain of events, the fate of a Chicago suburb had been linked to that of Jews who escaped a European genocide.

Until World War II, Chicago’s North Shore was largely off limits to Jews. Property deeds provided that they were only to be sold to white Christians. But Skokie had undeveloped land that homebuilders hoped to capitalize on.

So during the pent-up housing demand of the postwar years, those developers got the word out to residents of Chicago’s Jewish neighborhoods that Skokie was open to them.

The town’s Jewish population grew exponentially. By contrast, in neighboring Evanston, subsequently to become a liberal community, Jews only got property for a synagogue with the aid of Unitarians, who quietly bought it for them.

Meanwhile, Holocaust survivors were looking for someplace to rebuild their lives. Immediately after the war, some had returned to their Polish hometowns. But that ended abruptly when more than 40 Jews were killed during a pogrom that began in Kielce and spread to other cities in 1946.

“Reports of apparently systematic attacks on Jews attributed by the government to fascist elements are received every day,” the Tribune reported in a dispatch from Warsaw. “They tell of bandits who board trains and trolley cars in suburban districts, strip and rob Jews and drag them away to be murdered.”

The U.S. wasn’t interested in taking in survivors, so they languished in displaced persons camps — some formerly Nazi concentration camps.

“We survivors had so much trouble to come to the U.S.,” recalled Erna Gans, founder of the Skokie Holocaust Memorial, in 1994. “The American authorities questioned and re-questioned us. Our concentration camp guards went through with no problem at all.”

When the neo-Nazis announced their march in Skokie, its population was about 60,000, an estimated half of whom were Jewish. Approximately 7,000 residents were thought to be Holocaust survivors. Its mayor said it was largest concentration of Hitler’s victims outside of Israel.

Howard Reich, the former Tribune music critic, recalled what attracted survivors, like his parents, to Skokie.

“In this little town, barely 10 miles square, on Chicago’s northern border, survivors could find blintzes and bialys at innumerable Jewish delis, buy kosher meats at butcher shops where everyone spoke Yiddish and stroll on High Holy Days to services at storefront shuls without fear of harassment,” Reich wrote in Moment magazine in 2010.

That landscape also appealed to Frank Collin as a way to promote his antisemitic ideology. He was the leader of a small neo-Nazi group with headquarters on the Southwest Side, and an enigma to his family. “We don’t know how or when it started,” Gertrude Hardyman, Collin’s grandmother, told the Tribune. “It’s a mystery.”

Collin’s father was a German Jew who survived the Dachau concentration camp, she explained.

Skokie’s authorities were sure of one thing about Collin: Given the village’s demographics, he and his followers shouldn’t be allowed to march in Nazi uniforms carrying flags emblazoned with the swastika that flew over Auschwitz.

Ordinances prohibiting that event were quickly enacted. Just as quickly, civil libertarians cried foul.

“As a Jew, I abhor the fuss being raised in Skokie by members of the Jewish ethnic community,” Sheldon Waxman wrote in a letter to the editor. “People should know, by now, that free speech defuses the ticking time bomb of hatred.”

The Jewish War Veterans organization said they would mount a counter demonstration. Others said that would give the neo-Nazis the publicity they were seeking. Better to stay off the streets.

“But there was a time we were told to stay at home when the Nazis marched through the streets,” Gans said. “That won’t happen again.”

In her youth, the strategy of the European Jewish leaders was to avoid confrontations with Hitler’s followers. Eventually the German people would be tired of his antics. Rule of law would be restored, and life would return to normal for Jews.

Instead, the Holocaust followed.

Illinois Gov. Jim Thompson agreed that the Nazi march wasn’t simply an extension of Collin’s constitutional right to freely speak his mind.

When the American Civil Liberties Union agreed to represent Collin, a philosophical dispute became a knockdown, drag-out battle.

“It was inevitable that the ACLU would defend the 1st Amendment in Skokie,” its director David Hamlin wrote in a Tribune op-ed. “The ACLU is more than 55 years old, and it has defended the 1st amendment vigorously through out its history.”

In fact, the organization was simultaneously trying to keep its dirty linen from being aired in public.

Hamlin objected to the release of ACLU files showing that during the red-baiting of the 1940s, its officials, “had systematically provided the FBI with information on their own organization and some of its own members.” Instead of defending Communists, the ACLU had squealed on them.

Many ACLU members were outraged at the ACLU’s defense of neo-Nazis. “Without the free help of the ACLU these despicable people would be relegated to muttering among themselves instead of seeing the name of their party in the headlines of the major newspapers of the country,” a Northfield resident said in a letter to the Tribune

 “Therefore I want my name removed from ACLU membership rolls.”

By August of 1977, 700 to 1,000 local members had resigned. Plus 2,000 from other chapters, Hamlin reported. Shortly, he stepped down.

Some objected to the objectors. Congressman Abner Mikva, a prominent liberal who favored banning the march, was chastised by a Northwestern University professor who also, as the Tribune reported, expressed, “sympathy for residents of the heavily Jewish suburb who will be distraught if the march takes place.”

The ACLU got a court order allowing a Nazi march in Marquette Park on Chicago’s Southwest Side, but that further antagonized the organized Jewish community, as the Tribune reported: “The Public Affairs Committee (of the Jewish United Fund) will not in any manner condone, aid, or abet the promotion of Nazi or any other racist doctrine in Skokie or any other community.”

The most poignant memory of the contorted affair was George Baum’s. “My interest in the Nazis’ march is personal. It recalls a march under different circumstances,” he noted in an August 1977 Tribune op-ed.

In 1945, Baum was freed by Russian soldiers from the Terezin concentration camp, a way-station en route to Auschwitz’s gas chambers. Of the 15,000 Jewish children who had been imprisoned there, by some estimates fewer than 150 survived.

As their Nazi guards were being marched away fellow inmates, shrunken by starvation and dressed in rags, pummeled them until the Russians said it was enough.

“How can one hate, when hate has brought so much suffering? How can one keep his own sanity if he adopts the insanes’ ways?” Baum recalled asking himself as a 12-year old.

“Today I still understand the question. But the answers still elude me, as they have eluded mankind.”

U$A

‘Assassinated in cold blood’: Eco-activist killed protesting Georgia’s ‘Cop City’


2.5k
Timothy Pratt in Atlanta

THE GUARDIAN
Sat, January 21, 2023

Belkis Terán spoke with her child, Manuel, nearly every day by WhatsApp from her home in Panama City, Panama. She also had names and numbers for some of Manuel’s friends, in case she didn’t hear from the 26-year-old who was protesting “Cop City”, a planned gigantic training facility being built in a wooded area near Atlanta, Georgia.

So by midweek, when she hadn’t received a message from Atlanta since Monday, she began to worry. Thursday around noon, a friend of Manuel’s – whose chosen name was “Tortuguita,” or “Little Turtle” – messaged her with condolences. “I’m so sorry,” they wrote. “For what?” she asked.

Related: The US activists holed up in treehouses to block $90m ‘Cop City’

Terán wound up discovering that on Wednesday around 9.04am, an as-yet unnamed officer or officers had shot and killed her son. The shooting occurred in an operation involving dozens of officers from Atlanta police, Dekalb county police, Georgia state patrol, the Georgia bureau of investigation and the FBI.

The killing has stunned and shocked not only Tortuguita’s family and friends, but also the environmental and social justice movement in Georgia and across the United States. Circumstances surrounding the incident are still unclear and there are demands for a thorough investigation into the killing and how it could have happened.

The police apparently found Manuel in a tent in the South River forest south-east of Atlanta, taking part in a protest now in its second year, against plans to build a $90m police and fire department training facility on the land and, separately, a film studio.

Officials say Manuel shot first at a state trooper “without warning” and an officer or officers returned fire, but they have produced no evidence for the claim. The trooper was described as stable and in hospital Thursday.

The shooting is “unprecedented” in the history of US environmental activism, according to experts.

The GBI, which operates under Republican governor Brian Kemp’s orders, has released scant information and on Thursday night told the Guardian no body-cam footage of the shooting exists. At least a half-dozen other protesters who were in the forest at the time have communicated to other activists that one, single series of shots could be heard. They believe the state trooper could have been shot by another officer, or by his own firearm.

Meanwhile, both Terán and local activists are looking into legal action, and Manuel’s mother told the Guardian: “I will go to the US to defend Manuel’s memory … I’m convinced that he was assassinated in cold blood.”

The incident was the latest in a ramping-up of law enforcement raids on the forest in recent months.

Protests had begun in late 2021, after the then Atlanta mayor, Keisha Lance Bottoms, announced plans for the training center. The forest had been named in city plans four years earlier as a key part of efforts to maintain Atlanta’s renowned tree canopy as a buffer against global warming, and to create what would have been the metro area’s largest park.

Most of the residents in neighborhoods around the forest are Black and municipal planning has neglected the area for decades. The plans to preserve the forest and make it a historic public amenity were adopted in 2017 as part of Atlanta’s city charter, or constitution. But the Atlanta city council wound up approving the training center anyway, and a movement to “Stop Cop City” began in response.

A series of editorials and news stories lambasting the activists began in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the area’s largest daily paper. At least a dozen articles in the last year-plus failed to mention that Alex Taylor, CEO of the paper’s owner, Cox Enterprises, was also raising funds on behalf of the Atlanta police foundation, the main agency behind the training center.

At some point, Kemp and other civic leaders began referring to the protesters as “terrorists”, in response to acts of vandalism such as burning construction vehicles or spray-painting corporate offices linked to the project.

In an interview with this reporter last fall, Tortuguita was discussing how some Muscogee (Creek) people interested in protecting the forest as well felt that leaving a burnt vehicle at one of its entrances was not a good idea, and was an alienating presence in nature. The activist seemed understanding of both sides and critical of violence.

“Some of us [forest defenders] are rowdy gringos,” Tortuguita said. “They’re just against the state. Still, I don’t know how you can connect to anything if that’s your entire political analysis.”

Police raids on the forest intensified until 14 December, when a half-dozen “forest defenders” were arrested and charged with “domestic terrorism” under state law – another unprecedented development in US environmental activism, said Lauren Regan, founder of the Civil Liberties Defense Center, who has a quarter-century’s experience defending environmental protestors charged with federal terrorism sentencing enhancements and others.

Seven more activists were arrested and received the same charges the day Manuel was killed.

State killings of environmental activists are common in other countries 

... but it’s never happened in the US

Keith Woodhouse

Regan and Keith Woodhouse, professor of history at Northwestern University and author of The Ecocentrists: A History of Radical Environmentalism, both said there has never been a case where law enforcement has shot and killed an environmental activist engaged in an attempt to protect a forest from being razed and developed.

“Killings of environmental activists by the state are depressingly common in other countries, like Brazil, Honduras, Nigeria,” said Woodhouse. “But this has never happened in the US.”

Manuel’s older brother, Daniel Esteban Paez, found himself in the middle of this unfortunate historical moment Thursday. “They killed my sibling,” he said on answering the phone. “I’m in a whole new world now.”

Paez, 31, was the only family member to speak extensively with GBI officials, after calling them Thursday in an attempt to get answers about what had happened. No one representing Georgia law enforcement had reached out to Belkis by Thursday afternoon. “I quickly found out, they’re not investigating the death of Manuel – they’re investigating Manuel,” Paez said.

A navy veteran, Paez said the GBI official asked him such questions as “Does Manuel often carry weapons?” and “Has Manuel done protesting in the past?”

The family is Venezuelan in origin, but now lives in the US and Panama, Paez said. Less than 24 hours into discovering the death of his sibling, Paez also said he “had no idea Manuel was so well-regarded and loved by so many”. He was referring to events and messages ranging from an Atlanta candlelight vigil Wednesday night to messages of solidarity being sent on social media from across the US and world.

Belkis Terán, meanwhile, is trying to get an emergency appointment at the US Embassy in Panama to renew her tourist visa, which expired in November. “I’m going to clear Manuel’s name. They killed him … like they tear down trees in the forest – a forest Manuel loved with passion.”

THIRD WORLD U$A

‘I had no choice’: For many homeless people, O’Hare has become a nighttime refuge

Adriana Pérez, Chicago Tribune
Sun, January 22, 2023

Norbert Pikula, 77, had been sleeping on a friend’s sofa every night for the last six months. But when his friend was admitted to the hospital a few weeks ago, Pikula’s fragile world turned upside down and he had nowhere to sleep.

So now he uses his senior citizen CTA pass to ride to O’Hare International Airport and spend the night there. His situation mirrors that of countless other homeless people who sleep at the airport to stay warm and safe during the winter.

“I had no choice,” Pikula told the Tribune on Thursday. He was on his way to open a bank account after eating his usual weekday lunch at Providence Soup Kitchen in St. Stanislaus Kostka Catholic Church.

According to a report from the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, an estimated 65,611 people experienced homelessness in Chicago in 2020, an estimate different from that offered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development because it takes into account people living doubled up or temporarily staying with others.

And while sheltering at the airport isn’t new, said Jessica Dubuar, director of health and specialty services of Haymarket Center, which has conducted outreach operations out of O’Hare to address homelessness in public transportation since 1990, the steadily increasing number of people doing it is.

“We saw over 600 unique individuals that we engaged with. We also had almost 14,000 encounters with them throughout the calendar year,” she said. Compared with previous years, that number illustrates an uptick: In 2021, there were 11,196 recorded encounters. In 2020 — the beginning of the pandemic — saw 12,270 encounters. In 2019, they recorded 9,975 encounters. In 2018, it was 8,132.

“This is not a new situation at the airport. It’s one that many organizations and city departments have been aware of and have been devoting resources to for 30 plus years,” Dubuar said. “As the years have gone on, we definitely see a pattern of the number of folks who are coming to the airport — I would even just call it a spike in the numbers of folks that we’re seeing at the airport when the weather turns cold.”

Advocates offer a couple of reasons for why more people are seeking shelter at O’Hare. Sarah Boone of the Chicago Housing Initiative who created a GoFundMe to help Pikula raise money, said there are three realities facing the homeless population right now: the number of beds in homeless shelters was decreased at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and never restored, migrants who have recently arrived in Chicago are increasingly using homeless shelters as well, and homeless shelters across the city are overwhelmed.

And on the ground at O’Hare, workers offer another possible explanation. Jessy Pearl, a Transportation Security Administration agent who works at the airport, said she has noticed an uptick in the homeless population sheltering there since Delta Air Lines moved out of Terminal 2 and into Terminal 5.

“There’s more homeless people — more activity is concentrated at Terminal 2, since there’s less passenger traffic,” especially in the early afternoon, Pearl told the Tribune. “I’ve worked at the airport long enough to know that more homeless people have been around the CTA and arrivals area ever since the pandemic started. More so lately, since Delta moved to Terminal 5.”

According to a statement by the Chicago Department of Aviation (CDA), which manages O’Hare, the department is “aware of the increasing population of unsheltered individuals at O’Hare International Airport. It’s a common occurrence at this airport and airports nationwide when temperatures drop in the winter months. Airport leadership and staff on the ground continue collaboration with the Department of Family and Support Services (DFSS) and their delegate agencies to provide 24/7 outreach to unsheltered residents at O’Hare.

“Outreach professionals engage with individuals experiencing homelessness at O’Hare and conduct needs assessments. If the individual chooses to accept assistance, outreach professionals connect them with appropriate services and shelters, including necessary referrals and transportation. The CDA is committed to working with fellow city departments and community partners to support those in need and connect them with all available resources in Chicago.”

Pikula has been sleeping at the airport for the last two weeks or so, said Boone. And he’s been carrying around his belongings all day as he moves around the city. “I think it’s wearing on him,” she added.

Boone said she met Pikula at Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Ukrainian Village where free food is offered on Saturdays. Her organization shows up to soup kitchens and places where there’s free food to connect homeless people with necessary services in the city and tend to their needs.

“I tried to get him to go to the hospital across the street, because you can go to the ER to call the shelters. And he didn’t want to do that because the wait is so long,” Boone said. “So we tried calling 311. And he kind of just said he’d prefer to be at the airport than at the shelters. So then I went home and I just thought about it. And I was like, we should do a GoFundMe. I’ve never done this before. But what if it works?”

With approximately 100 donations, the campaign had raised over $4,900 as of Friday afternoon out of a $9,800 goal.

Pikula said he is looking for a more permanent housing situation than couch surfing or spending nights at O’Hare. He’s hoping to find a studio or one-bedroom apartment in Wicker Park, Logan Square, Avondale or Garfield Park. That’s where his friends from the soup kitchens he visits live, so he wants to be close by.

A Polish American who grew up in Chicago, Pikula previously worked as a baker and security guard. He is on the waiting list for senior Chicago Housing Authority housing and subsidized Catholic Charities senior apartments. So far, he has had no luck finding a place to live.

During the pandemic, many homeless people turned to the CTA for shelter, and service providers set up at the Forest Park Blue Line station. But as the effects of the pandemic continue to limit housing, needs at the other end of the line also became evident.

Off the Blue Line O’Hare stop, to the left, a sign for the Haymarket Center O’Hare Outreach sticks out of the wall. A man was waiting to go in Thursday morning as he charged his cellphone.

The program assists homeless clients and passengers seeking shelter at the airport. It also approaches issues regarding alcohol and substance abuse, housing and income. Dubuar described what a client may find in the 24/7 office at O’Hare.

“We have a number of resources available on site from, food and coffee, water, hand sanitizer, masks ... those things. We also have clothing available, hygiene products and a few other things,” she said. “What we’ll also do is invite people to come in and sit down and talk to us. And we do a small assessment with them, exploring all sorts of things from health care, mental health care, substance use, benefits and IDs and all of those things.”

The O’Hare Outreach program is funded by the Chicago Department of Aviation and carried out in cooperation with the Department of Family Support Services and a host of other community partners, such as shelter providers, substance use treatment providers and — importantly — housing programs.

“The complexity of the (needs of) folks we’re seeing has increased and, (in) the number of encounters, that’s really where you see that reflected,” Dubuar said. “This isn’t just a ‘somebody needs a sandwich today’ and that’s it, that’s all they needed. Because I think that we have folks, their needs are complex and navigating through these systems is hard and they need as much support as they can possibly get.”

While Dubuar couldn’t confirm whether there is a more concentrated homeless population in specific airport terminals, she said it’s possible that changes in the airport complex layout influence where homeless people spend their time.

“Individuals who come to the airport for shelter do learn the system and do see when there are construction projects or changes to how the space is being monitored with our partners from CPD and the Department of Aviation,” she said. “And so it is it is highly possible that there are going to be some folks who are visible because certain areas are under construction or maybe not being monitored as much as possible.”

On Friday morning, as the sun rose, a few scattered people in O’Hare’s Terminal 2 rustled in their sleep. They were slowly waking up. Some of them might have had canceled or delayed flights. Others, though, were homeless and had sought a warm place to spend the night.

A police officer approached a person who was lying by the windows in the arrivals area of Terminal 2. He asked if they were OK. “Just try not to fall sleep,” he said. “Stay awake.”

Pikula and other homeless people will likely keep searching for a more stable situation than sleeping at the airport every night. Even as they seek support services, though, continuing to sleep at the airport seems, in Pikula’s words, the only option in terms of surviving cold winter nights.

“I’ll be honest with you, my life has not been rosy,” Pikula said. “It’s been a fighting life.”

It’s hard to say how long it takes, on average, for a homeless person in Chicago to find stable housing, Dubuar said.

“As with most social services, benefits and resources, it’s about eligibility and availability,” she said. “Sometimes it’s a matter of the stars aligning.”

Chicago Tribune’s Rosemary Sobol contributed.

adperez@chicagotribune.com

18 Countries That Produce the Most Nuclear Energy


Insider Monkey Team
Sat, January 21, 2023

In this article, we take a look at 18 countries that produce the most nuclear energy. 

Nuclear energy has its positives and negatives.

In terms of its positives, nuclear energy is very reliable and zero carbon. According to the Office of Nuclear Energy, nuclear was the most reliable energy source in America in 2021 given nuclear power plants operated at full capacity more than 92% of the time. Given it doesn't emit greenhouse gases, nuclear also provided half of America's carbon free electricity in 2021.

Furthermore, the nuclear energy industry supports around half a million jobs in the U.S. and contributes $60 billion to American GDP each year. The industry helps U.S. national security and maintains American global leadership in the peaceful use of nuclear technologies

Nuclear power plants also don't need that much land in terms of the energy it generates as opposed to wind or solar. Emma Derr of the Nuclear Energy Institute writes, "Nuclear energy pairs perfectly with renewables such as wind and solar to create a reliable, clean energy system. It provides carbon-free, around-the-clock power to fill the gaps when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing. Nuclear also complements renewables because it generates more power with less land—31 times less than solar facilities and 173 times less than wind farms. Wind and solar farms are located where wind and sunlight are abundantly available and require sprawling amounts of land for turbines and panels, whereas nuclear energy is contained to nuclear power plants. A nuclear energy facility has a small area footprint, requiring about 1.3 square miles per 1,000 megawatts of energy."

In terms of its negatives, nuclear power plants cost a lot of money upfront and take a lot of time to build which could lead to cost overruns. If designed incorrectly, nuclear power plants could lead to environmental and societal disasters such as Chernobyl and Fukushima. Nuclear power plants also generate radioactive waste that's tough to dispose safely.

Leading Nations in the Peaceful Use of Nuclear Energy

Many of the leading nations in the world have adopted nuclear energy as part of its energy mix.

Nuclear energy in the United States, for example, helps power plants avoid emitting over 470 million metric tons of carbon annually, which is about the same as removing 100 million cars off the road.

Nuclear energy is also big in other countries such as France, where nuclear power accounts for the majority of the total electricity generated. Given the country's substantial nuclear generation, France is one of the leading industrialized nations in terms of low carbon emissions per capita.

Essential Part of the World's Energy Mix

Nuclear fission energy will remain an essential part of the world's energy mix in the next few decades.

According to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)'s high case projection, total world nuclear generating capacity could more than double to 873 gigawatts net electrical by 2050, versus existing levels of around 390 gigawatts net electrical. In the agency's low case scenario, nuclear generating capacity remains about the same.

Given the need to reduce carbon emissions, nuclear fission energy could remain useful for the next few decades until fusion energy eventually becomes economical.

In terms of fusion, which is also a nuclear process, experts are hoping that the technology will become economically viable sometime in the 2030's. Given the immense technological challenges of nuclear fusion, however, scientists have a lot of work ahead of them and it's not clear when the challenges will be solved.

Methodology

For our list of 18 Countries That Produce the Most Nuclear Energy, we used the IAEA's nuclear share of electricity generation in 2021 list and we ranked them by TWh of nuclear production.

For those of you interested, also check out 12 Most Advanced Countries in Renewable Energy.

18 Countries That Produce the Most Nuclear Energy

#18 Pakistan
2021 Nuclear Production, TWh: 15.83

Pakistan has six existing operating nuclear power plants that collectively generated 15.83 TWh of nuclear power in 2021 which is around 8% of the country's total electricity generated. Given the rising electricity prices and the country's dependence on fossil fuels, nuclear energy has been one way for Pakistan to diversify its energy mix.

#17 Switzerland
2021 Nuclear Production, TWh: 18.59

Although it has a population of 8.7 million people, Switzerland is a major producer of nuclear power given the country's nuclear production of 18.59 TWh across 4 nuclear reactors in 2021. With its nuclear production, nuclear accounts for around 36% of total electricity generated while hydropower accounts for around 52% of total electricity generated. In the future, however, Switzerland plans to eventually phase out nuclear in favor of other renewables.

#16 Finland
2021 Nuclear Production, TWh: 22.65

Finland is another country with a relatively small population where nuclear energy accounts for a substantial percentage of the country's electricity generation mix. With a population of 5.541 million, Finland generated 22.65 TWh of nuclear power in 2021, accounting for about a third of the total electricity generation for the year.

#15 Czech Republic
2021 Nuclear Production, TWh: 29.04

The Czech Republic ranks #15 on our list of 18 Countries That Produce the Most Nuclear Energy given its nuclear production of 29.04 TWh across 6 reactors in 2021. Given its production, nuclear accounts for around one third of the country's total electricity generation. For the future, the government plans to substantially increase nuclear capacity by 2040.

#14 India
2021 Nuclear Production, TWh: 39.76

India is one of the fastest growing countries in the world whose energy needs are increasing every year. As a result, India's government has committed to growing its nuclear power capacity to help meet its needs. The country's nuclear power generation has more than doubled from 2000 to 39.76 TWh in 2021 and nuclear energy generation is expected to increase further in the future.

#13 United Kingdom
2021 Nuclear Production, TWh: 41.79

The United Kingdom generated 41.79 TWh of nuclear power in 2021, accounting for around 15% of the country's electricity generation. Although many of the country's existing capacity is expected to retire by the end of the decade, the country has a new generation of nuclear plants that's being built. In terms of the future, the government plans to have nuclear account for 25% of total electricity generated by 2050.

#12 Belgium
2021 Nuclear Production, TWh: 47.96

Belgium generated 47.96 TWh of nuclear power in 2021 or 52.4% of the country's total electricity generated. Although nuclear is a big part of the country's energy mix, Belgium originally had plans to withdraw from nuclear in 2025. Given the war in Ukraine, however, the country has since decided to continue to generate nuclear energy in two nuclear reactors for another 10 years.

#11 Sweden
2021 Nuclear Production, TWh: 51.43

Sweden ranks #11 on our list of 18 Countries That Produce the Most Nuclear Energy given it produced 51.43 TWh of nuclear power in 2021, which accounts for around 40% of the country's electricity needs. For the future, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson recently said the country is looking to potentially expand its nuclear power generation to offset Sweden's reliance on renewables whose output can vary.

#10 Spain
2021 Nuclear Production, TWh: 54.22

Given the country's push for more renewables, Spain's government is planning to phase out nuclear energy by 2035. Under its National Energy and Climate Plan 2021-2030, the Spanish government plans to gradually decommission nuclear power capacity to 3GW at the end of the decade as renewable energy costs continue to decline and as grid technology improves. As of 2021, Spain nevertheless generated 54.22 TWh of nuclear power, accounting for 21% of electricity generation.

#9 Japan
2021 Nuclear Production, TWh: 61.3

Given it has to import much of its energy needs, nuclear energy has been a strategic priority for Japan's government since the 1973, and up until 2011, nuclear generated 30% of the country's electricity. Given the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011, however, public sentiment in the country shifted and Japan's government is now planning for nuclear to account for 20% to 22% of the country's electricity by the end of the decade. In 2021, Japan generated 61.3 TWh of energy from the nuclear reactors that have gained approval to restart.

#8 Germany
2021 Nuclear Production, TWh: 65.44

Before 2011, nuclear was a big part of Germany's energy mix with nuclear energy accounting for around one quarter of the nation's electricity generated. After the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, however, Germany's government has reduced the country's reliance on nuclear. In 2021, the country generated 65.44 TWh of nuclear power and in 2022, nuclear supplied around 6% of Germany's electricity.

#7 Ukraine
2021 Nuclear Production, TWh: 81.13

Ukraine generated 81.13 TWh of nuclear power in 2021, which supplied around half of the country's energy needs. Given the current war in Ukraine, however, the country's nuclear production might not be as high as it was in 2021. A substantial part of the country's grid needs to be fixed, and some of the country's reactors are offline.

#6 Canada
2021 Nuclear Production, TWh: 86.78

Canada produced 86.78 TWh of nuclear energy in 2021, supplying about 15% of the country's electricity needs. In addition to being one of the largest producers of nuclear energy, Canada is also a leader in nuclear power technology and uranium exports. Given its resources, Canada has the third largest uranium reserves globally and the country is the world's second largest exporter of uranium.

#5 South Korea
2021 Nuclear Production, TWh: 150.46

South Korea is an industrialized nation that generated 150.46 TWh of nuclear power in 2021, which is around one third of the total electricity generated for the year. Given it doesn’t have many fossil fuel resources, the country is a major importer of energy with about 98% of fossil fuels consumed being imported. To reduce its dependence on fossil fuels and to also lower its carbon emissions, South Korea has increased its nuclear power capacity substantially in the past few decades.

#4 Russia
2021 Nuclear Production, TWh: 208.44

Russia is one of the leaders in nuclear energy given its nuclear production of 208.44 TWh in 2021. Given its substantial nuclear energy industry, Russia is a leading exporter of nuclear power plants with the country’s companies helping build 15 reactors abroad since 2012. The country is also a leading uranium exporter given its substantial uranium resources.

#3 France
2021 Nuclear Production, TWh: 363.39

France is a leader in nuclear energy given it gets around 70% of its total electricity generated from 56 reactors in the country. Thanks to nuclear, over 92% of the country’s electricity comes from low carbon sources, which ranks France as one of the leaders in sustainable energy. In 2021, the country generated over 363 TWh of nuclear production.


#2 China
2021 Nuclear Production, TWh: 383.21

China is the world’s second largest producer of nuclear power with nuclear production of 383.21 TWh in 2021. Given the country’s substantial economic growth in recent decades, the country has built a number of nuclear reactors since 2000 and the country plans on building many new ones in the future. According to Bloomberg, China plans to build at minimum 150 new reactors over the next 15 years, or more than the rest of the world combined has built over the last 35 years.


#1 United States
2021 Nuclear Production, TWh: 771.64

The United States ranks #1 on our list of 18 Countries That Produce the Most Nuclear Energy given its nuclear production of 771.64 TWh in 2021 which is around 20% of the total electricity generated in the country for the year. In terms of generation, the United States produces its nuclear power from 92 nuclear reactors across 53 power plants.

Although the United States has many nuclear reactors, the country isn’t building many new ones given that nuclear reactors can cost $5 billion to $10 billion to build versus wind and solar which is far cheaper and more competitive than grid energy in many places.

The December Omnibus Bill's Little Secret: It Was Also a Giant Health Bill

Margot Sanger-Katz
Sun, January 22, 2023 

The giant spending bill passed by Congress last month kept the government open. But it also quietly rewrote huge areas of health policy: Hundreds of pages of legislation were devoted to new health care programs.

The legislation included major policy areas that committees had been hammering away at all year behind the scenes — such as a big package designed to improve the nation’s readiness for the next big pandemic. It also included items that Republicans had been championing during the election season — such as an extension of telemedicine coverage in Medicare. And it included small policy measures that some legislators have wanted to pass for years, such as requiring Medicare to cover compression garments for patients with lymphedema.

Although the bill was primarily designed to fund existing government programs, a lot of health policy hitched a ride.

Big, “must-pass” bills such as the $1.7 trillion omnibus often attract unrelated policy measures that would be hard to pass alone. But the scope of the health care legislation in last month’s bill is unusual. At the end of 2022, congressional leaders decided to do something that staff members call “clearing the decks,” adding all the potentially bipartisan health policy legislation that was ready and written. There turned out to be a lot to clear.

The midterm election also played a role. Many lawmakers saw that the incoming Republican House majority would be far less likely to pass another big spending bill, and so the omnibus was widely viewed as a last legislative hurrah.

In fact, the new House leadership has pledged to avoid this sort of omnibus legislation in the future. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., has agreed to move smaller spending bills one at a time, and to allow lawmakers to propose amendments to each on the House floor. That process would make it much more difficult to combine future spending bills with unrelated policy measures, like a package in the bill that aims to modernize the country’s mental health system.

The coming change made the omnibus bill a critical opportunity to pass pieces of legislation that might have withered in the new Congress. Many of the health measures weren’t controversial enough to stop the omnibus from passing as one big bill. They might not have all succeeded on their own, however.

Several retiring senators were eager to use the bill to pass favored measures and cement their legacies. Among departing senior Republicans were Richard Burr of North Carolina, who was the ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee; Roy Blunt of Missouri, who was ranking member on the Senate Appropriations health subcommittee; and Richard Shelby of Alabama, vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Legacies were also meaningful for the retiring Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who was the chair of Appropriations, as well as Nancy Pelosi, who was giving up her position as the top House Democrat.

Burr had been working all year with his Democratic counterpart to develop a pandemic preparedness package known as the Prevent Pandemics Act. That legislation passed as part of the spending bill.

Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the minority leader, had signaled earlier in the year that he hoped for a relatively modest spending bill. But he did not stand in the way of the giant bill in the end.

“Probably a lot of the driver was, ‘Let’s resolve it and accept the reality of a lot of stagnation we’ll see in the next Congress,’” said Drew Keyes, a senior policy analyst at the Paragon Health Institute and a former staff member on the Republican Study Committee. He was critical of the size and scope of the bill, especially given the limited debate on many of its provisions. But he said he understood why it came together: “We saw a lot of pieces that felt like this is the last opportunity.”

Some convoluted budget math made it possible for lawmakers to pass expansions of Medicaid without appearing to cost much money, an opportunity that was likely to disappear over time. By scheduling an end date for an expensive pandemic policy, Congress could then use the projected savings to pay for expanded Medicaid benefits for children, postpartum mothers and residents of U.S. territories.

The bill requires states to keep children signed up for at least a year at a time, and extends funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program. It also sets up a series of policies meant to discourage states from automatically dumping large numbers of adult enrollees after the end of an emergency policy that protected enrollments during the pandemic. The provisions reflected a long-standing interest by Pelosi in broadening health coverage through the Affordable Care Act and other means.

In addition to the expiring funding sources, there was a “time-limited coalition behind some of those policies,” said Matthew Fiedler, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, who was tracking the Medicaid provisions.

Crucially, most of the bill’s health measures had bipartisan support in Congress. Even though Democrats held majorities in both the House and Senate, the bill needed 10 Republican Senate votes to overcome a legislative filibuster. It got far more — the omnibus passed the Senate by a 68–29 margin. (In the House, where Republicans were less involved in negotiations over the bill since their votes were not needed, a greater share voted against it. The final vote was 225–201.)

The consequence of all this deck clearing is that it may be a quiet Congress for new health legislation. There are a few health funding programs that will need to be renewed, including funding for programs to combat opioid addiction and overdoses, and one to subsidize hospitals that treat uninsured patients.

But beyond those must-pass items (which may or may not pass in the end), don’t expect too much.

Democrats already achieved much of their health care agenda earlier in the year, when they passed legislation to allow Medicare to limit the prices of some prescription drugs, expanded subsidies for Americans who buy their own insurance, and added new health benefits for veterans.

McCarthy did have some plans for modest health care measures with a chance of becoming law, including extended Medicare coverage for telemedicine. But that passed in the omnibus, leaving him without a lot of concrete health policy goals beyond oversight into the performance of pandemic programs.

The remaining wish list for Democrats includes measures to broaden Medicare benefits or expand abortion rights — things they could not pass even when they controlled the House. As part of concessions with right-wing lawmakers to secure the speakership, McCarthy has promised Republicans in the House will propose substantial spending cuts to balance the budget in a decade, a goal that would be impossible without cuts to some or all of the major health entitlement programs — Medicare, Medicaid and Obamacare. But those would never advance with Democrats controlling the Senate and White House.

That means the omnibus was an unexpectedly meaty health care bill. There may not be another one for a while.

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